After looking at the letters below – you’ll understand why this meeting will be worth watching.
Join Zoom Meeting – JUNE 13, 2022 7PM
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87451160398?pwd=SEVMcUtvOHA1UTdXTmlIcVZUN2FiUT09
Meeting ID: 874 5116 0398
Passcode: 409079
IT IS IMPERITIVE THAT THE CPC IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE THEY HAVE $1,500,000+ OF OUR ‘TAX’ MONEY.
We at FU feel the Mayor is feeling the pressure to get everything done by the deadline. We believe that there are projects he has decided should be first in line for CPA funds. Instead of solving the interpersonal problems, the sexism, and disrespect on the committee, he is trying to just move things along.
FU is simply trying to derail progress for one day – probably it will come forward as a brief discussion in the June 13 meeting linked above – to discuss what went wrong, and how unethical decisions made by the CPC Chair Thomas Mahoney – may have led to the resignation of two volunteers. We are asking for the CPC to pause, to reset, and to get to the finish line, but to accept that the mistakes made are now well documented. We are also reccomending the resignation of Thomas Mahoney.
To affect change and force a discussion among the members of the commission – I sent this email to the CPC group mail box, which you will soon learn doesn’t mean much in reaching people. We CC’ed the City Clerk, the Mayor, the City Solicitor, and the Public Participation Officer – as each will play a role in ensuring that the city and the CPC members get the memo.
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2022 08:33:34 -0500
From: team@funfiltered.com
Subject: Open Letter to the CPC Membership
To: CPC@framinghamma.gov
Cc: LAF@framinghamma.gov, mayor@framinghamma.gov,
cpetrini@petrinilaw.com, kfranca@framinghamma.gov
Lisa – Please post this letter in the background materials for the 6/13/2022 CPC meeting. It has been emailed to the CPC inbox within the 48 hour window. However as we now know, the CPC box is really Thom Mahoney’s personal box which he alone determines the fate of the materials within. – Please respond to us on the status of this request.
Kez – Because Thom cannot be trusted to get this email off to all the members of the CPC, I am asking you to manually forward it to all the members of the CPC. – Please respond to us on the status of this request.
Chris – Enjoy your retirement
Charlie – It is time to come clean. Who did you meet with in the days after the meetings in early May? Did you meet with CPC members who were women or men? Did you personally contact either or the women who resigned, both before or after their resignations? Did you personally contact any of the men on issues on the CPC?
Thom – You will read the message below to the full membership of the CPC, during the Monday June 13th meeting. The CPC box is not yours, and the contents of which must be disseminated to the committee regularly – in public meeting to avoid violating OML. Alternatively – you can talk about this letter and the subject matter, without reading it publicly – but that might not be ethical at this point.
——MESSAGE BELOW——–
To the members of the CPC-
We apologize for shaking things up. We saw things that could not be ignored and took the proper steps to get to the root of the matter, collecting evidence from multiple sources, the city, and outside agencies. The root cause of the issues thus far are people only looking out for themselves.
Thomas Mahoney thus far has the most evidence against them, and has been referred to the state ethics commission for his actions. (See: https://funfiltered.com/2022/06/08/state-ethics-board-complaint-filed-on-community-preservation-committee-chair-thomas-mahoney/)
While it would be best to read ethics complaint in the link above – I will summarize.
After the May 2 2022 meeting – which was fraught with accusations of misogyny, and after we mashed up the meeting video to cover the highlights – a reporter with the Patch took notice and left a voice mail on May 12, 2022. She called the phone line set up for the Community Preservation Commission as shown on the city’s website. The digital version of the voicemail ended up in the CPC@Framinghamma.gov email box. In the voicemail, she left a message speaking to the members of the CPC, asking for comment on the possible misogyny and other issues on the committee. The reporter followed up with an email to CPC@Framinghamma.gov. Mahoney – who has exclusive access to the CPC@Framinghamma.gov mailbox, in receipt of the voicemail and email, asked the Senior Records Access Officer (SRAO) what to do. The SRAO told Mahoney that it was up to him and the committee members to discuss whether a statement should be made as a group, or if individuals could respond, or if the committee decided to not respond at all.
This is transparency – this is what we at FU fight for. News agencies exist to get to the truth and report on it, essentially to keep our government and agencies honest.
Unfortunately Thomas Mahoney chose to not be transparent and to not to mention this media request to anyone and by doing this – he made it go away. Mahoney is essentially acting as a dishonest mailroom attendant, he is taking all the messages sent to the committee as a whole and deciding what the intent of the sender was. Is it really for the whole group or is it for someone else, or is it junk mail to be destroyed?
