THE MOST DANGEROUS CANDIDATE

A heavily edited version of this article was published in Watertown News on October 9 and was removed by Watertown News on October 11.

Here is the stated explanation for the removal as it appeared in the publication:

“This Op-Ed piece has been removed due to questions over the source of the email referenced in the piece.

The author did not want to reveal the source of the email. While the email was a public document, having been sent to the members of the Town Council on their official email addresses, the description of the source of the letter was not clear enough.

The editor felt the description would likely lead readers to incorrectly infer the writer got the email from one of the Councilors who, in reality, is not the source, and other descriptions might reveal the source.”

Both the edited and unedited versions were published by the Facebook group: You Know You Want to Talk About Watertown, MA Politics and Hot Topics, on October 11 and 12. 

This is the unedited version.

Critical Resistance is a national organization, whose stated mission is to abolish the police − all police, everywhere: local, state, federal, transit, police on college and university campuses, and police in public schools. In 2020, they published the Abolish Policing Toolkit with detailed instructions for local abolitionist groups to develop police abolition strategies in their own cities and towns.

Our local abolitionist group is Uplift Watertown.

If you listen to police abolitionists, there are words, as prescribed in the Toolkit, that you will hear over and over again and words you will never hear. For example, you will never hear the words crime or criminal. That’s because those words legitimize the police. Instead, you will hear the word “harm.”

If tomorrow, a stranger comes up to you, holds a knife to your throat and robs you, that person has caused harm. The reason he should not be called a criminal is because that stranger was probably driven to commit this act of harm because he was hungry and needed your money to buy food or he was mentally ill and was too poor to receive the care that the community should have provided.

If a police officer shows up in time to arrest the stranger, the police officer will cause harm by arresting him and putting him in jail and a judge will cause more harm by putting him prison, where he will be exposed to even more harm.

If you were the victim of the harm, you should understand that it is better for the greater community that the person who harmed you goes unpunished, rather than have the cycle of harm perpetuated.

Police abolitionists have learned that to effectively spread their message and recruit new followers, they will fare better by focusing on the positive rather than dwelling on the negative. So, the average voter is less likely to hear the word harm and more likely to hear the word “life-affirming.”

Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and treating the mentally ill are all life-affirming solutions. Nothing about policing is life-affirming because the system of policing was invented to cause harm, primarily to non-white people.

Defund the Police has proved to be a political loser and has generally been replaced by the much more positive Divest and Invest − which of course means divesting from the police and investing in “life-affirming” resources and solutions.

At three different meetings of the Town Council’s Committee on Public Safety, taking place between early March and late July, Uplift Watertown made two proposals to the Town Council:

First: Reduce the police department budget by $2 million to free up money for “life-affirming” resources.

Second: Undertake a closer study of the police department budget every year to see where money can be allocated to programs that prevent the need for policing in first place. These programs would include mental health and substance use services, food security, affordable housing, and health care.

How exactly did Uplift Watertown arrive at the $2 million figure? Based on their analysis of Massachusetts cities and towns with populations comparable to ours, they determined that the Watertown Police Department was grossly overfunded and should get a $2 million budget cut to bring it in line with those comparable communities.

At one of the Public Safety Committee meetings, Town Manager Michael Driscoll, who was not scheduled to speak, felt that it was his duty to set the record straight.

He respectfully suggested that Uplift Watertown’s “comparable” communities were not all that comparable to Watertown. Had they chosen the more urban communities, contiguous to Watertown − Cambridge, Belmont, Newton, and Waltham, they would have found that our police budget was perfectly in line.

And then Town Manager Driscoll explained that a $2 million cut in the police department budget would result in a loss of 20 police officers out of the current roster of 70. For Uplift Watertown, this would only be the beginning of their campaign to starve the beast. The abolitionist playbook calls for continuous police budget cuts until the department is eliminated and replaced mainly by mental health workers.

So, where do you come down on this issue?

Do you believe that the Watertown Police Department is grossly overfunded? Do you side with the man whose parting gift to the community was to fund the building of three new schools and the renovation of another without a tax override or do you side with the abolition idealists who would like to conduct a utopian experiment where all of us are lab rats?

Or do you think that none of this really matters because good sense will always prevail? Well friends, in this election, good sense happens to be on the ballot like never before.

But you might ask, if Defund the Police candidates are going to hide their game, how can we identify them? The answer is that we have to work harder than ever to find out where candidates really stand on this issue.

Unless we happen to get lucky.

And we did.

Advocates for political causes don’t often pull their punches. They let elected officials know, in no uncertain terms, exactly what is wrong with the status quo and what those elected officials are required to do to win or keep their support.

