Councilor Gerly Adrien – Everett Leader Herald

Adrien’s call for publicly listing lawsuits, settlements shot down

By LEADER STAFF

By law, all the city’s legal business is public record.

By statute, every lawsuit and settlement are public record.

In reality, the city’s business inside the city solicitor’s office is a closely guarded secret unless someone asks.

Councilor Gerly Adrien and Councilor Fred Capone favored having the city solicitor’s office provide all this information semi-annually as a matter of increasing transparency about the city’s business.

In fact, the mayor has been touting his belief that transparency above all is what he wants to achieve.

But when push came to shove, City Solicitor Colleen Mejia told the council that she would choose privacy over transparency in this instance as a measure of prudence.

Mayoral candidate slate starts to take shape

By JOSH RESNEK

The campaign finance reports filed last week by the city’s politicians revealed, as well as enhanced, all sorts of possibilities for the citywide election now just 8 months away if the primary is what you pay attention to.

If your interest is in Election Day in November, well, that’s ten months away.

Either way one chooses to see it, the city is closer to the next election every day. It will be upon us like the blink of an eye before we know it.

The Campaign finance reports excited a great deal of talk in Internet circles and on Facebook.

Councilor Anthony DiPierro scolded Councilor at Large Gerly Adrien for raising money during a pandemic on a Facebook page.

He called attention to Adrien’s $65,000 war chest and her grassroots money-raising efforts producing results that have shocked many local politicians.

Adrien’s campaign war chest growing

Everett City Hall lobby. (Photo by Jim Mahoney)

At $65k only the mayor has more cash on hand

By JOSH RESNEK

Councilor at Large Gerly Adrien’s recently filed political campaign fund revealed she has about $65,000 in the bank and ready to go with about $4,000 owed to vendors as the New Year begins.

This compares with the mayor holding about $125,000 in his campaign account.

Also, the mayor is continuing to pay large monthly stipends to a well-known criminal attorney and his worldwide law firm.

What those payments are for remains an unanswered question for the mayor and most voters.

Adrien collected the campaign funds from 1,000 donors, some contributing as little as $2.00 in what is believed to be the biggest surprise to the political community in Everett.

The contributions come from local women and men and organizations wanting to show their grassroots support for Adrien, the first and only Black woman to serve on the Everett City Council.

City Council in an uproar

Members rage, suggest Adrien resign, before Capone called for shocking meeting to end

By JOSH RESNEK

The Monday night council meeting turned into a hate Gerly Adrien roundtable from a number of councilors who turned the technical problems that made the meeting a farce into somehow being about Adrien attending the meeting on Zoom instead of attending in person.

After an hour and half of going from nothing to nowhere and hurling insults at Adrien, Councilor Fred Capone saved his colleagues from further embarrassing themselves by asking that the meeting be terminated.

Seven councilors voted for that measure which was easily the only ounce of common sense anyone could understand Monday night watching ECTV.

In fact, several councilor’s individual protests about Adrien not being brave enough to attend the meeting smacked powerfully of prejudice and contempt. Misogyny in all its depressing mightiness was alive and well at city hall Monday night.

The only voice against this type of language and attack of Adrien was Capone’s. His admonition to his colleagues that what they were alleging about Adrien was improper and insulting and had no place in the chamber speaks reams about his integrity.

City councilors pile on Adrien

City Councilor Gerly Adrien is sworn in during a January council meeting. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso)

Vows to fight on despite threats, insults, disrespect

By JOSH RESNEK

The contentious and embarrassing public meeting that went awry Monday night has caused Councilor Gerly Adrien to rethink very seriously her relationship with many of the councilors who insulted and harangued her.

“I am speechless, but I am not resigning,” she said.

She exhorted her followers to make donations to her political campaign fund.

“I am not kidding. They want me out of the seat.”

She called the meeting an exercise in prejudice and microaggression against her in comments written on her Facebook site.

She was especially concerned about her relationship with those councilors who treated her in such a savage and disrespectful way.

“Absolutely shocking. I was absolutely shocked at their behavior,” she told the Leader Herald.

“Those who suggested that I should consider resigning if I am unable, unwilling or unfit to attend the council meetings in person should be ashamed of themselves,” she said. “I choose the Zoom venue because I don’t want to play with my health and my life,” she said.