Hours after the mayor's arraignment on wiretapping charges,
there's movement in Lawrence.
Boston 25's Lisa Greschi is live in the Merrimack Valley.
And Lisa, a no-confidence vote goes before city council next week.
Yeah, Shane, and while this is more of a symbolic move,
those in favor say it still sends a very necessary message.
Public trust matters.
The Lawrence City Council voting to move a resolution
calling the confidence in Mayor Brian DePena into question forward.
forward. I believe that our community deserves better.
It all comes as Mayor DePena faced a
judge once again. Commonwealth versus Brian DePena.
There are now 15 state charges against
him including allegations he secretly recorded city hall employees
and shared the footage. How
do you plead to these indictments are guilty or not guilty?
Not guilty. This is on top of the 11
federal charges he faces.
Prosecutors accused DePena of misusing more than 1.5 million dollars
in pandemic small business loans,
allegedly using some of the money for personal expenses
and his mayoral campaign.
He said he won't resign, arguing the federal case involved
business activities that predate his time as mayor.
Outside of court regarding the state
wiretapping charges, which do surround his time as mayor,
his lawyer said DePena didn't have
access to the city hall cameras,
which he said were installed for safety. I'm sure you probably
all know that the mayor is the mayor.
He's not an IT person. The videos that were installed in
City Hall were done by the IT department.
He did not have passcodes to the videos and he could not
access them. That was all left to the IT department.
Prosecutors, however, alleged DePena had a
separate security system installed in his office that recorded audio
and video. These charges and
accusations are what has led residents to pursue the formal recall.
He doesn't want to resign. I
He needs to take care of his personal business
and all this legal business and leave this city out of this mess.
We're definitely suffering.
City Councilor Mark LaPlante, who voted against
the no-confidence resolution, backs the recall petition instead,
believing the decision should be brought back to the voters.
Let's be very frank about this.
A recall petition is substantial. It is difficult.
It's not meant to be easy if you're looking
to move somebody out of the mayor's office.
so rightfully so so in this particular recall petition it's going
to be a challenge it's going
to be hard but if the people really want it it can happen now
this no confidence resolution that
will go back before the council sometime next week
as for DePena he'll be back in court
in december and lawrence for now i'm lisa greschi
for local station boston 25 news
