It is difficult to overstate the venality of the anti-liberal situation in the government of the City of Cambridge, MA.
The reality is that public opinion in the city is forged by a massive combination of organizations which commonly spouts “facts” which are strikingly different from reality, and a city council whose real record is strikingly at odds with its own and its organizations’ self praise.
Cambridge has a very concerned electorate.
Cambridge has a city government whose real policies are strikingly in conflict with the wishes of the electorate. The council stays in office by lying.
The council brags about saving the world in matters which have next to nothing to do with their responsibilities as a city government. They heavily publicize these next to meaningless actions.
The council’s real policies, those meaningfully concerned with the government of the city, are commonly rammed through as secretly as possible and kept as secret as the massive organizations can achieve.
The situation in the civil rights action entitled Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge is a breath of fresh air.
A judge and jury looked at the City of Cambridge from outside and called it “reprehensible.”
The city council is spending millions of dollars appealing that decision but has chosen not to get an independent and knowledgeable attorney to tell them whether judge and jury are right. As usual, the city council does not want to know what it is doing, or, more importantly, does not want the electorate to know what it is doing.
I have briefly summarized Monteiro at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/should-cambridge-city-manager-be.html. This letter to the editor was published in the March 10, 2011 Cambridge Chronicle.
The pattern of lies is not dissimilar in the environmental sphere. This is why this very bad city council is doing the terrible things it is doing on the Charles River, at Fresh Pond, at Alewife, and in so many other projects in the City of Cambridge.
But a house of lies is a house of cards.
One judge, one jury can knock it all down.
For the judge’s key opinion, in detail, please see http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html.
And a city council which calls itself pro-environment and pro civil rights might possibly be replaced with a city council that is pro environment and pro civil rights, but there is a very massive machine which must be kept out of any new government.
