Mayor's Texts About Councilors Reveal Framingham Political Rift

FRAMINGHAM, MA — A rift between Mayor Yvonne Spicer and some members of City Council was laid bare over the weekend after a Framingham news website published text messages the mayor sent that criticize individual Councilors.

On Monday, Spicer hit back on the report, calling it a politically motivated attack on behalf of Spicer's rivals in city government. A local blog on Friday published screenshots of text messages between Spicer and Chief Operating Officer Thatcher Kezer.

The texts, sent during Council meetings, show the mayor talking negatively about members including District 4 Councilor Michael Cannon — a frequent Spicer critic who also spars with Kezer during meetings — and Councilors Robert Case and Margareth Basilio Shepard, who usually vote with Spicer. In one text, Spicer referred to District 6 Councilor Philip Ottaviani as an "a------."

"On Friday, a local, politically motivated blog posted text messages between the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and me during a City Council meeting," Spicer said. "The blog asked me for a statement. I chose not to provide one because the blog entry was meant to embarrass me, and any statement would be subject to the whims and political goals of the blog and its advocates. Instead, I prefer to own my narrative."

The text message flap comes as Spicer heads toward reelection in 2021 as Framingham's first mayor. She has faced opposition from local politicians ever since her election in 2017, including an incident where now-Councilor John Stefanini put Spicer campaign material behind a trash can at the main library. Spicer beat Stefanini in the 2017 mayoral race.

Since the new Council took office at the beginning of the year — seven new members were elected in November 2019 — Spicer has often had a 6-5 advantage, although she has been blocked on key issues like the apartment moratorium, her picks for city boards and commissions and the purchase of the Perini building.

In her statement about the text messages, Spicer apologized to residents and the Councilors, and said she thought her messages to Kezer — who was recently a candidate for the Dracut town manager job — were private. The chats were obtained through a public records request.

Spicer said her texts were a reaction to Councilors criticizing her staff during meetings. She also said her criticism of her allies on Council was done out of "a lack of support from other Councilors who did not try to defend our employees," the statement said.

The Framingham Source often publishes unflattering stories about Spicer. In early October, the site posted about Spicer's lack of a "written" plan for dealing with coronavirus. Mike Hugo, a Framingham resident and associate member of Massachusetts Boards of Health executive committee, criticized the report at a City Council meeting saying that no municipality has an explicit written plan, deferring to state and federal guidance instead.

Over the weekend, the Source's editor, Susan Petroni, published a sprawling post about the text messages and the Councilors' reactions to them. She also mixed in commentary about city government, and references to president-elect Joe Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump.

"Taxpayers and Framingham residents are perhaps the casualties in the political battlefield of the City of Framingham, as little has been accomplished in 2020," Petroni wrote. "Framingham has been a high-risk community for COVID. Few initiatives have passed this year that benefit residents and businesses, many of whom are struggling."

Petroni did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Spicer's statement.

Spicer ended her statement calling for the Council to collaborate with her. She also pledged to start having more conversations with Councilors.

"We (the Administration and City Council) need to be on the same team. I often feel like the time I spend defending the City against criticism from the Council could better be used to make actual changes and achieve growth," she said.

Clarification: An earlier versions of this story misstated where Councilor John Stefanini placed Spicer’s campaign materials in 2017.