OUR COMPLAINT SUBMITTED TO THE MASSACUSETTS ETHICS BOARD:
Thomas Mahoney, Community Preservation Committee (CPC) Chairman on 1/23/2022 signed up with the city to obtain a city email address for the committee, this email access request was approved by Mike Tusino, COO on 1/24/2022. Mahoney did not discuss with the CPC – the application for email in advance of doing it, nor did he discuss who would have access or how the emails would be disseminated in advance.
The CPC members learned that there was an email address and Mahoney had sole access to it – but only after Mahoney the email was created and set up.
Mahoney alone had access to the account, and there was no discussion to define a process for it’s use or to determine who was responsible for it or how often it would be checked and how it would be reported on. Other meeting groups in the city either have a group email box that forwards emails to all members or a person who reports during meetings on all the emails and voice mail that came in the time between meetings.
There was an unknown period, where Mahoney signed up for a gmail account, without telling anyone, and told the city that it was the official CPC account and had it posted on the city website – but once again he had sole access to it.
Currently, in the contact info on the Framingham’s CPC website – it states:
…and on the FAQ section of the CPC section of the city’s website:
Both these messages indicate that voicemails and emails will go to the members of the Community Preservation Committee, and not just Mahoney.
Mahoney essentially makes decisions for the meeting group – outside of the meeting group, based on what he sees as the best path forward.
He fails to respect the open meeting law, and we have evidence of discussion directly with members of the CPC – via email outside of the CPC meetings, an in-meeting examples of time and scheduling of breaks and inadequate resumption start time of meetings as it pertains to the OML.
Lets look at the history of the CPC and where the CPC is now.
The CPC started meeting on July 28th, 2021.
After months of meetings – the difficult work was mainly completed by the three women – acting as the workhorses of the committee. One male member skipped more than 40% of the total meetings. Another male member suggested that he should step down from the committee during the work period because he didn’t have the time, but he stated that he would rejoin when the voting on projects began.
It was on May 2nd, 2022, when the word “Misogyny” was started to be used in the course of meetings. The word was first used in the chat function of Zoom, by disheartened member of the public, and it was repeated regularly since.
We at Framingham Unfiltered obtained a copy of the recorded meeting – these meetings are usually recorded but not regularly posted publicly – and created a mashup cutting down a hours long meeting into a 20 minute highlight reel. Our video clip (below) highlighted the use of the word ‘Misogyny’, a member of showing the men beating up on women, publicly disrespecting them and their work, which was majorly completed by the women on the committee.
Immediately after the May 2nd 2022, meeting, a provisional resignation letter was submitted for the mayor’s consideration by a female member of the CPC – there was no outreach to this member by the mayor or his staff, and instead, two women were tapped to reach out to the provisionally resigned female member.
Because of our mashup put on social media, the Mayor and his staff took notice. The Mayor along with a male city councilor, secretly met with a male member of the CPC and decided to cancel the next meeting on May 9, 2022.
On May 12, 2022 at 10:22am, a writer for the Framingham Patch – Mary Ellen Gambon – called the phone number on the City’s CPC website and left a voicemail for the CPC. In the message she specifically states that she wants to reach the members.
The city’s voicemail system works like this. All voicemails are digital and are sent by the system to the intended recipient. In this case the voicemail went to the CPC@Framinghamma.gov email box. A few hours later – Patch writer – Gambon followed up with and email sent to the same address.
Her message:
In response to receiving the voicemail – Mahoney emailed Senior Records Access Officer PJ Iverson and asked for advice.
Iverson responded that a the portion of the request for video constituted a FOIA/Public Records Request, and for Mahoney’s part “…In terms of replying substantively regarding the work of the committee or the claims of misogyny, that is up to you and the other members of the committee. As far as I know, you are under no legal obligation to respond in any particular fashion or at all.”
Iverson essentially told Mahoney that since this was an email to the CPC box – that it was up to him and the committee members to discuss if they wanted to respond, or not respond at all. Mahoney responded with a note that showed understanding of what should have been done.
His intent was clear in his message to Iverson that he would pass the inquiry on to the CPC members. Why didn’t he? Regarding Mahoney’s statement that he would follow up with the members – public records, evidence, and interviews – indicate that this is not true.
On May 16th, 2022 – Mahoney sought to speak to the COO, Mike Tusino. Did Mahoney tell Tusino about the Media Request that has come in just days prior?
After a complaint on non-responsiveness, on May 18th, 2022 Mahoney confirmed how the CPC email box works for emails and voicemails. This response also indicates that Mahoney believes that emails sent to this mailbox, are for him and his response and not necessarily for the CPC as a whole.
Why does any of this matter?
This is where it gets good.
The next meeting was May 23, 2022. On May 19th, CPC member Judith Grove asked for an agenda item to be added to that next agenda, “Here is my agenda item. It needs to be in the Discussion at the very beginning of the meeting. ‘Community Preservation Committee Leadership Issues and Possible Solutions'”.
In that meeting, Grove asked for the members to vote to remove Mahoney from his chairman role, and to replace him with Shannon Stevens, a member who had done a large portion of the work for the committee. A male member who had missed meeting after meeting – showed up remotely, from out of state, actively driving down a highway, on video – seemingly he was there exclusively for this vote. The vote failed to change leadership, and before the meeting had ended, Stevens resigned from the Committee citing the following reasons:
On that day, the provisional resignation, which was not acknowledged by the Mayor to the member, converted to a full resignation. Before the meeting had ended – Stevens had left.
On May 27th 2022, Liz Kaprielian- one of the other major workhorses on the committee resigned – citing similar issues.
On June 6th 2022, the CPC met short two members.
On June 7th, 2022 one of our FOIA/Public Record Requests came back and showed us the Patch media request on May 12th. While Iverson got the video to the Patch reporter, Mahoney did not follow up with the members of the CPC as he had told Iverson that he would. We spoke to the patch reporter suggesting and learned that she had not gotten any response from Mahoney or the CPC members as she had requested.
Had Mahoney brought this media request to the CPC members, and he should have in a timely manner – the media request could have been discussed in a public forum by any of the members. They could discuss publicly what their official response should be, or if no response should have been given.
Following the Patch media request, the May 23rd meeting was the next meeting. In that meeting leadership issues were discussed ad nauseum, and a vote for leadership change took place, had there been a risk of an Patch article highlighting issues of misogyny on the CPC – or had the members known that they could have reached out to the interested reporter, would Mahoney still be in charge? Would the resignations have taken place?
We can only speculate on what could have happened. We can however talk facts.
FACT: Thomas Mahoney chose to not disseminate information submitted to the CPC via their group email box and group phone number.
FACT: It is not Mahoney’s decision to decide the intent of someone calling the CPC phone number or sending a message to the CPC email box.
FACT: The contact information is not advertised on the city page as how to reach Chairman Mahoney, it is how to contact the Community Preservation Commission.
We believe that because of Mahoney’s actions, two people resigned. Had the members who had resigned had known that there was journalist interested in what they had to say – we believe the outcome of both the leadership vote and the current membership of the commission would be completely different from what it is now.
Mahoney chose to withhold information which he was obligated to share with them, from the committee – in order to prevent a news media outlet from covering the problems on the commission and with Mahoney’s own leadership. His committee suffered membership loss, just so he and the men on his team – could save face.
And unfortunately – the article will still likely come out.
And likely the state will rule on whether Mahoney violated ethics laws – and limit his ability to ever serve a municipality again.
