Framingham Mayor Collides Three Times With Councilors King and Cannon

The Mayor wants a more informed, equitable government, and investment in project staff. King & Cannon oppose these strategic improvements.

SUMMARY:

​In the City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting on January 11, 2024:

(1)   George King and Mike Cannon energetically opposed the Mayor’s plan for Framingham to rejoin the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which is a well regarded organization whose mission is to work with municipal staff and elected officials to improve local government.

(2)   George King and Mike Cannon also tried to block the Mayor’s request for a much needed salary raise for a vacant capital projects and facilities management position, critical for completion of a hire essential to the successful execution of the Community Center and the Dispatch Center projects.

(3)   Mike Cannon made a series of comments and questions which appeared designed to undercut the value of an equity audit and the mission of the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, both of which are strongly supported by the Mayor.

All of this reinforces the notion that major strategic decisions are commonly adversely influenced by King and Cannon in the Finance Subcommittee when they should be thoroughly discussed and settled by the full 11 member City Council. Too often in the past the Finance Subcommittee has made poor recommendations, which have then been rubber-stamped into approval by the City Council. That has to change in this new term. Stefanini was complicit with King and Cannon, as a member of the Finance Subcommittee in the past term. Now that he is gone, there is an opportunity for Adam Steiner, Leora Mallach and Noval Alexander to entirely change the Finance Subcommittee dynamics.

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1. FIRST COLLISION

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, the City Council will consider an agenda item:

“DISCUSSION: A discussion regarding membership in the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA).”

This is a very important discussion as the city’s membership in the MMA has lapsed for the past two years. A full description of MMA operations may be found at:

https://www.mma.org/

From that website:

“The MMA’s mission is to improve the effectiveness of local government in the Commonwealth. The MMA is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of cities and towns.”

The MMA holds an annual meeting and trade show to educate and inform municipal staff and elected official, complete with keynote speakers and many workshops. This year it is being held on January 19 and 20 at the Hynes Convention Center and the Boston Sheraton Hotel, and features multiple speakers, including the Governor, Maura Healey, Lieutenant Governor, Kim Driscoll, and US Senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and has 21 workshops on topics including:

-        Briefs on Briefs: Updates on Municipal Laws

-        Fiscal & Economic Outlook

-        Are You Paying Too Much For Trash & Recycling Services?

-        Cleaning & Greening Up Municipal Buildings & Fleets

-        Building Thriving Business Districts

-        Using Data to Tell Your Story

-        Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI): The Significance for Municipalities

The DEI workshop is given three times, showing MMA’s view of its importance. Full details of all of the workshops can be found here: https://www.mma.org/annual-meeting/workshops/.

For 40 years MMA has been serving the 351 municipalities in Massachusetts, and is a highly regarded, effective organization. It is important for Framingham city staff to be able to attend, but especially important for the Mayor and City Councilors as well. Unlike the school side, where every School Committee member must, when elected, attend 8 hours of mandatory instruction in their duties, including state law, finance, policy and so on, no such requirement exists for City Councilors. The MMA provides a really important way for newly elected officials to come up to speed, for others to stay current, and for all city staff to keep abreast all the latest developments in their fields, and to keep track of what works and what does not, in other cities and towns across Massachusetts.

The MMA also has an impressive array of talent on its Board of Directors, which includes both appointed and elected members, and includes Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston, and Ruthanne Fuller, Mayor of Newton.

In a nutshell, MMA is an organization to which Framingham should belong, and the Mayor wants Framingham to rejoin after its recent two year lapse in membership. See the Mayor argue the case in the last City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting on January 11, 2023:

George King and Mike Cannon immediately poured cold water on the idea of rejoining. They, along with John Stefanini, were the ones responsible for cutting the MMA membership fee out of the Mayor’s budget in the last 2 years, arguing that the MMA was a financially questionable organization and of little value to the city. Nothing could be further from the truth. 349 municipalities out of 351 in Massachusetts belong to the MMA. Only Framingham and Lawrence do not. See George King’s inexplicable arguments here:

The upcoming City Council meeting on Tuesday, January 16, 2024, should provide the community with an opportunity to see how the City Council reacts to a very important strategic move by the Mayor to improve governance in Framingham.

For two years, opposition by King, Cannon and Stefanini in the Finance Subcommittee has blocked the Mayor’s plans to rejoin the MMA. These three prevailed 3-2 over Adam Steiner and Noval Alexander, as they snipped the MMA dues line item out of the FY23 and FY24 city annual budgets. That outcome got rolled up into the final budget package each year and was given rubber stamped approval by the full City Council.

Whether the city has a membership in the MMA is a strategic decision which should not be made as a line item consideration in the confines of the Finance Subcommittee.

Finally, that decision is being made in the correct forum. The City Council should install procedures to ensure that important strategic decisions on a broad range of issues are made by the City Council, not the Finance Subcommittee.

One other important matter which the City Council should attend to is to make sure that all city staff and elected officials who attend the MMA event are reimbursed for their registration fee and event parking.

