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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)
By Ward 3 Alderman Ben Ewen-Campen and Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang
We write in response to Jack Connolly’s op-ed of September 26, 2018, BOA bullies block members’ reappointment.
Some background: On August 28th, the Board of Aldermen (BOA) took the highly unusual step of voting against the confirmation of two Mayoral appointees, both whom of have served for 20 years, one a member of the Planning Board and the other the Chair of Somerville Redevelopment Authority (SRA). We want to explain why we voted against their confirmations, and why Connolly’s criticisms of the BOA’s vote are so wrong.
When it comes to regulating development in Somerville, nearly all of the legal decision-making power is held by three boards: the Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Appeals, and the SRA. These boards oversee everything from small changes by home-owners, all the way to enormous developments such as those in Assembly Square and Union Square. The members of these boards are not elected, they are appointed by the Mayor, and are subject to confirmation by the Board of Aldermen – a process that, in the past, has often been described as a rubber stamp.
Jack Connolly argues that the BOA should have re-appointed these individuals because of their long service to Somerville, their resumes, honors, and because they are “native Somervillians.” He says nothing whatsoever about their records, statements, and specific votes on the Planning Board and the SRA. Ask yourself: do you think our City has been holding developers to high enough standards in recent years?
We believe the confirmation process should be about one thing: accountability. What’s important is how these individuals vote, what they say at meetings, and the questions they ask. One of the BOA’s most important duties as the legislative branch of City government is to provide a check and balance on the power of the executive, the Mayor. This is especially important for Somerville, which has a strong-Mayor form of government.
Accountability is critical if government is to represent the community’s views and exercise the will of the people. We Aldermen are directly accountable to the voters, and must stand for re-election every other year if we want to keep our jobs and keep on making important decisions. But when it comes to these powerful, appointed boards, the confirmation process is the only way these positions are held accountable. This BOA takes that responsibility seriously, because we do not believe the people of Somerville elected us to be rubber stamps.
Given the huge amount of real estate development in Somerville in recent years, and its impact on residents’ lives, there has been increasing public scrutiny of these appointed boards. A number of high-profile decisions by the SRA and the Planning Board – and the manner in which they were made — have shaken the public’s trust in our City government. In some cases, large majorities of the public who expressed their opinions were outraged not only by the decisions, but by the lack of due diligence and serious questioning by these boards.
Many of the decisions that have been questioned by the public were made regarding development in Assembly Square and Union Square. Often, these decisions seemed to favor large developers and gave them advantages that many felt were not in the best interest of Somerville’s residents. If you want to learn details about some of these votes by the Planning Board and the SRA, you can check out Ewen-Campen’s September 22, 2018 Ward 3 newsletter at https://tinyurl.com/yd79pd7h and Niedergang’s memo for the August 28th meeting, “My views on SRA, Planning Board and ZBA re-appointments,” at http://somervillecityma.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Communication.aspx?Frame=&MeetingID=2757&MediaPosition=&ID=1715&CssClass=
The real estate market in Somerville is a far cry from what it was 20 years ago. Today, given the enormous investor interest in our city, and the considerable leverage that we could have in directing development, these powerful boards need to take community concerns about affordable housing, green space, equity, and sustainability far more seriously, rather than viewing them as impediments to development or growing our tax base. We need qualified, independent, and responsive appointees on all of these boards — people who will get the best possible deal for the City, hold developers to the highest standards, and engender trust from the public while making contentious and difficult decisions.
We both know dozens of qualified Somerville residents who have written and spoken in public extensively about development issues, many with professional expertise, who would love to serve on these boards. Many have applied to do so and been turned down by the Mayor. Connolly’s statement, “It’s going to be real difficult for the Mayor…to recruit and fill many of the positions on the various boards and commissions charged with handling the city’s business…” could not be more out-of-touch and inaccurate.
By no means do we expect to agree with every decision made by these boards. But we all need to have faith in the fairness and transparency of the process, especially on decisions we disagree with. These boards need to take public input seriously, do extensive analysis, ask lots of tough questions, and take as long as is necessary in rendering important decisions.
This Board of Aldermen is taking our obligation seriously. We take no pleasure in rejecting a Mayoral appointee; it is not fun or pleasant to criticize someone’s performance in public and to their face. But it’s our job. For anyone interested in the BOA’s lengthy deliberation on the two re-appointments that Connolly discusses, there is a full video available of this meeting here http://somervillecityma.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=2757. If you watch it, you will see how seriously BOA members carried out their duties. While two re-appointments were rejected at this meeting, two others were approved.
There are now quite a few open positions on these key boards and also on many other boards and commissions. This is an opportunity to bring new blood, greater diversity, and more highly-qualified and talented people into these important positions. We urge the Mayor NOT to do as Connolly suggested and just ignore the BOA’s votes, which were both 8-1 against re-confirmation. To allow these discredited appointees to continue to serve indefinitely (which, unfortunately, is within the Mayor’s legal power under state law), would be to ignore the will of the people. We urge Mayor Curtatone to propose new, highly-qualified applicants to fill these positions as soon as possible.
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OK, let’s talk accountability.
