Political campaigns can and often are rough and tumble affairs. Even for relatively low stakes elections, campaigns, candidates, and their supporters can seemingly lose their minds as election day approaches.
In the immediate run-up to yesterday’s Newton election, in the closing days there were a whole series of sleazy tactics in multiple races. Multiple anonymous groups posted inflammatory last minute posts about candidates, throwing up explosive sounding charges a day or two before the election – so that the target wouldn’t have time to respond.
In a liberal bastion like Newton, no charge is more explosive than “he’s a Trumper”.
Here’s what happened:
Jim Cote and Julia Malakie were running against each other for the Ward Councilor seat in Ward 3. These Ward seats are the smallest elections in the city. Only voters in the Ward 3 corner of the City, around West Newton get to vote in them. Cote is a former City Councilor who previously held a city wide Ward 3 at-large seat. So Jim is well known around the city and has been involved with local politics and issues for years. His party registration is Republican, but he also had a Joe Kennedy sign on his lawn during the Kennedy-Markey matchup, he’s quite friendly with various Mass and local Republicans. In general, he’s a very likeable guy who’s been able to do the sometimes difficult job in Newton of getting along with people of all sorts of political persuasions and focus on the local issues.
This past weekend people in Ward 3 began receiving this email from a non-existent group called “Newton GOP Ward 3”. They purported to be a pro-Trump Republican group supporting Jim’s election with the tag line “Help Jim Cote make Newton Great Again”. The imaginary group’s mailing address was 791 Walnut St … which it turns out is the Newton Cemetery.
Cote was alarmed about the cemetery reference and took it as a possible threat. He went to the Newton police about it and he says that they agreed that it was worth looking into.
The next day residents in Ward 3 found these flyers stuck in their front door. The flyer had no attribution of who it was coming from but shared the general message and some of the same images as the “Newton GOP Ward 3” emails.
Cote posted a message on Facebook asking any residents who have a doorway camera, and received this flyer to check if they have video that shows who delivered it. If so they were asked to send it to the Newton Police.
Ward 3 resident, Newton Historic Commission member, and election inspector Doug Cornelius, checked his Nest cameras video and it had a pretty clear clip of the nighttime deliverer.
… and here’s where the crazy train leaves the station.
The video sure looks to me and nearly everyone who’s seen it to unmistakably be sitting City Counselor from Ward 2 Emily Norton. Take a look yourself. I called Norton this morning, and emailed this afternoon to see if she had any explanation or context she wanted to share before I posted this but she hasn’t returned the call or email.
Most bizarrely Emily Norton isn’t even Cote’s opponent in this race. She represents a different ward and the voters who elect Norton don’t vote in Cote’s race and vice versa.
My take on all this …
This seems to be a local politics variation of Sayre’s law – “That is why ward councilor politics are so bitter…. because the stakes are so low”.
If we have email blasts from an imaginary Republican group, with a cemetery return address, smearing a candidate a few days before an election, and if we have one of our elected Democratic official sneaking around the following night dropping anonymous flyers with the same message, against a candidate she’s not running against, in a ward she doesn’t represent – something’s gone seriously wrong with our local politics … and at least one of our politicians.
If true, and I don’t know if it is, this goes beyond run-of-the-mill politics and veers into bottom feeding territory by smearing his reputation. Certainly, there should be serious repercussions to any elected official who engages in those sleazy tactics. I haven’t seen Emily enough to know for sure if it is her, so for now I give the benefit of the doubt that it isn’t.
I’m a long-time contributor to the Charles River Watershed Association in its Volunteer Monthly Monitoring Program. I’ve been going out to a testing site at 6:00 am every month for years to help with the organization’s river health. I’d be really disappointed to find out that the leader of the organization has been engaged in dirty political tricks.
Like Doug, I’d be very disappointed if this is, in fact, Emily. I don’t always agree with her, but I do respect her. I respect her enough to defend her in arguments with people who were completely opposed. Emily is very smart, politically savvy, passionate about her beliefs, and (perhaps most importantly) a responsive ward councilor.
But if this is Emily, I’ll feel both hurt and betrayed because she will have lost my respect.
It sure looks like her, but is it possible she was delivering one of the many other flyers that landed in Newton homes in the past days?
It also kind of looks like me. And several people I know. Slim, white, and a brunette bob are pretty easy to find here. I know that it *could* be her, but it feels a bit shoddy say it’s unmistakable, especially when this video should have just been sent to the police.
I don’t really have a horse in this race as a Ward 6 resident, but surely we shouldn’t just assume it’s Ms. Norton. And as Newtoner says, it’s not as though we see a clear image of the offending flyer.
Perhaps giving her more than a few hours to respond the day after an election would be the sporting thing to do?
Wow, it does look like Emily and the flyer she is carrying appears to have the same image as the one shown in the link. I’d be very saddened and discouraged. I have always respected Emily and sometimes when I am not sure where to stand regarding an environmental issue, I have looked to see what Emily says. This is discouraging. I hope there is an explanation.
@Newtoner There was only that one flyer in my doorway. Everything else had been in the mail. I’m positive that is the delivery of the flyer in the video.
For clarification, are the tweets and views attributed to Cote accurate or fabricated? Certainly wouldn’t excuse the sleaziness of faking an organization and distributing deliberately misleading campaign material. But definitely would impact how much of a victim Cote is in this wild scenario.
Jimbo- It doesn’t really matter if the tweets are accurate or fabricated. The flyer cam from a fake Republican organization with a return address for a cemetery. Clearly there was intent to misrepresent Jim and deceive voters, given that it was sent by an organization that does not exist.
I don’t know if Emily dropped those sleazy flyers, but in terms of motivation, I’m not sure why Jerry is puzzled. Julia is part of Emily and Marc Laredo’s anti-development voting bloc on the council and Jim was supported by the pro-affordable-housing bloc despite his being a Republican.
@Jimbo as far as I know the tweets are accurate though arguably not representative. All of that is beside the point though. The election is over. This isn’t a story about Jim Cote, and there’s nothing wrong with an opponent highlighting a tweet you made.
What’s significant here is that one of our elected officials appears to be engaged in extremely underhanded tactics. Tactics that if left unchallenged could easily become a new norm. That’s all aside from some of the campaign law and rules that this behavior is apparently in violation of.
Jimbo’s question is what makes this tactic so insidious. We saw this around Jim Cote, but we also saw this same concept playing out with Bill Humphrey on Facebook. Some set of organizations popped up at the last minute and took a kernel of truth to create a narrative, then released that narrative on social channels.
It started people talking about these ideas on Facebook in a way that could have (did?) swayed the election. We have an election season that runs for a while and lets us have all sorts of discussions about candidates. Introducing incendiary concepts at the last minute isn’t about “learning” about a candidate, there’s no time for that. It’s about eliciting a reaction… and people did react!
This isn’t about spending a lot of money, and it’s not about those organizations that are public with their funding sources. It’s about those that shield themselves or are entirely opaque with their goals who are trying to change the election in some way.
A number of us are moderators of various city forums and we are ill-equipped to deal with these types of campaigns.
Important questions:
* Who paid for the printing?
* What email list was used?
* Why hide the people behind the email and flyer if the tweets are all real? (They are, I checked.)
@Ralph Ranalli – I’m not puzzled why Emily Norton may have wanted Jim Cote to lose that election. I’m puzzled why she would care so much that she would embark on a campaign tactic this sleazy (and illegal) for an election she wasn’t even running in.
Once that path was chosen, I’m also puzzled how any candidate, but especially Emily Norton, could be so foolish as to be doing the dirty work herself.
Julia is very well liked and well supported in Ward 3. I have every reason to believe that her campaign didn’t have too much concern about whether she would prevail in yesterday’s election. I highly doubt that Julia even knew about this and that Emily and Mark would have anything at all to do with this.
I’m thinking the motivation was a reaction to Jim Cote asking SN to remove him from their slate of endorsements.
Julia Malakie must publicly disavow any knowledge or connection to this flyer (assuming she is not complicit). The same was asked of candidates endorsed by Save Nonantum on this blog. This fake election flyer is worse. At least Save Nonantum is a real organization with actual people behind it.
Obviously whoever set up that fake email account did a big no-no. Jerry – honest question – what other “whole series of sleazy tactics” occurred? People’s past actions were dug up and re-hashed today (Ward 6 SC, Ward 5 councilor) that the validity of (smearing vs. relevant info) generally depended on who you were supporting. People discussed developer campaign contributions, a fair topic. One of the SC campaigns put up cartoons on facebook about the other candidate’s supporters, which again depending on who you support is either clever satire or obnoxious and unhelpful.
Other than that I thought, and have heard others say, the campaigns were pretty respectful and issues-focused, particularly the mayor’s race. Maybe there’s stuff I’m not aware of…what else happened?
@Lisa – Interesting that you’re the first person here to defend these underhanded tactics and are doubting that Emily and Mark(?) were involved. I assume you’re referencing Marc Laredo, is anyone suggesting he’s involved?
Thanks Jerry for the clarification. Question was not meant to diminish the sleaziness of the actions of those distributing the info, but provide some clarification on the scenario.
Since those tweets are indeed legitimate, it begs the question of why those who opposed Cote wouldn’t have just distributed legal and non-dirty campaign flyers, emails, etc with this information. Seems like the information would indeed be relevant to many Newton voters, yet those involved chose to use dirty tactics instead of just exposing the info via normal, above-board means. Really sleazy stuff.
@Lisa, are you suggesting that Save Nonantum is behind this? And, if that is what you’re suggesting, are you also suggesting that the person in this video, who looks remarkably like Emily Norton, was working for or with Save Nonantum?
@Bryan. Please read Ralph post and then apologize.
@Chuck. I have absolutely no idea.
My understanding is that a complaint has been referred to Middlesex DA Marian Ryan for investigation, who has in turn referred it to Attorney General Maura Healey and Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin. This is a pretty serious matter involving political campaign finance laws and regulations that are intended to ensure fair elections. The consequences for misconduct could be severe. Stay tuned.
@Chuck. In case i wasn’t clear I highly doubt that Emily has anything to do with SN
If this is true, and Emily Norton doesn’t have a twin sister, then she needs to resign….immediately.
Wow! This is a new low for the rough and tumble world of Newton politics. It certainly does look like Emily Norton. I hope she finds the time today to collect her thoughts and respond with an explanation of why she would take the time to to hurt Jim Cote’s candidacy in such an underhanded way. Let’s play fair folks. There are enough issues to disagree respectfully on with facts. This is an embarrassment and disappointment for many of Emily supporters and those that may disagree but respect her.
Jimbo,
The best hit piece takes some truth, flattering or not, and uses it as a gateway to half-truths, exaggerations, and lies. The combination makes it believable and extra damaging.
The best way to view Jim Cote’s tweets it to look at both his candidate and his personal twitter feed. He’s not hiding anything. Jim is who he is. He’s authentic, warts and all. On his twitter feed you’ll see he’s a Republican, a Marine, a father to a large blended family, a champion of adoption, a person invested in many causes, and someone who loves his city and his country. He’s probably also a Fox News viewer, and there are a few Fox News-ish tweets.
If you are one of the reasonable humans left in this world who doesn’t believe that politics is a blood sport (and I believe there are many), maybe we can agree that we can have conversations and debates about the things people say, what people believe, or the other differences between candidates.
We don’t literally go around in the dead of night politically shivving people the day before an election. That is mean, it is cowardly, it is counter to what is best for our community, and it is simply unnecessary.
I would urge caution as officials assess the evidence and try to determine definitively who did this. The electoral damage is done. The effort was also quite extensive in that it reached a lot of people in the ward in hardcopy and electronically seemingly overnight. It’s hard to believe that only one person was involved.
And I want to hear who denounces this tactic. I believe that’s a statement of character, a statement of leadership. If you are a politician and you don’t denounce it, you accept that this is an acceptable type of discourse in this city, not just between politicians but between ourselves.
I stand and say it is simply not acceptable. It’s wrong.
@Lisa – Here’s a picture of Emily Norton with a button that reads “I backed saving Nonantum”. So your doubts would be wrong. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6nGMFXWYAANKiX.jpg
Whatever. They ARE Jim’s tweets. I don’t know why people are willing to excuse some of his tweets.
But my god, this fake campaign is one of the most vile things I’ve seen in local politics. And it was so sloppily done! From the fake address to a person who is probably Emily Norton that didn’t even think to hide her face. It’s beyond embarrassing and it’s shameful.
Emily or not, whoever it is… Throw the book at her.
@Bryan. Nice photo. I might very well be wrong but I still have my doubts. I’m sure we will find out more in the coming weeks once everyone has a chance to do their investigations.
Have we hit rock bottom in Newton politics yet? Because if this isn’t it, we’re in real trouble in the future. This level of sleaze undermines residents’ confidence in their local government and that’s not okay.
If it’s not Emily, why has she let all this time go by with no explanation or denial?
Who else is involved? Unless other people related to this campaign don’t state publicly that they were not involved and/or knew nothing about it beforehand or after, then they can rightly assume that a whole set of people – councilors, activists, campaign workers – were complicit.
As the saying goes, Who knew what when, and what was any individual’s involvement in the planning and/or implementation of this dirty trick?
If our city government doesn’t deal with it, then it will pay with a populace that lacks trust and confidence in the city council, and by extension, the mayor and school committee. We should not be satisfied with some censure from a state agency. This is our problem and we need to fix it.
