Speaker DeLeo, Councillor Yancey with Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty: The trio huddled in a tense exchange after a community meeting at the Lee School last week. Image courtesy Mike Deehan/SHNSCity Councillor Charles Yancey rarely misses a chance to bring up, either directly or obliquely, his demand that the city build a new high school in Mattapan.
So nearly everyone who had gathered for a forum at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester last Wednesday night knew where the longtime District 4 councillor was headed when he took the microphone at the tail end of the gathering. The forum, put together by state Rep. Russell Holmes (D-Mattapan), featured House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) and state Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty (D-Chelsea) and came as House and Senate negotiators are attempting to hammer out a compromise version of sentencing reform bills.
Yancey, who has sought to raise doubts about the bills and slow down their passage, said the legislation could lead to more prisons being built instead of schools. DeLeo responded by raising his voice and telling the crowd no other legislature has been as supportive of providing “billions and billions” in education funding to communities as his.
“In terms of building additional prisons . . . if we changed our laws relative to the mandatory minimums and we had the three strikes bill you’re out, so to speak, then we’re going to actually save money because some people who may be in prisons right now won’t be in the future or they’ll be getting other educational opportunities and will be out of prison,” DeLeo added.
After finishing his response, DeLeo appeared to continue a sharp exchange with a bewildered Yancey. O’Flaherty walked over and put his hands on both DeLeo and Yancey to calm the speaker.
“I wasn’t criticizing the state for a lack of education funding,” Yancey said after the verbal dust-up. Yancey added that he doesn’t “understand why [DeLeo] was so defensive in his response,” that he felt he had treated DeLeo with “the utmost respect and sadly that wasn’t reciprocated.”
According to DeLeo’s office, Boston received $200 million in Chapter 70 aid in 2012, on top of federal funding. A DeLeo spokesman said the speaker’s response to Yancey “reflected his pride” in the Dorchester delegation for providing “school funding for the children of Boston.”
Earlier in the forum, O’Flaherty, the lead House negotiator on the sentencing bill, walked the crowd of 140 people through the weeds of the controversial legislation, saying he had offered up a compromise to Senate negotiators that cut in half the list of almost 60 crimes that would remove the option of parole for criminals with two felonies.
Different versions of sentencing reform overwhelmingly passed in the Senate and House last fall, with the House signing off on a narrower version of the Senate’s legislation.
The House bill drew fire from the Legislature’s Black and Latino Caucus, which called for an impact study while charging that the bill was too harsh and would disproportionately impact minority communities. At a recent rally, state Rep. Carlos Henriquez (D-Dorchester) said that “[we] have found out that most of our colleagues who voted for this bill originally did not do so with the full knowledge of what this bill will do to our communities,” according to the State House News Service.
Asked about Henriquez’s remarks, DeLeo said, “The only thing that I would say about the passage of that legislation, which I have to consider, is the fact that I think there’s less than 15 ‘no’ votes there. That was one of the strongest votes that I had seen – whether you agree with it, don’t agree with it. or whatever – in my time in the Legislature. Having said that, I agree with Rep. Henriquez and Rep. Holmes, who’ve been advocating for their districts in terms of some of the other changes we have to make, in terms of our sentencing laws, to try to bring balance.”
Another challenger for Rep. Fox?
A second candidate could be taking on state Rep. Gloria Fox (D-Roxbury) this year. Rufus Faulk, a 30-year-old program director with the Boston TenPoint Coalition, told the Reporter on Monday that he’s jumping into the race.
Born and raised in Roxbury, Faulk has worked for the coalition’s gang mediation initiative for seven years and has degrees from Temple University and Boston University. He says he plans to focus on issues like crime, underemployment, unemployment and health disparities.
Faulk joins community activist Jed Hresko, who has also announced a campaign for Seventh Suffolk state representative. The Democratic primary is set for September.
Fox has held the seat since 1985. She is the vice chair of the Joint Committee on Housing. “I appreciate her work and the work she has done in the district,” said Faulk, a registered Democrat. “I just feel some of the issues that are hampering our community just aren’t being addressed.”
Consalvo’s chief of staff in Governor’s Council run
District 5 City Councillor Rob Consalvo’s chief of staff is mounting a run for a vacant Governor’s Council seat. A holdover from the Bay State’s colonial era, the eight-member council signs off on judicial nominations, pardons and commutations, and state treasury payments.
Brian Clinton, who turns 40 later this year, has served in Consalvo’s office for nearly a decade. Before that, he was also Mayor Thomas Menino’s neighborhood services coordinator for Hyde Park and Roslindale. Born and raised in Hyde Park, Clinton also worked as a freelance reporter for the Hyde Park Gazette after college.
The District 2 Governor’s Council seat, which comes with a $26,000 salary, has been vacant since Kelly Timilty suddenly passed away in January. A relative of hers, Bart Timilty, is also a candidate for the seat, the Boston Phoenix’s David Bernstein reported earlier this week.
Clinton said he would bring an “independent voice” to the council, which he called a “critical check on the executive branch of government.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Material from State House News Service was used in this report. Check out updates to Boston’s political scene at The Lit Drop, located at dotnews.com/litdrop. Email us at newseditor@dotnews.com and follow us on Twitter: @LitDrop and @gintautasd.
