By Josh Resnek
Three councilors misled by Councilor Stephanie Martins on a measure intended to embarrass Councilor Mike Marchese asked for their names to be removed from a Martins initiative to condemn Marchese to take the heat off her boyfriend, Councilor Anthony DiPierro.
Councilors Stephanie Smith, Irene Cardillo and Richard Dell Isola made the unusual request to have their names stricken from Martins measure after voicing complaints it did not fit their view of the situation.
Martins was attempting to drag her colleagues unwittingly into a trap she set to take the heat off DiPierro by pretending to mount an assault on racism.
The council couple has been romantically involved for about six months.
To date, Martins has chosen not to comment publicly regarding DiPierro’s racist anti-Black memes, revealed by the Leader Herald and written about widely in the Boston Globe and revealed on television stations and at GBH.
Instead, she chose Marchese as her point of scorn trying to compare Marchese’s Facebook messaging to DiPierro’s overt racism.
Her plan failed miserably.
Marchese exploded in outrage at the city council meeting.
He demanded his colleagues treat Martins diversion as just that – “a diversion.”
“My colleagues did not know what Martins was planning. I am grateful to them for removing their names from this bogus measure,” Marchese told the Leader Herald following the council meeting.
The measure was removed from the agenda.
Councilors will be meeting together to map out an anti-racism strategy – although none of them appeared to be planning to have much to say about DiPierro’s outrageous behavior, or to ask him to resign, or at the very least, to censure him.