SHANNON O’BRIEN, fighting to retain her job as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission, took her fight with Treasurer Deborah Goldberg public on Friday by asking a court to intervene while simultaneously releasing and rebutting a letter from the treasurer accusing her of making “racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive statements.”
Up until now, the public has mostly been in the dark about why O’Brien was suspended as the chair of the commission on September 14. Goldberg said in a statement on September 28 that “several serious allegations were made by a Commissioner and CCC staff about the chair’s behavior.” She also revealed that she suspended O’Brien after reading a report from an independent law firm hired to investigate O’Brien’s job performance.
Goldberg said earlier this week that she intended to meet privately with O’Brien on Tuesday to discuss the situation, but O’Brien on Friday asked a judge to intervene and filed a series of documents related to the allegations raised in an October 4 letter she received from Goldberg.
“For the last 10 weeks, I have attempted to get a fair and objective hearing process agreed to by Treasurer Goldberg,” said O’Brien in a statement. “Treasurer Goldberg has declined to agree, and thus, I have no other recourse to clear my good name and reputation than by requesting the court to intervene and put in place a fair and objective hearing process.”
Goldberg’s spokesman, Andrew Napolitano, balked at the change of plans. “The Treasurer takes these allegations very seriously, which is why she wants to provide Chair O’Brien with the opportunity to address them without further delay,” he said. “Despite knowing about the allegations since September, she is asking to delay the meeting again. It is in the best interest of the taxpayers and the CCC that this meeting proceed.”
The letter from Goldberg raised three primary issues–that O’Brien made racist remarks to the staff and other commissioners; that her conduct towards the commission’s executive director, Shawn Collins, was unlawful; and that she created a hostile work environment.
Included in the letter is the allegation that O’Brien during a meeting in the fall of 2022 said “I guess you’re not allowed to say ‘yellow’ anymore” in referring to people of Asian descent.
O’Brien does not deny that she used the word “yellow” but said she was quoting “a well-known and respected African-American real estate developer” who used that word to describe a group of “black, brown and yellow” investors.
The letter also said O’Brien made a number of comments that were considered racially insensitive, including making “public statements that could reasonably be perceived as creating the impression” that minority candidates were not as well qualified as her for the chairman’s job and making the assumption that commissioner Nurys Camargo would know Sen. Lydia Edwards because they are both Black.
O’Brien, in her court filings, disputed both claims. She said she assumed Camargo and Edwards would know each other because they are both prominent people of color on the Massachusetts political scene.
In O’Brien’s court filing, she identified Camargo, who holds the social justice seat on the commission, as the person responsible for lodging a complaint against her. O’Brien accused Camargo of conspiring with Cedric Sinclair, another person of color and the commission’s chief communications officer, of being “comrades in arms” in a “war against Chair O’Brien.”
O’Brien’s conduct with regards to the commission’s executive director, Shawn Collins, is the subject of another internal investigation. During a July commission meeting, O’Brien publicly announced that Collins would be going on parental leave and then leaving the agency. Subsequently, according to Collins, O’Brien unlawfully interfered with his ability to take parental leave by contacting him while he was on leave. Collins has announced he is leaving the agency.
According to Goldberg’s letter, CCC staff have alleged that O’Brien subjected her executive assistant to “distressing yelling episodes.” Furthermore, she created a bad work culture by compelling an employee who was on leave to perform work for the commission, according to Goldberg’s letter.
O’Brien released Goldberg’s letter in a bid to get the court to postpone a meeting that she herself demanded from Goldberg through a lawsuit she filed in September. The meeting was originally supposed to happen on November 7 but was pushed forward to December 5 as both sides attempted to iron out the details. O’Brien is arguing that Golderg is refusing to give her a fair chance to defend herself and protect her reputation.
Goldberg offered O’Brien four hours to make her case but O’Brien wants a longer time slot. O’Brien also wants a hearing where she can call and cross-examine witnesses. She also wants an impartial person to preside over the hearing.
O’Brien’s attorney, Howard Cooper, said his client has been mistreated and her reputation badly damaged. “Any allegation of racial insensitivity is frivolous in the extreme,” Cooper said. “The treasurer appears to be afraid to hold a real hearing, with witnesses and cross-examination, and in public so that Chair O’Brien can show the lack of merit to this entire so-called process.”