When it comes to influencing elected representatives, blunt force can be a powerful mover.

But sometimes advocates become candidates. And when they do, they may find it more expedient to adopt a softer touch. When running for election, the game they are now playing demands that they alienate as few potential voters as possible.

The letter below comes from a Town Councilor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The underlining and bold are not mine. They are part of the original letter and were clearly added for emphasis.

 

From: Nicole Gardner <nicole.n.gardner@gmail.com>

To: Mark Sideris <msideris@watertown-ma.gov>; Kounelis, Angeline <akounelis@watertown-ma.gov>; Lisa Feltner <lfeltner@watertown-ma.gov>; Caroline Bays <cbays@watertown-ma.gov>; tpalomba@watertown-ma.gov; jgannon@watertown-ma.gov; adonato@watertown-ma.gov; vpiccirilli@watertown-ma.gov; kwoodland@watertown-ma.gov

Sent: Mon, Mar 8, 2021, 10:59 am

Subject: Police funding

Dear Council President Sideris and other Councilors,

Based on an analysis published by Uplift Watertown, Watertown's spending per capita on police $260.86 per the FY2019 budget data. However, the average per capita spending on policing in Massachusetts towns with a total population within 10% of Watertown is $196.46, per FY2019 budget and 2019 census data, roughly $65 per capita less! Only one city -- Braintree -- spends more per capita on police. 

Based on the same analysis, if Watertown reduced police funding to match the average police budget per capita of towns of a similar size, we would free up more than $2 million for community investment in life-affirming resources like healthcare, housing, and food access.  For example, these monies could

* provide housing subsidies through MetroWest Housing for 253 residents for a year.

* pay a living wage to 57 residents.

* cover the cost of providing three meals a day for a year for 555 residents.

As a tax-paying resident of Watertown, I think it is imperative that we divert funds from our bloated police budget to other services needed by residents of our community. 

I have seen some residents say we need to be "loyal" to our police, and that they have "earned" the right for us to keep to the status quo, no matter what. This is nonsense. Allocating tax dollars should be driven by what best serves the people of Watertown, not a subset of the town's employees. Many residents are struggling to make ends meet, and this must be your priority.

I look forward to the meeting of the Town Council Committee on Public Safety. 

 

Sincerely,

Nicole Gardner

Winsor Ave

On July 27, Nicole Gardner announced her candidacy for Town Council, District A, on Watertown News and cited problems that, if elected, she would address:

She begins with the high cost of housing, worsening traffic congestion, and pressures on local businesses. Affordable housing is mentioned two more times, so that issue is clearly high on her list. New development is also on her mind. She wants to make sure that new development “enriches the quality of our neighborhoods,” and that new companies moving-in be “good neighbors.”

She tells us that her experience and expertise will come in handy when dealing with “issues of development, democratic transparency, and much needed government modernization.”

And she wants us to know that she has “heard over and over again that our residents want greater transparency, communication, and accountability from the people in their government.”

Fair enough, but some of us would also welcome greater transparency, communication, and accountability from candidates who are attempting to become members of our government.

There is no mention of the burning issue addressed in her letter to the Town Council - divesting from the police and investing in life-affirming resources. When exactly does she plan on telling the voters that she will be leading the charge to cut the next police department budget by $2 million?

She had another golden opportunity in her interview on Watertown Cable Access, where she demonstrated her excellent interview skills, by smoothly controlling the substance and pace of the interview. She wanted to display her passion, competence, sincerity, and congeniality. And she succeeded.

When asked about the issues that most concern her, she first mentions her commitment to climate and the environment and then to equity and inclusion. You might think that as the author of the Divest and Invest letter, she would have made sure to address the harm being caused to the “people” by the “bloated” police budget and that, if elected, she would work tirelessly to right that wrong.

But she didn’t. She provided lengthy, upbeat responses on less controversial issues, while subtly hitting her talking points along the way. She may be the most skillful campaigner in the race, incumbents included.

So, there is an obvious question. Is the police department budget pretty much where it needs to be or is it bloated to the tune of $2 million? Call me crazy, but I think I’m going to side with the man whose parting gift to the community was to fund the building of three new schools and the complete renovation of another without a tax override!

What he did was quite an achievement. And here’s another − hiring, training, and retaining police officers, under a blinding spotlight and consistent with the high standards and values of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

Thanks Chief Lawn!

In this election, the balance of power on the Town Council is in danger of tilting in the wrong direction. And from what I have seen so far, Nicole Gardner, candidate for Town Council, District A, is the most dangerous candidate in the race.