The mayor proposed a large number of appointments to city hall committees and boards and almost without exception, he failed to make some room for minority appointments.
He found room for his brother Carmine DeMaria.
The mayor appointed his brother to a position on the DPW Commission.
The mayor reappointed his tenant Dominic Puleo to a three year term on the Everett Housing Authority.
Consistent with the mayor’s way of doing business, he neither sent evidence of background reports or signed affidavits indicating each appointee understands the ethic code they are bound by to the councilors before they cast their votes.
Councilor at Large Gerly Adrien said she would not vote for any of the mayor’s choices without receiving proper background information about them.
She left the council chamber.
When Carmine DeMaria’s name came up, Councilor Anthony DiPierro recused himself from voting as he is related to the mayor.
It is both surprising and a bit disappointing that no one on the city council noted that minority appointees were nearly exclusively left out of the mix.
Minority appointments need to be made to all the city’s many boards and commissions in the name of equality and what is right.
Creating a diversity board, as the mayor has promised to do, is a step in the right direction, but it is a slow and ineffectual step.
Everett city hall needs to come out of its anti-minority bias stance and begin hiring and staffing minorities in paid jobs as well as appointing minorities to boards and commissions.
A failure to begin doing this, and doing it boldly to correct the racist injustice that now exists, reflects very poorly on the mayor. Correcting the racial imbalance here should be a top priority of the mayor, and of the city council.
To do otherwise is to turn ones head from the truth of the matter – that
Everett is a minority community with a near to non-existent minority workforce as well as a near to non-existent minority membership on city boards and commissions.
If the mayor fails to get going to remove this imbalance, the council should engage the help of the American Civil Liberties Union to enter the 21st Century.
There is no excuse for Everett to be out of sync with the majority population living here.
The mayor refusing to hire minorities or appointing minorities to boards and commissions wreaks of racism