It can be frustrating to be a city councilor. Having worked with scores of councilors, a town manager, a half dozen selectmen and two different mayors, I can tell you it is challenging to get the executive to do what you want. City councilors have blunt tools: cutting the budget (they can’t add to it), passing an ordinance (they can’t enforce it), and passing a resolution or speaking to an issue (will they listen). None of these tools lets the City Council take direct action.
Being mayor is no picnic either. You have zero control over the budget after the city council gets it. You are bound by state budgets, employment laws, insurance regulations, procurement laws etc. You may desire an outcome, but don’t control it if you have the money to make it happen, and there are things you must fund regardless of whether the council gives you enough money to do so.
Take all of that, add controversy and politics into the mix and you have a formula for disaster. The recent verdict in case against the city by former police officer Patrick Buchanan finding racial discrimination by the department in promotion was certainly alarming. It is understandable that the public and their representatives on the Greenfield City Council would want heads to roll. Trying to force the mayor’s hand they used one of those blunt tools and cut the budget of the Police Department in the amount of the verdict. They wanted to send a message that the Greenfield City Council has done over and over: Greenfield is no place for hate.
The mayor, however, does not have the power to do what they want. The case is on appeal because our insurance provider insists on it. They may be doing this because they think they will win or simply to negotiate a smaller settlement, but they and not the city is in control of that litigation. If we refuse to support the appeal, the city becomes responsible for the entire judgement. The mayor has a fiduciary duty to the taxpayers to have the insurance company pay, after all we already paid for the insurance.
While the Police Department was taken out of civil service, the chief remains in the Civil Service because the voters themselves placed that position in civil service specifically to prevent a mayor from making a political hiring or firing decision in that position. With the case on appeal and no other report, the mayor has no cause to take the actions council wants. She has taken prudent steps to give herself more tools, she has placed the chief on administrative leave and has sought an independent investigation. I am not saying every action she has taken has been correct in this matter, just that she does not have the power to do what the council really wants.
The result has been that the Police Department in responding to the budget cuts has been proposing some draconian cuts. Remember that the acting chief and mayor are bound by a union contract that the City Council unanimously voted to fund. To date the union, understandably upset about the implication of the litigation as to the rest of the department, has not been willing to sacrifice through shared furloughs, but for the acting chief’s spouse who took an unpaid leave. The result is more police are being cut and those the least culpable for the action at issue in the litigation. This is a result few in the public or on the council desire.
It is time for the mayor and council to put aside grievances, politics and mistrust. The mayor should propose to the council an interdepartmental transfer from a mandatory expense like health insurance to the Police Department and commit to backfill the health insurance line item with either ARPA funds or a supplemental appropriation upon the certification of free cash. The council now seeing they cannot achieve what they had understandably wanted by the action they took should approve and pass a resolution condemning racial discrimination in all hiring and promotion practices in the city. While the mayor could possibly just backfill the Police Department with ARPA funds without the council’s authority, not working with the council would be a mistake for the many future projects where she will need their support.
Finally, though difficult, the voting public should be patient and wait for due process to play out. Then upon seeing the results of any appeal or independent audit, hold the mayor and councilors accountable for the actions they take upon having a final decision. Anger in the face of racial discrimination is understandable and even admirable. Taking injudicious action in the wake of that anger is unwise. We make mistakes when we fail to consider unintended consequences.
Isaac Mass is an attorney and former six-term Greenfield city councilor