Newton Looks At Complaint, Councilors To Get 'Guidelines'

NEWTON, MA — A day after it came out that someone filed an anonymous complaint against 11 of the 12 women on the Newton City Council for allegedly meeting in private to talk about city business, officials say City Hall's attorney is looking into it. Women on the city council, meanwhile, tell Patch they actually met to discuss decorum at the council meetings.

"The president of the city council, Marc Laredo has asked the City of Newton's law department to look into the complaint and the law department is doing so," Mayor Ruthanne Fuller told Patch in a phone interview.

She added there was no time frame right now as to how long that would take. But would not go into what the decorum issues might look like. Nor did any city councilors want to go on the record about what exactly that meant.

Laredo said as soon as he got the complaint he forwarded it along to the city solicitor's office, per protocol, even though the Attorney General's office does not investigate anonymous complaints, nor does the State office require municipal bodies to investigate anonymous complaints.

In the complaint to the Attorney General's office, someone alleged all of the women on the Newton City Council who went to a May 20 event violated Open Meeting Law by holding a meeting to talk about council business. But a number of people at the event, described as a back yard wine and cheese conversation, said they did not talk about any official business. Instead, multiple city councilors told Patch the purpose was to talk about decorum during meetings. At least two asked for advice from the city clerk and at least one told Laredo as much in an effort to be transparent, they said. One councilor said after the group met, another councilor said she would circle back to Laredo and share what was discussed at the gathering.

City Clerk David Olson confirmed he'd advised Councilor Brenda Noel that holding an event would be fine as long as they didn't discuss official business. Laredo told Patch he would not discuss what city councilors told him in private.

Laredo did say he had been working hard to maintain a respectful environment in the City Council Chamber.

"In my view there is absolutely no place whatsoever for anyone to feel they’re not being treated respectfully. As a president this behavior is not acceptable to me. I expect that all members will treat one another with respect even when they disagree. Disagreement is healthy but it must be done in a respectful manner," he told Patch in a phone interview.

Several months ago Laredo convened an informal meeting of the council with former president of the council to talk about best practices about running a meeting. It was public and the idea, he said, was to bring the large number of new councilors up to speed on best practices when running meetings.

One third of the city council (seven of the 24) is new to it but even people who have been on the council a while can benefit from best practices reminders he said.

"All councilors benefit from ongoing training about best practices about running a meeting," said Laredo.
In the meeting, the group addressed everything from starting on time to dressing for the occasion to preparing agendas, he said.

He also convened a leadership meeting, inviting all councilors and circulated a document that had best practices built from items that a former city council president recommended, and Councilor Cheryl Lappin had prepped some four years ago for leaders on how to run meetings, as well as guidance from others.

He said he had the guidelines vetted by the council and he expects to post those Wednesday.

"We decided as a group to have a little more level of formality at our public meeting. That’s a matter of choice there’s not a right answer to that. I think it helps elevate the conversation," he said.

Part of the guidelines and formality, he said, will be to ask that all council members refer to one another as "Councilor" rather than by their first name. He said when the council refers to a member of City Hall staff, they'll refer to them as "Mr, or Ms." And a member of the public will be Mr. or Ms. or Sir or (everyone's favorite:) Ma'am.

The city councilors all know each other very well, and when interacting it's easy to revert to first names, he said.

"I think it will help elevate public discourse," he said. "We have seven brand new councilors ... there’s a learning curve for every single person and that’s a large part of why we have these best practices in place. It’s something we can all improve on."

Laredo described the climate among the councilors in the City Hall chamber as good. "But like anything else there’s always room for improvement," he said.

"I made it clear one of my goals was to foster a climate where we could debate vigorously but always doing so in a respectful manner. I stand by that. The guidelines that we are going to use reflect that."

This conversation comes as the city council is exactly half men and half women for the first time and many of them are new to the council. It also comes a time when women and men across the country are reexamining their interaction in an era of #MeToo.

"I think folks should know that, especially since the Me Too movement we're just hyper aware of how we're being treated," Maria Scibelli Greenberg previously told Patch of the women on the City Council.

Phone tag: Patch reached out to Ouida Young the city solicitor in email and voicemail and she returned the call but did not leave a message. Patch reached out again but Young has not yet returned comment.

Patch will continue to follow this story. Got a tip? Email Jenna.Fisher@Patch.com and follow her on Twitter at @ReporterJenna

Catch up on this here: Open Meeting Law Complaint Against City Council Members: AG

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File Photo: Jenna Fisher/Patch