by Hillary I. Borrud

The campaign manager of re-election effort of State Rep. Timothy J. Toomey Jr., cried foul over the July 8 endorsement of Toomey’s Democratic primary opponent, Avi Green, by the Progressive Democrats of Somerville.

“What’s the big secret?” asked Kate Glidden, Toomey’s campaign manager, after her request for a record of the meeting’s attendance roll and a recorded vote.

“I guess I’ve been spoiled by working with progressive groups in places like Vermont where everything is done in the open,” she said.

The PDS also endorsed State Rep. Patricia D. Jehlen for re-election to the seat for the 27th Middlesex and challenger Carl Sciortino for the state representative seat for the 34th Middlesex, said Karen L. Gardner, the chair of the PDS endorsement committee.

“The membership overwhelmingly supported these three candidates as the ones most reflective of the progressive principles supported by PDS,” Gardner said.

Out of 20 eligible voters, 18 voted for Avi Green, two voted not to endorse anyone, and no members voted for Toomey, said Martin Martinez, the press spokesman for the PDS, and an unsuccessful candidate for the Ward 7 alderman seat in 2003 against Robert Trane.

“What we are saying is that if 18 people are making decisions for the 37,000 people in the district, we should at least be able to verify if any of them live in the district or are even Democrats,” said Toomey.

Toomey said he was told July 14 by a member of the Progressive Democrats of Cambridge that the last ten to fifteen minutes of the June 30 debate so-sponsored by both the PDS and PDC was erased.

The debate was supposed to be a determining factor in deciding the progressive endorsements, but three weeks after it took place it has never aired on Cambridge Community Television or Somerville Community Access Television, Toomey said.

“We have asked for copies of the tapes and nobody will give us a straight answer,” he said.

“I was very pleased with my performance at that debate and I thought I made a very powerful closing statement. Later that night, I was having dinner with friends and I told them: ‘Mark my words, that tape will never see the light of day.’”

Toomey said that if he ever got a copy of the tape, he would request that an independent video technician ascertain whether the closing statements were deliberately deleted.

Glidden said she was eventually given the vote and the number of attendees, but she is not satisfied. In an e-mail dated July 14 sent to Gardner, made available to The Somerville News, she wrote: “If you asked the Ward 1 Democratic committee in Somerville for their list of attendees and the votes in their endorsement process they would provide you with that information, no questions asked.”

Glidden went on to write: “However, given the close relationship between your organization and the Green campaign it is imperative for the fairness of the process that it be open.”

“I gave Gardner the opportunity to legitimize herself and her group and she didn’t take it,” Glidden said.

“The PDS has its own rules because it is not an official group. Yet, they want to be taken seriously as if they are an official group,” she said.

“I was surprised to see those emails,” said Rebekah L. Gerwirtz, the chairperson of the PDS, and a campaign organizer for the progressive cause with the Commonwealth Coalition.

“We have a very open process – our listserv is totally open, and any campaign that wants to can get on our listserv and see how we work. It’s true we vote by ballot, but so do most counties I know of, and voters there aren’t called on to declare how they voted,” she said.

“The discussion before the vote went very smoothly. I expected the discussion about the Green-Toomey race to get very heated, but it didn’t,” she said.

“Our membership draws from all over the city – we’re a city-wide organization. The issues facing this district – from the gang ordinance to the Assembly Square development, are important to all of us, and to all of Somerville, so I think it’s appropriate that we endorse a candidate in the race.”

“It is our policy not to release detailed voting figures for our endorsement, but we decided to in this instance at the request of the Toomey campaign,” said Martinez. “We require a 60% majority for an endorsement.”

“If Toomey wins, we will work with him and support him as fellow Democrats. But this bitterness after the vote struck me as sad, because it isn’t a good way to build trust among Democrats,” he said.

Sciortino is opposing the incumbent, State Rep. Vincent P. Ciampa, in the Sept. 14 Democratic Party primary. Jehlen is unopposed in the primary, but will face Republican Dane Baird in the general election Nov. 2.

Gewirtz, who until this spring was the administrative aide to Jehlen, said her old boss has shown courage in standing up for issues that affect everyone in Somerville.

“I’m thrilled that we’re able to make these endorsements,” she said.

Massachusetts has few contested state representative races, Gewirtz said, and the choice of newcomers Avi Green and Carl Sciortino empowered members of the PDS. The endorsement was the culmination of many meetings and involved a lot of people, she said. “We did a lot of preparation.”

“I think it’s a great thing for democracy,” she said of the endorsement.

Two-thirds of the members present and voting must agree in order to choose a candidate, a condition that the group met with all three votes, Gewirtz said. Several Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts from Jamaica Plain observed the meeting but were unable to vote, she said.

Two of the state representative candidates who won endorsements, Green and Sciortino, are members of the PDS, and Sciortino’s history with the group goes back to its beginnings, Gardner said.

Sciortino attended the meeting and spoke to the group before voting took place, Gewirtz said. There no dissenting votes were cast against Sciortino, and that he is articulate and would be good at tackling zoning issues.

“He has a lot of passion. I really respect and admire that,” Gewirtz said. “At the end of the day, I think the issues were really what made people happy.”

“One of the biggest issues for our members is same-sex marriage,” Gardner said. Other important issues for the Progressive Democrats of Somerville include transportation, affordable housing and identifying officials who will address the needs of many Somerville residents, not a select few, Gardner said.

The Progressive Democrats of Somerville plan to begin actively supporting the Jehlen, Green and Sciortino campaigns as early as this week, Gardner said. Members are very excited to get involved, she said.

Gewirtz said that her organization plans on communicating with the campaigns to learn their individual needs. Activities could include canvassing, phone banking and fundraising, said Gardner.