City Councilor’s remarks result in calls for his resignation

Dec. 22, 2020 | Carolyn Noel
carolynn@thereminder.com

CHICOPEE – One Chicopee City Councilor has sparked controversy over his recent Facebook comments concerning sexual assault. Lucjan Galecki, councilor for Ward 3, seemed  to place blame on women and victims of sexual assault in response to a post made by Kaween Fernando.

Fernando ran against Galecki for the Ward 3 position in 2019. According to Fernando, the original post had nothing to do with Galecki and they aren’t Facebook friends.

“My parents’ Virgin Mary statue that they have had at our house for 20 years in the front yard was stolen in the middle of the night Monday night. I made a post about it and shared it all over the world on Tuesday morning and shared it a second time on my own personal page Tuesday evening. It was at that point that Lucjan decided to go out of his way to make a comment telling me it was my fault the statue was stolen because of the comments I make on Facebook. So I attempted to try to educate him on what blaming the victim was, and asked him directly if it’s a woman’s fault if she gets sexually harassed for wearing skimpy clothing, something to that effect, and that’s where it all got started.” said Fernando.

Galecki has since deleted his original comments because, according to him, “none of you read it thoroughly, you skimmed thru it.”

Some of Galecki’s original comments included statements such as, “If they knew it was likely that it would happen and they were warned to stay away from those areas but they went instead, it’s completely their fault,” and, “If you go to a sketchy nightclub known for these types of attacks with inadequate security, you bring unreliable friends with you, and something happens, don’t be surprised.”

Galecki also said, “Use common sense and avoid areas the best you can if you want to avoid sexual assault. I assume you wouldn’t go hiking in an area littered with hungry grizzly bears, would you be surprised if you were attacked?”

These comments have caused residents to speak out against him on Chicopee Facebook Forums.

“In my limited dealings with Lucjan Galecki I have found him to be much less than honorable. His word means nothing. Now he’s disgraced himself even more,” said Dave Terranova, a resident of Chicopee, on Facebook.

Resident Karen Lasante commented, “He would be wise to consider resignation as I would suspect that he will not be re-elected. If no resignation I call for the full council to censure this councilman.”

Galecki has taken it upon himself to reply to some of these comments, seeming to reaffirm that he stands by his statements and sees no wrongdoing.

“They won’t censure me, I’m polite and respectful at meetings. I answered a question truthfully, the way I felt about a certain topic and everyone got mad. Sure I could have lied and avoided all this but I don’t like to lie, I’m not that type of person,” Galecki responded to Lasante.

When asked about an official response to his original comments, Galecki gave Reminder Publishing a statement.

“My comment was taken out of context. I don’t support sexual assault or harassment. This comment raised lots of awareness for the victims of sexual assault and harassment. I learned that many young women experience the most sexual harassment at school. I am hoping we can make sexual harassment and assault prevention training permanent and available to all students and department staff; a child or city employee should never have to experience sexual harassment or assault. I will continue to serve on the council and plan to run for re-election,” said Galecki.

Galecki is now promoting his tree removal business on the Facebook page and has not made any further response.

“Now that there is all kinds of traffic on my page, I do tree removal and trimming. I am fully insured with workers comp and liability, I do free estimates,” said Galecki in one of his most recent posts.

One School Committee member, James Tanhauser, has spoken out against Galecki.

“Resign immediately from office. Do us all a favor, do Ward 3 a favor and not have us wait 12 months to go vote in November next year to get you out of office,” said Tanhauser in a video posted to his official Facebook page.

Fernando is also urging city officials to speak up. He expressed irritation with the President of Chicopee City Council, Shane Brooks, and Mayor John Vieau.

“There is a code of conduct for City Council that Shane has not acknowledged. Neither Shane nor John will do anything but give lip service while saying it’s out of their hands. What the people of this city want is for them to unequivocally call for Lucjan to resign and they will not do that. That is what is frustrating,” said Fernando.

“To add to that it is on purpose – if Lucjan resigns after New Years it will be less than half his term remaining so, per city charter, at that point City Council can appoint a new member or leave the seat open. If it happened before the end of this year there must be a special election. Shane knows this also and will not acknowledge it. This is the sole motivation. An attempt to hold onto power with more blank check votes. At the cost of the degradation of the city’s reputation and respect from women and people of color.”

Brooks, however, denounced Fernando’s comments.

“Certainly he’s entitled to his own beliefs, but certainly he isn’t entitled to his own facts,” he said.

“I’ve publicly asked Lucjan over several different medias to publicly resign. If he doesn’t resign, our only recourse is to strip him of any subcommittee assignments he’s on. The board doesn’t have an official mechanism to censure him in any way and there’s not currently a recall position embedded within our charter. So anyone who states otherwise is ill-informed.”

Brooks expanded on the board’s inability to remove Galecki from office if he doesn’t resign.

“We still don’t have a mechanism to remove an elected official from the board and the city’s history has led by example on this. We had a city mayor who was federally indicted and later convicted and served jail time and there was no mechanism 12 years ago to remove him. So to suggest somehow that now we have a method or a way to get Lucjan to resign is just not based on fact,” he said.

According to Brooks, both he and Vieau have asked Galecki to resign.

“This issue is ongoing. The mayor and I have both asked the councilor to resign. The ball is clearly in his court now. If he chooses not to resign, he’s going to be held accountable to the voters in about 10 months and I have no other recourse other than to explore ways to initiate a charter change. But what Kaween minimizes and fails to understand is that a charter change isn’t originated just with the city. We’ll have to work with our state delegation. This will be something that both state senators and legislators will have to work with us on in Boston.”

Brooks also spoke against Fernando’s claims that he is staying quiet on the situation and holding “onto power with more blank check votes.”

“I think that Kaween likes to stir the pot and, you know, saying that I should’ve responded four days ago… I was only made aware of this issue Tuesday on midday,” he said. “I’m offended because it goes against everything that I am and it violates my moral compass. I would never want to see anybody treated poorly or spoken about the way they were, generalized comments about a woman’s appearance in the Facebook exchange that Kaween initiated.”

Other members of the Chicopee City Council are also standing behind Brook’s decision to ask Galecki to resign.

“I speak for my board. And I don’t make any apologies about that. I’ve had several conversations over the period of the last two days with my members and they all are supportive of my ask for him to resign and it’s because they too want to proudly represent the city of Chicopee without any distraction,” said Brooks.

“By large, our board is fully and wholly committed to representing the residents in a meaningful, positive and respectful way. And to suggest the actions of one board member paints us all with a broad brush, we think is grossly inaccurate.”

According to Brooks, if Galecki resigns before the end of the year the council would hold a special election to fill his seat. If he resigned after the end of the year, the council would be able to appoint a representative to fill the remainder of his term.

However, the board could also choose to leave the seat vacant until the next general election. If the board did fill Galecki’s seat, it would typically go to the runner up of the previous election. This would not be Kaween Fernando. It would be Scott Maziarz.

For now, tensions still remain high over Galecki’s comments and his defiance to resign. One Chicopee resident, Tarin Chartier, has even started a Facebook event called “March for the resignation of Lucjan Galecki.” So far the group has five responses, with four interested and one going. The march is scheduled for Jan. 5, 2021, at 5:30 p.m.

The most recent comment about Galecki was by Donald Beaulieu.

“Remember this on Election day,” he said.

The next Chicopee City Council meeting will be on Jan. 5, 2021, with Galecki still set to be in attendance.

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