It was Emily. Can I rescind my vote for her?
I had really hoped that once the election ended, Village 14 might be a nice place to visit. I guess I need to find someplace else to learn interesting things about Newton…
This is a graphic example of “there but for the grace of God go I.”
My wife keeps telling me to clean the cobwebs from the upper reaches of our door-cam’s field of view, but I keep saying: why bother? I’ve got better things to do.
Lesson learned.
Has anyone asked Julia Malakie what she thinks about all of this? As the intended beneficiary of this dirty trick, if she does not immediately denounce it, it would be fair to infer that she either condones it or, worse, is complicit.
“they can rightly assume…that people will believe that a lot of others were complicit.”
@Adam B – Yes, mercifully there were no underhanded tactics in the mayors race. We have the two good candidates to thank for that.
As for some of the other sleazy goings-on in other races, I’d rather not rehash them at this point. They weren’t remotely in the same league as what went on here and as you say, they aren’t as cut and dry, and look different depending on which side you were on.
I’d hope that virtually everyone can agree that what happened here was way beyond even the loosest standards for acceptable behavior in political campaigns. If not, we’re in for a heap of trouble down the road.
Agree, Ted. If Malakie has an ounce of decency, she should immediately distant herself from this act.
Jerry – why do you believe the email and the flyer are connected?
The email clearly makes false representations by being from a fictitious organization etc. The flyer says don’t vote for Cote because he’s a Trumper. Which, by the way, was exactly what Sean said re: Valerie Pontiff on this site.
You make it seem like the same group was responsible for both the emails and the flyer. Do you know that for a fact or are you guessing?
+1 on Jane Frantz and Ted. I know that some people did reach out to Julia, even on Election Day Eve, while it was happening, and she was unresponsive. I have not spoken with her directly, but I did see her at Franklin School on Tuesday morning.
Ward Councilor Norton, finally realizing she has no future in elective office, has sunk to a new low. For shame.
The time for Councilor Malakie to denounce these actions a way that is meaningful has sadly passed. This was a known issue before the morning of Election Day AND there was no public comment from her campaign that I’ve heard of. I would like to be wrong.
@Ted Hess-Mahan
I am intrigued to know what is actually illegal about this. Is it illegal to print out political leaflets and distribute them? I have done so on occasion regarding land use / zoning issues. You mentioned Campaign Finance, but if a sole person funded this, surely they would not need to register themselves with campaign finance.
Simon, do you believe it was fair game?
This disappoints me so much, in several ways, not the least of which being that I initially fell for what in retrospect is an obvious smear campaign. I’m disappointed in myself for falling for it, and I’m disappointed that it happens. Regardless which “side” is responsible; frankly, I’m on whatever side has the greatest allegiance to fair play, and to all of us moving towards something better.
I am not at all the “rah-rah” type, but I will say, with no irony, that such tactics as Jim was victim of are plain un-American.
I’m also wondering if the email and the flyer are related. Certainly could be, but they do look quite different.
There are facial recognition systems available that can be used by law enforcement to confirm identities.
The truth will come out and the person should be fully prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
This act has NO place in our election process.
Simon – It’s difficult to engage in a conversation that in any way justifies this action.
It clearly breaks campaign finance law, but that’s the least of it in my mind. Who does this sort of thing? It’s clearly unethical. I ask again – if you think this is acceptable, at what point do you think we in Newton have reached the bottom? Because this is it for me.
@Newtoner makes another good point. It doesn’t automatically follow that the sender of the email is the same as the maker of the flyer. It’s certainly possible, but as noted, they are pretty different communiques. I don’t think either is defensible, but I’m not sure the flyer itself is illegal, just gross.
One could conceivably have been taken in by the same email that Ben Gardner was (assuming I read that correctly), and quickly made a flyer encouraging people to vote another way.
@Newtoner – Yes they do look different and even if done by the same person(s) they clearly were intended to look like they were coming from two different groups – one pro-Trump, one anti-Trump and both sharing the same message (Cote=Trumper).
Here’s what we know:
* “Cote is a Trumper” was not at all a campaign issue for the months leading up to the election.
* A few day before the election the email from the fictional pro-Trump GOP group gets blasted out to Ward 3. The intent of the email is clearly to smear Cote as a MAGA guy, supported by the fictional GOP MAGA group.
* The next night flyers from an anonymous author are delivered to doorsteps by Councilor Norton. The flyer’s author purports to be from the other side of the aisle warning Newton voters that Cote is a Trump guy.
* Both the email and the flyer share an image
Yes in theory it would be possible that there were actually two independent groups of people engaged in two different smear campaigns. That’s one hell of a set of coincidences to swallow and still wouldn’t excuse either one
@Ben Gardner, the sleaziest tactics — smearing a candidate using the purported words of a beloved deceased man, deliberate misrepresentation of the words of the council in discussing the plight of low-wage workers, and this false flag operation — have all come from the same side. I haven’t heard a word from any of the councilors who have been the clear intended beneficiaries of these acts. Not a word.
Jane – I’m with you as far as this being totally unethical. i don’t have enough knowledge to opine if it’s illegal but there is no place in Newton politics for anyone involved with this type of behavior
@Simon,
I’m wondering the same thing. One can’t just assume that campaign funds were used. Second, there’s nothing to prevent an individual from pulling these materials together and distributing the fliers. As far as the printed flyer that does appear to actually use Cote’s own tweets. Putting aside whether they are distasteful I really don’t understand what crime people think has been committed here. In the meantime, I certainly won’t be holding my breath for the results of any investigation.
@Mike @Jane
Was this fair, no. I would say it was somewhat out of left field, and whoever was responsible has a satirical sense humor. If I was Jim I would be upset. If I was Rena Getz I would not be happy either – I heard that a sitting councilor was telling people Rena is not Latino! Certain councilors have been asserting removing single family districts was never in the draft ordinance. When documentation is provided to prove it was, it turns out it was draft, and not a proposal because it never got voted on. Semantics.
Nothing is fair in politics. Jane, I am not sure how deep your involvement with the Newton Gun Violence Prevention Collaborative, but do you really believe that slate fair? I could keep going..
Never trust a politician! Voters have to sniff out the phonies.
Anathema – Unless people close to the situation come forward and state that they were in no way involved or knew about it, then definitely she didn’t do it alone. Julia Malakie hasn’t made a statement. Some very well-known activists in the city who work closely with her haven’t denied involvement. The longer this goes on, the messier it gets for a number of people.
Simon – If you don’t understand that this incident is on a completely different level of unethical behavior, then there’s nothing left to discuss, so let’s just end it here.
@Jerry Reilly: The flyer is exceptionally ugly either way, even if it has nothing to do with the email. I’m not justifying it. However, Jim Cote’s Republican credentials are a frequent talking point against him, even more so in this election, where he somehow found himself tied to a “progressive” slate. There’s nothing particularly unique about going to Twitter to dig up some dirt on someone.
@Jane
I asked Ted Hess Mahan to explain what was illegal about it. He hasn’t responded at yet.
When I highlighted Vicki Danberg took two $1000 checks from developers about to come before land use, did you or anybody else here start crying how unethical it was? Nada. Zip.
Simon French, that’s the worst use of whataboutism and excuse making I’ve seen in quite some time.
Sometimes you don’t have to defend your “side”. There are more important things than winning an election.
Jim Cote is a decent human being. He deserved to be treated better.
More whataboutism from Simon. (also Vicki returned those funds. You should mention that when you use that as an example of unethical behavior).
I think you’ve lost some perspective with this election stuff Simon.
I wouldn’t hold my breathe waiting for the RSN/SN bloc to condemn the Ward3GOP antics.
While I enjoyed the analytic creativity of Lisa’s dot-connecting, I don’t think there’s anything about this to suggest SN is behind it. They have a very clear MO.
That said, I do find it exceedingly ironic that the Jim Cote was one of two beneficiaries of the SN campaign and endorsements and the only one in a contested election to take a principled stand on their tactics and then became the target of another campaign.
Yes, I criticized Valerie Pontiff for her Trump support. I signed my name. I explained myself. I limited myself to the known facts. And, I didn’t pretend to be on her side as a way of smearing her.
BTW, do you know who else I criticized on this blog for party affiliation?
Hi Jane,
I hear you, but my point was more that just because someone did the flyer, doesn’t mean that they had anything to do with the email. Rather than what I think you’re saying which is that the flyer distributor was also involved in the email but didn’t do it alone.
Reiterating my position that both the email and flyer are gross and one is almost certainly illegal, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that anyone tangential needs to come out and deny involvement in something unless there is more than circumstantial public opinion implicating them. It’s a trend in politics that I deeply dislike, but that’s just me and thoughtful people could certainly disagree.
@Simon and Lisap, I am going to let the DA, the AG and the Secretary of the Commonwealth do the investigating. But the fact that this matter was referred to law enforcement and the Secretary of the Commonwealth, which enforces campaign finance laws, tells me there is something worthy of investigation. Campaign finance laws. among other things, are intended to keep elections clean, and require disclosure of who is paying to engage in political activity on behalf of or against a political candidate or ballot question.
@Fig
I am not defending my “side”. Mike asked me a question and I answered it. Jane tells me this is a different level of unethical behavior, when “your side” silently ignores other unethical behavior. You dont think Vick’s unethical behavior hurts other people too?
And Fig, I actually like Jim.
@Newtoner – OK, so you believe Councilor Norton was involved in only the anonymous flyer smear and there’s a totally different independent group who was responsible for the fictional GOP group email smear the night before, despite the fact they share the same message and goals and were working against the same candidate.
If so, I guess you think we’re in even worse shape with our local politics then I do.
As for your other point, I agree there’s nothing unique about a candidate or a group digging up dirt on someone and publicizing it to the voters. That’s not the issue here.
You don’t mention that Vicki gave the money back Simon. And that it was a legal donation. You may not like it that developers can donate, but they can. That isn’t unethical behavior when they do. It might not meet the Simon French code of ethics (which seem very situational to me), but I think to many of us, the fact that it was a legal donation, and then she gave it back to avoid any evidence of impropriety, effectively puts that issue to bed. (not to mention that the idea that $2,000 can sway a city councilor to vote for something is a little silly. There is no self enrichment here).
Again, when you spend most of your post talking about what other folks have done that you don’t like, that’s classic whataboutism. And pretty classic defending your side.
I think it’s more likely that the same group is behind both.
@Jerry and @newtoner, If I may take a naive view here–I’ve only been a Newton resident for a few years and am probably less well versed in the nuances of the political landscape here than others.
But. Is it really so far fetched to think that someone received the original email (no way to know who it was sent to), believed it (because of confirmation bias, sure), and decided that they needed to act by making a flyer and distributing it so that people “knew who they were voting for” especially since they supported the opposition?
I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it doesn’t seem utterly ridiculous. How many of us have, or know people who have just blindly re-shared information online that agreed with our biases without bothering to vet it first? In the final countdown to an election, I could see someone doing it with flyers.
Again, I’m not saying that’s what happened, I’m simply trying to think about what actual facts we have and the various ways that they could reasonably be interpreted outside of what seems convenient or in-line with what we may want.
FWIW, the tweet about Warren/Markey/Vaccines is not the same image. In the flyer it’s someone’s photo of their screen, and in the email it’s copied and pasted directly from Twitter.
Simon, I have no idea about the legality of it all, and ultimately it isn’t that important to me beyond accountability. But I’m pretty sure that at least at the local level, a whole lot of voters have little taste for this kind of cowardly tactic.
And by cowardly I mean waiting until the day before the election to raise a divisive issue against an opponent. Literally in the dead of night. To do it either anonymously or as a lie in a way to inflame people, in a way that the target has no chance at response.The political equivalent of gratuitous violence.
That stuff doesn’t help voters decide in a meaningful way. It doesn’t solve our city or our ward’s problems (and it is my ward, by the way). It doesn’t bring any common understanding to issues. It doesn’t offer a contrast of approaches, or debate hard issues. It doesn’t help make all voices heard.
And if it had happened to Councilor Malakie I’d call it out in the same way.
If you’ve got whataboutisms, then air them out. They excuse nothing. Treat others as you expect to be treated, not like you fear you might be.
I guess we’ll see what voters don’t like the smell of.
@Fig The developers involved with the special permit at 145 Warren St is a very local issue to me. I live right around the corner from that potential development. If it goes through it will change the context of a whole street.
Vicki has already publicly states she supports the project, even before it has gone before land use. So I guess the $2000 was more of a thank you.
Vicki only returned that money after it was made public. In the debate she stated she takes money from developers all the time, and it was acceptable. Then she went on to email her supporters she has never taken money for developers. And only then I guess did she decide to return the money.
All the same, I think she needs to recuse herself from the vote.
One last thing. When people on Warren St and others found out about the donations they were disgusted. I know people who decided not to vote for Vicki because of this. So it is good to see other people agree with my code of ethics 🙂
Either way, Yikes is the best I can say on this front…
@Mike Halle
What do you make of this petition? https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/newton-parents-for-racial-equity
Came out 2 days before the vote. Take a look at the “Partial list of supporters”. Cmon. Let’s get real.
Simon: I really don’t understand how your link is unethical or wrong. Did you miss that Tarik is on the endorsement list? Setti? Mayor fuller?
I wouldn’t even know if Paul was for or against this. Seriously I’m confused.
So much whataboutism, but at least I understood the Developer donations argument.
