The abrupt termination of seven Cambridge staff members drew universal condemnation Monday during a City Council meeting, even from councillors who agreed that a restructuring was warranted.
The administration has defended the firings as part of an efficiency-focused plan nearly two years in the making, but city councillors and community members called the process unprecedented, opaque, harmful to vital services, “inhumane” and “brutal,” especially coming shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday.
The employees laid off Thursday were from the City of Cambridge’s Equity and Inclusion Department: all three staff of the Commission on the Status of Women; both staff members of the Human Rights Commission and LGBTQ+ Commission; and two staff members supporting the Peace Commission, Police Review & Advisory Board and the Office of Equity and Inclusion.
“It’s the deepest kind of disappointment in the direction of the city’s leadership to conduct this process in this way,” said Nancy Ryan, executive director of the Women’s Commission from 1981 to 2006, after the meeting.
A policy order seeking additional information passed the council 5-3, with mayor E. Denise Simmons and councillors Paul Toner and Cathie Zusy opposing. Councillor Burhan Azeem did not cast a vote; he had to leave the meeting during what became a 45-minute long discussion of the matter.
Zusy said she was “not convinced” by the administration’s explanation of the layoffs, but declined to vote for the order to respect the city manager’s authority over his staff. Councillor Patty Nolan, meanwhile, said she needed to know more, though “I am not opposed to some reductions in staff. I’ve said it privately and publicly, that I am open to it. I could support some, including very specifically in some of these commissions.”
But councillor Ayesha Wilson said the layoffs had “blindsided” people in a city government that hadn’t seen layoffs in 30 years , asking bluntly whether more were on the way.
“We are not looking to meet this year’s budget with layoffs,” said city manager Yi-An Huang, who acknowledged the personnel moves created “a lot of concern” among city employees.
Panel explains actions
Huang faced councillors with the city’s chief people officer, Rae Catchings, and Deidre Travis Brown, his chief of Equity and Inclusion. While Huang said there was no “evasion of accountability” on his part and that he supports “the decisions that we’re making, and I defend them,” he also knew “a lot of the feedback has been about how it’s felt incredibly disrespectful.”
Huang said he had wanted to see an organizational structure with more direct management. He gave time to Brown to describe the rationale for the dismissals and to Catchings to explain the manner in which they were implemented.
Brown said she found “quite a few similarities in the work that was being done” among her departments and reached out to Catchings and others, “nothing at all related to budget or cost savings at that point at all. We were thinking through just how we work more collaboratively, how we work more efficiently and effectively.”
Catchings said that in the “phased iterative process” worked through with Brown, they thought about “what has to happen first, so the other dominoes can fall and we can set the team up for success.”
“We had to start somewhere,” Catchings said. “Starting that later would have given us less of a runway, and so we just had to kind of draw a line in the sand and figure out where we could go as early as possible.”
Charter change and a commission ordinance
Councillors emphasized that they do not currently have authority over personnel decisions, including hiring or firing. Under the new city charter that takes effect Jan. 1, elected officials will have input into the process. The city manager may still restructure departments as long as charter-assigned functions stay with their designated departments. Each proposal must include an explanation and note any ordinance changes required, and the council must hold at least one public hearing. A proposal takes effect 60 days after submission unless the council disapproves it by majority vote. The council can only approve or reject, not amend, any plan.
Nolan expressed skepticism around the timing – “in six weeks from now, it would definitely have been something that the that the council would have been at least apprised of and the community involved in” – as one reason more information was needed. Councillor Marc McGovern asked whether a required step was skipped in the reorganization process: An ordinance written at the time the Women’s Commission was created says its executive director is appointed by the city manager with the advice of the commission and “shall have adequate staff assistance” to fulfill its mandate.
The city has appointed Shameka Gregory executive director of the Domestic/Gender-Based Violence office, the Commission on the Status of Women and the LGBTQ+ Commission. Objectors say that by eliminating the staff required to carry out the work of her offices, the city has bypassed legal requirements and acted “in direct contradiction to both the letter and the intent of the ordinance.”
“They specifically wanted to safeguard that commission from arbitrary city interference, and that’s what they’ve done now,” said Cathy Hoffman, director of the Peace Commission from 1987 to 2007.
“Absence of basic respect”
In an open letter to Huang and the community, Mara Murray Horwitz and other members of the Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women called out the abruptness, lack of transparency and “absence of basic respect shown throughout.”
“Decisions approached in this way sow fear and anxiety, especially among those who have dedicated their careers to equity, safety and public service,” the letter read. “No employee should ever be treated this way.”
The process was conducted “without any regard for the harm it causes to our community, to our partners, and to the people who relied on the commission’s staff every day [and] undermines nearly five decades of gender-equity work in Cambridge,” the letter reads. “It destabilizes services for women, girls, survivors and gender-expansive individuals. It dismantles relationships, institutional knowledge and trust that cannot simply be replaced or ‘covered’ by other departments.”
“Unfortunately, it mirrors on a local level what’s going on at a national level, and that’s terrifying,” Ryan, the former director of the Women’s Commission, said of the restructuring.
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The retreat from the worst excesses of woke-ism is going to be long, painful, and embarrassing. This article makes that crystal clear.
It’s pathetic that this city has spent so much money on little used bike lanes – some of them, anyway – and now has to fire decent employees for lack of funds. Personally I have seen, in the last two weeks, two separate bicycle riders on one side of the road while the expensive bike lanes were unused on the other side of the street. Really? Yes, really. One on Brattle, the other on Mt. Auburn riding from the Mt. Auburn cemetery, across the big intersection with Fresh Pond Parkway, toward the hospital.
It would be helpful to understand what these people did for work. It is difficult to judge the merit without that. Absent any information, idk — jobs aren’t guaranteed, especially not with a growing city budget.
Shock and awe facts. 5 minutes notice !!! Kimberly Sansoucy, (19 ½ year exemplary Women’s Commission Director) was called to city hall and informed she was terminated. By the time she returned to her office, her computer was being wiped. The others were similarly fired.
The City Manager stated publicly that no one was fired for cause or budgetary reasons.
This corporate like process (no time for program transition or relationships built over years, no involvement of Commissioners, no appreciation of service) was justified as “efficiencies”. OEI chief Brown said this plan was in the works for 2 years (unknown to Council and Commission members)
In a city which has no history of unplanned lay-offs, axing the staffs of departments fueled by volunteer Commissioners whose work supports the majority of Cambridge residents is unconscionable. To do this a month before new City Charter rules go into effect which mandate City Council involvement in Commissions is troublesome.
This is deeply upsetting. We had such high hopes for the City Manager. These employees have reliably and consistently done such incredible work for the women and girls and marginalized populations in our community. What kind of message does this send about about our city’s values? Cannot believe our city manager would essentially rip the rug out from under such important employees in our community. My confidence in city leadership and the well-being of a city I was once proud of is profoundly shaken. There is no way this re-org will ever equate to what we’ve had all these years. There’s still time to fix this.
Maybe voting for the charter change was a mistake. It sounds like the City Manager’s ability to manage is about to be eroded after Jan. 1. Are city employees entitled to lifetime employment? I don’t think the real world operates like that. Needs change over time in organizations of all kinds. Some responses to this restructuring sound over-wrought.