By Frederick A. Hurst
To be frank, I had so many topics on my mind to write about for this month that I almost declined to write anything at all.
It’s frustrating for me when multiple topics are floating around in my head that I think would be of immediate interest to Point of View readers. It clogs up my creative genius (to the extent that I possess such) which explains why my May “Af-Am Bits” were twice as long.
I had so many things I wanted to write about last month that I couldn’t focus on any one for “My Point of View” so I did a little bit of all of them in my “Bits” and skipped “My Point of View.” From the feedback I received, it worked out okay for readers but I must admit it was sort of a cop out for a writer whose focus was scattered.
Things haven’t changed much from last month. My thoughts are still scattered over multiple topics, each of which I want to write about. But, no more cop outs. Although my most recent topic of interest involves marijuana scuttlebutt, I feel obligated to write the follow up on a few issues I touched on in our last issue and I’ll touch on the marijuana scuttlebutt at the end.
As you may recall, community activist and Ward 4 City Council candidate Jynai McDonald led the charge to clean up the Acorn Street tennis court with the help of more than 100 volunteers, one of whom donated a large receptacle for removing the debris. The city opposed the cleanup effort as well as the community’s wish to restore it to its original use as a tennis court. Instead city officials locked the gate which had been open and neglected for years while the debris accumulation multiplied.
Community folks unlocked the gate and gave the court a thorough, long overdue cleaning and, under Jynai’s guidance, took steps to obtain funding to restore it to its original use which the city also opposed. It seems that a compromise was arranged with Springfield’s Executive Director of Parks, Buildings and Recreation, Pat Sullivan, and Jynai McDonald regarding restoring the Acorn tennis court – which is Springfield park property – back to its use as a community tennis court which is not surprising because Pat Sullivan does not have a history of being unreasonable.
The other thing I wanted to follow up on from our May issue was city basketball courts whose hoops the mayor ordered removed as part of “his” pandemic control plan.
You may recall that a group of enterprising Black community leaders decided it was time the kids got an opportunity to play basketball in public parks. So, when the city remained unresponsive, the community folks, including the ever active Ward 4 City Council candidate Jynai McDonald, raised several thousand dollars to purchase hoops which they attached to existing park backboards in several Mason Square parks and supervised the kids playing basketball. And the next day “dear leader,” Mayor Domenic Sarno, arranged for the removal of the hoops by the Park Department in (it seems) the dark of night.
Now I didn’t mean for this hoop happening to become the major topic of this article but a few more paragraphs seem essential to convey the true nature of what happened next, which is that our courageous community folks went right down to the Park Department and very politely demanded their hoops back. I say “very politely” because I give community folks credit for being sophisticated enough to know that, had they been belligerent, the narrative would have been negative and might have involved the police. Folks were, instead, “very polite.”
And the city employee, who hadn’t even removed the hoops from his truck, very politely gave them back.
And our courageous and properly concerned community folks reattached them to the backboards and continued supervising kids playing in Adams Park on Wilbraham Road at the same time Attorney General Maura Healy was attending a nonprofit group’s tree planting ceremony just feet from the basketball court which, unavoidably, caused confusion because neither group knew the other was going to be there.
Bud Williams and a few of his friends knew because they showed up with Attorney General Maura Healy and the tree planting group with a few other dignitaries and the community folks supervising the kids demanded to know why they weren’t given notice of the ceremony.
They voiced their concerns directly to the Attorney General who (I’m told) did her best to calm feelings with some degree of success since she is a basketball fan. But, the next day when folks returned to Adams Park, the mayor had ordered both the hoops and the backboards removed and nothing remained except the stark naked Black poles, presumably as a symbol of his authority. Subsequently, Ward 4 City Council Candidate Jynai McDonald met with Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton Harris (who has always strived to focus on facts and avoid politics) to plead the community’s case to open the courts. I can’t be sure that it helped but shortly after their meeting, Caulton Harris announced a date for reattaching the basketball equipment and reopening the courts. My understanding is that the hoops and backboards are all up and ready for use.
By the way, you may have seen the overblown article in The Republican about the Ward 4 incumbent city councilor who―as is typical―played no role in the community’s effort. After all of the community’s work and Jynai McDonald’s advocacy, Malo Brown sent a belated letter to Governor Baker asking for his help in opening up the courts.
Yes! The same Malo Brown who did nothing to promote the Acorn tennis court clean up or to participate in it had the nerve to try again to steal the credit that others had earned, which is a tactic he may have learned from his boss and mentor, Bud Williams, whose recent smoke and mirrors headline over Smith and Wesson gave him a lot of attention and the community absolutely nothing.
Well, in a terse letter of response, the governor told meek Malo Brown what he should have already known: “Consult your local leaders” (just as other folks had already done well before Brown’s self-serving letter and, typically, without his help because he does very little beyond allowing himself to be used by the mayor to foil effective Black folks who truly care about their community and the city).
Before I get back to the marijuana scuttlebutt, you may have read my bit in our May issue titled, “The Silliness of Springfield’s Police Commissioner.” Although I rarely hesitate to speak the truth as I know it, the facts as they unfold, and to express what I believe to be informed opinions, sometimes I feel a bit of discomfort at being out on a limb alone on certain issues such as when I write articles critical of the mayor or “his” police commissioner and others who deserve criticism but so rarely receive it. So I genuinely appreciate it when others find the courage to join in. So I encourage you to read this month’s front page article by the Greater Springfield Chapter of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council in which they criticize the arrogant behavior of Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood. She deserves it.
Finally, about the marijuana scuttlebutt. Not long ago, I received a call from a syndicated columnist from out of state who claimed to be investigating corruption in Springfield. Once I confirmed his identity, I told him candidly that I had no smoking gun information on corruption in Springfield but that some strange happenings have attracted my attention.
He added more facts to those strange happenings but, still, as a lawyer and a somewhat thoughtful person, I couldn’t draw any conclusions one way or the other. The same goes for the scuttlebutt surrounding these last nine marijuana groups recently selected by Mayor Sarno and forwarded to the City Council for its votes.
First of all, when Mayor Sarno announced his nine selections, he made it a point to say the process was open and fair. My antennas immediately jumped up! The first thing that came to my mind is Hamlet’s mother’s words: “Thou doth protest too much.”
Even the City Council has no real say in the process and how the results of it were arrived at. All of the people on the Mayor’s marijuana committee, except for City Councilor Trayce Whitfield, work for Mayor Sarno as staff members with the exception of his so-called expert who works for him indirectly as a paid consultant. There is nothing independent or open and fair about the committee and/or the process so we’ll never really know if something suspect and worthy of a closer look took place.
What we are hearing about the nine selections is that at least four of them are politically connected to two current elected officials and two former elected officials, one of whom was forced out of office long ago but who remains politically active.
We hear that at least one group was selected―for only part of its proposal and that, as a result, the part that was excluded will result in killing the entire project. And some say the partial selection was deliberately designed as a political vendetta coming directly out of the mayor’s office…a well planned poison pill, you might say.
And some whose proposals were rejected are disturbed because they don’t know why and are concerned about the politics of it all, especially since it is being said that some who were selected for political reasons had been provided with a proposal template to copy.
I haven’t named any names, although I could, but it doesn’t seem fair at this time because I don’t know enough about any of it to affirm anything one way or the other―just that the scuttlebutt is running rampant because the so-called fair and open process does not exist. It is no different from the “fair and open” process Mayor Sarno used to select the current police commissioner and claimed she was the best person for the job. How do we know? Because he said so!
Houston, we’ve got a problem! ■