@Fig, Really. I thought you were a smart guy. How many of “my side” and in a contested election do you see in that list of partial supporters? Now look how many who were not on “my side” were. BTW I asked some of “my side” and they did say they would sign up for it.
Simon,
The OPCF list did its job. It provided transparency into Vicki’s donors. She returned some money. You had your chance to make it a political issue. You failed. Vicki’s not going to recuse herself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a councilor supporting (or not supporting) a project that’s before Land Use.
You’ll get another chance to make your frustration with 145 Warren St. known tomorrow night. See you there.
Simon, seriously I think you lost me. Maybe Im just naive. I also saw that Amy and Ruthanne and Tarik all signed up as supporters. So your complaint is what exactly? How is that remotely unethical? Because it was released Right before the election? But it doesn’t even mention Shawn!?!?
And to compare this to the topic of this thread seems…well…incomparable.
Anyone else understand what Simon is trying to say?
And Fig, guess who promoted that petition? The Newton Gun Prevention lot. And didn’t they coincidentally form around the same time Sean Fitzgibbons announced he was running for School Committee. Sean’s wife being a founding member.
I am just connecting the dots.
I know – your going to call or imply I am a deragined conspiracy theorist now!
@Fig. I understand why you might be a little lost. It did have Sean at the top of the list when I first looked. It appears he got removed.
Simon, to answer your question: I think it’s a very interesting initiative by Mayor Warren and his wife, and it’s sufficiently weighty that I need to read through it thoroughly to fully take it in. I hadn’t seen it before, which is a little surprising, but I’m happy to have had a chance. I will need to talk with my neighbors who are involved in our elementary school’s FORJ program.
But I don’t think that’s why you posted it.
If this is somehow about Paul Levy, a candidate who I supported by the way, I’m not following.
You yelled squirrel and I looked, but I’m still not sure I see the squirrel.
Also, Simon, please don’t distort the impact of 145 Warren St. Fignewtonville is from Newtonville, as his name suggests, and may not have personal experience that he could rely on to realize you are exaggerating.
There is no “context” of the neighborhood. It’s an interesting hodge-podge of lots of different styles, building types, materials, massing, siting, &c.
And, the developer is working with the neighbors (and the Ward 6 councilors) to preserve the one piece of “context” the neighbors want to keep: the original house. Ironically, they want to keep the original house on the basis of it being the only one like it in Newton.
So, I guess context isn’t really that important.
Meanwhile, Jim Cote was shivved in a political alley. It’s kind of hard not to see that.
@Ted
As a criminal defense lawyer, I don’t share your conclusion but my friend, we shall see.
How about we get back to the purpose of this thread and not engage further over Simon’s whataboutisms.
@Mike Halle.
You was talking about being fair. This initiative was launched 2 days prior to the election by political people. Did my candidates get a chance to respond to this initiative and find out why their names were not listed, even though they had signed up?
This was no coincidence, and it was unfair!
There seem to be a lot of people on this thread who are making comments on legality, but without any substance. Do we know all the facts before we are passing judgment?
Also, Jim Cote is a Republican. No one disputes that. How can telling the truth -that he’s a Republican – ever be against the law?
People on this thread seem a little too eager to condemn Emily Norton without all the facts being presented. And this blog has a history of doing the same thing.
So is the purpose of this blog to crucify a person because you disagree with their political views? Or because she keeps winning elections even though the blog has tried many times to defeat her?
Instead of repeatedly attacking Emily Norton why don’t you try to make positive impact on our society. Thank you.
I think Anathema Device makes an important point. The email and the flyer are different. The email is a false-flag operation. Assume the identity of someone else (in this case an apparently invented group) to confuse the source of an attack. The paper flyer is just a more straightforward attack ad, but without a source identified, and involving some possibly sketchy (or worse) distribution.
That’s not to say definitively that they do or don’t come from the same group of people, just that they represent two different approaches.
@Sean
I don’t think the residents on Warren St see their street as “Hodge-Podge” – IE a confusing mixture. They call hit home.
The property in question is LandMarked. 29 Greenwood got a lot of attention recently. The developer is coming before land use without any approval from the Historical Commission. So let’s not confuse the issue. The developer HAS to work with the historic commission, and in my humble opinion is not giving the commission it respects by coming to land use first!
But I am sure we can get into that debate tomorrow evening!
Simon’s attempt to detract from the matter at hand is shameful. We should focus solely on this situation.
What Emily supposedly did is absolutely despicable. If it’s confirmed it’s her in the video (and I mean… come on) then she should own up to this and make amends. I don’t live in Ward 2, so I can’t vote for Emily, but I genuinely liked her as a representative and likely would have voted for her if her race was at-large. Now, I can’t see myself doing that.
Spending money in the name of an organization to attack a candidate and not reporting it seems as clear of a violation of campaign finance laws as there could be. If RSN or E6 did this, they’d certainly be reported, and rightfully so.
I won’t be quick to lay judgment on Julia, but I’d like to see a statement from her about this. Was she aware? I guess an investigation will tell us.
Bruce C.,
As I wrote in the comments on a previous post, at V14 we do not expect that people in the comments to hue only to the subject of the post. Like a good conversation, things wander. If you’d like to discuss the subject of the post some more, I suggest that you add your thoughts. See if that pulls the conversation back where you’d like it to go.
“The OPCF list did its job. It provided transparency into Vicki’s donors. She returned some money.”
Lets be clear. OPCH list didn’t do its job. For whatever reason the Website doesn’t have a control to require anyone who contributes over $250 to disclose their employer/role as required by law. No one without knowledge of the affiliation of Mr. Oliveri and Mr. Consilgli to CIVCO and this development would have any idea of the connection because they were able to make those contributions without the required disclosure. That is a flaw in the OFCP process.
Of course, Counclor Danberg, her campaign treasurer and the neighborhood knew that relationship.
Councilior Danberg only returned the money once this donation came to light. Sorry, not good enough since the first donation was made on 9/3 and not returned until 10/18
Simon, Simon, Simon.
Hodge-podge is not derogatory. But, if you don’t like the phrase, choose another. Charming eclecticism? Bottom line: there is nothing consistent across the homes on the street. Nothing and everything fit into the “context.”
The building is landmarked because that’s what the neighbors asked the developer to do. Shame on you for trying to weaponize that.
Returning the post to the original topic, has anyone asked Jim Cote how he feels about these attacks at the last minute? I’d appreciate knowing his thoughts.
@MaryLee. The thing that bothered me about this Danbury scandal is that the CC was voting on these two developers’ projects in the next couple of weeks. Did I get that right? (in my most Rachel Maddow voice).
When is that vote? Will or did Danbury recuse herself?
Danberg, not Danbury (damn autocorrect)
@Arthur Jackson – I can’t speak for others, but until this post, in 8 years I don’t believe I’ve said a single negative thing about Emily Norton on Village14.
Why did I write this post now? For just the reason you said – “to make a positive impact” on our community. This behavior by anyone, but especially by a sitting City Councilor is reprehensible, sleazy, and corrosive to our community. If we just shrug our shoulders, then this kind of nastiness will inevitably become the new normal.
I have no idea if any laws were broken. I leave that to others to decide and deal with. If your only threshold of acceptable behavior for our elected officials is that they not break laws, that’s a low bar indeed.
Mary Lee,
As someone who has been working with Vicki on her reporting, I can assure you that Vicki was not aware of the donations until folks outside the campaign brought it to her attention. (I started helping after the first donation and around the time of the second donation.) But, nobody’s going to begrudge you drawing a different conclusion and making a political point. It’s all fair game.
My point is that the transparency — even the partial transparency of a name without an occupation or employer — did the trick in this case. It was a political embarrassment for Vicki. It undoubtedly cost her votes, as Simon pointed out.
Now, we get back to the business of moving the city forward. Starting tomorrow night in Land Use, where we’ll get to speak about a slightly better version of 145 Warren St.
@Don S
Really? I ask a question, then respond and then a mini conversation occurs. Now I am to shamed. My kids would be in a whole lot of trouble if they exhibited your kind of behavior.
@Arthur Jackson – Thank you for your thoughtful and accurate comment!!!!!
There is no proof Emily did anything illegal! Jim Cote is a Republican and those are his tweets.
Funny, I never heard a singe criticism on here of the Shawn Fitzgibbons campaign blasting nasty and slanderous cartoons about Paul Levy all over Facebook!!!
Where was everyone’s morality then ? Complete double standard on here.
@Sean
Actually I originally advocated for 145 Warren to be landmarked 2 or 3 years ago. Believe it or not when it first went to historic they had no idea about history of the house. My wife found all that information and the true treasure in the properties history, Dia Buell. Vicki Danberg felt the land use process would protect it.
Fast forward a few years later and inexplicably our Councilors wanted it landmaked. The funny thing is that street did not want it landmarked any longer as they saw it for what it was – poor developer being deprived of his property rights, so let’s give him a huge development as a reward.
You see it was the developer who also wanted to work with historic, until they realized the implications!
@Jerry,
Aren’t you jumping the gun? I’ve watched that video over and over. I could swear I see green in the leaflet being delivered. Up until today I did not know what the leaflet looked like, and I see no green. Julia Malakies leaflets have lots of green.
Arthur Jackson:
I will say this to your point. I’d prefer to hear from the Councilor Norton and Councilor Malakie directly. I know Jerry and others made a point of reaching out to them for comment. It may be that they just haven’t responded as they took some time off with the election being finished. As I said, I’d like to hear Jim Cote speak. I’d also want to give Julia (who was a frequent poster on this forum once upon a time) and Councilor Norton (who posts here to advocate for her chosen candidates in most election cycles) a chance to speak.
Perhaps Councilor Norton just has a doppelganger that has taken an intense interest in Councilor Norton’s campaign. Perhaps Councilor Malakie knew nothing of all of this. Perhaps not.
I’d welcome giving everyone a chance to speak. And I do my best to be cordial and polite to everyone, especially those I don’t always agree with.
Absent that, all I can do is judge what I see.
@Sean,
I did notice in one of Vicki mailers you were her new Treasurer.
I find it hard to believe Vicki knew nothing about these donations. She didn’t exactly get that many big donations. And I know you knew were fully aware of who these individuals were. Interestingly enough I noted you didn’t enter their employment details.
Now that you are her treasurer, with all the the talk of OCPF and what not in this thread might I suggest you file a form with OCPF for a change of treasurer? As per the thread, it is serious business!
Btw. As per @Fig Simon French code of ethics – I thought it so petty minor and did not raise a complaint!
Arthur Jackson – You’re family has been closely involved with Emily Norton’s campaigns. At this point, Emily has not denied that she is the person in the video. It’s now 48 hours after the incident and she has said nothing, and her supporters are doing their darndest to deflect attention away from her, to claim that other questionable tactics are equal in seriousness.
The lawyers can debate the legal issues. But, frankly, it’s not the core problem with this despicable incident for many people. What Emily did to a decent man was despicable and when you, as a close supporter try to justify it, it only makes matters worse.
The point of this thread is to get to the bottom of a dirty trick the likes of which we haven’t experienced in Newton, an action that will undermine the trust and confidence in our local government. Emily needs to come forward ASAP and publicly admit that she did this and accept the consequences or deny that she did it and let the police/DA figure out the legalities.
How many leaflets were distributed? If a sizeable number were distributed, were other people involved in its funding, creation, and distribution? Strangely, those close to this race and close to Emily are either silent or trying to deflect attention from her actions. And it’s not working. People want answers, plain and simple.
“Your family” – hate autocorrect.
Jackson Joe – I agree. I’ll leave it to Lisa P and THM to debate the legalities.
Jesus wept.
Look at all the kvetching and hand-wringing from the usual suspects. So holier-than-thou and hypocritical.
And the unmitigated gall of Roche, Barash, Hess-Mahan and fignewtonville.
Norton has done more for this city than all of you combined. She has had a target on her back for years and there has been no shortage of detractors taking potshots at her.
The whole lot of you should be ashamed.
An off-topic comment about off-topic comments: Some discussion forums have comments within comments, such as the comments sections in major newspapers or replying to a reply on Facebook. I don’t know how difficult it would be for V14 to implement that, but it would make it a lot more user-friendly. It’s very difficult to navigate a comment thread like the present one, and a lot of good conversations end prematurely when a thread gets hijacked.
@Jane
It is a witch hunt 😉
@Peter Kay – So you’re good with these campaign tactics?
A clarification in regards to Fignewtonville’s comment above. I did attempt to contact Councilor Norton. I made no attempt to contact Councilor Malakie since she was not who I was writing about. That said, I would like to see her weigh in here. I did speak with Jim Cote this morning and from what he told me, it sounded like he was disgusted by all of this. Likewise, I’d welcome Jim to jump in here himself rather than have me characterize what he said.
Peter Kay: I agree that Councilor Norton has done a lot for Newton. There are times that I’ve supported her initiatives. She is also my ward councilor as I live in Newtonville.
I’d appreciate hearing from her directly about what occurred here. I’m a constituent, and I also care about elections in Newton.
I’m sorry you don’t like my posts, but I’m also trying to be fair to all concerned, while addressing what I feel is negative behavior.
Honestly, I’d prefer it if Emily and Julia were not involved. Supporters of political candidates can be like supporters of sports teams…sometimes they go overboard and do stupid things. I’d like folks who represent me to have a higher standard of conduct that that. I don’t think that is unreasonable.
