The "new" ARA Board

From the 6/2/2011 Bowman Report of the Mass. Civil Service Commission:

  "The actions of the newly-constituted majority of the ARA Board of Directors were equally troubling, as they showed a disturbing disregard for DUE PROCESS and their overall responsibility to act as independent stewards of the ARA."

  "The decision to abolish the positions at the ARA had already been UNLAWFULLY predetermined by the Mayor and the Board's new three-member majority consisting of Correia, Keene and Robbins . ."

  "Taken together, the above-referenced actions demonstrate that Mayor Dumas and the ARA Board of Directors acted in bad faith . . " 

  " . . there is a virtual mountain of disturbing evidence to show that Mayor Dumas and the ARA acted in bad faith . ."

  "Other parts of the relevant testimony, however, either 1. do not show, as argued by the ARA, that there was a lack of funds or in some cases, showed the opposite; or 2. show that ulterior motives by Mayor Dumas were the cause of the purported lack of funds."

  "The evidence that was submitted at the hearing also clearly and unequivocally established that the bond funds from the Urban Renewal Bond COULD have been used to fund the salaries of ARA staff members . ."

  "In all of these instances, the ARA witnesses (Dumas, LaCasse, & Robbins) were just plain wrong when they testified that none of these funds could be used for salaries.   More troubling, however, as cites in the findings, is that many of these funding decisions were part of a larger effort by the City to financially starve the ARA as it existed in order to justify Mayor Dumas' plan to terminate Milanoski and bring his functions back under the control of the City."

[All bold, italic, or underscored print mine.]