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Somerville Gang Board goes forward as Cambridge moves to dismantle Police Review
The controversial Somerville gang ordinance has now been with us for one year. The Alders passed it last May, with only Denise Provost voting against. Somerville’s delegation in the Legislature is not so happy. Representatives Pat Jehlen and Carl Sciortino, and Senator Jarrett Barrios have all questioned the ordinance.
It provides for a seven-member Gang Advisory Board with members selected by the Human Rights Commission, Police Department, the City Solicitor, and the Aldermen. The Mayor appoints three members, at least two of whom must be minority representatives.
Mayor Joe Curtatone did not make his appointments until December, but the Board is now in place.
Even though it is supposed to govern only one law, the Somerville GAB potentially has broader powers than the Cambridge PRAB. First, because the City Manager appoints all the Cambridge Board’s members, while in Somerville there are five different appointing agencies.
Second, because the Cambridge PRAB has never done more than review cases of alleged police misconduct which are brought to it by citizens. The Somerville GAB is expected to affirmatively come up with guidelines and training for the police.
Apparently even a toothless PRAB is too much for old boys in Cambridge.
Last September six citizens brought suit against City Manager Robert Healy for failure to make appointments and enforce the City’s 20-year-old Police Review Advisory Board ordinance.
Superior Court Judge Peter Lauriat appeared to take the complaints inAdkins v Healy seriously.
One complaint was that the City Manager violated the law by refusing to appoint a PRAB Executive Director, instead adding PRAB duties to the Director of the Human Rights Commission.
Judge Lauriat gave Healy six months to clean up his act. Rather than comply, Healy moved to change the law. On April 11, the city council obliged by voting to allow the PRAB to operate without its own Executive Director.
Only Councilors Decker, Reeves, and Simmons opposed the changes.
On April 27, the plaintiffs were before Judge Leila Kern, a Cellucci appointee. Rather than taking them seriously, Kern appeared to mock the plaintiffs. However, she took under advisement whether state law is violated when an appointed board member moves out of the city and remains on the board. PRAB appointee Susan Melucci, a former employee of the Police Dept., now lives in Leominster.
Attorney Dick Clary said that the City’s excuse for keeping Melucci on was "the refrain that Healy constantly repeats… ‘no one wants to be on the board.’"