The real estate market is not like it was decades ago, but we still have an outdated and obsolete Zoning Ordinance because of a Board of aldermen that can’t actually seem to make a decision. You continue to waste the planning department’s time making changes and rewriting a plan, that has already been borrowed and adopted by other surrounding towns that saw the value of it.
Look at just about anything coming out of Citylab or MAPC and it will tell you the biggest way to impact cost/quality/equality in a city is to implement modern zoning, but you are doing nothing on this.
Instead you are showing how progressive you are by exerting a veto power over members of independent boards that had the temerity to be independent of the board of Aldermen on things like the FRIT vote. A vote that was only needed because the Aldermen had once again kicked a can down the road specifically so that if it went the way everyone knew it would, they would have a scapegoat.
And oh how the Aldermen screamed and gnashed their teeth and decried the vote. And then claimed credit for the outcome. Looking at you Matt, you listed the compromise as an accomplishment. How does that work? It was so bad that everyone involved should lose their job, but reelect me for getting it done? Please.
To say this is about accountability is the biggest laugh. If it was about accountability the entire Board of Aldermen should hand in their resignations.
This is about other parts of the government acting as checks and balances on you and you not being happy about it.
Cry me a river.
I also love the lie about SCC opposing the FRIT vote. That was a lovely maneuver, not allowing any of their employees who had worked on hammering out the deal to attend any of the follow on meetings or be asked any questions about it so they could hide their complicitness and still walk away with $10 million in their pockets while gaining political capital for opposing it. They, and pretty much the entire Board of Aldermen are speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this.
So all the Aldermen, including Hirsch, who doesn’t seem to understand how basic funding and budgets work, got all the benefits of the project that you knew you were going to get and still have an enemy to rail against and use to campaign and fundraise against. It is honestly one of the most transparent and over used tropes in politics.
You want to actually do something and make a difference?
Vote for something that will actually improve the lives of residents instead of wasting time, and by time I mean the money we pay you, on useless feel good stuff like a call to prevent nuclear war.
I am sure everyone who voted for you is sleeping better because of that. We can all stop building our bomb shelters now. Thanks.
Please also stop wasting my money writing useless self defense op eds and do your job instead.
Thanks for your stand against the re-appointments and this response. I was shocked at how out of touch Former Alderman Connolly’s column was.
At City Hall, in hearing after hearing I’ve heard old Somerville, new Somerville, homeowners, renters, and people from every walk of life saying they’re outraged about how developers aren’t being held accountable and everyone in the city is paying the price.
I heard folks who were against the Transfer Fee say “Why aren’t we holding developers accountable?” Well, because small, unelected boards (ZBA, SRA, Planning Board) make many of these decisions, and they don’t have to face the voters.
This was an obvious way for the aldermen to listen to the near-consensus coming from across the city to deny the re-appointments. The Aldermen do have a responsibility in our democracy to try to give voice to what the residents want, and they’re doing it here. Former Alderman Connolly may have made a different decision, but then again, the voters chose last year not to re-elect him and that’s how our democracy works.
I hope the mayor will start the search process quickly so we can get some more qualified people who’ll reflect the desires of the residents. It would be tragic and pretty undemocratic just to leave the rejected candidates on the board under this loophole in State law that lets a rejected candidate stay on indefinitely unless a replacement is appointed.
It sure is nice of Ben and Mark to carry water for their colleague and sign a letter that JT Scott and Matt Miller clearly wrote. What did he promise you Ben and Mark? JT promise to cut you in on the profits he’ll make from his 35 Prospect St property after you help him kill the Union Square Deal? Maybe make you minority partners of JTSRE Holdings?
People in Somerville are starting to wake up and realize the Alderman shouting loudest about the housing crisis and ‘get the best possible deal for the City’ are just trying to block ANY development in this city.
I kind of expect our alderfolk not to act like congressional Republicans. Instead of creating unproductive tension for cheap political points, how about pass more ordinances – like the zoning overhaul – which would directly address our housing situation? Ben’s new, so he’s only got 10 months of dragging his feet on his resume, but Mark’s been a model of all talk and no action for years.
The FRIT decision that Mark’s all bent over involved a waiver process that he voted to create. If the BOA really has an issue with that waiver, it could vote to eliminate FRIT’s ability to apply for that waiver. If it doesn’t do that, then this is sheer political posturing. I expect my local government to get things done, not have a food fight.
OK, I can save myself some typing and just say “yeah, what Villenous said!”
The funniest thing to me is that the Aldermen think they are doing their job.
Give your salaries back to the city.
For years Connolly was known as a shill for developers – first in his own ward, then at large. I took great pleasure in voting against him for decades – glad he’s gone. Thanks Ben & Mark for giving folks the real story re his letter.
Let me guess…everyone but Capuano will be denied
@ Matt Miller. Nice fable you have spun, but the stuff you seem mad about is actually the stuff that the Aldermen control by voting on things like Zoning. Those Board can only uphold the existing ordinances as fairly as possible. So you are blaming the wrong people for the problems you are complaining about.
The long tiresome reign of Glad-Hand Jack has thankfully passed into oblivion.
