WORCESTER CITY MANAGER'S JOKE ON US

City Manager's Racial Policy is a Joke

     In 2015 the Worcester City Manager, Edward Augustus, organized the so called race dialogues. He had the Department of Justice participate in the series of meetings. Many in the Worcester community thought that the race dialogues were “a lot of talk and very little action”. 

     This writer called the talks a “joke”. The changes to the so called Affirmative Action Officer position and the lack other developments have shown the race dialogues to be worse than a joke,

      The first sign of that the dialogues were not taken seriously by Manager Augustus was that all of the notes of the race dialogues were lost. There was no serious attempt by the City to recover them.

     Another sign was that the City Manager claimed the police received “bias training”, but no quantifiable evidence of the effectiveness of this or any other police policy has been made public.

 There have been requests that statistics on hate crimes be released to the public, as well as the status of body cam for officers. This information has also been withheld.

There are two organization created by the City that are worse than a joke. They are the Mayor’s Committee against Bias and Hate and the police clergy group. They seem only to meet in order to give cover to the City when there is a crisis. To my knowledge the bias/hate group has never asked the City for the hate crime statistics. Most of the people in these groups sincere, but history has shown them to have been manipulated.

Most recently the so called Affirmative Action Officer position was changed from that of an advocate/ compliance officer to that of a recruiter. This change was done without any formal input from residents.

Many people have expressed disappoint that the new Affirmative Action Officer was hired from within the City government and is beholding to the City Manager not to make any waves by advocating for racial justice.

There is a need for real dialogue among the people who are disparately treated, including White people, and the government.

It was not long ago that the Department of Health held a discussion about homelessness without inviting a single homeless person.  UMASS decided to shut down a clinic in a poor neighborhood before any input from the patients.

So it seems that the City Manager’s race programs and other programs are just a joke on us.

PARKING TICKET LAWSUIT

                                          The Parking Ticket Lawsuit

Elvira Guardiola, Worcester Parking Administrator

                                               

Recently I represented a client at his Formal Appeal Hearing for a parking ticket. It was alleged that he violated the winter ban on March 21, 2018.

It did snow at all on that date and the snowplows never came out onto the streets.

There is a City of Worcester protocol that ticketing of vehicles would not begin until it starts to snow and the plows are on the street. This policy was published in “Masslive “in 2016. The City has never explicitly and publicly retracted, rescinded or withdrawn the policy.  Please see photo below.

The published policy of not ticketing until the snowplows come out was presented to the Parking Administrator. Such evidence is “substantive” evidence. It was enough to show that the ticketing of my client’s vehicle was contrary to City DPW policy and to have the ticket dismissed.

Instead of dismissing the ticket the Parking Administrator developed a false theory of law which is not found in MGL c. 30A, s 14. The statute governs Administrative Hearings. The Parking Administrator called her false theory “compelling argument”.

The statute indicates that Administrative Hearing decisions are based on “substantive evidence” and not compelling argument. A hearing is not a forensic debate.

The Parking Administrator then told us that she had met with Assistant DPW Commissioner Lobovites about the City’s policy on ticketing. She then changed her mind and said she met with a manger, Mr. Kempton.  The Parking Administrator could not give the date of any such meeting.

I made a phone call to Mr. Kempton who said that as far as he knew Ms. Guardiola never met with him or Mr. Lobovites about the ticket at issue. Mr. Kempton did say that the Parking Administrator sent an email to Mr. Lobovites.

According to Mr. Kempton the answer sent by Mr. Lobovites did not support Ms. Guardiola claim that the policy of not ticketing cars until its snow was no longer in effect. Even if was not in effect, the reversal was never made public.

Given the serious misunderstanding of the law and the seemingly false statements made by the Parking Administrator. My client has decided to sue the City in order to bring the Office of Parking Administration into compliance with the State’s statutes. Please see photo below.