Commission on Disability
For a long time, I have feared that the Commission of Disability will be following the same fate as the Human Rights Commission. Mayor Dan Rivera was negligent appointing members to the Human Rights Commission resulting in a lack of quorum at their meetings which meant that they only met two or three times out of the twelve times a year they were supposed to meet. Frustrated by not being able to accomplish anything, they resigned one by one or simply didn’t show up for meetings. Eventually, even the chairman resigned and everything stopped.
Check on the city’s website and you will find that the information has not been updated in years. Probably Asdrovel Tejeda or Victor Jarvis are still getting complaints of human rights violations from the public. Not Annia Lembert because she has been dead since March of 2016 although her name continues to be listed as a board member.
The same for the Commission on Disability; all the members are listed there.
The history of neglect from the mayor towards the Commission on Disability goes back years. Beginning with a lawsuit against the City of Lawrence (which the city lost), came a court decree tht mandated the city to comply and fix many listed ADA violations along with formalizing and funding the board as well as hiring a director to follow through and investigate issues as directed by the board. The city set a salary of $25,000 which failed to attract experienced candidates with a bachelor’s degree.
This Commission has never been funded even though the monies collected from handicap parking offenses are supposed to be allocated for their use. The fines for parking on a handicap space went up to $300 which must be used to fund that board and for services for the disabled. They have never been told if that is being done, how much money is there, or have been allocated a budget for their expenses.
There may be another possible lawsuit against the city. In September of 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent the city a list of repairs that should be done according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),. In April of this year, the city received a visit from representatives of Secretary of State Galvin’s office checking on the progress of violations only to find there were none and demanded that at least the problems found with the polling places must be completed before the September elections. They stated the city will receive stiff fines for non-compliance.
Then, it finally happened: Richard Rodriguez, Chairman of the Commission was dismissed from his duties. He received a nice letter from the mayor thanking him for his service but his appointment had expired last year and he was not reappointing him.
Truth be told, Attorney Rodriguez was a thorn on the side of Mayor Rivera. He kept pushing for laws to be obeyed and services to the disabled community to be rendered as mandated. He appeared many times before the City Council with little results because no matter what they decided, the mayor is really the one holding the purse strings, not the council as they are made to believe.
The mayor had the option of allowing him to continue until a replacement is found or extend his appointment for another term – after all, there are presently five empty seats available. He should also appoint new members so they can function properly. The Commission could have up to nine board members; there are only four left.
I can’t stop thinking that I may have been the cause of that decision. I attended their monthly meeting on June 25th and the mayor walked a few times across the hallway on the third floor looking down towards the office where the meeting was held on the second floor. The door was open and I was clearly visible. On June 28th, he sent Chairman Rodriguez the dismissal letter.
Rodriguez says he will continue to advocate for his constituency.
How to ruin a man’s future
I don’t like extremes and I’m a believer of “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s why it’s difficult to understand why a woman’s accusation of inappropriate behavior or even sexual abuse, could get a man fired from his job, lose his livelihood, his marriage and his reputation without an investigation to get to the truth.
Oh, I know there are pigs out there! Many of those acused deserved more than that. Take the case of Matt Lauer, “Today Show” on CBS. Two women complained to management about his sexual behavior and he was fired on the spot. Eventually, more women came forth detailing his wrongdoings through the years.
My question is, should those women suffered from his conduct all that time or did they have some other option?
The same happened with Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood. He is facing many years in jail after the testimony of dozens of women abused or raped by him. He deserves it because he was a porwerful thug who could make stars by appearing in one of his movies. On the other hand, those starlets sold themselves knowingly. It has been widely understood that to achieve success in Tinseltown, that was often the price to pay. Now 20 or 30 years later they acused him of being the evil one.
This phenomenon is a consequence of the #MeToo movement responsible for making women aware that they do not have to continue being victimized. Women are waking up and speaking out when a man’s behavior is inappropriate or sexual in nature. It happened in any type of work environment and most of the time, these women seemed to choose to keep quiet afraid they won’t be believed or fired. Those days, fortunately, are gone!
But there are certainly abuses in this cry for help, that’s why companies should take the time to scrutinize the acusation and see if there’s validity to the claim before affecting a man’s character.
That is the case of MIT and Junot Diaz, a Dominican Pulitzer prize winning author who teaches at MIT and is editor at Boston Review.
Rejoicing that justice had prevailed in this case, I praised MIT and Boston Review for performing separate investigations over the assertion of a woman who said he forcibly kissed her. They expected many more accusers to come forth but it didn’t happen. They concluded that they lacked the severity that was expressed by the #MeToo movement.
Hopefully, this will be the demise of this group of fanatics with no conscious.
Correction
I forgot to give credit to Richard Russell for the Habitat for Humanity pictures published last week. At least, I was able to fix it on the online version of Rumbo.
