Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Robert Winter's New Year's Prediction for Cambridge MA

Robert Winters appeared on Cambridge City Cable TV with former City Councilor and State Rep. Sandra Graham and WBZ radio host Lovell Dyett for three panels in December 2007. They discussed the City of Cambridge. Among the remarkable comments on those shows, Winters made the prediction that the City Council will become more of an advisory body. He indicates that he shares Walter Lippman's view of government, where elitist managers run the government and tell the unwashed what they need to do. This is Harvard's view of government as well. Currently the Cambridge City Council is a weak group of spineless politicians with little knowledge of how the city government works. They defer to the city manager and his appointees.
Under MA state law the Council is supposed to set policy and hire the 25-year serving Manager. This power hungry Manager sets policy and tells the Council what he will and will not do. They are unable to assert their statutory power to reign him in. Winters would make the upside down version of state law permanent shutting out the voters from having any influence on what the city does. Winters refuses to identify which police agency he works for -- the Cambridge police, the Harvard University police, or the FBI. His abuse of police power is obfuscated by the newest City Councilor, Sam Seidel who referred to Winters as a Non Governmental Organization. Since when have the police become a non governmental agency?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

HaHa!

That is exactly the kind of government Germany had that permitted Hitler to come to bowwer.

It is the foundation of Fascism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

It is precluded by MGLs...

PLAN E.—GOVERNMENT BY A CITY COUNCIL INCLUDING A MAYOR ELECTED FROM ITS NUMBER, AND A CITY MANAGER, WITH ALL ELECTIVE BODIES ELECTED AT LARGE BY PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION


Chapter 43: Section 95. Governing power of city council, etc.


Section 95. The government of the city and the general management and control of all its affairs shall, except as otherwise provided in this chapter, be vested in a city council, which shall exercise its powers in the manner hereinafter set forth, but subject to sections one to forty-five, inclusive, insofar as not inconsistent; except that the city manager shall have the authority hereinafter specified, that the general management and conduct of the public schools of the city and of the property pertaining thereto shall be vested in the school committee, and that the city clerk, the city auditor, any official of the city appointed by the governor and any trustees or other officers whose election by the voters of the city is required by reason of the fact that the city has accepted any gift, devise or bequest shall have the powers and duties which may be conferred and imposed upon them by law.