2. SECOND COLLISION

Later in that same City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting, the following agenda item was considered:

“ORDER 2023-115 Upon request of the Mayor, a referral to the Finance Subcommittee approval of salary for the Assistant Director of Capital Projects and Facilities Management up to $125,000”

This position is currently vacant, but a very well qualified candidate has applied, with the only sticking point being that the salary range is about $20,000 too low, the same low compensation problem which caused the City Accountant position vacancy for the last 6 months. The approval up to $125,000 is designed to solve the salary range problem and enable the hiring of this excellent person.

The presentation by the Mayor and his staff was complete and effective in arguing that this position was essential to ensure that capital projects, such as the Community Center and the Dispatch Center, are properly staffed with capable people and successfully completed, with the associated state funding flowing in smoothly.

Despite this George King and Mike Cannon voted against the salary increase for financial reasons, to keep costs down, and because they are still caught up on the idea of combining city facility management and capital project management with the school side, which they would like to force on the schools, but cannot, as the School Committee by (wise) state law has approval authority.

Adam Steiner and Leora Mallach voted for the salary increase. Noval Alexander was absent. So, the tied vote 2-2 meant that the approval did not pass.

King and Cannon were holding the salary increase on this critical city position hostage to their ambitions to combine city and school operations by force.  

This made the Mayor quite upset, as you can see in this video:

After more exchanges, George King and Mike Cannon reversed their votes, and the recommendation that the salary increase be forwarded to the full City Council for approval passed 4-0.

This is another example of a strategically important decision, vital for successful completion of major city projects, being almost upended in the Finance Subcommittee.

Strategic decisions like this one should be considered by the full City Council before being sent to the Finance Subcommittee for rubber-stamping, rather than the other way around. The Finance Subcommittee has had way too much power in blocking strategically important moves which the full City Council should be making.

Thanks to the Mayor for calling out bad decisions by King and Cannon.

One other note. It is clear from this incident why the City Accountant position salary remained $20,000 too low for 6 months through neglect by the Chief Operating Officer and the Finance Subcommittee. It is not Louise Miller who was to blame for the City Accountant vacancy. But she took the hit.

Ironically, at the end of the meeting the Finance Subcommittee finally raised the pay of the vacant City Accountant position by $20,000 without a murmur of opposition. However, it did draw a comment from Mike Cannon on the recent resignation of Louise Miller as Chief Financial Officer. He called it ‘an elegant solution’, which is an alarming opinion given the administration and City Council failures which led to her departure.

3. THIRD COLLISION

The final collision was quite painful and extended, and occurred during discussion of the following agenda item from that same Finance Subcommittee meeting:

“ORDER 2023-104-001: Upon request of the Finance Subcommittee, a recommendation to accept two community compact grants, $50,000 each, one to be expended on a technology audit, the second to be expended on an equity audit. Further discussion with Jesse Edwards, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer.”

It is the equity audit part of this item which is of interest here.

This was a simple matter where Jesse Edwards had worked to get a grant to support an equity audit, which is a natural step to be taken in carrying out his job. There was no money issue, as a grant had been obtained. However, after Jesse gave a sound presentation explaining the goals and scope of the equity audit, Mike Cannon spent almost 15 minutes asking questions about the meaning of equity and the aims of the equity audit, in a manner which seemed quite perplexing.

The financial issue was simple. The city has the money. If there was any discussion of what an equity audit means, or if it is needed, that discussion should have been carried out in the full City Council.

Mike Cannon wandered way outside the scope of the Finance Subcommittee, and quite frankly, I was disturbed at the nature of some of his questions and comments, which seemed to dismiss the value of an equity audit and undercut the mission of Jesse Edwards, the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer.

Again, the Mayor brought a sound perspective to the discussion and countered the palpably negative effect of Mike Cannon’s comments. However, it seems that Mike Cannon could benefit greatly from attending the MMA annual meeting and going to one of the workshops there on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), so he can be better informed in the future.

DEI in government is a major objective of the Mayor and we are fortunate to have Jesse Edwards as Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, as he dealt with Mike Cannon’s struggle to understand the basics of DEI, with patience and competence.

I will leave the reader with several video clips below and let them draw their own conclusions. Both are well worth watching. They show a competent staffer in action and the uncomfortable atmosphere just one member of the Finance Subcommittee can create.

Here is Jesse Edwards clearly and simply explaining the equity audit:

Here is Mike Cannon struggling to understand equity and questioning what the equity audit will accomplish:

4. CONCLUSION

All of this reinforces the notion that major strategic decisions are commonly adversely influenced by King and Cannon in the Finance Subcommittee when they should be thoroughly discussed and settled by the full 11 member City Council. Too often in the past the Finance Subcommittee has made poor recommendations, which have then been rubber-stamped into approval by the City Council. That has to change in this new term. Stefanini was complicit with King and Cannon, as a member of the Finance Subcommittee in the past term. Now he is gone, there is an opportunity for Adam Steiner, Leora Mallach and Noval Alexander to entirely change the Finance Subcommittee dynamics.

All of the collisions of the Finance Subcommittee with the Mayor took place in just one Finance Subcommittee meeting, the first in this new term. As the year unfolds, the Framingham community should pay special attention to all of the proceedings in this subcommittee, which has constantly operated beyond its ‘finance’ scope and adversely affected the strategic interests of the city.