Why should Councilor Norton be exempt from that?
Sorry Jerry, I misunderstood. It was unintentional.
Arthur, I had actually not seen the paper flyer before this post, only the electronic version. Speaking personally, my biggest issue with the paper flyer is that it’s inflammatory and unsourced, partisan in a non-partisan race. It’s not how I think politics should be done, and I would have a negative impression of the person producing it. Why do it that way? Can’t you just make your case? Jim didn’t just become a Republican. If that’s your disdain, you could have shared it any time.
But that’s mostly a stylistic critique. Don’t have any idea about legality about any of this.
The electronic version, on the other hand, claimed to be from a Republican group, which we can pretty much say is a lie and is provocative in its own right. It says things about Jim that I’m pretty sure aren’t true, and Jim says aren’t true. And, while it was clumsy in some ways, it was effective enough to go viral in the ward right before the election. People were spreading it by sending it to mailing lists asking if it was real or not. That was fundamentally unfair because Jim has no time to respond, and no way to respond, to clarify the things he says are lies.
Indeed, the electronic version was designed, to use your words, to “to crucify a person because someone disagreed with their political views”. I am clear in waiting for evidence or admission of the people responsible. I don’t know if we’ll figure out who sent the electronic version, if it was a different person.
You have read enough of my posts and emails that I try to be fair to people. People have their beliefs and their affiliations, their strengths and failings. I want to believe Jim Cote and Julia Malakie are good people who love their community and want to best for it. Jim is a Republican. He’s also a good guy. He’s approachable. Want to know about his tweets? We’d be better served if someone had asked him.
Again, this was fundamentally unfair, to Jim and the voters of the ward. You may say, “Well, he is a Republican”, but do you want to have campaigns where people can’t respond to things said about them? Is that the standard we want? Where people feel they have to deceive and inflame to persuade?
And you may or may not believe this, but I hope this has nothing to do with Councilor Norton. I consider her an ally on issues like making Albemarle a better place and implementing traffic calming in Newtonville. I’ve enjoyed our conversations together. I also wish this didn’t throw shade on Councilor Malakie’s campaign or her election win. That’s why I want both Councilors, or all Councilors and challengers, to come out and say, “No. We don’t do this in Newton. I don’t do this in Newton.” I haven’t heard that yet. And I don’t understand why. Seems like an easy, a human thing to say.
It’s taken a while, but I read through all of the comments. The Homeowner of the Nest video stated that was the only flyer he received therefore it was not a green Julia Malakie flyer.
The other thing is I’ve spoken to some of the residents who received these flyers. They are in the same general vicinity but far enough from each other that I wouldn’t be surprised if multiple people were dropping them off.
Oh for f’cks sake people!
It’s a grainy video at best. Not even Gil Grissom and the CSI team would definitively claim that is Emily Norton.
But let’s just call BS where BS exists…v14 has had it out for Councilor Norton since v14 was created. Innocent until proven guilty.
Thank goodness it was wasn’t a
Chinese dude caught on Nest or old have all you guys on our lawn like episode 1 of “Dead Man Walking”.
@jerry congrats on winning the war of public opinion.
@Matt: Even if this isn’t Councilor Norton, the behavior of these groups/individuals is should be condemned by all parties. And Councilor Norton’s silence in saying “It wasn’t me” speaks volumes. Why hasn’t she come out and said it wasn’t her? Seems like an easy political win. We all know she is reading these posts & comments.
(…And yes, the Shaggy song *did* just get stuck in my head while writing that.)
Well, Matt’s comment pretty much does it for me. I’m done for a bit. Going to bed.
I’ll end with this. Regardless of who was involved, the end of this election was a train wreck. Our two contested school committee races got very personal and ugly, and several city council races saw last minute attacks from either newly formed PACs, sudden additions to facebook with fake accounts, and then this email/flyer drop nonsense.
This thread is important not because of any particular councilor(s) involved. I want to make sure this stuff is publicized because hopefully it will convince others not to engage in this behavior in future elections. Our local elections should not mirror statewide or national dysfunction.
Happily, we have an example to model. The Mayor’s race could have been the ugliest race of all. But it was clean and issue based and felt entirely different from the city council and school committee races. Kudos to both candidates, but especially to Amy, because in my view it is harder for the challenger not to be sucked into that vortex. A sincerely thank you.
Good night everyone.
@Matt Lai – You’ve been around here long enough to know that individual posters on this site write what they want with no prior editorial review and the individuals contributions are their own. Consequently, the topics, prejudices, style, etc are all those of the individuals.
There have indeed been plenty of poking at Councilor Norton on Village14 by others. This post was written entirely by me with no consultation with anyone. After it was completed and because it’s an inflammatory topic I did take the very unusual step of circulating it amongst the whole crew of V14 folks. I got some useful feedback and made some small changes, all to Councilor Norton’s benefit – I had a few details in what I originally wrote that were not quite right and/or could have been construed as misleading and I changed them.
After I posted it I got a bit more constructive feedback and made some additional changes, again to Councilor Norton’s benefit in the interest of fairness – i.e. clearly separating out my own opinion from the factual stuff above.
So please don’t chalk this up to ‘V14 has it in for Emily Norton’. If someone’s guilty of anything with this post it is unambiguously me. As I said above, in the eight+ years I’ve been posting on this site, I don’t believe I’ve ever disparaged Emily Norton. Hell, just last week I presented her with a jokey award.. If you somehow think I personally have it in for Emily, based on what?
I’m discouraged that so many people seem intent on changing the subject, and muddying the water rather than addressing the rather serious topic being presented -i.e. because the person involved is ‘on their side’.
@all: Since many of you are lawyers you can understand that there is only so much I can discuss. The issue in this whole situation is that a group of politicians and followers are opposed to housing of almost any kind, and this smear attack wasn’t against me, but against low income and affordable housing.
First: Those of you carrying water for your candidates, I’m not your lawyer, but if you’re in their inner circle, Simon, then you may be careful what you’re putting on record. Matt Lai, no one has disputed who is on the video so please stop with your comments about not being sure.
Despite what some of you are saying, in the last week of the campaign I was in real good shape, I had been to virtually EVERY door (2,796 housing units), personally in the Ward, except for a few houses on Sterling St, and possibly a few here and there, I had 2 mailouts lined up, and some social media up and running. Given my name recognition, and street feedback from my many mornings standing out at schools, and intersections, I was confident I would win comfortably. If you watch the debates, the feedback is very positive for me and not so for my opponent. The other side knew this and they seemed to be ready.
Timeline: My opponent releases a flyer on Monday that is the same format as all of those in her slate, and at this time publicly tells everyone that I’m a Republican. In Massachusetts municipal elections are non-partisan and parties are not supposed to be involved/invoked, but so be it. Challenged by ethics in this campaign, the flyer also violates the debate rules as she takes out snippets from the debate to alter my real statements.My opponent, ethically challenged, continues to push out lies about my stance on affordable/low income housing.
Then on Thursday a group comes out (supported/advised by Emily Norton) and endorses both of us for Ward 3, and when I asked for both to be removed as an unnecessary endorsement, they left my opponents name on their endorsement. This in itself would have been OK, but then I learn on Friday the group is sending out an email with a flat out lie saying I had abandoned two of my major constituencies’ landscapers and small contractors.
On Friday, I posted a comment on the West Newton Community email that the moderators noted was too political, and amazingly, 4 days before the election they stop my posting privileges. There are 2 moderators on the email list serve, one donated to my opponent’s campaign, and the other openly endorsed my opponent. This “coincidental” timing is key since this action will take away my ability to communicate with West Newton residents about the smear campaign about to be unleashed on me.
Saturday, I start hearing about the email, and then Sunday the flyers, by Monday it’s out of control and I make an appeal for “door cam” videos to see if we can identify the culprit. The illegal smear campaign was layered to first put out an email to enrage people, targeting progressive households. Then the flyer design was to reflect outrage and to take action. Amazingly on Tuesday morning, my door cam appeal is successful, as a person posted the now famous video from their Nest cam. This was a gift from above as right always seems to win. The Nest owner is a prominent resident that is not at all on my active supporter list, but is actually loosely connected with the person showing up on the video through volunteer work in her organization, and the city committee he serves on.
Concerned about the safety of my family, and the attempt to destroy my campaign, the video, timeline, emails, and the flyer were all provided to the Newton Police and the rest in under investigation, though my understanding is that the city is no longer running the investigation.
The accusations about me are total lies, as I have never been affiliated with the former President in any way, and the social media postings, some old, and all taken out of context, do not connect me with anyone, or any cause. I served 20 years in the Marines/Marine Reserves, 4 of my brothers served Marines/Navy, 4 of our children served/serve in the Armed Forces, and 3 sons-in-law have/are serving for our country. Last I checked we can all support whomever, and say what we want so long as we don’t disparage people, or our country. My comments were always more joking reflecting on the ridiculousness actions of people, and I can assure you, many on this blog have called me far worse names for no reason.
Being a member of a political party used to be more common, but today is not so, and being a democrat, libertarian, republican, etc. is a personal choice and is OK. I was actually a democrat first, but people and parties change over time. People have to get over this and let others live their lives as they see fit. The majority of the City Council is primarily from the same party and they cannot get along to work through city issues.
She’s involved, is the tip of the iceberg, and we must all wait for the results of the investigation.
@Jim
I understand you are hurtIng right now.
You lost by a good margin. Do you really think this political stunt cost you the election?
I’m in no inner circle. I can’t remember the last time I called Emily.I innocently asked Ted what was illegal, then we got into a back and forth.
If you are suggesting I shut up and be quiet, you’ve no chance.
@Jim thank you for weighing in and offering more detail. As a Newton voter and a ward 3 voter, all these tactics have me frustrated and upset.
I love that supporters of Ward Councilor Norton claim victimhood whenever they are challenged and decry the cesspool that they say is V14, but happily engage in the same tactics they denounced prior to January 2021. It must hurt to keep losing.
I second that @Ted
Er… meant to say: I second that @Chuck!
Thank you, Jim, for that timeline. I knew about just one piece of the story.
Anathema – I don’t know anything about the email (never seen it, don’t know what’s in it so I can’t comment on it) and knew nothing of the timeline Jim outlined in the previous comment. My comments relate only to the delivery of a mailer from a fake pac in the dark of night from a sitting city councilor. It’s over 48 hours later now and she hasn’t denied it. Those closest to her are trying to deflect attention from her onto others, and I find that equally disturbing.
I’m way less concerned about the legalities involved in the incident. I return to my original question: Have we hit rock bottom in Newton politics yet? If not this, then what is the bottom point? Because I’m worried about the future of the city I’ve lived in for 40 years. I want a return to some level of decency in our electioneering. Jim Cote and I do not agree on any political point, but I’ve always respected him, seen him as a very decent man, and for those reasons, had his sign on my lawn in 2019. He did not deserve to have this happen to him.
It’s time for Ms. Norton to make a statement. It’s also time for the city elected officials to address this incident in an effort to return to decency in campaigning. Not doing so affects their ability to do their jobs with credibility. And worse, this behavior will become the norm, and a new, even lower point, will emerge in future elections.
I’m trying to understand Jim’s statement “The issue in this whole situation is that a group of politicians and followers are opposed to housing of almost any kind, and this smear attack wasn’t against me, but against low income and affordable housing.” If he really believes that, he is living in a fantasyland or is trying to stir up even more anger. It doesn’t raise my sympathy level for his claim that the election was stolen from him……… It is typical of modern day politicians (local and national) to be quiet when trouble arrives and hope the scandal dies down on it’s own. This was successfully proven by Trump how many times? There is always the Clintonian way of lying through your teeth and hope that you get away with it but that’s fraught with even more peril.
@Ted “It must hurt to keep losing”
…. except they keep winning. Norton has won handily several times. Maybe she would have if she had an opponent. Julia also won handily. Oliver and Lucas won handily earlier this year and Oliver did very well on Tuesday.
They’re being rewarded with success after benefitting from bad behavior.
If any members of the City Council are found to be tied to these despicable acts they need to resign or face expulsion. These acts have no place in Newton politics and need to be denounced.
I don’t believe this last minute campaign, as despicable as it may be, has shifted a single vote, let alone changed the winner.
Hell hath frozen over: Peter Karg and I are in total agreement.
Newtoner, I don’t think so, either. Julia won by too much. But I think the culprits might see this as their success.
@Jim Cote, I am sorry that you had to live through this. You and I have not always been on the same side of issues, but you were always responsive to constituents’ concerns, and passionate about public service. I have lived in Ward 3 for 25 years, I voted for you for Ward Councilor, and I feel like you and I and the residents of Ward 3 have been wronged. I don’t pretend to know who was involved or why, but I do believe it is incumbent (no pun intended) upon Councilor Julia Malakie to speak up and denounce this disgraceful campaign tactic, as it deservers no place in our ward or in our city. If she does not, it would be fair to infer she either condones it or, worse, was complicit.
Could someone clarify the status of this story with regard to the police and/or the city? Is there any ongoing investigation?
Newtoner, there was enough online discussion to make me think it changed turnout, if not switch votes.
But let’s say you’re right and it didn’t change a vote. It’s almost worse. It was a pointless act of political incitement, against Jim and against the community. Even indirectly against whoever won the election.
It poisons the well. The impact of stuff like this lasts a long time, far beyond the election.
