Hot mic moment.. and Mike Cannon
By now you have heard and seen the “hot mic” incident between the administration and Mike Cannon at a recent zoom meeting. The meeting was billed as a way for the business community to ask the Mayor about their concerns moving forward now that the State eases regulations post covid.
As with most meetings with the Mayor, one councilor always seems to create a bad reaction from the administration. The meeting that was recorded but is not available on Gov TV.
The Mayor put out a press release to explain what happened.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwLtkVWXhmVBbrpGCszfFHQWRxK
As a regular viewer of council meetings since we became a city and elected a Mayor, one thing has remained consistent from day one. The Mayor has never received respect. The mostly white power in our community for the past 300 years was shocked and dismayed when a seemly unheard of black women with little to no experience in government was elected over the “shoe in” white candidate who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
From the first council meeting with the Mayor, it was clear to me that she was the target of institutional racism. She didn’t make her life any easier when she hired a xmayor as COO for guidance, who has hardly ever answered a question directly and is looking for another job. And thanks to the mostly white council 1.0 board chairman who let his dogs out to nip at the heels of the rookie mayor the disrespect on both sides started to mount.
Nothing has changed with Council 2.0. George lets Mike Cannon and others just show little to no respect to the Mayor. Say what you will about Town Meeting, but at least the moderator would shut a speaker down if they were insulting or badgering a division head.
Even the latest school committee meeting shows the lack of respect for the Mayor. Adam (SC Chair) interrupts the Mayor while speaking, Epstein asks the same question twice without an answer from the Mayor, regarding the amount of money not spent so far this year. The Mayor sees none, but Epstein see’s millions in surplus.
It may be to late for a reset on both sides. Name calling and bad feelings are preventing good government. Ego’s and political motivations are making things worse. And the fact that a mostly white council still can’t come to terms with a black female as mayor.
We were promised efficient government by those on the charter commission. They said we would be agile and able to make decisions quickly and would have more representation from the otherwise forgotten south side. Since the beginning, I’ve not seen any of those promises come to fruition.
Now that MEK is retiring and the budget has been delivered to the council, I can see trouble brewing already and MEK may not take a lot of criticism from Mike Cannon or anyone else who looks to disparage her work.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 12:01 PM
29 Comments
29 Comments:
Not sure I agree that the councilors are bigots, but I do agree there is a bad mojo between the mayor and the council and nothing good is going to come of that
No, racism is not the reason for these issues. The reason is the first chair of the council set the tone by allowing councilors to rant and rave at the mayor, and did nothing to stop it. The new chair is not much better. But then, the mayor does not set a good example as she allows her direct report to make statements like we heard on that hot mic with no repercussions, so she is as much at fault as anyone. She does not expect her staff to be punished for disrespecting a councilor so why should the councilor expect any repercussion for disrespecting the mayor?
Implicit racism exists, as does implicit misogyny. I think the later is the case with Mr. Cannon as I have seen how he speaks to other women in authority who are white. He just is a man who feels threatened by any woman with power. He is jealous and he is pissed off that a woman has more power than him. Not racist, but definitely bigoted against women in general
Jim is 100% correct. Town Moderator would never allow the type of bullshit that gets slung at these DC meetings. We need Teri to start refereeing these meetings and then maybe something besides name calling and finger pointing will happen,
Something changed in the minds of all those elected in 2017. Along with the biased digital media source and a local newspaper that has failed in timely reporting and the governing by Face Book all have contributed to the toxicity.
Cannon is the most outspoken, and unpolished member of the council. But he does get things done. I think we need to cut him some slack with the mayor. He is up against a women with a Ph.D. and he does not even have a BA. He can’t fight her with brains as she would clearly win, so he fights her on his level.
Cannon has crossed the line with his attitude towards the mayor over and over and over again and why should he stop? He has never faced any consequences for his actions.
The mayor and her EA are 100% wrong her, but the mayor just continues to ignore her mistakes. I applaud Cannon for calling her out the way he does.
Some good advice about how to handle a liar (that being the mayor). It is not to do what Cannon does for sure. What is the best way to deal with someone who lies? First, stop seeing them as a “liar.” You have reduced their identity to a label. Give them a reason to come clean. Acknowledging terrible mistakes is hard for anyone. Master the facts and control yourself, instead of trying to control the other person’s response. Because someone lies does not mean you are right to belittle or disrespect them. Your actions speak to your character as much as the liar’s actions speak to theirs.
Our government is a joke. Watch a few DC meetings and you will know that without doubt. They are either posturing for an electorate that they want to vote them in as mayor, or they are clueless Shameful that we have stooped to this level, but I have little hope of things getting better.
I was thinking Ed Nolan or Jerry Desilits who would shut down anyone real quick.
