The City Council will choose a new at-large councilor at its meeting this Monday night.
Over the past several weeks, the council has met in subcommittee to interview about a dozen candidates to replace former Councilor-at-Large Roy Avellaneda, and has narrowed the list to three candidates.
Those candidates, former councilors Stanley Troisi and Brian Hatleberg and community activist and zoning board member Joan Cromwell, will appear before the full City Council at its regularly scheduled meeting beginning at 7 p.m. at City Hall Monday night.
“We will be asking them a series of questions that they will be able to answer in front of the public, and they will also be able to give a five minute introduction on why they want to fill the vacancy,” said Council President Calvin Brown.
Following the interview process, the councilors will be able to nominate candidates, and whichever candidate receives six votes will fill the remainder of Avellaneda’s term.
Brown praised the strength of the candidates who were selected as finalists and of all those who interviewed.
“I think we can’t go wrong with whoever we choose and I’m looking forward to the process,” said Brown.
The selection process for a new councilor has not been without some controversy.
School Committee member Roberto Jimenez-Rivera, who was a candidate for the council position, filed an open meeting law violation complaint following the Nov. 28 meeting where the three finalists were selected.
The council used secret ballots to narrow down the field to three finalists, in violation of the open meeting law. Councilor-at-Large Damali Vidot requested that the councilors put their names on the ballots since they were public documents, but that motion was defeated, with councilors Leo Robinson, Enio Lopez, and Todd Taylor voting with Vidot that the names should be on the ballots and Giovanni Recupero abstaining, while the remaining councilors voted to keep the secret ballots.
“We were trying to get the best candidates, obviously we did not believe we were doing anything wrong,” said Brown. At the advice of town counsel, Brown said the councilors rectified the situation and eventually put their names on the ballots.
“It was not something we were doing to be malicious,” said Brown, who said he believes in open and transparent government.
At the most recent City Council meeting, Vidot introduced a motion asking for a subcommittee meeting to discuss Chelsea Community Cable taping and broadcasting all the council’s subcommittee meetings. She also asked that the city’s IT department be involved to look at ways that more people could be involved in city meetings remotely.
While not specifically addressing the Nov. 28 subcommittee meeting, which was not televised, Vidot said that streaming all subcommittee meetings would increase transparency and participation for the council and residents.
Vidot noted that much of the work the council does is in subcommittee.
“I’m not accusing anybody of doing anything sinister or inappropriate, but I think it is better for the community when they can see all the conversations going on behind the scenes,” said Vidot.
Taylor said he supported the streaming of as many meetings as possible to increase transparency and improve the civic discourse.
During the public speaking portion of the last council meeting, Sarah Neville, Jimenez-Rivera’s wife and a community activist in her own right, spoke in favor of increased streaming of meetings and greater transparency from the council and government bodies.
“Why have I come to rehash all this? We already know what happened last week in this room,” said Neville. “This is a larger issue than just one illegal action; the subcommittee where this happened was not recorded, so the people listening to see what happened or listening to this discussion unless they looked up the public notes, which are hard to find anyway.”
In addition to streaming and televising the subcommittee meetings, Neville suggested the city make its online documents searchable so it would be easier to find specific information in meeting minutes, agendas, and other online documents.