E. Shore mayor eschews e-mail
July 15, 2008
Funny what you can learn by reading discovery rulings (PDF) in federal cases.
Like this: Cleveland Rippons, the lame-duck mayor of Cambridge, “does not use e-mail at all.” So wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth P. Gesner, in a failure-to-promote discrimination case that has since been defeated and is now on appeal.
The little Eastern Shore city with a history of racial unrest elected its first black mayor last week, when Victoria Jackson-Stanley, deputy director of the Dorchester County Department of Social Services, defeated the two-term incumbent Rippons.
The result had locals celebrating how far the bayside birthplace of Harriet Tubman has come since its infamous race riots in 1967. And the “no e-mail” policy sheds some light on Rippons’ governing habits, lending credence to those who said the political contest was less about race than about changing economic conditions.
Is a “no e-mail” policy an indication of a politico out-of-touch with the realities of 2008? Or is such criticism of the 54-year-old Rippons — or 71-year-old presidential candidate John McCain, for that matter — just a different type of discrimination?
For the record, Jackson-Stanley is also 54; no word on her e-mail habits.
BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer
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Why not ask Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick how necessary email is to a 21st century mayor’s office? He’d probably say he could do without it.