Two meetings in late June determined the fate of Somerville’s chief administrative officer, responsible for day-to-day oversight of the city and negotiating with its unions. City councilors voted to prolong funding for the recently created position held by Lammis Vargas for another year, coinciding with approval of a $342 million city budget, on June 20.
The decision came just two days after councillors voted to end funding during “cut night” – the annual meeting to decide cost-saving measures for the next year.
Less than 10 hours after the council saved her position, Vargas announced her bid for state senator – in Rhode Island. The news was “100 percent a surprise“ to councilors, as one put it.
Vargas is already a city councilor of the City of Cranston in that state, where she lives.
According to Vargas, she will not take time off from her work in Somerville to campaign and will continue “using my personal time to serve my home state.” A question of whether she would drop her position on the Cranston city council – it would be her third job if Vargas won the state position – went unanswered.
City councilor Matthew McLaughlin first raised concerns over the chief administrative officer position, funded in 2022 and filled in 2023, after the council voted to effectively deny a request from the Somerville Municipal Employees Association – workers now without a pay raise for three years – to freeze the salaries of the city’s upper management. He pivoted toward the role of CAO as “the root of many problems,” but iterated that his focus was on “the position, not the person.”
McLaughlin, along with other councilors, noted the lack of union contract and their discontent at learning that the CAO, not the mayor, represents the city in negotiations. McLaughlin positioned the cut “as literally forcing the mayor to the negotiating table.”
Somerville’s “second mayor”
Beyond union negotiations, there remained a lack of action on issues citywide that the CAO role was created to address, councilors said. Instead the position was effectively “a second mayor” adding distance between the branches of Somerville’s government, McLaughlin said.
“Too many cooks in this kitchen,” councilor Judy Pineda-Neufeld said.
The position, first filled by Vargas in 2023, “operates under the guidance of the mayor,” and manages “a vast array of city operations,” according to a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office, “allowing the mayor to focus on big picture items, steer the organization as a whole, and make well-informed decisions.”
The council voted to cut funding for Vargas’ position 9-2; the opponents were Jake Wilson and council president Ben Ewen-Campen, who agreed with the roles as described by the spokesperson.
“I feel like I’m in a dream world,” Ewen-Campen said. “The description [of the CAO’s responsibilities] does not sound like what I want the mayor of a city to be doing. The mayor is supposed to be a political leader, who makes tough decisions and sets the course.”
Defending the position
Ballantyne and Vargas arrived at City Hall to defend the position two nights later. The mayor made the case for a CAO based on the rapid expansion of the city’s budget – having roughly doubled over the past decade – and cited the need for more supervision of new staff and aspects of city government.
To questions over the broad responsibilities of the CAO – which some said should be with the mayor – Ballantyne asked why a mayor should be the one responsible for directly managing the city’s detailed, internal systems.
“Why is it that I, as the mayor, am not doing the work of the chief administrative officer?” she asked. “As mayor, my role is to steer the entire ship. To be the chief advocate. To build the organization, overall. To ensure success.”
She also pushed back on councilors’ complaints that Vargas, not herself, negotiates directly with the city’s unions.
“Let me say emphatically: I have been doing everything necessary to urgently finalize the contract,” Ballantyne said. “My understanding is that mayors are usually not physically at the [bargaining] table, but I wanted to be sure we stuck to our values and gave these negotiations the attention and priority they deserve.”
According to the Mayor’s Office, the draft description of the chief administrative officer position – which was accessible to councilors before they voted to fund it in 2022 – charged the CAO with pursuing “productive employee relations and bargain[ing] in good faith with the city’s labor unions.”
Half-hour of testimony
Councilor Willie Burnley Jr., who also voted against funding the position in 2022, said that to his understanding, “the CAO could be assigned to do anything that the mayor does not want to do, essentially, based on how broad the job description was.” He called the possibility of the mayor deflecting the “responsibility and accountability” of those meetings to the CAO as a “disservice to the city.”
Vargas, taking the stand herself, defended her position for 30 minutes. She spoke about her background coming from a household of two immigrant union workers and being the first from her family to graduate from public university. She noted her work as a city councilor in Cranston and previously as the state’s deputy state treasurer and deputy secretary of state – all, she said, contributing to her understanding of government.
She spoke at length about her work behind the scenes in Somerville, and clarified that she does not make decisions on behalf of the mayor – only “recommendations.”
She detailed ongoing projects, one ensuring follow-through on maintenance for Somerville schools and to modernize fire departments. She reviewed efforts to revamp the Information Technology Department and of her work to implement secure invoicing software to expedite payment to vendors, among other progress.
All that, according to Vargas, in addition to managing “day-to-day operations.”
Budget vote
After Vargas’ testimony, conversation in the chamber shifted toward bringing the CAO position permanently under the council’s purview via the city charter. A draft of the governing document, which would enshrine the position but grant the council veto power over candidate appointments, has been on the mayor’s desk for at least a year, councilor Lance Davis said.
After two and a half hours of debate, the council voted in a mirrored vote of 9-2, now with the majority in favor of the mayor’s original proposed budget. Councilors Burnley and J.T. Scott remained unchanged, against the position.
“CAO Vargas has made the best argument tonight for her position,” McLaughlin said. “I was convinced that CAO Vargas has taken on serious responsibilities, and even though it wasn’t a part of the job, I do identify with her personal story.”
State senate run
The four-hour meeting determining the budget and the future of Vargas’ position ended. The Rhode Island resident declared her candidacy for state senator the next day.
According to a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office, who responded to emailed questions on behalf of Ballantyne and Vargas, Vargas was “transparent with the city” about her involvement and aspirations in Rhode Island politics, and the mayor spoke in defense of the position not because of the individual, but “because the community needs a chief administrative officer.”
“The mayor also urged the City Council to reverse their initial vote to cut this occupied position in order to protect our reputation as a reliable and reasonable employer,” the spokesperson wrote. “The council’s apparent willingness to target an occupied position, filled by an employee in good standing, sends a chilling message to all staff and potential future hires who accept positions in good faith with the city.”
Vargas is “deeply committed to serving the people of Somerville and has every intention to continue to do so,” the spokesperson said.
Salary for a Rhode Island state senator is less than $20,000 – far less than that of even a Somerville city councilor.
“I get the optics”
Vargas spoke for herself July 18 about how she would split her time between Somerville and Rhode Island,
“I love Somerville and I love Rhode Island, and I’m eager to continue to serve both appropriately and effectively,” she said. “I’m just choosing to use my personal time for additional public service because that’s who I am. I’ve spent a lifetime working toward positive change driven by my own experience of hardship, and I know I can make a difference in Somerville no matter how I spend my free time.”
Vargas’ campaign did not change Ewen-Campen’s stance on the debate, he said, despite voting to approve the position for another year.
“I get the optics of it,” Ewen-Campen said. “But on the substance … as long as this person is able to fulfill the roles of the job, that is the only concern that I have.”
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