NORTHAMPTON — The city has fired an administrative assistant of the Northampton Reparations Study Commission and the chair of the commission has resigned ahead of a City Council meeting where it will be determined whether or not to continue the commission’s work on its final report.
Anthony Arena-DeRosa, who served the commission in a staff support role, received a letter from Human Resources Director Charles Dunham on June 30, saying that the city intended to terminate his employment effective immediately. The cause of Arena-DeRosa’s termination, according to the letter shared with the Gazette, was an email he sent June 17, using a city email address, to approximately 130 residents to advocate for a public hearing before the city accepted a final report put out by the commission.
“These commissions and councils claim to represent justice, yet where are the public hearings?” Arena-DeRosa wrote in the email. “Where is the open door for community voices to be heard loud and clear?”
According to Dunham’s letter, sending out that email put Arena-DeRosa in violation of the city’s conduct, discipline and discharge policy. The policy states that city employees are to “conduct themselves in a manner that in no way discredits the city, public officials or fellow employees,” according to the letter.
“Your city-issued email is city property and identifies you as a city employee to members of the public,” the termination letter states. “Therefore, using it to publicly question and criticize elected and appointed city commissions and councils is a direct and serious violation of policy.”
In an interview with the Gazette, Arena-DeRosa said he had been asked by a member of the commission, whom he did not name, to send out the email. In his communications with the city regarding his firing, he said, there seemed to be no plans to replace his role on the commission.
“What surprised me most was the lack of a plan moving forward,” Arena-DeRosa said. “One of the things I did when I was let go was to ask about facilitating for the next person, to transfer any and all of the work I’ve done and help acclimate a new person, and they did not have anyone in mind for that.”
The chair of the commission, Ousmane Power-Greene, also resigned around the same time of Arena-DeRosa’s firing. Power-Greene did not immediately return requests for comment regarding the resignation.
The city declined to comment regarding Arena-DeRosa’s firing, in keeping with a policy of not commenting on personnel matters.
The Northampton Reparations Study Commission, established by the council in February 2023, is charged with considering initiatives the city should fund and implement to support redress and fair treatment for Black people who live, wor, and learn in the community; examining ways to restore, gro, and nourish Black community and culture in Northampton for future generations; and suggesting ways the city might meaningfully atone for historic wrongs.
However, visible tensions have emerged on the commission regarding whether it has done enough to reach out to the members of the city’s Black community for input on crafting its list of recommendations on its final report. Commissioner Marsha Morris previously told the Gazette in an interview she believed more public input was needed before a final report could be submitted.
“Why is the report being rushed when we haven’t had any public hearings on the [final report] draft?” Morris said. “There’s some drive for this report to be accepted because they don’t want us to align the feedback of the Black community with the recommendations.”
At the commission’s June 10 meeting, members voted 8-2 to extend its work for another year, as well as create an “Implementation Commission” to work in tandem with the commission. In a separate decision, commissioners voted 6-4 to submit the current report to the council, with the caveat that the recommendations are subject to “appropriate edits if needed.”
The City Council was set to vote on whether to accept the extension of the commission during its meeting on Thursday, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.
