Thursday, June 21, 2012

Cambridge, MA, USA City Councilors position themselves on Monteiro Civil Rights Decision

1. Analysis.
2. Current Maneuvers.

1. Analysis.

We have previously reported on necessary maneuvers by the Cambridge City Council to get the payments in the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge into the appropriate budget categories.

This arrangement of moneys has resulted in maneuvers by the Cambridge City Council.

The only important issue is their position on the real Court decisions.

The Cambridge City Manager has been determined guilty to the Appeals Court level of destroying the life of former Department Head Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.

The Appeals Court refused to dignify with a formal opinion Cambridge’s appeal from the Superior Court decision.

They commented: “ample evidence [of] outrageous misbehavior.”

The Superior Court trial judge wrote an excellent, long opinion which can be summed up in one word: “reprehensible.” And she proved her use of that word in great detail.

The Trial Jury awarded $1.1 million real damages and $3.5 million penal damages. The check paid to Monteiro ultimately ran to $8.3 million.

The Courts gave the Cambridge City Council a series of decisions which placed the Cambridge City Council in position to fire the Cambridge City Manager for malfeasance in office with no fear of the firing resulting in some sort of major Court award for improper firing. The decisions justified firing him without his golden parachute and, possibly, without pension.

So Cambridge, MA, being Cambridge, MA, the Cambridge City Council and its friends are doing all sorts of lovely maneuvering about the issue with exactly no votes on firing the Cambridge City Manager and no proposals to fire the Cambridge City Manager.

2. Current Maneuvers.

That being said, Cambridge Day has reported in a report dated today, June 21, 2012, on the discussions of the necessary financial manipulations and the positioning associated therewith at last Monday, June 18, 2012's, meeting of the Cambridge City Council.

I do not deign to honor the city councilors’ manipulations reporting the details.

The Cambridge Day report on Monday’s meeting may be read at:
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2012/06/19/city-faces-six-lawsuits-similar-to-those-that-cost-14-6-million-law-department-says/.

One important part of this report is that there are some six more cases pending similar to the base issues in Monteiro.

Cambridge Day says that the five consolidated and then separated cases of which Monteiro was one and which are now completed ran $14.6 million. They included in their report a PDF of a letter from the Cambridge City Solicitor going into details. The letter is dated June 12, 2012.

The Finance Committee report on the June 11, 2012 meeting may be read at: http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityclerk/CommitteeReport.cfm?instance_id=667. The attachments are not available from that posting.

I have previously given an advance report on the June 11, 2012, Finance Committee agenda from a Kelley Supporter: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/cambridge-ma-usa-city-council-to.html. My report seems to be the only place where the frequently mentioned Kelly motion is available. The city solicitor’s answers to Kelley’s questions have been provided by Cambridge Day as part of its report on the City Council meeting of last Monday night.

The Cambridge Day report on the Finance Committee Meeting may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/monteiro-v-city-of-cambridge-some.html.

At the Monday meeting the city council received the report and did the financial maneuvers. The report did not include the Kelly proposed order, and it does not appear to have been separately made by Kelley Monday night.

Four city councilors submitted a nice sounding motion on the Monteiro cases. That motion may be read at: http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityclerk/PolicyOrder.cfm?item_id=35644. The motion was referred to a city committee outside the city council with the other five members outvoting the sponsors.

In no way did this watered down motion include any discussion of firing the Cambridge City Manager.