On the one-month anniversary
On December 12 will make it one month since Brian De Peña became the mayor of the City of Lawrence. The normal thing to do is to wait until some of his promises materialize or something meaningful takes place to judge his managerial style. In just one month, we’ve seen enough!
Several months ago before the Primary Election, I asked if he had his list ready. He knew it was about employee firings. Of course, my base of thought was our experience from previous mayors. His answer was short: “I don’t believe in political revenge.”
When William Lantigua entered City Hall, he carried a long list of department heads as well as minor employees. Dan Rivera made it even worse. The day after Thanksgiving on the year before being sworn in, he delivered his list to the personnel office that, if I remember correctly, there were around 22 names.
My interest was not to influence his opinion against any particular city employee even though some played very unfair games during the campaign.
Brian remained calm, never responding to the evil attacks made against his wife and family. Confident that he is smart enough to see it, it was worth waiting for.
Once he won the Final Election, I approached him again. Now he doesn’t have to be politically correct and give me a firm answer and again, he said that he would have to be careful judging performance and that will be his only yardstick.
Thus far, Mayor De Peña has been very busy working on campaign promises such as cleaning the city and responding to emergencies. On his second day in office, he met with Deborah Wilson the president of Lawrence General Hospital to start working on an emergency plan. We recently had the gas explosion and the pandemic but although all city employees, members of the city council, police, and fire departments worked hard to bring order, we did not have a plan and Brian wants to put one in place.
He has also made key staff changes, by moving people around which I am not going to criticize from my position of ignorance at this moment. Let’s have confidence in Brian unless we see otherwise.
The circus is back!
When I heard that Councilor at-Large Ana Levy presented a motion that would allow the city council meetings to continue being broadcast via zoom to facilitate the participation of residents from home. I liked the idea because I don’t have to spend hours at the Council Chambers and I can take part in the discussions, if I choose to, while my work gets done.
Many local people would welcome the opportunity as well: the elderly or disabled. Let’s use technology to our advantage.
But, there was one thing I did not agree with. Item #288/21 reads: “Request that the City Council, under City Council Rule 2, allow all meetings of the City Council and Committees to be hybrid, allowing participation both in person in the City Council Chamber and remotely via Zoom, until April 1, 2022.” This was presented by Councilor Ana Levy and Councilor Maria De La Cruz.
My disagreement was because city councilors should be present at the Chambers. We want to see them paying attention and their expressions when a member of the public speaks. For this night, four of them were absent Estela Reyes, Maria De La Cruz, Ana Levy, and Pavel Payano. In Maria De La Cruz’s case, we can’t even see her face because she hides behind a picture. Councilors have been attending all kinds of events, meetings, political affairs and social events. Why can’t they face the taxpayers during meetings?
Now that Kendrys Vasquez is back presiding the council, he showed one of the reasons for losing the election. His arrogant, authoritarian, uncooperative, disrespectful demeanor was present again. Without any discussion, he proceeded to ask for a vote to withdraw item #288/21. Of course, no one spoke and he went ahead and offered his own version.
Talk about being dictatorial!
Thanks to God he’ll be gone.
There’s just one more meeting this year.
Kelly Stanisewski said it best on her Facebook posting: “They did not act like leaders tonight…” and she continued, “Government still needs to function and I could feel the tension. No peaceful transition of power here.”
She is correct about that because, thanks to several of the AWOL councilors, many appropriation reports had to be tabled because appropriation items need a favorable vote of at least 6 councilors!
Allowing Councilors to continue to attend meetings remotely via zoom or other devices may be a violation of the “Open Meeting Law” which is a state law
Pop Quiz! True or False?
Only 18% of college graduates could identify James Madison as the “Father of the Constitution”—on a multiple-choice question.
Fifty-one percent did not know the term lengths of U.S. Senators and Representatives.
Just 12% could identify the 13th Amendment as the government action that freed the slaves.
Regrettably, all these statements are true, according to a 2019 National Opinion Survey conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).
ACTA has promoted curricular reform in higher education for 26 years, and we are particularly concerned about civic education. When it comes to our students’ grasp of American history, civics, and government, clearly something is seriously amiss.
We are not alone in recognizing this; a cursory glance across the body politic and into every corner of the culture indicates the rapid coarsening of public dialogue and deepening of political divisions. America is experiencing a profound crisis in civic literacy and with it, the disappearance of reasoned political debate.
ACTA traces this worrying trend, in large part, to the lack of a shared, fact-based context rooted in our history.
Semana Hispana’s theme
Have you noticed that the new board of directors of Hispanic Week changed the theme from “Together in Harmony” to “Together we are More”?
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