It brings to mind the first meeting I attended as a new board member of a major downtown church. It was in terrific financial, membership and other trouble, which I knew when I ran for the position. I was not aware of how angry the very controlling and self-righteous church administrator was.
Well, as these things tend to happen, a bunch of us turned around that church, which has thrived. The administrator's egocentric passion for the position was at once admirable and pathetic. In the end, she was not holding the church together, was not essential, and was not larger than the whole works.
That was a heavy fingered lead-in to another light on the historic occurrence yesterday on the fifth floor of Boston's City Hall, in the Council chamber. That would be the first expulsion of a Council member since the body replaced the Board of Alderman as the city's regulatory body in 1909.
That tack led nowhere. Keeping an eye on the attentive but inexpressive Councilors, I saw neither sympathy nor outrage. To me, and apparently from their vote to them, Turner was stretching way too far to portray himself as the natural extension of Curley and the Boston Irish.
The true oddment here is that courageous and necessary actions by Ross are the catalyst here.
ed to Yancey's attempted trick and pushed off the hearing, pending death by committee.
Rule 40A. Pursuant to the city charter and in accordance with the open meeting law, the council president may refer a matter to the council upon his/her determination that any member has engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of the Boston City Council or may be unqualified to sit on the body. A member may be unqualified by violating federal or state law, or any conditions imposed by the city’s charter, which includes violating any provisions of the three oaths of office.
The council president shall automatically refer a matter to the council upon a felony conviction of any member by any state or federal court.
Any action by the council taken in response to any referral shall require a two-thirds (2/3) majority roll call vote and will be in accordance with local, state and federal law.
In addition to his painstaking refutation of Yancey's parliamentary gambit, Ross strove to give the voting public some fresh proof that the Council and city government at large had a respect for rule of law.
In 13-page preparatory packet to inform the Councilors of the issues and options on Turner, Ross concluded one section with "We are not above the law and none of us is above the rules we have established as a body. If we act as if we are, this body loses its credibility, its integrity and the trust of the people we serve. Many are cynical of government as it is, we cannot add to their mistrust."
It is a pity that Yancey gave Turner's supporters fodder for feeding a beast of conspiracy and victimhood. The idea that Ross in particular and the Council more widely acted illegally is absurd and Yancey surely knows that.
That's irrelevant though. Yancey's arrow long left his bow. The question now is how accurate are the curses of Turner's opponents and his own allusions that voters will as a body rise up and punish the 11 of 12 Councilors to a man and woman come the next two elections?
I say chicken lips!
Turner will be a jailed felon shortly, as will state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, caught in the same odious federal sting operation. Nearly everyone I know joins me is disrespecting the type of sting operation of manufactured temptation that netted Turner. Yet whether through disregard of known laws, sloppy inattention and accounting or simple arrogance, Turner was nabbed and convicted. As his protégé Felix Arroyo said in his emotional remarks at the hearing, "In the end, we cannot escape our mistakes. We cannot escape our deeds."
Even before yesterday's meeting, Turner had grandiose descriptions of how he'd organize prisoners if he ended up in jail. It is unlikely that a short-timer in a federal prison would have any meaningful impact, but it's a good pre-mythology. Turn is forever editing the book of his life.
Instead, it is likely that another strong advocate of the poor and middle-class people of color who comprise most of District 7 will take over Turner's seat in a special election. My bet is for the charismatic Tito Jackson. He lacks Turner's capacity for B.S. but not his clarity of purpose or worthy goals.
Given those developments, there is little immediacy or even need to consider replacing any of the 11. The greatest impetus would be in Turner's district, where the voters will already have made their choice. The chance of driving out anyone else is slim indeed.
Turner's other dire prophesy goes to his often repeated claim that 90% of politicians, including fellow Councilors, are dirty and take money. He also claims to be the most honest and moral of the lot.
Yet so far, our Speakers of the House (three of the last four) are driven out and/or convicted of corruption, but not so Boston Councilors. Turner's fantasy that they all will earn and fail scrutiny was very unlikely before and given the infamy of his slow, endless fall over the past three years, any Councilor would be a total ass to take any risks.
In fact, his disgrace may be the greatest insurance we have had of political integrity. Don't be that guy.
Of course anyone convicted should be removed, and it looks like the charter provides for that. Turner is being obnoxious and if his appeals happen to work out he’s welcome to run again next time anyway. I don’t understand Yancey’s legal arguments nor do I understand blind support for Turner any more than I did for Wilkerson.
or anyone else in a leadership position, believes and shows by their words and actions, that it is all about them rather than those they serve, or the work that needs doing, then you know they are undeserving of continuing to serve in that position. Arrogance is the undoing of so many in positions of leadership, not just Chuck Turner. They forget that the important thing is the work they do, not their own standing. This is how power corrupts.
Oddly enough, the state law on this removes elected officials upon their being sentenced to prison…not on conviction. The call (or largess) of the sentencing judge would thus determine the fate of the official.
…have the right to expel one of it’s own? Legislative bodies generally do. Even if MA law only requires removal upon sentencing what would be odd is if it ties Council’s hands from acting sooner.
Amusingly enough, they did not have that authority on paper until just over two years ago. There hadn’t been the need. Even though they make their own rules of operation and procedure, for their 101 year life (since replacing the alderman system), they have set out rules and nearly always followed these.
