All That Glitters is Not Good Public Policy

All That Glitters Is Not Good Public Policy

The City Manager of Worcester released his report on how to make Worcester a more diverse city on April 24, 2015. His ideas are reasonable, but late, inadequate, beside the points, and corrupting. The ideas raised by Manager Edward Augustus are mainly old ideas that have failed or old ideas that should have been implemented decades ago.

The big idea in the report is the creation of a “Chief Diversity Officer” whose job is to make sure that different populations in the City know about and apply for City jobs. This should have been an ongoing effort by the City with or without a Chief Diversity Officer. I suppose the Manager will now have a scapegoat to point to when due to institutional racism the City’s work force does not reflect its population.

Another big idea that failed and is being reestablished is the so called Clergy/ Police Alliance. The problem with this “alliance” is that the well meaning Clergy do not have much influence beyond their own congregations. The cops, the Mayor, and the Manager will get well meaning Clergy to stand behind in photo opts, but do not expect anything substantial to come of it.

The restructuring of the Affirmative Action Advisory Committee is just a reshuffling of papers. Nobody in City governments listens to them and the good people there do not want to get on the bad side of their sponsors by being too critical. Like other committees the Affirmative Action Advisory Committee serves at the pleasure of the Manager.

The issues of police body cameras, cruiser cameras, and lock up camera should have been done years ago. It is being done now because of the pressure of the Black (all) Lives Matter new civil rights movement. As the report says the use of these items are being “investigated”.  What is not in the report is civilian review of the police. Neither the Manager who is the boss of the cops nor Worcester Human Rights Commission has a mention in the reports as a means of review by the public of any alleged police misconduct. There is evidence that the Manager and the Police Chief are malicious prosecuting some of the protesters in the Black (all) Lives Matter movement.

The other items in the report regarding education, voting, youth jobs, etc are already being implemented. There is nothing new in the report.  

I am sure all of the politicians, including new candidates, will be happy with the report as it relieves them of the responsibility to tell the truth about the lack of transparency and be critical of the Manager’s report. Some of the right wing politician will be critical because they do not want to do anything about diversity and are ready to move out to Holden when the City becomes too diverse.

People I like to call “misleaders” who ingratiate themselves with the politicians will be scrambling to take advantages of some of the so-called new ideas in the report. Many of them are now thinking about how they can be hired as the “Chief Diversity Officer”. Others actually like to be photographed with the bosses to show they have juice.

I have been called elderly by many people and I am. During my many years I have seen this bait and switch before. It is used to defuse the militancy of oppressed people by holding out the false hope of substantial change and corrupting the people who should know better.