David Scondras

David Scondras

Template:TOCnestleft David Scondras is a former Boston City Councilor.

Fenway activism

David Scondras, was involved in the founding of nearly every neighborhood organization started in the 1970s that still exists – most notably the Fenway Community Health Center and the Fenway Community Development Corporation.

Scondras accomplished so much for the neighborhood as an unpaid activist, that he easily became the first Councilor elected to represent the Fenway in the Boston City Council when that institution was revamped from a 9 at-large member entity to it’s current configuration in 1981.

Dotterman, Barrios connection

At Harvard Jarrett Barrios threw himself into campus activism. He volunteered at local teen and homeless shelters. He served as a political intern to former Boston city councilor and Democratic Socialists of America member David Scondras. He worked on the campaigns of "progressive" politicians such as Scondras and former Boston city councilor Rosario Salerno. He went on to earn a law degree from Georgetown Law School, after which he returned to the Boston political scene in 1995. Three years later, he set his sights on the 28th Middlesex District. In the words of Communist Party USA member Gary Dotterman, a former Scondras aide who acted as mentor to Barrios in the late 1980s, "Jarrett is a person from modest means who has accomplished something."

Scandal

Two aides to a Boston city councilor were fired by the City Council in October 1987 because of their participation in a group that advocates the rights of people accused of, or victims of, homosexual activity between adults and minors.

The two men, Gary Dotterman and Junis French Wall, said that they would be consulting attorneys and they vowed to continue working for Councilor David M. Scondras (Back Bay-Beacon Hill-Fenway-Mission Hill).

DSA Elected Representatives, 1990

Democratic Left, Jan. 1990, page 7

As of January 1990, Democratic Socialists of America members holding elected public office included;

• Ron Dellums, US Rep., California
• Major Owens, US Rep., California
• David Dinkins, NY Mayor
• Jim Scheibel, St Paul, Minnesota Mayor
• Ben Nichols, Ithaca (NY) Mayor
• Larry Agran, Irvine (CA) Mayor
• Jim Conn, Santa Monica Mayor
• Niilo Koponen, Alaska State Legislator, Fairbanks
• Beverly Stein, Oregon State Rep., Portland
• Perry Bullard, Michigan State Rep., Lansing
• Babette Josephs, Pennsylvania State Rep., Philadelphia
• Ruth Messinger, Manhattan Borough President
• Harry Britt, President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
• Maryann Mahaffey, President, Detroit City Council
• Hilda Mason, Washington DC, City Councilor
• David B. Sullivan, Cambridge (MA) City Councilor
• David Scondras, Boston (MA) City Councilor
• Anne Chandler, Berkeley (CA) City Councilor
• Mildred Jeffrey, Wayne State University (Detroit) Governor

Arrest on sex charges

Five-term city councillor David Scondras, Boston’s first openly gay city councilor, pled not guilty on Oct. 10 2006, in Lawrence District Court to allegations that he attempted to seduce who he believed was a 15-year-old boy with sexually explicit Internet instant messages, reported the Boston Globe.

Scondras was arrested Monday, Oct. 9 in the parking lot of a charter school where he had arranged to meet who he thought was the teenager but who was really a 20-year-old security guard who brought in the police allegedly after Scondras sent him a sexually explicit message.

Reportedly using the screen name “Topdadd,” Scondras told the security guard, whom police asked to pose as a 15-year-old, that age didn’t matter, according to the police who apprehended Scondras after a brief scuffle.

Charges that Scondras faces include enticing a minor under 16; resisting arrest; assault and battery on a police officer; purchasing alcohol for a person under 21; and larceny under $250. Scondras, who has run an AIDS nonprofit out of his Cambridge home since leaving office, was released on $1,500 bail.

"Sex offender"

In 2007 Scondras agreed to accept the legal status of “sex offender” in order to avoid being sentenced to a jail term.

References

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