Boards, Commission, and Committees
Putting together a quality Board is about the capability and perception of individual board members who are appointed as well as the measured creation of a dynamic and the harmony that allows for the effective performance of governance and planned oversight.
It is the reason for the importance that city boards, commission, and committees should be diverse as the community it represents. Not in Lawrence. The population of the city’s Latinos is the highest it’s ever been, but the city boards (that are appointed by Mayor Rivera) are mostly Caucasian, monolingual people.
Let’s take the Lawrence Library Board; a board that consists of eight (8) members and is chaired by Mayor Rivera. All but one of the appointed members of the Library Board is a non-minority. Driving the uniformity in board composition are archaic recruitment practices. However, diverse members contribute renewed visions and vital technical skills that can improve board functions and the department it serves.
A Columbia University professor (Katherine Phillips), during her tenure at Kellogg School of Management, found that diversity came with better decisions, “it often comes with more cognitive processing and more exchange of information and more perceptions of conflicts”.
When minorities don’t see themselves reflected on Lawrence’s boards, committees, and commissions, especially in leadership, its residents don’t know whether a growth path for them is available. So it really does not matter how the recruitment for boards, commissions and committees advertise for such vacancies if Latinos don’t see themselves there it’s more likely that they will not apply for such positions.
In 2017, Deloitte LLP conducted a survey and found that leaders clearly believe in the benefits of diversity on their boards. Let’s face it: Lawrence Library board is a mirrortocracy. It’s a board that all look, and think the same. After all, they are appointed by Mayor Rivera and the other half are in charge of some famous paintings in Boston.
A change that Lawrence should implement is a city ordinance for a quota for minority representation on boards and commissions. You will probably find some people complaining about that sort of law, but the fact is that it already exists in Massachusetts. There is a legislature that calls for a percentage of boards to be of the female gender. California, Colorado and Pennsylvania have laws too! So why can’t Lawrence do the same?
Mayor Rivera ran and rallied against the former Mayor on several issues he had differences. One of the areas was that Rivera thought Lantigua could not get people on boards, was placing wrong people on boards and had many vacancies on boards. Mayor Rivera voted against employees being on boards while he was a Councilor and now that he is Mayor has done the very exact thing that he had accused the former mayor of doing.
There are many boards that don’t even meet or can’t get enough members on the board. These boards, commissions, and committees are being destroyed by Rivera (Human Rights Commission and the Commission on Disability) and a few outside lawmakers and autocrats taking away your democracy to be in positions of empowerment.
Oh, the hypocrisy!
