Lukes, More Harm Than Good

Lukes, More Harm Than Good

 

   There comes a time in everyone’s life when events overtakes him and he is unable to respond to  changes. Time has caught up with Konstantina Lukes, City Councillor in Worcester. That line between harm and good was crossed when she proposed a resolution that called for the support of the police and attacked the protests against police misconduct at the January 7, 2015 City Council meeting.

In many ways her recent actions remind me of former City Clerk Robert J. O’Keefe who would do outrageous and mean spirited things such as put on birth certificates that a baby was a bastard. He denied people the right to register to vote based on flimsy reasons such as whether or not a person was enrolled in a college. Arrogantly Mr. O’ Keefe would say he knew better than anyone else as he had a law degree.

 In the past Councillor Lukes has done some good. She was a Director at the ACLU. She had useful ideas about the City budget. She supported the candidacy of Dr. Boone for Worcester School Superintendant. I remember when Councillor Lukes,  her husband, my wife, and I had breakfast together at Broadway. I found Councillor Lukes to quite personable and gracious.

Her association with the Tea Party and sour grapes about her loss of the Mayoralty to Joe O’Brian   seemed to cause Councillor Lukes to lose her ability to put things in perspective.  Councillor Lukes’ resolution against the protests around Ferguson, NYC, Cleveland and other locations of police misconduct feels like an attempt to reestablish her relevance in a world which is changing before her eyes. The main change has been that the City is now majority “minority”.

 

 When the City was majority White and there were relatively few “minorities”, the liberal White politicians would act as agents for the “minorities “communities. Such a person was Arthur Chase who defended Dr. Goldsberry who tried to set up a facility off of Burncoat St for at risk kids.  I still am grateful for his bravery in the face of a NIMBY reaction. This is changing with more calls for representatives from the “minorities” communities.  Instead of “agents” representing us; there is a need for  representatives who have experienced what we have experienced, felt what we have felt, and can articulate them in a language in which we can relate. At this point Councillor Lukes does not even pretend to feel what we feel; her actions are a provocation.

 

 The Worcester police have not condemned the protests in the mean spirited manner that Councillor Lukes has done.  Some of the police have left open the door for dialog which Councillor Lukes wants to slam shut. I think that Councillor Russell got it right when he said the Councillor Lukes resolution was being used as a wedge issue to divide Worcester. Instead of a wedge there should be more transparency and accountability by the Worcester Police to the public. There should be a discussion of how this is done. Today not even the police can quantify or evaluate its effectiveness, because no one knows or is even attempting to keep track of what the Worcester Police is doing.

 

Councillor Lukes arrogantly challenged the people speaking against her resolution at the January 7, 2015 City Council meeting to vote her out of office. It might be time instead for Councillor Lukes to take stock of what she has done and whether what she has done is more harm than good. It might be time for her to step down and let people more relevant to the times run the City.