Jim says he is confident he would have won comfortably, but that’s a big assumption. I live in Ward 3, and I know there is very strong support for Julia.
@Newtoner It did. In these comments to this article alone Residents have indicated they regret falling for this scheme and voting against Jim Cote.
I received an email from a leader in the Italian American Community last Friday advising me not to vote for Jim. It spread like wildfire.
My last comment to clear a few questions:
1. Change the outcome: It was not a loss by a lot of votes. If 250 people didn’t change their vote I win. My family and I were at the polling locations and the video was the main topic of the day. All of us working the signs were told either they didn’t vote for me because of the emails, or we were asked about it in a negative way.
2. This became a heavily public topic by late morning and my opponent was not seen at the pollings sites for the remainder of the election day.
No matter the outcome of this investigation, the city loses. Who could ever trust that group of candidates again?
All of this left me with some questions: Is there any evidence directly tying the flyer to the fake organization? Is there any evidence tying Emily Norton to the fake organization (other than possibly distributing the flyer)? Are any of the quoted materials in the flyer untrue or manufactured? I think the answers to these questions (which seem to be presently unknown) should inform the ultimate analysis. If those answers are available, please let us know.
@Simon, you know I’ve always liked you. And I love Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic. Your pretzel logic on this post? Not so much.
To be clear, based on the facts presented, i.e., a false flag email from a nonexistent local GOP organization (with an address at the Newton Cemetery, which I presume was an attempt at humor), and an anonymous literature drop attacking a political candidate in Ward 3 which was clearly intended to influence the outcome of the election, someone violated the spirit if not the letter of the Massachusetts campaign finance laws.
Whether there was criminal activity involved is not clear to me, and I do not believe anyone will end up doing a perp walk or wearing an orange jumpsuit because of it. Nevertheless, given that this matter was reported to police, and, I am informed, was referred to the Middlesex DA, Massachusetts AG, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth, anyone who was involved or has knowledge of relevant facts should seriously consider lawyering up before speaking to anyone about it. Or trying to explain themselves on Village 14 or in the newspapers.
I don’t always agree with Emily Norton, but I have supported her in the past. She’s been a tireless advocate for her Ward. I would like hear Emily’s point of view on the present topic, but at this point I don’t see how this ends well for her. Nor frankly or any of us. I don’t see how Emily will be able to continue to effectively represent her Ward. Unfortunately I can also see this lingering for a long time.
This incident is also sending us a larger message about the way politics have been discussed and conducted in Newton over the past years. The echoes are bouncing around for all who are willing to listen. Our *local* political discourse has gotten way too messy and way too personal. The vortex of social media outrage is only going to get stronger and will continue to suck people in, unless and until the people driving the discussions here and elsewhere decide do something about it. The high road is always there. In the meantime, there will be multitudes who like myself will continue to sit on the sidelines or tune out altogether for the betterment of their own mental health.
@Jim Cote, I appreciate hearing your thoughts and don’t want anything I’ve said here to reflect a lack of sympathy about what you’ve had to put up with. I don’t think you did anything to deserve this. I don’t know you personally, but I regard you as an honest and decent person.
Yesterday before I posted this thread, I contacted Councilor Norton by phone and by email asking her if she had any context or explanation she’d like to share before I posted it. She never replied
This morning she replied with a one line email
Note “the cesspool” refers to Village14
Breaking news: Pot Calls Kettle Black.
Wow. How entirely disingenuous and arrogant. I will be the first one (and I have) to criticize some of the content and especially discourse on this site, but from the perspective of a 30-year career in journalism I can say that Jerry’s initial post met a very high standard for care, accuracy, and evidentiary support. So here Emily is caught red-handed and she attacks the messenger. It’s so … Trump-y. I wonder if she will give the same reply to the Globe. I imagine it will be less effective.
Hmmm – This place really swings pretty wildly from this is the crime of the century with emails and flyers and ring cameras with circles and arrows and a paragraph in the back of each one (ok – you all know I’m listening to Alice’s Restaurant)… to anyone involved has a 5th Amendment right against self incrimination. (@Ted hope you don’t mind the paraphrase.)
Well frankly since there has been some sort of referral to the Newton Police AND the Middlesex DA AND the Attorney General, it would not be prudent for anyone alleged to have done anything that might be investigated to speak here, to the press or to make any comments whatsoever without counsel. We can’t have it both ways people. We can’t seek a fulsome investigation by the criminal authorities AND at the same time demand that people appear before this forum to answer and address the matter at hand. That’s not reasonable. But since a process has already been initiated, I would suggest that all one realistically can do is wait for the process to run its course.
Good lord, people, listen to yourselves. This rampant speculation and ‘why doesn’t Julia denounce this’ reminds me of “Pick a Little, Talk a Little” in The Music Man, and is perhaps the main reason I don’t spend time on Village 14 any more — it’s become too much of a viper pit even for me. (The other reasons being, time constraints and OML cautions.) But much I would like to keep going about business like Marian the Librarian, I will make an exception and make one (long, sorry!) clarifying response.
Oddly, what prompted me to respond is the suggestion that there’s something suspicious about my being “not seen at the pollings sites for the remainder of the election day.” Yeah… because after about 45 minutes at Peirce and an hour at Franklin, I had to go to work, because I’m the last photographer left at the Lowell Sun. Lowell was having arguably the most historic election in its history — the first with district councilors instead of all At Large, the result of settling the federal lawsuit over minority representation. I had hoped to get to Scandinavian before the close of polls, but after spending all day tracking down 15 of 16 district candidates, and all six at large candidates, and whichever School Committee candidates I found in the process, it took til 8:30pm to process and submit all my photos.
Back to Newton. The fake Republican email was becoming a thing on the West Newton Google Group on Monday. Along with an attack comment on me by Susan Albright in which she put in quotes something neither Pam Wright nor I said, that Susan posted either on the not-really-closed WNGG thread about the fake Republican email, or maybe a new thread — I may never have time to sort that out.
Greer emailed me Monday afternoon to say she would take one comment from me and one comment from Jim about the fake Republican email, so I took time away from the GOTV phone calls I wanted to be making to write something. Below is what I sent her. I don’t know what ended up happening to it.
Because at the same time (Monday afternoon), people were urging me to respond to the Susan Albright misrepresentations, I had also written a response to those, but was not allowed by Greer or Dan Proskauer to post those either, because they wanted to keep the WNGG thread(s?) closed. I was not happy about not being allowed to respond in the forum in which the misrepresentations were made, but can only assume they were trying to bend over backwards not to be partisan toward me. And by then it was time for a Franklin School building project community Zoom meeting I wanted to attend, followed by City Council.
Let’s see, what else… My own second mailer was a comparison of my positions with Jim’s public comments on development and zoning issues, precisely because I think local elections should be decided on local issues. JIm’s statements were from the Engine 6 and VVN surveys, and the LWV/NewTV and Area Council debates. I footnoted the source of each. Using direct quotes from a debate is not against any rules — it’s what newspapers do all the time.
The mailer also included this in the sidebar: “Julia’s opponent, a Republican, is endorsed by pro-density, pro-developer groups like Engine 6 and Voters for a Vibrant Newton.” My purpose in including that was to let Republicans know who was endorsing their guy. Not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with being a Republican, because I don’t think there is, and I want Republican votes as much as any other votes. I just happen to prefer being Independent as I said in the statement above.
I would like to have gotten my comparison mailer out earlier, before people had started mailing their ballots and doing early voting, but I’m working, I’m doing City Council stuff including constituent service, and honestly, never got anything in this campaign done as early as I would have liked. I believe it got mailed Monday 10/25; it arrived in my mailbox Wednesday 10/27, over two days into Early Voting, which was not ideal.
One last comment — I’m offended that anyone would think I’m stupid enough to think the fake Republican email was a good idea. Anyone with half a brain could have predicted exactly the reaction that has occurred. It’s so spectacularly unhelpful that I even have people asking me if it could be a false-false-flag operations. (I personally doubt it.) I am grateful to the friends and many other people who know me better.
Councilor Malakie,
Thank you for this, regarding the email: “I know nothing about who created it, and absolutely reject it. I believe it’s an unwelcome distraction from local issues.” I think the second sentence undermines the power of the first and suggests that the main reason you reject it is that it raises national politic, not because it’s anonymous and misleading. But, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and take you at your “absolutely reject it” word.
The rest of the comment is disappointing. Before you even address the email, you insult the commenters on this thread and call V14 and its community of commenters “a viper’s nest.” Later, you quote your mailer characterizing VVN and Engine 6 in what can only be described as inflammatory. You undermine your claim to bemoan divisiveness.
You also equate the Ward3GOP email with a not anonymous comment on a thread that you didn’t like on a Google group. Let me distinguish the two for you. You know who said what on the Google group, because she signed her name to it. If you can disprove her statements, she will suffer the reputational consequence. We do not need more bothsiderism. (Maybe you really think the Ward3GOP email is okay. But, if that’s the case, say so.)
Your defense of the use of “Republican” in your mailer is unconvincing. We’re supposed to believe that your target audience for that word was really the handful of Republicans you hoped would be appalled by his association with people concerned about the environment and who believe that we have an affirmative obligation to further fair housing? And, not the more-than-a-handful of Democrats who might not want to vote for a Republican, even though his opponent is far less progressive on issues that come before the City Council. (For what it’s worth, I think pointing out that Jim is a Republican is absolutely fair game and cannot fathom why you would employ twisted logic to defend yourself or why your supporters felt it necessary to be anonymous to criticize him.)
But, what’s really notable (and I may be burying the lede) is that, in a very long thread you don’t address the issue we’ve been discussing on this post (outside some interesting tangents): the anonymous flyer and the person who was caught on video distributing it.
Since the flyer was created, printed, and distributed for the sole and specific purpose to help get you re-elected, it’s reasonable to ask you: are you okay with its content, the anonymity of its publication, and the (intended) anonymity of its distribution?
Nice Julia. Glad to hear a response. Emily’s silence is deafening.
I am sorry to disagree with you Jerry. Perhaps Emily meant the election cesspool of politics. It is a blood sport. You have used this thread to continue the notion that campaign elections are not for weak, non confrontational people.
Over the years there have been many attempts to abolish Ward councilors. Emily has been targeted for removal over and over.
Emily has had to raise much funding just to retain her seat. Again this cycle the south siders tried to sponsor a candidate to challenge Emily. I can understand her term of political cesspool. Jerry, you and your southside team might consider taking a short vacation from smearing northside candidates. I know many people are truly sick to death of your constant degradation of those of us who like our northside homes, villages and historical ambiance. Please stop this constant attack on our politicians and community.
Councilor Malakie’s statement is helpful, but it sounds like no successful attempt was made to broadly communicate disapproval of the flyer and email in a timely manner beyond an email to Greer. No social media post from her or a surrogate. No email to her campaign distribution list. No patch blog post. There are so many ways to reach out. Just one would have been sufficient. Not informing your constituents has the effect of letting things play out as they may, with constituents misled on their way to the voting booth.
Lisa Parlagreco, your legal advice is prudent for those who were involved, who might be involved, and those who know something about what happened that isn’t public. I don’t know, maybe City Councilors have in general been advised to be quiet.
So you are right, expecting comments from those people is probably not realistic.
That’s a pretty small group, though (I sure hope).
The community can and I believe needs to discuss the politics and ethics of this incident. Legal or not, I have no interest for elections of the future having moments like this. It’s chilling for participation and counter to effective governance and community building.
Memories of moments fade. Events like this are visceral and motivating. We need to continue a community discussion about what standards of discourse and public behavior we hold ourselves to. That conversation happens now because it’s too easy to avoid it later.
This is all part of a larger conversation. How did we get here? And what about all those whataboutisms? Is there a pattern of sliding standards, or of rationalization, or alienation? Whataboutisms don’t excuse bad behavior, but they might help some to explain it.
I’m not afraid to talk about it. But it is certainly easier to be a passive bystander. We need to resist that.
@Mike Halle – an even more than ‘How did we get here?’, what I want to know is ‘How do we get out of here?’
Is this a rock bottom moment that can spur a conversation and agreement to improve the dynamic in Newton politics?
I have to say Julia is correct. There is no evidence of anything here connecting her to what appear to be Emily’s actions. And she has responded. We don’t need any of this Q-Anon-level crap. We have video.
Again, if any member of the City Council participated in this in anyway they must resign for the good of the City or face expulsion. This was a horrendous, mean-spirited personal attack on a good and decent man and on our democratic process.
@Colleen Minaker, I was the only person who was on the ballot running against Emily in Ward 2 and I had to withdraw due to an ongoing family medical issue shortly after I got on the ballot. I got no formal support from Village 14. In fact, I didn’t get any formal support/endorsements because unfortunately, I didn’t make it that far. I had to make a really tough choice to put my family first. I would have loved to see this one through, but it wasn’t my time.
@Allison, the City Charter does not provide for a recall election for any elected official, and it is not clear to me whether a citizens petition could be used to recall a City Councilor. To my knowledge, it has never happened before (although I do remember people calling for a recall provision to be added to the Charter a few years back). At most, I believe that, assuming there is sufficient proof that an elected official has done something dishonest or illegal during a campaign, for their own benefit or for someone else’s, that the City Council could censure that Councilor. But that is not the same as a recall.
