SEE HOW MAYOR SARNO GOT BUSTED
Mayor Sarno got busted by Black city councilors who were trying to collaborate with him on the issue of change in the culture of the Springfield police department. Toward that end, councilors Justin Hurst, Tracye Whitfield and Marcus Williams came up with an idea for funding supplemental training for police which they forwarded to the mayor for discussion. As he has so often done in the past, Mayor Sarno didn’t respond, it seems, because he has a problem collaborating with councilors of color. Instead, he cheated by simply taking the three Black councilors’ suggestions and incorporating them into a news release and claiming that it was his idea in cooperation with other folks in his administration and other folks in the Black community. He lied and got caught because he had cheated the same way so many times before that council president Justin Hurst thought it wise to send a copy of his e-mail to Mayor Sarno to Peter Goonan at the The Republican ahead of time while waiting for the mayor to respond. Here is what Justin Hurst wrote to Peter Goonan: Good morning…I just want you to be aware of the dialogue that is occurring between a few Councilors and the Mayor. I know there is a tendency for the Mayor to co-opt issues and ideas as though they originated from his team. I’m hopeful that the Mayor and the Council can work together on the issue below, but in the event we can’t, at least you know that we attempted to do so. This information may prove helpful in a future story, but for now please keep our efforts confidential.
Justin Hurst’s e-mail was sent to Mayor Sarno on June 25 at 6:19 a.m. and a blind copy was sent to Peter Goonan at The Republican on the same day at 6:25 a.m. In the body of his e-mail to the mayor, Justin Hurst requested a meeting between himself, Whitfield and Williams the next morning, Friday, June 26 at 10:00. Instead, before the day was out, Mayor Sarno took the information from the Black councilors’ document and created a news release in which he claimed their ideas were his own. When Elizabeth Román at The Republican received the Mayor’s news release and reviewed the councilors’ documents already in the paper’s possession, she contacted all three councilors for comments and wrote an article that appeared in the July 26th Republican exposing the mayor’s plagiarism. That’s what I call being busted!
SEE HOW MAYOR SARNO GOT BUSTED
Elizabeth Román wrote of her interview with Marcus Williams: “Williams said it goes beyond Sarno presenting a plan or an idea as his own – it’s about silencing marginalized voices.” And she quoted Williams as saying: “It goes to show he likes to mute Black voices as it relates to Black issues and then present this package to the Black community as if it is his own. I have a problem with that…”
SEE HOW MAYOR SARNO GOT BUSTED
Elizabeth Román wrote of her interview with Tracye Whitfield: “Whitfield said it’s not about getting credit, but about acknowledging the council’s effort to collaborate with the mayor.” And she quoted Whitfield as saying: “No credit is really needed when you’re doing the right thing…We sent our proposal in a good faith effort to work together. We asked to meet with him tomorrow (Friday) and we did not even receive a courtesy response to the email saying that they already had a plan in place. It was silence, so we were shocked to see the press release from the mayor with language that is almost verbatim one of our suggestions.”
SEE HOW MAYOR SARNO GOT BUSTED
Elizabeth Román wrote: “…a statement from the mayor’s office credited Police Commissioner Clapprood, Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Attorney Talia Gee, and several other staff members and community leaders for helping come up with this allotment of funds and new programs. But it made no mention of city councilors Justin Hurst, Tracye Whitfield and Marcus Williams, who sent Sarno an email suggesting that exact allotment of funds and ways in which it could be used…” SEE MAYOR SARNO FOR WHO HE IS
Mayor Sarno appears by his recent behavior to be trying to pit Black folks against Black folks. It’s an old, worn out White trick that he seems to think he invented. What he doesn’t know is that Black folks picked up on that trick long ago and are sophisticated enough to defend against it, not by fighting each other but by foiling the mayor’s bad intentions in ways that he can’t even imagine.
SEE MAYOR SARNO FOR WHO HE IS
If he thinks that he can ignore, without serious consequences, the people who we elected to office to represent us, two of whom were elected at-large by a diverse voter base and one of whom is president of the council, then he is wrong.
SEE MAYOR SARNO FOR WHO HE IS
So far Mayor Sarno has been given a pass by the Black community primarily because he is ever present at Black events with his smiley façade and warm handshakes. It has only been recently that folks have taken a more critical look at him and, altogether too often, he has come up wanting. How he could have appointed three White police commissioners in a row without input from the community he serves and ignore the community’s persistent demand for an independent police commission is beyond me, especially since all of his choices came from the ranks of the very police department the community is demanding be seriously reformed.
GO JOE!
Many local insiders must be shaking in their boots at recent Kennedy/Markey poll numbers taken by Democratic candidates. One was taken in western Massachusetts by our own Congressman Richard Neal and the other by a candidate running in Kennedy’s congressional district. Both polls show Kennedy trouncing Markey by double digits in their race for the senate seat. The western Mass locals were supposed to deliver for Markey but it looks like they are going to get Joe Kennedy III as their next senator. And my bet is that Joe is going to be real mad at some folks. As if that isn’t shocking enough, a May poll showed Kennedy trouncing Markey in Boston by 30 points and he is several million dollars ahead of Markey in fundraising. Go Joe! ■
