Setting the Record Straight

I just read the recent TAB opinion pieces by Sue Flicop, Meryl Kessler and Scott Oran attacking my December TAB Column [The Right Way to Reform the City Council]. I find it ironic that in alleging that I cherry-picked pieces of information, Kessler & Oran themselves did the same thing they accused me of.

I never said “Scott Oran “poured beaucoup bucks into Yes for a New Charter’s campaign coffers,””. I specifically said that “Dan Fireman, Rob Gifford, Andrew Balson, Scott Oran, Chris Steele and Bob Engler poured beaucoup bucks into Yes for a New Charter’s campaign coffers”. Kessler and Oran should say Tachanun for such blatant dishonesty.

Messrs. Kessler, Oran and Flicop also took issue where my column said the league sponsored the Charter Commission in paragraph 2. Maybe they overlooked where I said in Paragraph 1 “the Newton League of Women Voters’ Charter Commission Proposal”. At any rate, The League owns the Newton Charter Commission debacle as

• Their organization was the heat and fever behind the signature drive to get the commission on the ballot,
• They had endorsed the formation of the Charter Commission in 2015 and
• They endorsed the Charter Commission’s 2017 proposal to downsize the city council and Yes for a New Charter’s efforts to get the new regressive charter passed.

I also take issue with Sue Flicop’s statement accusing me of sexism and insinuating that the League of Women Voters was merely doing “their husbands’ bidding”. It is obvious that both Kessler and Oran share a similar commitment to promoting high-density apartment projects that privatize profits for the politically connected, while socializing costs to the general society. It is no surprise to see that the Newton League of Women Voters joined up with the Friends of Austin Street coalition in order to promote the Austin Street project two years ago. At Harvard Business School, they call that synergies in motion.

The opinion pieces of Kessler, Oran and Flicop distort the truth and disparage my intentions and me. I opposed the proposal to downsize the board and eliminate local representation as it increased the concentration of power in the hands of fewer elected officials. I then proposed an alternative council structure to enable candidates to run competitive grassroots campaigns independently of politically connected special interests rather than candidates beholden to the political establishment’s ideological obsession with increasing the size, scope and cost of government.