A story by Julie Cohen in today’s TAB quotes six female city councilors confirming concerns about a “disrespectful work environment” as well as that anonymous Open Meeting Law complaint.
Additional female city councilors confirm concerns about ‘bullying’ from male colleagues
by Greg Reibman | Jun 20, 2018 | City Council | 22 comments
It’s important that we are now hearing from our women councilors (I know originally at least some were asked not to speak publicly until after the Law Department completed its investigation). But that still leaves us with several unanswered questions:
1. Was Council President Marc Laredo and VP Kalis aware of their female colleagues concerns before the May 20 meeting? Had they tried to do anything about it.
2. What’s being done now?
3. Who are these offending bullying councilors (or is it one councilor) ?
4. Why aren’t any male councilors speaking up now on behalf of their female colleagues? Did any of them rise to the occasion when the alleged bullying took place? Do they confirm or even acknowledge that this occurred?
Since some of the new councilors are not familiar with political meeting interaction, perhaps they could outline some of their complaints. This maybe a good opportunity for all the councilors to publicly state their objections to various transgressions at council meetings. That way the public can better understand the personal relationships of council members and how this affects decision making.
Another question: Does this only happen behind closed doors? If it happened during regular meetings someone on this blog would have pointed it out after the story went public.
@Greg: The Tab articles repeats what you said about someone addressing male councilors by last name and female councilors by first name.
@Colleen: As Newtoner points out the article does give examples, for instance.
I believe there are recordings of all committee meetings on the city’s website. Someone with the time on their hands, could research this.
Why is it that not one person on this blog has commented on the scathing report from the independent consultant on the irresponsible and ill conceived Crescent St. proposal. What is so disturbing about this proposal is that it’s primary supporters are the Council Chair of Finance and the City’s Chief Finsncial Officer who must have the support of the Mayor.
In a summary of the report a CPC member estimated that since only 6 of the proposed units were in reality affordable the cost for them is 1.1 million per unit.
It’s a narrow list folks. From Susan’s quote, seems like this has been going on for some time. From my math, you’ve got 24 councilors, of which 12 are men. Several are new. I tend to doubt this is Jake’s doing.
That leaves less than 10 people. Anyone want to cross reference that list with Crescent St. supporters?
Also, if the Tab witnessed bad behavior, the Tab should name names.
An interesting approach, to meet separately. Maybe that’s necessary at first, but if the Council has problems of this sort, everyone needs to be at the table to discuss them. I’m guessing/hoping that will come next. In my view, though, it is the President’s role to speak out clearly and in a timely fashion whenever the debate turns into bad behavior–of whatever type. Are the members planning to hold him accountable? If he is not able or interested, they should vote to remove him and put someone in who will be a proactive leader with regard to these matters.
Also, if this is true–“Other times male colleagues raised their voices in irritation or anger at female staff and councilors, which was witnessed by the Tab.”–why didn’t the Tab name names and put them in the story? Why was there no request for comment by the President and VP of the Council?
@Greg, I believe that Marc Laredo is on record saying this kind of behavior is “unacceptable.” That being said, more of their male colleagues should show their support for the 12 female councilors by speaking up.
@Howard, I agree with you 100% about Crescent Street. Whoever filed this anonymous OML complaint clearly had an agenda involving the vote to take Crescent Street off the capital plan. The leap of logic–that because 10 of the 11 female councilors at the meeting voted against the Crescent Street project, they must have discussed it at this meeting–was a dead giveaway.
@Ted Hess-Mahan: Since not a single councilor, including some who frequently post here, is willing to say anything about this, could you please help us understand what’s going on? What is this “behavior” Laredo was referring to? Has it been known for a long time?
@Newtoner, I think the female councilors quoted in the TAB article speak for themselves.
… but it does not explain why the males have been silent, which of course could be interpreted as being complicit, insensitive or unsupportive.
@ Howard Haywood – you wrote:
That would make an excellent blog post, whether from you or one of the Village 14 bloggers. IMO, it has not come up in the discussions of the women Councilors meeting because the point of that meeting was not to discuss the Crescent St. proposal but to discuss the problem of being treated disrespectfully by some male Councilors
@Greg
I totally agree that it is disappointing that not one man on the council has said a word.
When I joined the Board of Aldermen in 2000, I can tell you it was quite amazing how aldermen spoke to each other [male and female]. However as times and aldermen changed this behavior went away. So it is disappointing to hear that it has reappeared.
As always there is a root to a problem and the Council needs to seek to understand what is driving this behavior to re-emerge.
In the meantime, as is stated in the program To Tell the Truth…will the REAL MEN PLEASE STAND UP!
I feel there is a lot of drama around this issue and way too much speculation. I think that it was good that the female councilors got together to discuss and perhaps validate what some were feeling.
Now the entire City Council needs to work together to establish agreed upon standards of interaction and then hold each other accountable and call it out when someone isn’t living up to those agreed upon standards.
Greg-
Does this mean we can all stop
pretending that Newton is “No Place For Hate”?
“Other times male colleagues raised their voices in irritation or anger at female staff and councilors, which was witnessed by the Tab.”
This quote needs to be addressed by the Tab. If a reporter witnessed public inappropriate treatment of women, as our paper of record, I strongly believe it has an obligation to report details, including names.
Brian-
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines this type of hostile behavior toward women as
MISOGYNY. According to Wikipedia,
MISOGYNY is a hate crime.
Houston, I think our “welcoming” city has a problem. I think the yard signs can also safely be taken down…
Sorry Bryan, I spelled your name wrong. I’m thinking maybe the Boston Globe should be on top of this story as
well. Has anyone contacted their editors?
Lordy I hope there are tapes.
Newton is fortunate that several experienced women were elected last year to the Council. There is no question their concerns, and those of women who have served for a number of years, should be heard and taken seriously. My own Ward Councilor Brenda Noel is awesome and I certainly trust what she says. It would be nice to see male Councilors validating their concerns. Maybe they have been and it just hasn’t appeared in the news; there are plenty good guys on the Council. I wonder if anyone has asked Councilor Gentile what he thinks of all of this.