Everett became the latest Massachusetts city with a wage theft ordinance on Monday, April 27, when the City Council ordained Councilor Stephanie Martins’ measure 9-2. Councilors Michele Capone and Michael Marchese voted no. State Sen. Sal DiDomenico, who said he usually stays out of council business, came to the podium to ask for the vote. “Wage theft is my bill at the State House,” he said. “If you’re doing the right thing, you have nothing to worry about.”
Andre Simoes of the Brazilian Worker Center said the organization handled 53 wage theft cases in Everett last year totaling nearly $319,000, including one grocery store where a worker who came in to recover $2,000 turned out to be owed more than $40,000, followed by a second worker owed $30,000 and two more this year. James Burrows said he represents nearly 200 carpenters who live in Everett. Jeff Cohen, who wrote Salem’s ordinance, said it has changed contractor behavior there.
Marchese said he worried about “the bloodlines in the city,” the small family businesses up and down Broadway where “you may have some guy with his mother working in a store.” Martins said the city will not audit businesses; the ordinance creates a way for workers to report, and lets the city withhold or suspend a permit from a business confirmed to be stealing wages until it pays. Councilor Wayne Matewsky, a bricklayers union member for 40 years, said it is aimed at construction companies that skip safety and pay, recalling a worker killed on a Parkway project last year. Councilor Peter Pietrantonio, whose family has run a business for 40 years, said “if they’re doing the right thing, they shouldn’t have a problem.” Councilor Guerline Alcy Jabouin was added as a cosponsor before the vote.
Everett Square and data centers
The council accepted a $475,000 Massachusetts Gaming Commission grant for Everett Square improvements, 10-0, after Matewsky read the mayor’s letter aloud and said the square “needs all the help it can get.” Councilors Holly Garcia and Anthony DiPierro noted the vote accepts money only; the design comes later. Jabouin asked that some of it pay for storefront awnings and signs.
A new ordinance regulating data centers citywide, not just in the Docklands, was filed in Council President Stephanie Smith’s name with Katy Rogers, Martins and Vivian Nguyen added, and sent to the planning board. The Docklands ordinance that came back from the planning board went to Legislative Affairs. Rogers reminded colleagues it is already a compromise from the full ban she filed in January. Matewsky said the 100-acre Davis site was pitched two years ago with pictures of condos, stores and trees, and “all we’ve heard is data centers, lithium factories and laboratories for animal testing. I’m sick of being the dumping ground.”
Public comment on the issue turned personal. Alex Alcivar said opponents of data centers are mostly members of the Democratic Socialists of America who misrepresent themselves, said he had been smeared online, and announced a website of his own. Selena Hernandez and Victoria Thistle said they belong to no party. Stephanie McCullough opened with “good evening, comrades,” said she comes from a Southern military family, and said she had responded to Alcivar’s posts with video of his own public performance art. John Burns and Jeff Ferrante, an abutter and veteran with tinnitus, again opposed any data center.
Also April 27
- National Grid’s conduit to 313 Elm Street was held two weeks after Deborah and Arthur DeFilippo of Woodland Memorials next door said the line would cross their driveway during their busiest season and they will not grant an easement. Neighbors on Haskell Avenue asked whether their power would be cut.
- Power to Woodland Street Playground, which has none, was approved 10-1, as was the 3,500-foot Broadway conduit, with conditions from committee: a work-hours and staging plan and repaving from the center line to the sidewalk.
- Six appointees, including Michael Piazza to the housing authority board, Farah Costa to the licensing commission and Laura Evans to the disability commission, were confirmed 9-1, Nguyen opposed. Junk and secondhand dealer licenses for Minicello Brothers, Golden Oldies, Second Street Iron and Metal and Radius Recycling were renewed. A $4 million school network borrowing went to Ways and Means.
- Maria Malchiono asked what it cost taxpayers to send five city officials to a conference in Washington. Smith said councilors who went can answer by email. Derek Shuster praised the April 25 Clean Up Everett event, where he filled three bags from the wetlands, and defended the Bluebikes program before his three minutes ran out.
