The “saga” around the position for the Newburyport City Clerk has gotten so complicated, even more complicated and convoluted, that it’s becoming one of those situations that I’m beginning to forget how it all originally started in the first place.

You can read about all the twists and turns in the Newburyport Current, Newburyport Daily News and The Undertoad (The Boston Globe hasn’t picked it up yet.)

(And for all of you out there in Web-land who are searching for a way to get a hold of the Undertoad, and there are lots of you out there, I hope Tom Ryan, the Undertoad’s editor won’t mind if I let you know that the address is, P.O. Box 5, Newburyport, MA 01950 and the email address is undertoad1@netzero.net.)

Mr. Ryan, the editor of the Undertoad reports that Jeremy Gillis, one of the applicants for the City Clerk position, is dropping out and concentrating on the special Ward 1 election. (If you don’t know what that means, to figure that out, you’re going to have to read all the back issues of all the local periodicals.) So I would think that would be a relief for Mr. Gillis. If I were him I wouldn’t want to be sitting in the City Clerk’s chair and facing the Newburyport City Council after all of this.

BUT, now we’ll have two “sagas” to look forward to. The “are we ever going to find a Newburyport City Clerk and how will that go saga.” And the “special election in Ward 1 saga,” because at the moment Jeremy Gillis, who ran unopposed in November, will have at least one challenger. And then after that we’ll have the “how will the Newburyport City Council handle whoever wins the Ward 1 City Council seat saga” (which I think would be Mr. Gillis, but who knows for sure. I promise that the Newburyport Political Blog will let you know the outcome. And I suspect it will be front page news in all the local periodicals mentioned above. And for sure, when the day comes that the Newburyport City Clerk is finally appointed, that moment in history will be front page news too.)

But, the big political story will be if Jeremy Gillis does win the special election in Ward 1. Mr. Gillis has very strong opinions on planning and development. He was, and I imagine still is, very much against the Infill Ordinance created by the Newburyport Planning Board and the Newburyport Planning Office. So if Jeremy Gillis fills the 11th seat on the Newburyport City Council, that will have an affect on what happens in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

(And btw the Newburyport Political Blog has been picked up by Planetizen.com, a major website on Planning and Development. The Web is an amazing thing.)

Such is politics in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Mary Eaton, Newburyport