Bob La Trémouille reports:
Two weeks ago, I published an oped I submitted to the Cambridge Chronicle on the death of former Cambridge City Councilor William Walsh. Walsh was an attorney and member of the Cambridge City Council. He went to jail for mortgage manipulations in his practice of law. His ethics in public office were unblemished.
He very clearly led two lives. The matters which put him in jail were part of a wink and a nod, “getting things done” mentality in the financial sector, a mentality which probably was responsible for the Great Recession.
My oped was printed last week on line. I reported on it in an update. The full report is at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/op-ed-proposal-william-walsh-compared.html.
The oped was printed in today’s November 4, 2010 Cambridge Chronicle. It was printed on page 12, the last page of the first section. This page is frequently used as the third page of the op ed section, overflow from the main two pages of the oped section. The end was omitted, perhaps for space. The portion omitted read as follows:
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Walsh had his right to take his full appeals on matters which had nothing to do with Cambridge city government.
In the Monteiro case, the City Council is implementing Walsh’s private mentality in the public sphere. Walsh played games with mortgages in a corrupt system in which a wink and a nod were part of the culture. Walsh was never as venal as the finding of the Monteiro judge against the Cambridge City Manager.
The Malvina Monteiro matter shows the reason why state ethics laws which require the expulsion from office without pension for criminal venality in office should be expanded by the judge with city council initiative to the situation where the Cambridge City Manager has been found, in office, to have destroyed the life of a black, Cape Verdian city employee because she exercised her rights under civil rights law.
The Monteiro case is not a matter when the Cambridge City Council is sitting back and watching while a miscreant defends himself for outside behavior. The Monteiro case is a matter in which the Cambridge City Council is spending millions defending the miscreant in spite of a brilliant and persuasive opinion by the judge in the case. The Monteiro case is a matter in which the Cambridge City Council is failing to exercise its duty to protect our employees and our government from behavior which a persuasive judicial opinion has called “reprehensible.”
So I praise Bill Walsh for his commendable public service to the City of Cambridge.
I condemn the current Cambridge City Council which continues in office a city manager persuasively demonstrated as “reprehensible” by judge and jury for destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro.
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I regret that my public praise for Bill Walsh’s public service did not make the newspaper.