As someone who has lost count of the number of times I was told I had committed political suicide during my fourteen years of public service, yet lived to run another day (and win), I suppose it is possible to come back after something like this and get re-elected. But I also believe that, if true, the damage from all of this to the relationships between and among the members of the City Council and with the voters could be irreparable. Indeed, if I were still a Councilor, I would have a very hard time trusting any colleague who would do something like this ever again. So, even if it isn’t political suicide, one might well find themselves permanently exiled to the political wilderness.
The good folks who run Village 14 allowed hundreds of anonymous posts about candidates during this election cycle. Hundreds! Now they go ballistic over a fake anonymous email and flyer? A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!
Honestly, Susan Albright using the spam email as a guise to launch an 11th hour attack on Julia on the West Newton group left me wondering if she was involved it’s origin.
At the very least I want to know why she thought it was ok to do that. It was so awkward and out of place.
V14 also allows people to respond to anonymous posts. How could Jim Cote reply to the last-minute e-mail blast and flyers? He had no chance to clear his name.
It was dirty politics, akin to GW Bush’s campaign to spreading the rumor Senator McCain had a black child during the 2000 South Carolina Republican Primary. GW Bush won and we got more lies about yellow cake and 20 years of war.
I’d rather not vote for liars and would like to know who was behind this smear campaign.
Thank you, Julia, for your statement that you were in no way involved in this incident. In doing so, you end any speculation about your involvement. As is required by law, your mailer had accurate information as to who was funding it.
Much was said in the this campaign, but it was all in the public realm. What differentiates this incident is the fake pac, the delivery of the mailer in the dark of night, the refusal to disclose who was behind it, and the silence on Councilor Norton’s part.
I echo Allison Sharma’s question: how do we dig ourselves out of this rock bottom moment? Because if it’s not clearly established as rock bottom, we can expect several unintended consequences:
1. Who would ever run for elected position in this city and risk putting their families through this?
2. If we don’t clearly establish this as the bottom, then things will only get worse during the next election.
As Allison alluded to, I too hope that some mechanism to encourage constructive dialogue across political lines emerges from this incident.
I hope this opens. It’s the first time I’ve put an article from another media source on line, but I think this is timely and a bit ironic considering some of the twists and turns in this post.
Julia claimed she had a long and busy election day in Lowell photographing many aspects of the groundbreaking election which was the first following the landmark decision to abandon an all at large Council a district system of elected representatives. The main photo and a number of supplementary photos prove that Julia was where she said she was and not trying to avoid us or anyone else down here. She’s also the Lowell Sun’s only photographer so her job involves considerably more than just shooting a few pictures at random. And this was on top of all her other commitments in the few days between the appearance of the videos and flyers and election day activity.
The irony involves the election in Lowell itself that Julia’s photo so beautifully captured. . The proponents of an all at-large council argued that it would produce more fairness, competitiveness and diversity to the process. Those of us on the other side didn’t think so. The results of Lowell’s first election with district representation reinforces why so many other municipalities have moved to district elections in recent years.
https://www.lowellsun.com/2021/11/03/lowell-election-brings-more-diversity-promises-future-gains-in-participation/
Mike Ciolino:
Susan was pushing for Jim to win. You think her strategy was the send out a false flag email to embarrass Jim the eve before the election? That just makes zero sense and is unlike your typical common sense approach. Perhaps Susan sent the response because she was upset about how Jim was being treated?
Mike Striar: Village 14 has a ton of folks who post anonymously. It reaches a defined audience who largely know what it is. Folks on either side can respond to those attacks in real time. None of the B.S. attacks that occurred on Facebook found a place here. And the folks who post the threads somewhat monitor the conversations. Your comparison to our environment here with what occurred isn’t a fair comparison at all.
“Where do we go from here?” “Is this a rock bottom moment that can spur a conversation and agreement to improve the dynamic in Newton politics?” “I too hope that some mechanism to encourage constructive dialogue across political lines emerges from this incident”
Perhaps unmasking the anonymous posters on this site will lead to more productive, less destructive dialogue regardless of the topic under discussion.
Jerry….This morning you wrote that Emily called you and then several hours later you wrote that she sent you a one line email. It would be helpful to have the record set straight -thanks
Jackson Joe: Go back and read the comment. He contacted her via phone. She didn’t answer. Her only contact was the one line email. Jerry can confirm, but that’s how I read that.
@Fig, Does anything make sense here? I don’t always follow who is supporting who, and I’m 100% for anyone supporting Jim.
She sent the bogus spam email as a forwarded email with her own message supporting Jim. She then went on to brutally attack Julia in that same email which struck me as wildly off-topic.
Maybe I was being too sensitive in that moment, but I definitely and had a strong reaction to that email.
@julia’s comments: Of course I’m biased, but Julia’s aw shucks response was written to win over those that can’t believe she would be involved, and also doesn’t state anything that will be construed as misinformation later. My last comments and then I have to shut it down:
1. I notified Julia last week that her flyer crossed the line of our debate agreements. I also notified the debate hosts. Julia responds that this is legal iher world, but completely against what the candidates agreed to prior to debating. Hence stretching ethics. The funniest part of her answer: She added the Republican statement that was prominent and not a sidebar, to let Republicans know my position. Really, I have some extra Brooklyn Bridges to sell to those needing a bridge.
2. At least one City Councilor contacted Julia prior to the election and asked her to put out a statement against this illegal email flyer campaign. Today she denounced the emails, where was this statement on Sunday eve?
She may not read V14 (really?), but also received emails and facebook entries on her response.
3. I know from personal knowledge that Julia’s inner circle on her slate team would have her in the loop on any and all actions to benefit her campaign. 99% sure Emliy didn’t do this on her own w/o Julia’s knowledge. Only question is will Emily take the fall for all of those probably involved?
4. Interactions between Julia and the West Newton listserv are hard to believe given both moderators either donated, or worked on her campaign.
5. Like her surrogates on this forum, she tries to deflect the issue by directing the reader to a one line statement from another Councilor about Julia’s stance on another issue this past Monday. The statement was in response to some other Malakie campaign misinformation. NO comparison to the damage caused by the fake email/flyer campaign.
Depending on the resolution from the AG’s office, my campaign will review possible options.
Important to note that the City and West Newton are the victims here.
Transparency Julia, you ask it of others, let’s come clean on this!!
@fig….Jerry scrubbed the other posting
@Jackson Joe – My only contact with Councilor Norton in recent days was the one line email I received this morning.
You are correct, I did post a note about receiving the Councilor’s email message this morning. I immediately had second thoughts and took it down. Since this such a loaded topic, I checked with someone to make sure that it was OK to post that about a private email she sent to me and was assured that not only was it OK, but that I should post about it since yesterday I had said I had not yet heard back from her. Once assured, I re-posted the message.
To be clear there was no “scrubbing” of my message. I just went back and pulled the deleted message out of the trash Here’s the original from this morning
i.e. same message, different words, typo and all 😉
Somebody need’s to put that video on loop with Shaggy’s “It wasn’t Me.”
Jackson Joe:
My apologies, I didn’t know that. I think Jerry has now explained what happened. Thank you for not responding in a negative fashion to my post doubting you.
Mike Ciolino, I’ve been a supporter of Jim’s for quite a while, mostly because in my interactions with him he has always been honest, even when we disagree completely. I was upset when he lost the last election, and I think he was treated unfairly in this one.
With that said, I sincerely do not thing Susan Albright had anything to do with this, and that the idea of a false-false flag operation doesn’t meet the reality test. Or the smell test. Or any other test.
I think this election got very ugly towards the end. And I think some folks lost perspective and their sense of ethics. Sometimes wanting to win clouds your judgement.
I doubt anything comes of this legally. But I do hope the Globe runs a news article about what happened. The more sunlight, the better off we will be for the next election.
Thanks Jerry. I misunderstood when you said that you heard back , I thought that meant a phone message.
fig – I was pretty sure that you hadn’t seen the original posting. I’m trying not to pass judgement before all of the evidence has been processed but it seems like a prime example of bad behavior in our community and I hope that the perpetrators get exposed and punished (not necessarily criminally) for their actions if they are found. I tried to blow up the video and there seems to be a strong resemblance to Emily but I’ll leave it to the experts to decide that before I make any judgements.
I don’t expect our city officials to be angels and I have witnessed other questionable behavior by other councilors and their backers but this seems to be on a whole different level.
@all I didn’t expect to be brought into this discussion. I did post on the West newton listserve on Monday after i saw that egregious fake email about Jim. I’ve been in meetings all afternoon and I’ve just now had a moment to search for the appropriate meeting where her question was recorded. I knew we needed the docket tracking database I’m developing with the IT department – but never did i know I’d need it as much as i need it right now. For the last hour I’ve been reviewing agendas and docket reports to find the date where Julia via Pam made the comments about LGBTQ focus groups. ARGH – you can’t search for anything on our website and find the results. I will be back with the NewTV recording link of Julia’s question and her votes against cpc funds for rental assistance after i finish my meetings tonight. What i posted on Monday was nothing but an accurate representation of council activities.
@Susan – there was actually a whole Village 14 post about those remarks:
https://village14.com/2021/06/10/councilor-malakie-questions-seeking-lgbtq-opinions-on-zoning/
And in the comments on that post, Greg R posted this link to the video of the meeting.
Hi Susan,
I think I brought you into this conversation. I saw your listserve email Monday night in real-time.
It was great you came to Jim’s defense. Loved that.
But then your reason for supporting Jim was to attack Julia on election eve when there was no opportunity for anyone to get to the facts. Did you assume she was behind the attack?
What makes matters worse is you misquoted her question to make her sound like a monster.
What Julia actually asked was, “What makes you think GLB people want something different from zoning than straight people.”
It’s a damn good honest question. I’ve been LGBTQ since back when it was just G and L (or worse), and even I had to think about it.
I know you do a lot of good for our community, but your email on Monday made me angry.
Julia’s question was not disgusting. The spam email and pamphlet campaign is what was truly disgusting.
We just deserve better all around.
Ted’s comment has been removed. It is not acceptable to identify someone’s employer and recommend attacking them through that, no matter how much you may disagree with them.
And, following up on Meredith’s explanation, several commenters and V14 moderators immediately criticized the post and acted to remove it.
Adam B., what are you talking about? We agree ALL the time. I thought we just had a pact to never do it publicly.
Arthur Jackson: If I was in your shoes, I would defend my friend as well. And I want to give Councilor Norton the benefit of the doubt. But at a minimum, the difference in your example is that Councilor Albright put her name on her email, and Councilor Norton (assuming that was her) was only found out because Jim Cote asked for help, and someone shared a nest cam video.
Sometimes our friends do things out of character, or let things spiral out of control. Sometimes folks we admire go too far.
I realize you will never trust the messenger, but maybe examine the behavior of your friend as well.
Arthur Jackson – Feel free to criticize or take issue with this post or anything else I write or do but I can’t/wont be held responsible for what other people do just because I know them. Likewise I’m absolutely certain that neither Sean or Greg would want to be held accountable for any of my more misguided undertakings.
I’ll say it again. I’ve never had any issue with Emily Norton. Never had any animus, and have never attacked her on Village14 or any other public forum. If you think that’s not true, point me to the post.
In this post I am indeed very critical of Emily Norton and I am publicly calling her out on it, not because I disagree with her on any any political matter but because I believe she’s been engaged in very underhanded political activities, that purposefully, and secretly, and unfairly tried to tarnish the good name of Jim Cote. In so doing she’s helping fan the flames of the worse kind of behaviors in politics in our city.
More information. NBC-10 on tonight’s 6 o’clock ran a story about this. They tried to contact Jim Cote, Julia Malakie, and Emily Norton. Cote responded and they interviewed him. They went to Julia Malakie’s house, she met them at the door and she referred them to the statement she posted on Village14 above.
Norton didn’t respond to calls, texts, and emails and the reporter went to her house to see if they could reach her. The reporter said the man who came to the door said “He does not deny it is her and he said he too was handing out those flyers.”
And Newton made the 6pm news.
https://www.nbcboston.com/on-air/as-seen-on/political-campain-flyer-sparks-controversy-in-newton/2553639/
@Merewith Warshaw, you may not be aware that the Massachusetts Attorney General has jurisdiction over all nonprofits in the Commonwealth. Officers and directors of nonprofits have fiduciary duties to the public as well as to their organizations, since nonprofits are tax exempt. It may not be acceptable to you or Village 14, but there it is.
So the video does, in fact, 100% show Emily Norton. It’s not a huge leap to assume that she was tied to the email too, then.
Well, I’m glad it got some press. Bad actions deserve to be covered. Maybe next election folks will be less likely to do this type of campaigning.
I hope the Globe covers it as well.
The best way to improve our politics in this city is to call out bad behavior when we see it.
@Ted Hess-Mahn – That has nothing to do with Village 14 rules. If you want to contact those people, that’s fine. We do not allow personal attacks or doxxing, including telling people to contact someone’s employer. This was a joint decision by the V14 bloggers, not my unilateral action.
Also, my name is Meredith, not Merewith.
This will be on Fox News in no time. A smear campaign against a Republican candidate in a deep blue town in MA – just imagine.
@Ted – I copy-pasted your name from your post. You must have made a typo.
@muffin meal, it may not be a big leap, but that doesn’t make it the right leap.
I’m not saying it’s not the case necessarily, but where there seems to be clear evidence that Norton passed out some of those flyers, there’s none yet that she was involved in the email.
