A few months ago, Avi Green went to a meeting of the Somerville Green-Rainbow party. Since he is running for office, he was probably not planning to say things that would offend other people attending the meeting.

Indeed, the minutes of the meeting make it seem that Avi Green really, really likes the Green-Rainbow party, even though he is, in fact, a member of the Democratic party, which really, really does not like the Green-Rainbow party.

Tim Toomey saw the minutes posted online and was very, very interested. He wanted to know what Avi was doing at that meeting talking about “radical economic change.” He publicly questioned his fellow Democrat’s loyalty to his party. He accused Green of secretly being—Green.

Avi had read the minutes himself, and just imagine his cold sweat. Nobody had told him that the Green-Rainbow party publicly posts the minutes of meetings!

Green asked the Somerville party to erase the “radical economic change” part from the minutes. He never said that!

Someone in the State Green-Rainbow party took pity on the poor candidate, and erased the offending passage from the online minutes of the Somerville local.

Of course, someone else had already copied the minutes.

Eli Beckerman is in Somerville Green-Rainbow, in fact —full disclosure—he works on this newspaper with me. So I asked him what he knew about this and he said, “well I looked at the minutes, realized I had written them...and when I checked my notebook just now it was in there. I wouldn't have made it up. Avi said it.”

I will be the first to admit that Eli could be wrong, especially since I am not myself Eli. But Avi’s memory could be faulty too. It has been before.

For example, the Cambridge Chronicle reported last December 23, “Although he is a staunch supporter of Clean Elections, Green said he would not run under that label until the state votes to fully fund the measure.” Staunchly, he had forgotten the repeal of Clean Elections seven months earlier, on a voice vote with the acquiescence of his close political associate and fellow Progressive Democrat, Senator Jarrett Barrios.

Jarrett had just spent $409,140 to become a senator, surpassing Senate President William Bulger’s record by almost $100,000. I think it was very liberal of him, being such a staunch Clean Elections supporter, even though he raised all his own money; so much money, that when he filed his election eve financial report, he forgot to include about $70,000. “We had some checks that hadn’t cleared or something,” he said.

So he forgot. Everybody forgets things. As a State Representative, Jarrett even forgot that he was supposed to be a staunch opponent of Speaker Finneran. His very first vote was to scrap the recently established House rule limiting any representative’s term as Speaker, intended to limit the Speaker’s power.

Avi Green and Jarrett Barrios are both members of the Progressive Democrats (PDs), a group which grew out of Robert Reich’s 2002 campaign for governor. The PDs often tell us Green-Rainbow folks that they agree with our “values.”

Last year, us two groups co-sponsored a forum for Cambridge City Council candidates.

Tim Toomey seems to think there’s something un-Democratic about that. But I bet he would agree with most of our values, too. Even Clean Elections. Commenting on his 2002 Green opponent, Paul Lachelier, Tim said, “Everybody supports Clean Elections, but to use taxpayers’ money for a negative campaign….”

Tim must have forgot that he was a staunch opponent of Clean Elections, since the category, “everybody,” includes Tim. But remember—I just said “Everybody forgets things.”

Tim also forgot that he doesn’t like negative campaigns. What could be more negative than Green-baiting a guy named Green!

Tim Toomey is a little paranoid about the PDs and the Green-Rainbow Party (GNP) ganging up on him. Just for the record, though, we Greens did not see any of the PDs protesting against their party’s fascist “free speech zones” outside the DNC last month.

Actually, Eric Weltman (PD) and Bill Bumpus (GRP) did try to gang up on Tim with a joint op-ed, but the Somerville Journal wouldn’t print it. I forget why. But in the interest of fairness (gagg), here are some excerpts of what they wrote.

“Toomey and Ciampa are loyal Finneran supporters. Both Green and Sciortino have vowed to oppose Finneran's re-election as speaker.” Remember that Finneran “killed the voter-approved Clean Elections Law.” “It is true that Ciampa and Toomey occasionally vote against Finneran's wishes. But these votes are obscured by their backing of Finneran as speaker. For example, to his credit, Toomey voted in support of same-sex marriage this year. For this, several gay rights groups recently held a fundraiser for his re-election campaign. Unfortunately, in helping Toomey, the gay rights groups are hurting their cause in two ways. First, in Avi Green they would have a much more energetic, outspoken supporter of human rights. Second, by supporting Toomey, they are supporting Finneran, the most powerful opponent of gay rights on Beacon Hill.”

Are you reading this, Senator Barrios?

Skip and Lenore Schloming, a.k.a. the Intergalactic Small Property Owners Association, can always be counted upon to raise the level of discussion.

Thus ISPOA has revealed that Avi Green is a ferocious rent-control radical. He “can't hide his radicalism” from the intrepid Googlers, who located him “at a meeting of Cambridge's Eviction Free Zone, the radical tenant activist group that put forward the rent control petition voted down last fall….”

They conclude, “So Green was part and parcel of the planning behind the Eviction Free Zone's rent control goal.…Green is not good for Cambridge or Somerville. By contrast, Tim Toomey has proven himself an effective and efficient legislator.”

The Schlomings seldom show any sign that they are reading the stuff they glom off the internet for their witless “research.” Thus they didn’t notice that the meeting in question took place five years ago,—or that it was a public meeting,—or that Avi Green’s quote from that meeting does not even favor rent control.

Slobbering over Toomey’s effectiveness and efficiency, La Familia Schloming forgot how their spittle used to shower him when he was a staunch supporter of rent control. Remember those days?

Incidentally, the Cambridge Chronicle reports that Tim Toomey and Avi Green are both staunchly opposed to rent control.

The Green-Rainbow party and all its candidates support rent control. Period.

And don't forget it.