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As Dudley revives, so do tensions
By adamg on Wed, 04/08/2015 - 7:54am
The Dig reports on a meeting on Monday of a group tasked with overseeing development that did not end well.
As it turns out, the RSMPOC executive board met privately, after a public meeting in March at which standards for jobs were discussed, and changed the written recommendations. Outraged that the terms were drawn in a transparent process but then subsequently stripped in private, Councilor Jackson, along with State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz inquired about written procedure, but were told by RSMPOC co-chair Norm Stembridge that no bylaws exist, therefore allowing his executive action. Oblivious to criticism from officials and the shouts of community members, some of whom started calling for his resignation on the spot, a stone-faced Stembridge then proceeded anyway with a vote on the abridged standards, which passed despite three members abstaining in protest.
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Comments
Not the main point
...but I don't think the statement that all Roxbury schools are underfunded is accurate, is it?
Backroom dealings and no
Backroom dealings and no transparency?
Who do they think they are the BRA?!
RSMPOC
Roxbury Strategic Master Plan Oversight Committee
Needed to look this up....
It's a union thing
Seems that the union and their sympathizers are pushing hard to make sure that anything that is built is a union shop. In an area where ANY development is welcome, they better not push too hard or the people funding these things will just walk away. As always, unions have their place, but sometimes what's right for the union is not the best thing for the community in general.
It's a union thing
"sometimes what's right for the union is not the best thing for the community in general."
I think after 30 years watching unions disappear along with viable communities, the idea that the interests of the financiers would best serve the needs of society have to examined.
That's fine for the oversight
That's fine for the oversight board to consider, but it should have been done openly, and discussed during public meetings. Agreeing to non-interference w/ union organizing, the card-check provision, at a public meeting and then removing it privately is not okay.
Of course people are upset, even if they don't care either way.
From what I gather the
From what I gather the animosity in the meeting came from the RSMPOC privately scrapping a non-interference provision from the strategic master plan. It sounds like that's the RSMPOC's prerogative, but still there's a difference between forcing all workers to be union and forcing employers not to interfere should their employees decide to unionize. The latter is what I think was at stake in this meeting, though it certainly plays into the broader union vs. non-union debate.
As for development, there's already a lot completed, a lot under development, and a lot planned. I don't buy the textbook scare tactic "if you don't heed the developers demands and do everything to make development as cheap as possible, then they'll never develop your neighborhood". It's a compromise, it always is, I don't see why the Globe et al likes to lambast these local "nimbys" while it takes an easy hand to even more virulent opposition to any and all development in the suburbs and near-in towns.
Also not the main point
I'm genuinely puzzled - how exactly does one impugn a (physical) movement?
Good question
Impugn: "dispute the truth, validity, or honesty"
Maybe if a committee member tried to leave to go pee, the crowd said, "You don't really have to go. HOLD IT!"
Faraone sure knows how to turn someone into a cartoon villain
"It may take watchdogs months to determine who Stembridge is shilling for, and why." Pretty strong speculation there. Love the portrait of heroic underdog politicians standing up to the community volunteers on the committee- very dramatic.
I don't agree with the decision to unilaterally strip the provision, but this really doesn't strike me as a coalition of one percenters versus the downtrodden masses. Certain unions do in fact have clout around here, and some have been known to engage in their own excesses and shady activities.
Well
He is a lone outlaw journalist, beholden to no-one but fellow truth seekers.
Or that's what I think he thinks of himself. Not a good journalist, just an alt-muck raker.