Mahoney decided that the media request looking into misogyny on the CPC – was junk mail.
He will probably tell you now – that he merely forgot about it, and when the topic of misogyny and his leadership came up in the very next meeting that he forgot about it then too. This meeting was only 11 days after he received the media request. Had he brought it up at this meeting where at that time there was a vote to remove him from chair, the common knowledge among members that that a news source was looking to write a story about misogyny on the CPC – would have been detrimental to Mahoney keeping his leadership role. Had two members known that an outlet was available for them to tell their story to – would they still have resigned?
This isn’t about Mahoney alone, this is about the resigned members, as well as all present members. This is about ethics past and ethics going forward.
If Mahoney resigns from the commission as a whole – we will request the ethics complaint be dropped. His resignation – is appropriate. Had he been honest – two members of the committee may not have resigned. Had he been honest – while he might not still be chair, he would still be on the commission. His acts, his decisions, were self preservation… what Mahoney does seems to be all about himself.
We are also targeting CPC Member Doug Stephan for ethics violations. Doug stated he doesn’t have time for the work required now, and is considering leaving and coming back when voting begins. Unfortunately that is not how commissions like this work and begs the question, why even stay for the voting, unless he already has projects in mind for friends and family for which he has been asked to support. The moment he votes for a project he has any connection to – a State Ethic Board Referral will be generated.
We are also targeting Joe Norton for ethics violations, who after weeks and weeks of missing meetings showed up on the May 23rd meeting on zoom, in the car, on video, actively driving down the highway, out of state. He had missed countless prior meetings dealing with family issues out of state, so it seems that driving down a highway out of state, would typically be one that he would have missed. He likely was there at the bequest of Thom Mahoney – who knew in advance that this vote was happening, and needed the vote. When we can obtain the link – Joe will be referred to the State Ethics Board.
Anyone on the remaining board is at risk of ethics violations. We have found links, where emails have been sent between Steve, Doug, Joe, and Tom, and the Mayor. It seems that the old boys network is strong. All members, as well as the administration is at risk.
Steve XXXXXX*
District 6
*On behalf of the Framingham Unfiltered Team
As for the city posting the letter above to the background materials – they failed to do so in the 48 hour period prior to the meeting itself. We will study the laws regarding this and file complaints as appropriate.
Later in the day – while reviewing documents – we decided an Open Meeting Law complaint was warranted. On June 9. 2022 the letter below was sent in accordance with the rules set forth by the state to file such a complaint.
From: XXXXXXXXX <XXXXXXXXX@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 9, 2022 at 11:58 AM
Subject: CPC OML Violations – Formal Complaint
To: <CPC@framinghamma.gov>, Chris Petrini <cpetrini@petrinilaw.com>, Paul J. Iversen <piversen@framinghamma.gov>, CityClerk – Meeting/Minutes Postings <cityclerk@framinghamma.gov>
Cc: <team@FunFiltered.com>
1) It is an open meeting law violation to hold a virtual meeting where the system boots out all participants and the meeting resumes before all participants are present. In the most recent CPC meeting the Zoom account used would end the meeting every 40 minutes. In the chat we offered the solution of adjourning the meeting and reconvening a few minutes later. The method the CPC chose to use was to make a motion to adjourn the meeting and reconvene immediately. The chair would look at his watch and state the present time as the time to reconvene – at the time of adjournment. While the OML has no rules specifically on what to do when a city group is using an unpaid zoom account for city functions – this has got to be a violation.
2) It is an open meeting law violation , if a member of a public body sends an email to a quorum of a public body expressing her opinion on a matter that could come before that body, this communication violates the law even if none of the recipients responds. There are numerous examples of this. We do not wish to make the examples public however we wish for the rules on this to be discussed in a public forum.
3) Agendas should be representative of the discussion expected. The current agenda for June 13th 2022, includes items from presenters who have resigned from the commission. It appears that the CPC is posting a template created months ago, as the current agenda for future meetings. If a template is used and replaced with the correct agenda – a suggested solution is to instead not publish the template at all and just post the real one. Currently out of compliance are the June 13, 2022, the June 27, 2022, as well as the initial agendas posted for the meeting on June 6th, 2022, where while the template was replaced, it still represented the plan for 9 days – when the reality is that everyone knew that that posted agenda was not the plan. If it was known by the poster that the agenda posted did not represent the plan for the meeting – this is the violation.
On all these matters we are seeking a response under the Law within 14 days. Failure to address these matters in a manner consistent with the law will lead to us appealing to the state process.
Thank you –
Steve XXXXXX*
District 6
*on behalf of the anonymous members of FU.