The Right-to-Shelter law
Yes, Massachusetts has such a law which was designed to protect homeless families. Now, it was extended to newly arrived migrants.
According to a press release from Governor Maura Healy’s office:
More than 80 cities and towns across the state are hosting these families, including more than 1,800 families who are residing in hotels and motels, according to the governor’s office.
“These numbers are being driven by a surge of new arrivals in our country who’ve been through some of the hardest journeys imaginable. They are the face of the international migrant crisis. They’re here because where they came from is too dangerous to stay,” Healey said. “They’re here because Massachusetts has and will always be a beacon of hope, compassion, humanity and opportunity.”
Massachusetts is the only state in the country with a “right to shelter” law, which guarantees homeless families access to emergency shelter.
On Tuesday night, Mayor Brian DePeña had a Zoom meeting with Governor Healy and several other cities where she asked for help. Although the mayor did not commit to complying with her request, I will not be surprised if they do what they did in Nantucket Island. Once they were here, Massachusetts had to take care of them and there’s a rumor that Lawrence will be receiving four busses full of people to be housed here.
My FOIA request
As mentioned last week, I requested under the Freedom of Information Act copies of the time sheet for several city employees that went on vacation and discovered a system that is ripe for failure.
Linette Perez’s timesheet was confusing to read and I was told that Captain Ariel Montas was the person who signs her timesheet. Since he doesn’t have an extension (I was told), I had to call Teresa Mejía, the chief’s secretary, and leave a message for him to call me. My message was clear but I guess it never got to him, even when I left another one recorded on her phone.
I wanted to ask him how come she was out for 6 days and marked Wednesday and Monday of the following week as sick days. Did she know before she left that she was going to be sick on two separate days?
It’s not a big deal but it allowed me to understand the system employed by City Hall as someone else explained to me. They can use their vacation time, personal days, and sick days as they wish.
What happens when they use up all of their sick days and they get sick or have an accident? I can smell cheating.
In the case of Luis Almanzar, su supervisor Juan Tejada, wrote 8 hours each day for the entire week as COMP time. These are the extra hours worked for people who cannot get overtime pay and they are compensated with time off. The rule is that if they worked two extra hours (as an example) one day, they should take two hours off during the same week, not accumulate them or save them for vacations.
There’s the case of someone at City Hall who works two extra hours one night of the week and then on Friday goes home at midday; that’s four hours off. Totally misunderstood the premise and gets away with it.
City Hall is known for not keeping track of vacation time of employees and when they leave city employment, we have to pay them all at once for the vacations they claim were never taken.
Councilors’ meeting attendance
A few years ago I counted the attendance to City Council meetings by each councilor for an entire year and I have been toying with the idea again. There’s no requirement that city councilors must attend regular meetings or the committees assigned to them. They have no fear that their check will be cut depending on how many they miss.
So, the result is that they schedule vacations or campaign-related events on those nights without concern for the agenda they were supposed to discuss. They even have the option of staying home if they are sick or don’t feel well and still participate via Zoom and do the people’s work.
When City Councilor at-Large Ana Levy underwent a dangerous surgery, she managed to attend via Zoom and she was wildly criticized for it. But now, María De La Cruz has been missing for months, no meetings at all and not a peep from anyone. She announced a while back that she was not running for reelection for District A and is now acting as if she’s done for good. Yes, it is for the good of the city but her term has not ended.
Let’s hope that her replacement comes prepared to meetings and knows how to read and interpret what he or she reads in order to make a rational decision.
With María, we never knew where she stood on issues because sometimes her votes were in opposition to what she argued.
I shouldn’t have written all of that; she might come back to attend the meetings just for spite.
This comment may apply as well to State Representative Estela Reyes who refused to give up her councilor seat until the next election in order to keep her finger on big decisions in the city. Sometimes she has to work late in the State House and others, she’s too tired to attend meetings and her attendance is awful!
While the city council doesn’t keep track of attendance of its members, they also don’t keep track of their own rules. I have been careful not to write about why José Alfonso García resigned as executive director of Inspectional Services because I consider him a friend and didn’t want to sound prejudiced by that.
The members of the city council made his stay impossible by refusing to appoint him permanently belittling him and treating him in a condescending way, something that should never be done to a city employee in public. He lost the respect of his department and was forced to resign.
Mayor Brian DePeña could have ignored the council and allowed him to stay indefinitely (as other mayors have done) but decided not to fight it.
Other employees working for the city who have not been appointed permanently on their jobs and remain in an “acting” capacity like Adderly Gonzalez, recreation coordinator who has been there since 2021. He was appointed by Kendrys Vásquez.
In the recent past, the former Personnel Director Gina LaGreca appointed Franklin Miguel, Pedro Soto, Pat Ruiz, and Michael Armano, to name a few, all on an “acting” basis. Brian has always sent his nominees to the council for approval and this is what he gets.
And James Hurley had been working in the Water Department since December 21, 2020, as a temporary worker. When the mayor told him that he had to be appointed as a permanent employee, he decided to quit.
Two sets of rules or just preferential treatment?
Speaking of being able to read…
Last week’s column brought out lots of misunderstandings – of course, nobody had the guts to call me to ask for clarification – I found out on social media.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about people who can’t understand what they read, particularly if they are predisposed to an idea and want to fit the text into their thoughts. They’ll never understand it because being accepting of what you are reading is the way to comprehend. Then, you may decide if you agree with it or not.
But, there’s hope!
We have people in this community who care yet they go unnoticed not looking for photo ops or recognition.
Every Saturday morning, we can see Les Bernal walking a few blocks along Mt. Vernon St. with a bucket picking up trash from the neighborhood. You may think it’s not a big deal but he inspires people to feel that they should be doing it as well.
We all are responsible for the cleanliness in this city and Les is doing his part.
Thank you, Les.
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