I agree with the notion that the Mayor and her people should be held to higher standards and should have immediately apologized.. get in front of... take your licks and make sure it doesn't happen again. I'd like to remind you all that Bob Trembly was caught on a hot mic situation.. but he learned and so should the Mayor's staff. Personally I think if these meetings were directed by GOV TV personal, like the LWV's meetings, this wouldn't have happened at all.
I agree there is disrespect between the mayor and the council, but for the most part, the DCs are respectful in their disagreement with the mayor, but not Cannon and because of that he gets the attention. Goes to show you we are a society that loves to watch a train wreck
I am surprised at the interest in this. This type of insulting comments happen all the time between the mayor and Cannon, so what is the new interest here?
Enough already people. What is all of this accomplishing? Let’s talk about something important, like the budget and the proposed 2.5% tax increase we are all going to see on top of the Fuller School assessment, the CPA assessment, and the 12% increase in water and sewer costs. This circus behavior is nothing more than the elected, both the Mayor and Cannon, distracting you from what is actually happening here. Costs are going to be too high for many of our older residents to remain here
The city council meetings are beginning to look like Rizoli tv.
Jim what do you think? Is the mayor wrong, or is Cannon wrong?
We already had heard about the name calling and text messages... and now this. I'm positive a few of them have called me names at certain points but I never heard them personally. And I will admit to name calling only in person. It is train wreck local government at it's worse.
But how do they move forward is my question?
And to the point about the budget.. I spent an hour surfing the budget web page and couldn't for the life of me figure out where those numbers are I want to review. I think I understood the old software but this one is not intuitive at all. It turns people off if your have to work hard at getting any relevant info. I hope we didn't pay to much for the software. See for yourself if you can find police OT. I've e mailed MEK per the Mayor's press release.
https://stories.opengov.com/framinghamma/published/IUZm7FmSd
They are both wrong imo. And they are both smart enough to know it.. I'll bet in reflection. One would have thought the last round of insults would be the end, but I guess not.
How long would the mayor be a teacher or a Museum of Science project manager if she called everyone a-holes and disgusting people?
The match was lit by Giombetti, and Sistky imo and carried forward by George. They could have and should have pulled the reins on the Cannon horse. They all let Cannon and others chastise the Mayor, COO, CFO and even the poor kid at the sustainability department about how many electric cars does the Town have. at every point. And Of coarse, the Mayor has gotten the wrong guidance from the small Town X Mayor to make matters of transparency and accountability harder to see.
It's not the council's job to manage the administration.
With MEK leaving we are in trouble. She has years of experience with our budget and the temperament to deal with both the uninformed mayor and the uninterested district council. Everyone is focused on some hot mic comment made by someone with no authority to act on behalf of the city. The EA should be suspended without pay, but then, when a cop shot an innocent man and killed him nothing happened to him either so I guess no one working in Framingham has to be worried about what happens when they screw up
What a mess led by the leaders of our community who all seem to have clothes made of Teflon so nothing sticks
hold off on trying to delve into the budget web page.. MEK informed me in an e mail that they are realigning.. to make it easier to understand. The vendor may be working on a tutorial and the Mayor will do a community hour about the budget next week.
Glad to hear they are working to make it easier to understand. I was completely lost trying to figure it out
Cannon and Spicer are like 2 of the 3 stooges. Entertains if it was just an comedy routine from the 60s. But it isn’t
Just another example of the poor choices the voters in Framingham continue to make. You all complain about this stuff and the re-elect the people who do this stuff. When are we going to learn?
Are you going to do another budget overview with the LWV Jim? It was great last year except for the behavior of Mr. Cannon so please don't have him involved if you do this again.
Stephanie and I were just talking about putting something together. Yes we will do a show on the budget.. after the CC does their own thing. Sometime at the end of May or early June.
Yes we will not have Mike on again. And we have to wait to see who will pull papers for Mayor before inviting George or Adam.
Voter's have such short memories. Some choose to ignore the fact that the first council 1.0 was made up of former selectman who ran this Town's infrastructure into the shape it is now, resulting in a proposed 12% increase in water rates this next year.
We got back into the web site for the budget. MEK made some changes and even I can navigate each division. At first glance it appears to be all there, but I hate those pie charts. Give me the old spread sheet like we had at TM, that I can read.
I do think, this software should have been live tested by someone other than residents and Spicer haters.. I wonder if Audrey is still with this company.
Look forward to your budget discussion event. It will be interesting to see who is running but I suspect that most won't announce until close to the time they can pull papers. Will be an interesting fall here.
I hope that the CFO gives the City Council the big finger when she heads out the door starting with a kickass workplace harrassment lawsuit against that little douchebag councilor who looks like he likes to wack off while shitting on helpless employees who are afraid of losing their job if they fight back.
"Napoleon Complex" is a theorized inferiority complex normally attributed to people of short stature. It is characterized by overly-aggressive or domineering social behavior.
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