Just because something feels too convenient not to be true, doesn’t mean it is. Perhaps we wait on facts before we assume that. I know others may not agree, but to me there is a big difference between a bad choice re: flyers and the case of the email.
We can be upset about the actions that she now has not denied, but that doesn’t mean we should leap, however logical/obvious the leap may seem to many.
@Anathema Device- pure logic. Obviously if Emily had wanted to remain obscured she would have disguised herself. She certainly must know that people have cameras and she also knows that each and every quote on that flyer was from Jim Cote’s very own Twitter feed which I reviewed myself. These are his messages, not hers. His words not hers. After the January 6th insurrection do I care? You’re god damned right I do.
Lisa Parlagreco, Jim Cote is not an insurrectionist. A Fox News watcher maybe.
Lisa has a good point. There’s a huge difference between the flyers and the emails. The way that Jerry connected them was kind of risky
I was late to the V14 tribunal on Ted’s comment, and I have no special veto powers (aside: why the hell not?) so would not have been able to change the decision, anyway, but I don’t think it’s doxxing to write publicly about someone’s job, when the same person publicly lists their job on campaign material, in her Twitter bio, &c.
It’s like outing Jim Koch as the owner of Boston Beer Co.
And, I second Ted’s legal analysis. But, more importantly, certain jobs just involve public trust. You can’t go on the television and represent an organization and then be surprised if your public actions are an issue with your job. If you act in a way that betrays that public trust, you should expect to be held accountable. If you are uncomfortable with that dynamic, don’t take that kind of job. Or, don’t do anything on other people’s property that you wouldn’t be proud to say, “Yup, that’s me.”
Deja vu. Nineteen years ago, just before the vote on the 2002 override, the Newton Taxpayers organization had the exact same thing pulled on them. In fact, it was worse: The flier claimed to be purportedly from the NTA and had racist overtones. Despite protests from the real NTA over this last-minute dirty trick, it was ignored by the powers-that-be of the time. Which didn’t surprise me. In that case, a lot of money was to be gained. Money that the city government desperately wanted. I wish Village 14 existed then. Any outrage may not have changed the outcome but at least some folks may have paid a price instead of being reelected.
Emily’s husband did not deny that she was in the video; he admits that he helped deliver the leaflets.
This was not an ordinary citizen doing this completely unacceptable act. It was a sitting City Councilor! How is this acceptable to anyone? We’ve all had public figures do egregious things, and at a certain point, when an incident crosses all lines of decency, you have to stand up and say “enough”.
Speaking out publicly in opposition to a candidate’s position, despite your opposition to the statement, is in a completely different category than organizing a secret leaflet drop – after dark – the night before the election. Whatever happened to the demand for transparency from our elected officials? That concern seems to have gone straight down the tubes pretty quickly.
This is a new level of awful for Newton. It must be condemned in order for the city council in particular, but the entire city government, to maintain its credibility.
Mike,
I think that you are factually correct: Jim did not participate in the January 6 insurrection. But, he continues to be associated — by choice — with an organization that is actively working to block a full investigation into the insurrection. Additionally, the same organization supports voter suppression, supports denying women reproductive freedom, fights climate change action, redistributes wealth upwards, &c. Jim may be a nice guy, and I genuinely think he is, but he has a lot of questionable friends*.
I think that claim that Jim is being smeared by his association with the man who has shaped and continues to shape the Republican party is a lot of pearl clutching. How dare you link me to the people I have linked myself to.
That said, I do think the email is slimy, not necessarily because of the content, but because nobody had the courage to claim responsibility. I do think the flyer is slimy, not necessarily because of the comment, but because nobody had the courage to claim responsibility. I do think the lit drop is slimy, because, except for one guy on television, nobody is saying, “Yup, that’s me. I did it and I’m proud of it.”
Lisa P.
C’mon. Seriously? If she didn’t mind people knowing it was her, why didn’t she sign onto the mailer? Why haven’t we heard boo from her? There’s a lot of ground between, I’m going to go full Mission Impossible and I’m going to put myself on Tik Tok. She clearly didn’t think she was going to be identified or identified in a way that would be widely distributed. I’ve done a lot of lit dropping in full daylight. Nobody pays attention.
I’m also with anathema device, the target is so obvious, similar content does not, without more, support connecting the flyer to the email.
* By friends, I don’t mean actual social buddies, but the people who, like him, are members of the Republican party.
@Jane
“Emily’s husband did not deny that she was in the video; he admits that he helped deliver the leaflets.”
Which leaflets one has to wonder?
@Sean-
As a self described former lawyer, I would really think you’d hesitate to encourage others to contact someone’s employer with half baked innuendo and suppositions. Until you have something to establish the source of the email – all you have is suspicion. Not enough to try to interfere with an advantageous or contractual relationship (employment). As far as the flyer goes, those were entirely Mr. Cote’s words he sent into the Twitterverse. Personally I draw the line at leaders – whether local, regional or national – who endorse snd support insurrection and treason. Trump supported both and after the January 6th attempted insurrection, I personally have NO tolerance for anyone who fails to acknowledge the menace that occupied the head of the executive branch. We are not yet in the clear from this evil to the Republic known as Trump.
Lisa P.,
I think you meant to criticize me, but we agree on everything, except your mischaracterization of me as “encouraging.” I defended Ted, at least to the extent that he’s talking about the flyer.
As @sean notes, we really need to separate the method from the message. I had this same discussion with the moderators of the various Newton Facebook groups in the days before the election. Social media ads started to appear, some boosted by people in Facebook groups, that were designed to inflame rather than to inform. These were paid for my PACs with hidden money, hidden agendas and for unknown reasons. This is very different from the PACs and public fundraising that happens in this city, which I know many on this blog have decried. You may hate that candidates need money to run, but what happens when the money flows from unknown and unseen people?
The moderators let it happen because they felt that if they took down a post about one candidate, they would need to take down another to be fair. But it’s not about the content… it’s about knowing the origin and who is paying for it. That’s why campaign finance laws exist. That’s why we have things like Open Meeting Laws and other safeguards. We are supposed to do this in the open, not in darkness.
The one the reporter asked about – the one delivered in the dark of night before Election Day, funded by a fake pac, by a sitting City Councilor.
@Jane, I think it’s really important to note that the flyer had no information about/from the fake PAC on it. None.
Again, this is not me defending anything, but let’s keep our facts straight. Only the email was from a fake PAC. The flyer was just a flyer. Criticize its content, its methods, its delivery system as you like, but nothing about a PAC was on it. That’s why I’ve been so insistent that we not jump to conclusions about connecting the two things, however convenient it may be.
@Ted Hess-Mahan: I fear you are right. In 1980, my 80+ year-old neighbor complained bitterly about grievances she had with “dirty” Newton politics during the 1950s. sigh.
@Mark, lol.
As I always say, Newton is like every other city, except more so.
To clarify for all: the “GOP Ward 3” email was, as far as we can determine, completely bogus and had nothing to do with the actual Republican City Committee. I think freaking out about it as a “death threat” because it was addressed from the Newton Cemetery is a little silly. I don’t know anything about it past that, however.
As far as the flyer that was being put out at the last minute–what on earth is the problem? Using facts and actual quotes from a candidate that were taken from public sources, putting them into a flyer, and handing them out seems pretty darn normal to me. And since I’m the person who handles membership in the Republican City Committee, I can assure you that Jim is, in fact, a Republican. Everything said in the flyer are common Republican positions, and I’ve heard them repeated many times in our meetings. Can’t say I specifically remember Jim saying them, but he tweeted them, so…were we the only ones who were supposed to read them?
The flyer has repeatedly been referred to as “sleezy” and “despicable” and that Jim had “no chance to clear his name”! Of what, being a Republican?? I was pretty appalled that Jim threw himself in with the progressives. But, hey, if you want to win in Newton–and I guess he did…. If Republican positions embarrass him, he can always become an independent. Otherwise, suck it up and stand by what you say–no matter who your audience is–and accept any consequences.
Agree with what you said above, Anathema Device. I posed this question as well and I have noticed the many attempts to blur the lines between the flyer and email, and thus make it seem like Norton is involved in both. They may well be connected but until the connection is proven, it feels like it’s being fit into a convenient narrative..
@Ted-Hess Mahan – Ted do you know if a sitting City Councilor can be impeached or if the City Council has the power to deny a Councilor from taking office? These election tactics mirror those used by the late Lee Atwater and have no place in Newton.
You guys have been busy today. Doesn’t anyone work? 🙂
Since Emily’s husband claimed participation in leafleting, I guess my prior comment about a grainy Zapruter like Nest video is debunked. Fair enough. But consider this….
All these cries of foul play about emails and flyers linking Jim to Trump and Republicans… yet when Valerie Pontiffs campaign donations (as a private citizen) were called into question, did you guys come out to condemn that? Nope.
When Shawn’s supporters tried to paint Paul as someone being against women because of claims filed by former employees, did you guys condemn that? Nope.
When Allison inappropriately had her husband notarize her signatures or when Vicki accepted donations from developers with active projects in Newton, did anyone call for them to be censured? Nope. “Pot calling the kettle back” was commented by a couple folks above, and boy does that hit the nail on the head!!
Social media beings out the worst in all of us…like empowering bullies with microphone. But here’s the thing…we act like all the “negativity” in this “cesspool” matters…but it really doesn’t. Despite all the noise and emotions online – here, on Facebook or in listserves – less than 1/3rd of register voters showed up. Neither social media or the 4 pounds of fliers sent to each home helped raised voting participation.
Through all the BS, 2/3rds of registered voters cared enough to maintain their voting status as active, but not enough to drag their butts into a booth (or city hall) to fill out a ballot.
Neither Jim nor Amy, Rena, Barry, Shawn et al lost exclusively due to “smearing”. More likely, they lost due apathetic non-voters. All those who worked so hard to ensure we have right to vote are probably rolling in their graves in disapproval.
@Matt the issue I see here, and I will repeat the comments made by many before, is that the content isn’t the issue. It’s that this was done in the dark by a sitting City Councilor. The other issues were already very much in the light and litigated by the public on forums, and rightfully so.
Emily has every right to comment all this information on Facebook, V14, and the like. Many have. Yet, there was money spent on this in the name of attacking Jim’s candidacy and promoting Julia. Will this expenditure be registered with OCPF? No, I doubt it will be. I guess we will have to see if it amounts to a campaign finance violation.
Bringing Emily’s employer into this conversation is not “doxing.” She is the public face of a regional nonprofit that has a huge role in protecting a natural resource that is vital to the interests of the city and everyone in it. (I happen to live 300 feet from that resource.) In that context she is a public figure and as such her employment is relevant.
@ Jane …..Does anyone know for sure that the man who answered the door for the reporter and said that he had distributed leaflets was indeed Emily’s husband?
@Matt in every other situation you name, you know who was on one side and who was on the other. It’s clear. That means you, as a voter, can listen or discount based on the source or based on the argument.
If this video hadn’t come to light, then the source of this campaign would have remained hidden. And THAT is the fundamental difference. Had Emily come out and posted the images or a link there would have been a debate. Sure, some of us would have felt it was a nasty thing to do, but at least her name would have been on it and out front. Emily has never been shy about speaking her opinions, why wouldn’t she do it this time? In the days leading up to the election this was happening with no face and with no source.
It may seem like a subtle difference to you, but it’s not subtle. It’s really big.
I don’t think either Julia or Jim are coming out looking great here. Jim is being harshly accusatory toward Julia when we have no evidence that she was a participant. Yet Julia’s statement was a day late and a dollar short – even if she wasn’t a participant she knows she could have benefitted from them.
Also this was not a close race. 500 votes in a Ward Councilor race is not close.
Neither candidate was my cup of tea to begin with, but I think this is depressing all around. (Especially given that Emily has gone incommunicado)
@Matt – Not to hijack this thread by going off-topic, but your concluding statement that “Neither Jim nor Amy, Rena, Barry, Shawn et al lost exclusively due to “smearing”. More likely, they lost due apathetic non-voters. All those who worked so hard to ensure we have right to vote are probably rolling in their graves in disapproval.” is so baseless I felt the need to point it out to you.
It is quite presumptuous to conclude that if only voters were more engaged, or understood the issues more, they would support your candidates. Perhaps a majority of voters simply have a different vision for the future of Newton than you have?
While voter participation could always be better, it looks like 20,431 ballots were cast this year. Compare this to 2013, a previous non-presidential election year in which there was a mayor’s race, when only 13,366 votes were cast. It seems to me that voter engagement is heading in the right direction.
I wanted to address Chuck’s point about social media posts and what should / should not have been taken down. The post that Chuck specifically asked us to take down was actually not the one about Julia/Jim’s race, but the one about Bill Humphrey’s tweets. I am not sure how you, Chuck, are defining “shady PACs”. We think it should be left to the voters of Newton to decide if “Friends of Fallen Police PAC” is shady or not. For us, as moderators, what is important is whether the statements being made by the PACs are true or not – and there was no argument that the tweets are in fact, true. Ultimately, anyone, PAC or individual, can put out info or ask a question on FB, NextDoor, or in other public forums. When someone makes a public statement about a candidate, we want to ascertain that the statement is factual. If it is – we feel that it’s a relevant point of discussion. We don’t think it matters that the tweets are old (I don’t think 3 year old tweets are that old, btw). Candidates are surely aware that these tweets may come up during their campaigns, and they need to address them. I will also agree with Matt that I don’t think that any of the late social media campaigns decided the outcome in either race. The results were not close.
