04.12.2022/updated

Real reason governor’s race a sleeper | Development giants circle Back Bay convention hall | Doughty raids rival’s supporters | Union now on tap at Starbucks | About Contrarian Boston |

Somerville or Selma? DPW was racist hotbed, lawsuit contends

Maybe Somerville isn’t such a progressive paradise after all. 

A trio of long-time former and current DPW employees, one Black, two White, have taken the city to court, contending Black employees in the department suffered from a “climate of blatant racism and discrimination,” according to a statement from their attorney.

At the heart of the case is Richard Nurse, who spent years battling to become the highway department’s first Black foreman, only to suffer from racist abuse from a supervisor, according to the lawsuit, filed in Middlesex County Superior Court.

A tree crew foreman, Nurse had a new truck that had been ordered for him taken away by his supervisors, who also refused to provide safety training and equipment to him or his crew, the lawsuit contends.

Fellow plaintiffs Ronald Bonney and Michael Browne, who ran the DPW’s fleet management unit for years, contend they “consistently raised concerns” to their higher ups from 2014 on about the treatment of Nurse and other Black employees in the highway department, with little if anything to show for their persistence.

These efforts included a meeting in 2019 with then Mayor Joseph Curtatone at which Nurse and another Black highway department employee laid out their grievances, according to the lawsuit.

Bonney documented his concerns about alleged racist behavior in the DPW and the mistreatment of Nurse and other employees in a letter to the city’s personnel director in on Feb. 3, 2020, in which he also refers to an apparent offer of “whistle blower protection,” according to a copy reviewed by Contrarian Boston.

In March 2020, the DPW’s acting director put both Bonney and Browne on administrative leave after writing up a “list of false allegations,” the lawsuit contends. In a letter, Bonney, Browne and another department employee were told they were being investigated for “misuse of City funds, misuse of City property, and misuse of overtime.”

In a note to the Somerville City Council several months later, Curtatone wrote the city “had cause to question some financial items stemming from the Fleet Division” and that the issue had been referred to the state Inspector General’s office.

Bonney’s position has since been eliminated, Nurse, who contends he was barred from transferring out the highway department, left his job in 2020, while Browne remains out on administrative leave.

The lawsuit also names Curtatone as a defendant. Curtatone, who built a reputation as one of the most progressive municipal leaders in the country, recently completed his ninth and final term in office in December and is now a senior practice fellow at Harvard’s Ash Center, which focuses on issues of governance.

In a twist, Curtatone, hired Bonney, a “long-time friend,” in 2014 with a plan to “clean up” the public works department and “address issues of fraud, waste, and safety that had gone unchecked in the DPW’s Highway Department,” according to the lawsuit.

The law firm representing Somerville, Curtatone, and two now former DPW employees also named as defendants, declined to comment when contacted by Contrarian Boston. Curtatone could not be reached for comment.

“The City declines to comment on active, pending litigation, except to say that the allegations of discrimination and other unlawful conduct made in the complaint are denied,” wrote Michael Stefanilo, Jr., one of the attorneys representing the city, in an email.

Governor’s race a bore? Don’t blame Healey

Attorney General Maura Healey, the race’s front-runner by a mile, got a good old grilling from the Globe on Saturday.

Her offense? Dodging reporters and policy specifics in favor of the typical political platitudes.

Healey’s reticence is contrasted with her primary opponent, state Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz of Jamaica Plain, whose website, we are told approvingly, “lays out lengthy policy platforms on nearly a dozen issues ranging from education, which she’s made a centerpiece of her campaign, to transportation, to LGBTQ rights.”

It’s a safe, conventional take on the dynamics of the race, and it lets Chang-Díaz off easy.

Healey is doing what any front-runner does – it’s her race to lose. Rather, we are looking at the failure of Chang-Díaz to shake up the dynamics of the race and refusing to let Healey turn it into a sleeper.

Sure, Chang-Díaz has recently begun to push Healey to commit to debates before the Dems state party convention where Healey will likely be anointed, and not after the big confab, as Healey would like.

But complaining about debates is like jawboning the referees as your team falls hopelessly behind – it’s hardly the kind of issue that will set the electorate on fire.

Chang-Díaz had a very narrow window at the start of the race to seize the momentum and start turning the race on its head, as we noted here more than two months ago.

She didn’t and now here we are, with one of the dullest gubernatorial races in years.

Sour brew for Starbucks brass as union wave builds

They did it – baristas at a pair of Starbucks in Brookline and Allston voted overwhelmingly on Monday to unionize.

Java slingers at the two shops, 1304 Commonwealth Ave. in Allston and 277 Harvard St. in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner, will now become members of an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, the Globe reports.

We reported the upcoming union vote at the shops here in Saturday’s edition.

It’s the first of a wave of Starbucks here and across the country that are poised to join the labor movement, with workers at 200 other shops around the country – including Newton and Worcester – having filed petitions with National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections.

Interestingly, Howard Schultz, the company’s founder, has taken back the controls at the company, coming back as CEO.

For starters, maybe Schultz should rethink his opposition to letting customers tip baristas on their credit cards, one of the complaints of the Starbucks workers who just voted unionize.

After all, when you are in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging.

Development gold or white elephant? Sale of Hynes gets yet another look

We’ll see, but Gov. Charlie Baker is ready to take another shot at offloading the now mostly empty Hynes convention center on Boylston Street

Previous attempts at selling the cavernous Back Bay facility have drawn headlines, but always end up fizzling out for one reason or another.

The prime, five-acre downtown site clearly has potential, but downtown Boston hotels, an influential lobbying force, have never been happy with the potential loss of the meeting hall, which brings in conventions and meetings of professional organizations that put heads on beds.

The Globe’s Shirley Leung reports the “usual suspects” are circling the convention center, a group that includes “Boston Properties, Steve Samuels, Related Beal, Tishman Speyer, and HYM Investment Group.”

Switching teams: MassGOP candidate peels off rival’s supporters

Wrentham businessman Chris Doughty has been fighting an uphill battle in his quest to become the state Republican party’s candidate in this fall’s gubernatorial election.

Former state lawmaker Geoff Diehl has had the inside track, having won the endorsement of Trump, who is hugely popular among a substantial number of state party activists. He has also enjoyed the backing of fellow Trumpie Jim Lyons, chairman of the MassGOP.

But now Doughty, who has taken a more measured approach on Trump and is backed by party moderates, appears to be making inroads.

Doughty, who has made lowering the high cost of living and doing business in Massachusetts his campaign theme, on Tuesday announced the endorsement of former state Republican Party Vice Chairwoman Jeanne Kangas, who previously supported – and contributed to – Diehl’s campaign.

Kangas cited Doughty’s business background running a manufacturing firm and her opinion that he “is only Republican candidate who can win.”

Doughty has also won the support of two Republican state reps who were also previously Diehl supporters - Lenny Mirra and Peter Durant.

But with the MassGOP convention looming next month, it is all too little, too late?

Stay tuned.

                                            

What is Contrarian Boston?

I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.

Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.

For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.

An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.

Our focus is:

·      Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;

·      Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;

·      The media and why it does what it does;

·      Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;

·      And whatever else catches our fancy.