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p>When Turner was indicted, they realized there was no procedure for ousting one of their own. As close as they got was that they were the arbiters of who was qualified to sit as a Councilor.
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p>Thus, they specifically created rule 40A to cover the cases where they might want to toss a member. That calls for a mandated meeting to discuss the problem and a vote on the member’s qualifications for anyone convicted of a felony.
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p>Alas, even as clear as that rule is, Councilor Yancey tried to block the meeting by referring to prior rules that relate to motions that may require committee review and such. He was involved in rule 40A creation and knows better, but he kept demanding proof of an explicit reference to “expulsion” in the rules. It was not his best moment as it was not Turner’s.
Could they do that as well? Just asking.
Anyway, it makes sense that someone who gets convicted of a felony while in office should have to go. Curley was a felon who got to stay, so that’s the comparison that sticks in my mind. That was probably part of Turner’s intent in bringing him up. So times have changed, Evacuation Day is maybe on its way out, we’re cleansing government of olde tyme corruption. Long live the New Corruption.
I know I don’t get much agreement on this here but I like the commemoration of historic events.
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p>As for just feeling like expelling someone, I would say yes with the appropriate supermajority. The federal constitution gives no qualification to the right of each chamber of Congress to expel one of its own by a 2/3 vote. The Constitution does list treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors as impeachable offenses and says judges serve during good behavior. Gerald Ford once pointed out the truth that am impeachable offense, because it is unappealable, is whatever a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate say it is, just ask Bill Clinton.
By Rule 40A, Mike Ross, Steve Murphy and Maureen Feeney should also be expelled from the City Council.
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p> “Pursuant to the city charter and in accordance with the open meeting law, the council president may refer a matter to the council upon his/her determination that any member has engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of the Boston City Council or may be unqualified to sit on the body. A member may be unqualified by violating federal or state law, or any conditions imposed by the city’s charter, which includes violating any provisions of the three oaths of office.”
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p>All three have “engaged in conduct unbecoming,” and are unqualified because they violated state law and their oaths of office. They all violated the Open Meeting Law 11 times, as they finally admitted (after several years of lying to the courts and several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer dollars wasted on their legal defense). Mike “Boy-Scout/John Wayne” Ross also violated the state ethics law, fixing 35 of his own parking tickets; his punishment was to pay the amount of the tickets (co-incidentally $1,000) plus a $2,000 fine.
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p>Feeney and the rest of them — in further secret meetings — passed an ordinance to create a new Council staff position, so they could hire the deceased Jimmy Kelly’s about-to-retire staffer, Paul Walkowski, at a huge pay increase for just long enough to boost his pension, to write a report on why the Council should be exempt from the state Open Meeting Law altogether.
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p>Their betrayals of the city’s taxpayers and citizens are too numerous to mention, and too costly to tally.
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p>These paragons of virtue were thrilled to look down on him from their moral high horses and solemnly throw him off the Council, and for reasons unrelated to race. He was always exposing and opposing their shenanigans, like their cynical tax give-aways to developers and other harmful and ignorant decisions related to taxation and development.
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p>But most important: In 2005, Turner (along with Hennigan and Arroyo Sr.) provided affidavits supporting the three-citizen (including me) lawsuit against the City Council, revealing the actions perpetrated by the Council in those unlawful meetings mentioned above. (The suit involved a dozen meetings on the BRA’s urban renewal powers over 18 months; in secret (because they knew it was wrong), the Council arranged to perpetuate (as in, forever) these BRA powers, including the power of eminent domain. The BRA has taken, and will continue to take, billions of dollars’ worth of City-owned property (including City Hall Plaza) by eminent domain without compensation to the taxpayers, and lease or sell it for development, and keep every cent of the profit. One meeting was about the tularemia outbreak at a Boston Univ. lab, which the Council wanted to cover up so it wouldn’t threaten BU’s then-planned Level 4 bio-terrorism lab in the South End/Roxbury neighborhood.) They hold a permanent grudge on this suit (which by the way is still dragging along in court, at pubic expense) — Murphy denied me the right to testify at a recent Budget Committee hearing on the BRA (and that’s the only information they’d ever get about the BRA, as he well knows) because, as he admitted, he was still mad at me for suing him.
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p>It’s easy to mock Turner; his warts are not concealed. But don’t for a minute think your heroes on the council are any more qualified to sit on that body and represent the people’s interests; in a just world, they would have gone first. Who will enforce Rule 40A against them?
we must remember that, although I think he acted appropriately in pushing for Turner’s removal, Councilor Ross’ tenure on the council has not been entirely shenanigan-free. It’s not often that the State Ethics Commission can be roused from its slumber to take on a Boston politician, but they fined Ross $2000 in 2007 for having too many personal parking tickets fixed. Does such relatively minor hackery represent “conduct unbecoming a councilor” as described in the recently adopted Rule 40A? I don’t know, but I’m always happy to play the tarantula when it comes to the City.
Shirley and Dan are welcome to their thoughts and feelings here. I see those as cynical and remembering slights. Instead, the Turner process was one where I perceived courage and forthright leadership by Ross. Again, he could have ducked this and I suspect many holding the council presidency would have. Others may find this an anomaly for Ross, but I think he’s grown.