In the Daily’s Thursday article, “Medford passes Welcoming City Ordinance,” Medford City Councilor Justin Tseng praises the city’s euphemistically-named Welcoming City Ordinance.
In the councilor’s own words, “This is essentially sanctuary city legislation.” His colleague, Councilor Matt Leming, apparently agrees. Leming writes in a blog post on his website: “Last week, we passed an ordinance to make Medford into a sanctuary city.” In another post, he correctly states that a sanctuary city is “another term for a Welcoming City.”
Having attended and commented at two regular council meetings in which the ordinance, which was partly engineered by the American Civil Liberties Union and Medford People Power, was rubber-stamped, I can attest that, as Tseng described, there was not “much disagreement” about codifying the City’s policy of non-cooperation with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws. However, I believe this has nothing to do with an overwhelming consensus that Medford should be a sanctuary city, but rather residents being uninformed that the ordinance, because of its intentionally misleading name, was in fact a sanctuary city ordinance.
An example of the confusion intentionally caused by the name is reflected by the answer — or lack thereof — to a question posed by a concerned resident. He asked at the Dec. 17 regular meeting, point-blank to the council: “Is this a sanctuary city policy or not?” The response from council President Zac Bears was evasive: “This is a Welcoming City ordinance.” When the resident stated this was not responsive to his question, Bears reiterated that this was “a Welcoming City” ordinance and refused, again, to answer the question. The rest of his colleagues were silent.
As once put by Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the United States House of Representatives, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” The Medford City Council apparently follows this mantra. It was employed during the campaign to approve of the tax overrides and it was used again here to encourage residents — most of whom are unversed in complicated legal jargon — to think this law was something it was not. One would think in a city where thousands of people voted for President Donald Trump, there would have been more than a few people turning out to speak against their municipality becoming a sanctuary city. Why was this not the case? Why did other individuals, concerned about the arguable illegality of the ordinance — with the exception of this writer — not turn out to voice their concerns either?
This is yet another example of the lack of transparency that has become the hallmark of the current Medford City Council.
Nick Giurleo (LA’19) is an attorney, journalist and lifelong Medford resident. He can be reached for comment at nicgiur1001@gmail.com.