@MMQC – Mr. Cote’s argument that these events cost him the election seems wrong to me as well. He lost 2-to-1. We may have reached a point in which no registered Republican is electable here.
OTOH, Councilor Malakie seems unwilling to accept the fact that she benefited from last-moment dirty tricks. She contradicts herself, noting that the email was obviously fake, but claiming that she doubts it to be a false-flag operation. What else would a fake email of this kind, sent from a cemetary to a largely Democratic set of voters, be? She avoids discussing the Norton flyer altogether. Like others who have posted, I find it hard to believe that she would have been ignorant of such an effort in her ward by her close ally on the Council. Her claim that she identified Mr. Cote as a Republican in order to guide GOP voters is comical. Ms. Malakie’s flyer was meant to appeal to Democratic housing skeptics. That’s perfectly fine. She should own it.
My take is– I expect that Councilor Norton would have felt too uncomfortable to distribute her anti-republican flyer by day, though she felt that her actions were just and fair game. Of course most of us find it appalling and beyond the dignity of an elected official to do so. As a democrat I voted for Jim, because I feel he is a trustworthy, well meaning and capable person, albeit misguided in ways that are very important to me. We view our local elections as non-partisan, though, as previously said, can we expect it to remain so in such an extremely polarized world. I too, do not believe that ENs last days flyers could have possibly made the difference in Jim winning or losing, and I am sorry he got hurt by these tactics. Of course, we need to learn who was responsible for #fakepac emails. At this time I give EN the benefit of the doubt of involvement in them.
@John White This is a minor quibble about your post, but the election results were Malakie over Cote 1523-1045. This is not a 2-1 margin, it’s a 3-2 margin, raw vote margin about 500. I would tend to agree that 500 votes is probably more than this episode would have swayed, but no way to know for sure.
Would have only needed to sway 250 votes, not 500. The episode also distracted many volunteers and I would imagine Mr. Cote… during a time that is heavily focused on positive, voter outreach.
I’m not even sure the result of this episode is a net gain for Julia and not for Jim. Campaigns like this tend to backfire.
NewtonNewbie – I’d have thought that after a once in a lifetime pandemic in which Newton’s response (particularly NPS) was sorely lacking, we’d have a more robust turnout. I would also have hoped that more voters would weigh in on the density debate. Personal bias – I’m amazed that any NPS parent who watched Fuller sleepwalk through multiple school committee meetings could have voted for voted for incumbency/ status quo.
For me, the content is less shocking than the lack of ownership — as in, folks not putting their name on it. Attack pieces come in many races unfortunately. In the special election this year, I saw a lot of insanely negative candidate newsletters, but at least voters knew who it was coming from.
The NBC 10 news reporter stated that “Emily’s husband” answered the door and said he helped deliver the flyer. Your question is best directed to the reporter.
Matt – When you run for public office, a candidate should assume that his/her background will be thoroughly vetted. In 2021, it’s much easier to vet a candidate’s history, but I’m old enough to remember Gary Hart, John Edwards, Tom Eagleton, and a host of others who didn’t disclose their background only to have their ambitions to higher office derailed when accurate information was discovered.
It’s no different at the state or local level. If the information is accurate, then it will and should be debated in the public square. Accurate information was shared about the past of several candidates and they had to know it was going to happen. At least one did and stated as such. The debate typically is around how egregious the behavior/incident is and voters make their decisions – but it’s based on information.
The central issue here is that a sitting City Councilor was involved in a political dirty trick the likes of which we haven’t seen in this city. If this had been an ordinary citizen, that individual would have been vilified for a day or two and we’d all move on. Why it’s okay for a City Councilor to be involved with this kind of incident is beyond me. I would never support a candidate or a sitting elected official who behaved in a secretive dirty trick. Have I ever changed my position on councilors, school committee members, and mayors when I learned new information about them? Absolutely. A number of times. No problem for me.
There’s a bottom line, and I’m hearing on this thread that for many people, we’ve reached that point, yet from others, they have not. That’s worrisome for Newton’s future.
Hey V14 Moderators, is this post breaking records for all time high engagement? It certainly seems to have legs (cheesy pun intended …)
Emily Norton was caught red handed distributing flyers, attempting (but failing) to do so anonymously. The flyers painted an unflattering of a candidate for CC on the eve of an election. As far as I’m concerned, this is a new low in local politics. I don’t like it. Emily has lost my support, and I don’t anticipate that she will be able to gain it back.
That said, I am also disappointed with the way some people here are handling the situation, in particular those who are advocating going after Emily’s job at the CWRA, and mounting what looks like a cyberbuyllying campaign against her. The CWRA is a tremendous organization dedicated to protecting one of our most prized natural resources. By all accounts, Emily has been an effective advocate and leader. You can’t go after her job without damaging the CWRA. Think about it. Please.
Yes, we need to draw lines about what is and what is appropriate in a campaign for public office. But we also have to resist the pull of the angry mob and evaluate the evidence fairly. Emily seems to admit that she distributed the flyers, but not the emails. I would like to know if she knew about the emails when she distributed the flyers in a coordinated attack. The adjacent dots are easy enough to connect, but I will evaluate the evidence as it comes in before rendering a verdict of guilty on *all* counts.
While I condemn the flyers and acknowledge the possibility, even the strong possibility that Emily at least knew about the emails, I’m just as concerned about the bloodthirsty chants of the angry mob gathering here. Our reactions to this incident should be measured and prudent. We’re all adults here. They should reflect our best values, not Emily’s lowest. Most importantly let’s take steps to ensure that we are not ratcheting the drama up to a new, new low.
The high road is always there. May it rise to meet you.
With a Jim Cote sign facing Chestnut Street in front of my house and as a registered Republican (and chair of Ward 3 Republicans) I did not get either e-mail or flyer. So I suspect this was done by a bunch of Democrats who wanted to hurt Jim, since only Democrats would find his tweets offensive.
4WDrive-” I would also have hoped that more voters would weigh in on the density debate.” Density is a dominating topic on V14 and perhaps other blogs. For the majority of the Newton electorate, it is not an issue, or I should say, a primary issue. It becomes an issue for better or worse, depending upon your perspective, when it has a direct effect on you.
I think the lack of contested SC races dampened voter turnout. With only two contested races, I’m not sure that motivated people sufficiently. I was one of those parents who thought the SC and the Mayor did not do a very good job at both communicating a coherent plan and getting back in person soon enough. That being said, we don’t have actual data about the Newton electorate as a whole and what their views were of how the Mayor and the SC handled things.
Once again-this gets back to not having robust local news coverage. I can go through the Tab in five minutes or less to read anything pertinent about Newton, and that includes looking at the public notices and recent home sales. I venture that most Newton residents are getting their information from the Mayor’s newsletter, city council updates, reading blogs, just listening to what family and friends say, or just living their lives and not paying attention to local issues.
This is not a recipe for a healthy democracy. If we had robust local news coverage, this email and flyer would be a great piece for an investigative journalist to ascertain the facts and report it.
LDS
May it rise. Rather than an angry mob, I hear a call for a return to decency from an indecent place in our recent political history. We can do it, but we can’t do it if this behavior is acceptable or justified in any way. And we can’t do it if it’s just brushed under the rug.
We need crossover dialogue between/among groups whose life experiences differ. I’ve been a teacher on the northside of the city, full-time for 22 years, and part-time for 12. I know that what the Italian community says about bias and neglect of their neighborhood is accurate because I’ve seen it. At the same time, I decry the tactics of Save Nonantum that have harmed the community, including their own neighborhood.
Rather than criticizing those who find what Emily did in this election unacceptable, perhaps you can suggest some solutions for promoting a robust discussion. IMO, at least a portion of city residents is ready to try to develop a path forward.
I do wonder what mailing list was used to distribute this email. It doesn’t sound like everyone in Ward 3 received the email. That would shed some light on who sent it.
Thank you Jane Frantz for promoting the vision of healthy dialogue amongst our differences. How do you suggest we develop this path?
@Jane, to be fair, I do see the cries for decency of which you speak. Most have been fair and measured in their responses. V14 is not a cesspool. Many of its participants are wiser and more articulate than I am. That’s why I visit this blog. But there is a vocal minority of people who mistreat people whose views on a given topic don’t align with their own. I guess that’s to be expected in a vibrant public forum, but that doesn’t make it good or right.
As a general matter, the solutions lie within us as interlocutors to treat one another with respect and at least try to understand how others may have ended up on the other side of an issue. As to the topic at hand, I suggest that people refrain from attempting to right wrongs with wrongs. Going after someone’s livelihood is simply not unacceptable. I understand that it *looks like* the emails and the flyers are connected perniciously, and that if true it’s a whole new level. But I’m not ready to jump out on that limb, at least not yet. Most importantly, I suggest that we keep in mind that we put our own dignity when we react to the real or perceived misdeeds of others.
After hundreds of comments in this forum and others, Deb Shapiro, an authoritative voice for Newton Republicans, has now confirmed the unsurprising fact that no official known Republican source was responsible for the Republican-labeled viral email targeting Jim Cote.
First off, if someone used the name of my umbrella organization (i.e., a fake official Republican group) to spread an unauthorized message, I personally wouldn’t like that. But it’s not my group.
The dynamic going on here is really quite interesting. If I read it correctly, Deb Shapiro confirms that Jim Cote is a member of the Republican City Committee. And to “support” him, it seems that Ms. Shapiro has gifted Jim with a nice big lovely boat anchor in thanks for his years serving the city as one of the only Republican officials elected to our non-partisan elected offices.
Her comment says, “Everything said in the flyer are common Republican positions, and I’ve heard them repeated many times in our meetings.” But what I see a small handful of personal Fox News inspired twitter musings. Not my cup of tea, but hardly policy level stuff, let alone “party positions”. Nothing enough to throw Jim under the bus, let alone drive the bus at him. What unsaid “threw himself in with the progressives” did Jim do to merit the bus-throwing? Is his opponent progressive?
So, to recap. An unattributed flyer titled “NO TRUMP Republicans on Newton City Council” (and a crossed out Angry Trump picture too!) targets the only Republican candidate for Newton’s City Council in favor of her opponent. Rather than supporting the Republican candidate or lamenting the inflammatory nature of liberal Newton politics, a member of the city’s Republic Committee leadership tells the candidate to suck it up and berates him for not being pure enough? And regarding the separate viral and inflammatory email, in which an unauthorized caricature of a faux extreme Republican group supposedly gives said candidate a big old bear hug, elicits “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” ?
What’s the electioneering or policy tactic going here? Or personalities and alliances? To an uninitiated person like me, it’s all quite puzzling.
And then there’s Jim Cote, the helpful guy in the neighborhood that happened to serve successfully and uneventfully for six years as City Councilor. Now painted as both too extreme and not extreme enough.
I guess I don’t understand the hand wringing and the outrage. I’ve read every comment in this thread and here’s what I think we know: (1) Emily Norton was seen on a Ring camera distributing a flyer to Ward 3 residents; (2) The flyer called Jim Cote a “Trump Republican” and republished several of his tweets; (3) The flyer does not state who prepared it and, in fact, is silent as to the publisher; (4) the flyer was distributed on the eve of the election giving Jim little if any time to respond; (5) Emily and her husband distributed the flyers. And that’s it. I see nothing connecting Emily to the e-mail or the fake PAC. Perhaps if there was some evidence connecting her to the PAC or e-mail I might feel differently, but politics ain’t beanbag, as was said over 100 years ago.
Perhaps we want Newton politics to be non-partisan and genteel. That is no longer a reality, particularly as local politics becomes more nationalized (see the January 6 Capitol attendee was was elected school board member in Braintree). There’s nothing wrong, in my mind, with alerting Ward 3 voters that Jim Cote is a Republican. To be a Republican in 2021 means something different than it did in the 1980s. Look at the outrage on this site and Facebook regarding the revelation that Valerie Pontiff made donations to Trump and WinRed. If Emily wants to support Jim’s non-Republican opponent and draw a distinction between the two candidates, that’s called free speech and she is entitled to do it. Perhaps someone like Ted will say that the flyer somehow violated campaign finance laws. The flyer is silent as to its maker, so if Emily created it and distributed it with her own funds (not campaign funds), I’m not aware that such an action is illegal or inappropriate. I guess if campaign funds were used that’s a different story.
I find that I’m not at all worked up about this. However, I recognize that others may be. If so, find a candidate in Ward 2 to run against Emily. Though perhaps speak to Bryan Barash first, who will tell us (if he’s being honest) that Emily is a formidable opponent who will be tough to beat. Even after this nonsense fades into the background.
Mr. Lai,
Please, no more whataboutism. All of your examples are easily distinguished from the issue at hand.
If you’re going to defend Councilor Norton, defend her.
Is it okay by you to have a sitting elected official anonymously distribute anonymous, negative, inflammatory material on election eve?
I will stipulate that most of the content on the flyer is fact or based in fact, though I think one ought to have a little more than what’s on the page to jump to the conclusion that Jim is a Trump Republican. The content can be based in fact and negative and inflammatory.
Which raises another question for Councilor Norton and her apologists, such as yourself: if the content wasn’t out-of-bounds in an election, why didn’t she put her name on the flyer or acknowledge that it was her on the door video?
George,
Excellent synopsis of the issues. And, with that, I’m going to close the thread. I promise we’ll have more posts on the events and related events, so plenty of opportunity to weigh in.