Glad-Hand Jack was more attuned to palling with cronies, developers and campaign contributors than he was responding to constituents who weren’t fellows-well-met.
Speaking from long personal experience.
Genie, if you think this is a real story, I am sad to inform you that it is not. It is just lies and cover.
It makes me laugh when commenters write about transparency and accountability – or even accuse the Aldermen of being shills and profiteers – all while hiding behind made up names like “DatGruntled”, “Villenous”, and “Concerned Resident.”
Thanks to Mark and Ben for a clear and sensible op-ed, and thanks to all the Aldermen for taking your responsibilities seriously. It’s beyond time for this. Thank you.
As Matt Miller has stated, there definitely are clear reasons to be angry at decisions made by these Boards in the past. And if members of these Boards have not done due diligence in making decisions, they are not up for the job and should not be re-appointed. But in theory these Boards can only do what they are granted power to do under City and State Law.
Get the Zoning Overhaul completed, and, as I understand, it will severely limit the “exceptions” in developments that these Boards can keep approving. Every meeting when the Aldermen pass a resolution that has no actual effect and is just virtue signaling could be more time they spend going through the Zoning Overhaul to get it passed ASAP. Keep that in mind for next year’s City election if the Zoning Overhaul has not been passed. To not pass this Overhaul is to keep allowing developers to do whatever they want when building in the City.
@ USR, if I actually thought the Aldermen were making decisions based on the members of these boards not doing their jobs, I would be behind not reconfirming.
I do believe these boards are independent for a reason, so that they are not swayed by pressure from the Aldermen. As much as the Aldermen shout up and down that they are not rubber stamps, what the want from all these others is to just be their rubber stamps.
You want an answer, Matt? Quit looking at the wrong monster.
Look at who’s been enabling these opportunistic developer scoundrels for years. Look at who submits nominations for the Boards and Commissions. Look at why strong-side mayoral politics creates dictators. Sure, on Monday 5th, keep Capuano Jr and consider firing all the others, but this is not a real answer. It’s just a band aid on a political regime that doesn’t work. *Take back* Somerville has no meaning because what in the past has virtue to it? It’s time to start over and kill off strong-side mayoral politics once and for all. How?
Somerville does have one person of political distinction, years of experience, and the legal know-how to get this done. And if you elect him as the next mayor, then he can become the LAST mayor, and where the City Charter can be rewritten as a new document, to where Somerville can be run by a City Council, and headed by a City Manager with little power, and who is accountable to the other councilors who have real power to get things done.
Well, Bill White? Now is the correct time for this. You do have those ORS millennial voters to get you elected, so we don’t need any mythical scenario of Old Mexico in film, where you know who gets taken out, is put against a wall and shot, and where Burt Lancaster or Clint Eastwood rides off into the sunset and the movie ends. But this movie does need to end, and there is one alley cat that needs to be put out the back door. There was more than one *Son of Somerville*; it’s time that Somerville manifested that history gave them an unscrupulous empire builder; but his day can be over if you step up. I can’t think of anyone who’s better qualified for this job, nor who has the political and moral insight to get this done as well as you do. And both *Old* and *New* Somerville can and will come together and support you in this.
So maybe it’s not about how you’d feel if you did do it, but rather how’d you’d feel if you didn’t. History creates opportunities of the moment, and this moment is coming up this next year. And I’d buy you a beer for sure, and we can sit and hum *The Internationale* not because any socialism had been established, but because real democracy had been created in the American way, and one alley cat of a king had been sent packing after too many years of tenure as a dictator.
Chris Dwan, snark on screen names all you want, but you’re not offering any substance. I don’t think anyone on the current BOA is a shill or a profiteer. We haven’t had shills or profiteers in city government for most of the past two decades. There was one when I first moved to the city around the turn of the century, but he got caught trying to burgle a copying machine. Those days are long gone. It’s not the city I’ve lived in. Naked corruption is not a problem we’ve got at any level.
Yet we’ve got a current situation where people are talking a big game about change and not doing the concrete things to enact big changes. The appointment food fight is nonsense. It mostly boils down to one decision made by the Planning Board as a result of the BOA passing the buck. Why did the BOA pass the buck? I suspect because they didn’t want to be the entity responsible for the ensuing lawsuit. The BOA could go back into the 20% ordinance and eliminate the FRIT waiver. It could seek to institute term limits on members of appointed boards if it thinks that’s an issue.
We seem to have a Board that’s more interested in cosplay than governance. I don’t think that serves any of us well.
It is interesting that the only one who will be approved for reappointment is the one who was literally being fed his answers by Mark and Matt.
As for why it looks like the Aldermen have support in meetings is because they do stir up their supporters and use fear mongering to get them to events that otherwise would have four or five directly interested people show up.
Good for them for reaching out to their supporters, but saying this means there is wide spread support is about the same as saying national decisions should be made by polling the people who show up at a Trump rally.
“We both know dozens of qualified Somerville residents who have written and spoken in public extensively about development issues, many with professional expertise, who would love to serve on these boards.”
I will assume this means people who will vote the way you want and be the rubber stamp you are looking for in place of an independent board.