Blowing the whistle: Former MGM Springfield vendor diversity chief says she was forced out for trying to tell the truth
Chelan Brown was a rising star at MGM Springfield. She started off as an administrative assistant when the casino was still in the planning stages and quickly moved up the ranks.
Brown, who is African American, was featured prominently in the local press, leading MGM’s push to diversify the construction crews building the $1 billion Springfield gambling palace.
But after a clash with a top executive at the casino, Brown’s career came crashing to earth, leading to a demotion, verbal abuse, retaliation and ultimately her dismissal, according to a lawsuit filed Nov. 10 in Hampden County Superior Court.
Brown contends she was pushed out after refusing a request by her boss, then MGM Springfield chief Michael Mathis, to leave some vendor contracts out of a report to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, effectively enabling the casino to skirt the state’s diversity requirements.
Brown was demoted to a position helping oversee banquets and events, for which she had no experience, and was made to work impossible hours, all the while being subjected to ridicule and verbal harassment in a bid to force her out, the lawsuit contends. Brown left MGM in 2019.
“Ms. Brown was singled out for discipline over her refusal to do an illegal act of under reporting numbers so that it appeared that MGM was achieving its diversity hiring goals,” the lawsuit states.
Contacted by Contrarian Boston, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission said the state regulator is “aware of the complaint” and is “reviewing it.”
MGM declined comment.
With the Springfield casino struggling to meet its early revenue projections, Mathis was replaced in 2020 as president of MGM Springfield.
However, one seeming bright spot for MGM was its efforts to recruit minority and women employees to work at its glitzy Springfield casino, with the Las Vegas giant’s efforts the subject of laudatory stories in the local press and lavish praise from state gaming regulators.
The lawsuit raises serious questions, not only about what MGM may or may not have done, but also whether the state’s casino watchdog had the wool pulled over its eyes.
Warren and other progressives attempt to seize narrative after mid-term wins. What could go wrong?
Well, lots.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren kicked things off with an op-ed in The New York Times that spends more time castigating insufficiently progressive members of her own party than it does taking aim at the Trumpster extremists that went down to defeat last Tuesday.
Warren proclaims the mid-terms a win for progressive policies while blaming a “few lobbyist-friendly Democrats” from blocking an even greater victory.
However, by meddling in Democratic primaries around the country in favor of ultra progressive candidates, Warren may have unwittingly helped flipped control of the House to the Republicans, Liam Kerr, an organizer of Priorities For Progress and co-founder of WelcomePAC, contends in this provocative piece in CommonWealth Magazine.
Ro Khanna, a prominent Democratic congressman from California, took to the pages of The Boston Globe a few days ago as well to push the progressive narrative.
The crazies lost last Tuesday, and thank God for it. But to recast the mid-terms, which were a very near thing, as a progressive wave? That’s a stretch.
Ugly holding pattern: Mass. home prices rise, sales fall
That’s the word from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
Home sales plunged in October, falling more than 21 percent compared to the same month last year, hitting their lowest levels in a decade, according to the real estate data services firm and publisher.
Meanwhile, home prices statewide rose another 4 percent in October to a median of $520,000.
The only good news is that the pace of price increases appears to be moderating as the Fed’s rate hikes slam the brakes on the real estate market.
“The 4 percent gain was very modest when compared to the price hikes we’ve been seeing over the last few years,” said Tim Warren, CEO of The Warren Group.
As some point, prices will start falling, but we are not there yet.
A not so happy Thanksgiving: More bloodletting at Gannett
The big corporate chain that owns most of the local papers in Massachusetts has a holiday treat stored up for its battered employees: layoffs.
“The hammer is scheduled to drop on Dec. 1 and 2, just in time for the holidays,” reports Dan Kennedy at Media Nation, who has a memo from a top Gannett executive announcing the cuts.
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 Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. 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.