We Need a New City Council President

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Hard to believe, but the most frequently asked question put to me before the election was not who I thought would win the mayor’s race, but how the city council’s once most progressive member devolved into a rubber stamp for Mayor Reardon:

What happened to Ed Cameron?

Pronouncing it with several exclamation points rather than as a question, readers assume that, since I write about City Hall, I am privy to secrets kept behind the closed doors of 60 Pleasant Street.

Over and again I heard it, no doubt because of my employment at the downtown cinema, as much a crossroads as any in Newburyport. With all the documentary, independent, and foreign films, it stands to reason that our demographic tends to be politically progressive, and many of them tell me they once voted for Cameron as soon as they ask the question.

Followed by an adamant “Never again!”

Perhaps they saw my favorable 2023 review of his rock-and-roll band, The Pathological Outliars, and assumed that I’m a fan boy. Here’s a taste of it, opening with a reference to one his bandmates:

Sunny Douglas and Ed Cameron alternate vocal leads, both pitch perfect for their individual selections. Cameron may not be able to find matching socks, but he harmonizes well with Douglas whether they are belting out Bowie’s defiant “Suffragette” or lifting the weight of the Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting.”

Ironically, as city council president, all Cameron knows how to do is wait, and he is not at all tired of it–even though he yawns in the face of all else. That’s why the library investigation took two full years, and why Mayor Reardon was able to retain a head-nodding city solicitor that the council had voted against. Cameron slept through the deadline to certify the council vote.

Worth mentioning here that Cameron was one of just three votes in favor of Reardon’s choice. I’m old enough to recall an America where this was not just mere coincidence skirted by an apology, but a conflict of interest demanding a resignation.

Oh, to make America attentive again!

The activist enthusiasm of the old Ed Cameron may have made him council president, but for two years now, the new Ed Cameron is mostly concerned with having the council “stay in our lane” and treating matters only “within our purview.”

When he started doing this during a discussion of the library scandal in 2023, one councilor countered Cameron’s sleep-inducing directive with a breath-of-fresh-air blast that insisted there is no “lane.” This was Councilor Jim McCauley, insisting that what happened to the library volunteers was a citywide issue that needed the attention of each councilor. Councilors Connie Preston and Heath Granas soon chimed in, as they would in meetings that followed.

Even Cameron opened his eyes slightly, but he still delayed the investigation, allowing half a year to pass from the council’s approval to the hiring of an investigator–and, oh by the way, allowing the mayor’s chief-of-staff who was found most culpable in the investigator’s report, to find another job in western Mass.

Last November, a state agency ruled that Cameron’s lethargic neglect of timely public notices “violated” Massachusetts’ open meeting law and ordered him to attend a webinar training session. Two other councilors were also so ordered, but Cameron, in addition to being council president, chairs the General Government Committee for which those notices were not made, and bears most responsibility.

All he has going for him is all that Mayor Reardon has going: the appearance of rock-and-roll vitality which makes for great photo ops. One we keep seeing on social media has Cameron wearing all the pads of a catcher for his team in the city softball league.

As ironic as his rock-and-roll, catcher is the most demanding position in that sport–some jocks say in all of sports. If Cameron caught the way he legislates, every pitch would be a passed ball, and the opposing team would be running conga lines around the bases.

Only consolation here is that the council elects its president at the start of every new session. His fellow rubber stampers may want to keep him in place, but six new members should be free of obligation if they want, as they claim, to actually accomplish anything.

Jack Garvey
Newbury resident

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