The Ricardo Arroyo controversy is rocking the Boston City Council as President Ed Flynn has moved to strip Arroyo briefly of his committee management roles, City Councilor Frank Baker has filed a proper data request into Arroyo — and Arroyo ally Councilor Kendra Lara has filed one on Baker.
The council’s agenda on Monday revealed the extent to which the outdated sexual-assault investigations towards Arroyo and his responses to them as he runs for DA have torn the council aside.
Flynn filed a discover that he’s eradicating Arroyo of his committee management for 2 months, a transfer Flynn can do unilaterally as president. Arroyo has been the council’s president professional tempore — which suggests he presides within the absence of the president — and head of the highly effective authorities operations committee.
Flynn made City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune the non permanent head of presidency ops and left the professional tempore slot clean, which suggests the oldest councilor, Liz Breadon, would preside below council guidelines.
Flynn declined to remark after the agenda turned public, however added within the letter to the clerk alerting him of the committee adjustments, “In what I believe to be in the best interest of the Boston City Council as a legislative body, I have decided to temporarily readjust committee assignments for the next sixty days. At that time, I will reassess this decision with all available information.”
A Boston Globe report final week unearthed two outdated sexual-assault allegations into the 34-year-old Arroyo from a decade and a half in the past, probes that didn’t result in expenses. Arroyo denies he did something mistaken and claims — although documentation from the time suggests in any other case, per the Globe — that he had no thought he was even being investigated.
Arroyo misplaced a number of endorsers, together with Flynn, however the remainder of his allies have largely stood by him, together with Mayor Michelle Wu, who informed Politico this weekend after a number of days of hemming and hawing that she’s not going to drag her endorsement.
On Friday, the Herald reported that Baker, the district councilor from Dorchester and a supporter of present DA and Arroyo opponent Kevin Hayden, had filed a “17F” formal council public data request in search of documentation in regards to the investigations into Arroyo and his faculty disciplinary data. Baker certainly has filed that request, per the agenda.
Lara, a detailed ally of Arroyo’s who stood subsequent to him final week in a press convention through which Arroyo denied all wrongdoing and went on the assault towards Hayden, has filed her personal 17F data request into Baker, in search of police reviews, faculty self-discipline reviews and extra — the identical classes as he sought concerning Arroyo.
Baker was arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute pot at 25 in 1993, an incident that was reported on when he first ran for council a decade in the past. Baker pleaded responsible after being indicted, per reviews on the time.
Lara mentioned in an announcement, “It’s absurd to believe that a closed matter that didn’t even lead to charges being filed is relevant to whether or not you’re fit to serve in elected office, especially since one of the main tenets of our country is innocent until proven guilty. Even more surprising is that, to my knowledge, Councilor Baker is the only one of my colleagues ever to be convicted of a crime.”
Baker didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
This is a growing story …
Source: www.bostonherald.com”