By Josh Resnek
All eyes are now turned to Mayor Carlo Demaria.
The mayor’s absolute, unconditional silence about overt racism revealed about his cousin and campaign manager Councilor Anthony DiPierro has him staggering following DiPierro’s resignation Monday.
The resignation of the mayor’s communications chief Deanna Deveney, and the mayor’s extraordinary silence about her racist comments are made all the more inexcusable as Deveney is a lawyer.
In a press release announcing their departure released yesterday, which was not sent to the Leader Herald, the mayor continued his drift from the emerging Everett mainstream of protest against perceived racism of the city government by the city’s minority majority population now rising up.
In that press release the mayor used the word “healing.” He implied wrongs had been committed, that changes needed to be made but did not comment a word about DiPierro or Deveney’s actions insulting, demeaning and otherwise marginalizing Black people and Brown people, Hispanics and Brazilians with outrageous racist memes and statements.
“It is hard to talk about healing while the mayor said nothing about the perpetrators of hate he protected for more than two months in the hope it would all go away if everyone waited long enough,” said John Puopolo.
“This isn’t going away until the mayor goes away,” he added.
Puopolo is a member of a large and growing group of vocal Everett residents now leading the charge for change at city hall in the absence of leadership at the city council.
After 12 years as mayor, DeMaria is facing his biggest hurdle as law suits, claims of municipal corruption, and added claims of racism and sexism follow his every move.
Present and former public officials made the claims yesterday that the mayor was out of touch and irresponsible, and that his history, his past, his actions prove he is unfit to lead.
“Unfortunately, many of our city leaders and elected officials have been refusing to be accountable.They have proven that they cannot hold themselves accountable and that they will not hold one another accountable,” Superintendent of Schools Priya Tahiliani said Monday night at a protest in front of city hall.
She did not mention the mayor’s name – but her words pointed like sharp arrows at him.
Former councilor Fred Capone decried the lack of political leadership at city hall.
Capone has become the de facto leading voice of the opposition to DeMaria. He has been especially bold and uncontained about his contempt for the goings on at city hall.
“The fact that racism and corruption have not even been mentioned let alone go unpunished by the majority of our elected officials, underscores the lack of political leadership that has been allowed to continue for far too long,” Capone added