Taking an oath shouldn’t be a joke!
Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson can attempt to justify not reciting hers on Jan. 1, however it’s merely unacceptable. She was ordered to report again to the City Clerk’s workplace to strive once more. She did so, clearly realizing her stunt was offensive.
Her imprudence mustn’t go unchallenged as a result of the oath is sacrosanct.
It separates us from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, and Xi Jinping’s China. We may listing a couple of different international locations, however the oath is the whole lot we imagine in our souls.
Our Democracy is flawed, but it surely’s ours to enhance as finest we are able to in our time on Earth. This nice metropolis deserves nothing much less! We’ll expend our allotment of exclamation factors if that’s what it takes to cease this ridiculousness!
Fernandes Anderson made a mockery out of the oath, and she or he owes town an apology. She’s being paid $115,000 and may act professionally!
She instructed all of us who take satisfaction in being from right here that our lives are low-cost. Our morals are repugnant. Our faiths are disposable.
We refuse to facet together with her.
The oath, on web page 76 of the City of Boston Charter, states that councilors “will bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will support the Constitution thereof, so help me God.”
And that every councilor “solemnly” swears to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me as of the City of Boston, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the rules and regulations of the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth, so help me God. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”
Mayor Michelle Wu, who should take the very same oath, stated Fernandes Anderson was instructed to take the oath once more — and do it proper this time — and that her vote on Monday electing Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune as council president is now null and void.
That vote, electing a Black lady as head of the council, is now 12-0 as an alternative of 13-0. That’s unhappy.
Fernandes Anderson didn’t reply to a message left to elucidate her anti-oath drama. She has posted justification on social media, the place it’s unsure if she is the writer or not.
What we do know is each vote Fernandes Anderson makes from right here on out might be doubted. Will her votes be how she really believes, or simply an act? Will she look to flout the foundations once more?
As the State Ethics Commission posted to the Mass.gov web site, Fernandes Anderson has “admitted to violating the conflict of interest law by hiring her sister and son to paid positions on her Boston City Council staff. Fernandes Anderson has signed a Disposition Agreement in which she admits the violations and agrees to pay a $5,000 civil penalty.”
That was from July and it’s now clear Fernandes Anderson doesn’t serve the residents of town, or her District 7 constituents, in the identical spirit as others in City Hall — and that’s an issue.
Police, firefighters, EMTs, legal professionals, docs, dentists, women and men within the navy, academics, journalists, authors, artists, scientists, and so many extra comply with a code of conduct they cherish, recite, or ascribe to.
The Tania Fernandes Andersons of the world simply make the remainder of us work more durable! What a disgrace!
Source: www.bostonherald.com”