EDITORIAL: The clock is ticking, Malden: Now is not the time for misplaced hubris

At the last two full Malden City Council meetings, the City Council had agendas that were impossibly full of every kind of civic matter a citizen (or City Councillor) could possibly imagine. They ranged from how to classify and potentially sell tax title collected property, to a new way to identify and regulate short-term rentals and even a tribute to the Dalai Lama himself, as Tibet’s Chosen One turns 90 years young on July 6.

Easily, the most important and impactful item on both agendas was the City of Malden’s FY26 Municipal Budget. At nearly EVERY City Council meeting going on — literally — years, now, a reference is made by one City Councillor, sometimes several, to the increasingly dire financial straits the city is facing. The alarm is not sounding anew, citizens and elected officials of Malden, it has been reverberating throughout the city, nonstop, for quite some time. It looks like the “OFF” button does not exist anymore.

The clock is ticking, Malden. Time is of the essence.

Speaking of time, know how long the last two full City Council meetings lasted? The Tuesday, June 3 meeting clocked in at three hours and 20 minutes. The other night? Tuesday, June 17’s meeting may have set a modern record: five hours and five seconds shy of one minute.

Marathon City, folks! Eight hours and 21 minutes of City Council meetings in two evenings. How much time was spent on the budget? Roughly, 15 minutes in a formal public hearing on June 3, another eight or nine minutes at this past Tuesday’s meeting: 24 minutes, tops, over two meetings.

However, at the last two meetings themselves, the lion’s share of the two meetings, maybe six hours (!) was spent on a misguided lawsuit — that is still grounded on the runway — and some apparent misplaced hubris by a now former City Council President that led to him being historically ousted from his post. In brief, Ward 4 Councillor Ryan O’Malley requested the City Solicitor’s office file a lawsuit against the Malden Library Board of Trustees and its Director due to concerns he had over the facility, its highly valued art collection and its financial and operational records. He also had grievances over his own role as ex officio member of the Board. Trouble is, he and the City Solicitor neglected to tell the other 10 members of the Council about it.

What took place during and in between those fateful June 3 and June 17 meetings can only be described as colorful and quite aptly, bizarre. There were large doses of legalese, a blizzard of paper handouts, name-calling, “call-outs,” references to a pair of particularly violent throws — “under the bus” and “to the sharks” — and a direct reference to lines in one of the most iconic movies ever filmed, “The Five Families” from “The Godfather.” (Cue the violins!)

In the end, after hours and hours of back-and-forth procedural talk that to the uninitiated must have seemed like “mumbo-jumbo” at times, a historic vote was taken. For the first time in city history, a seated Council President, Ryan O’Malley (Ward 4), was removed from his elected seat by a vote of the City Council for the remainder of his term; in this case, the remaining five and half months of the 2025 calendar year. In an additional vote, the Council installed Amanda Linehan (Ward 3) as his replacement.

O’Malley and Ward 6 Councillor Stephen Winslow challenged the validity of the vote, citing Council procedural rules. Winslow was joined by Councillors-at-Large Karen Colón Hayes and Carey McDonald in voting against removing O’Malley.

Sparks flew throughout, more on June 3 than Tuesday. Councillor-at-Large Craig Spadafora did not call O’Malley every name “in the book,” but he did not miss many. What ired Spadafora the most was the target of O’Malley’s lawsuit, in addition to bypassing the Council to file it. Spadafora, then Councillor after Councillor regaled the audience with praise of the Library trustees and the Library Director. “These are some of our best citizens in the city. They don’t deserve to be treated like this because they happen to volunteer to serve on a board,” Spadafora said.

Ward 7 Councillor Chris Simonelli was the voice of reason: “We are supposed to be admiring and protecting people that serve on these boards and commissions year after year,” he said, “not suing them.”

Quite frankly, the City Council just cannot afford to be spending its time on such pursuits.

The clock is ticking.