NORTHAMPTON — The City Council censured Ward 3 Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg at a special meeting on Wednesday for her conduct during a dispatch call in which she tried to obtain emergency contact numbers for the city’s Department of Public Works.

All but Ward 4 Councilor Jeremy Dubs and Rothenberg, who was not present for the vote after briefly logging on to the virtual meeting and recusing herself, voted in favor of the censure. The move is designed to show the council’s disapproval of Rothenberg’s actions, but it does not prevent her from continuing to serve on the council or any of its subcommittees.

During the call to a non-emergency dispatch line, placed on Feb. 18 after a severe ice storm that left many side streets frozen for several days, Rothenberg said her constituents were getting hurt and she needed to speak to someone from the DPW. After the dispatcher refused to give out emergency contact information for the DPW, Rothenberg said that the “City Council outranks the mayor,” while also repeating a rumor that DPW Director Donna LaScaleia had resigned.

The resolution to censure Rothenberg for her conduct during the call, put forth by Ward 5’s Alex Jarrett, Councilor At-Large Marissa Elkins and Ward 1’s Stanley Moulton, cites Massachusetts General Law as stating that “no current officer or employee of a state, county or municipal agency shall knowingly, or with reason to know … use or attempt to use such official position to secure for such officer, employee or others unwarranted privileges or exemptions which are of substantial value and which are not properly available to similarly situated individuals.”

The resolution states that Rothenberg spoke with two dispatchers in a way that violated the city charter, potentially violated Massachusetts rules and laws governing the “ethical conduct of public officials, harassed city employees and generally behaved in a manner unbecoming to a city councilor.”

During Wednesday’s special meeting, Moulton said that Rothenberg’s conduct during the call showed a lack of “basic human decency,” and that Rothenberg’s behavior would not be tolerated on the council.

“I hold myself to a particularly high standard as an elected official who serves the public,” Moulton said. “I’m happy to say it’s a standard that all of my colleagues, except one, have met during my two two terms on the council. The exception is Councilor Rothenberg.”

Elkins said she first heard about the incident from Rothenberg herself, who recounted placing the call during a council meeting two days after the call took place, but did not mention that she had said LaScaleia resigned during the call.

“When I heard the actual call, I felt that we needed to learn more information about what actually happened,” Elkins said. “Spreading information that the director of the DPW would have resigned and left her post without notice in the middle of an ongoing response was very bad misinformation.”

In her memo to the council, LaScaleia stated that the impact of Rothenberg’s false claim of her resignation led to “uncertainty, chaos and fear” within the department. She also accused Rothenberg of promoting “a culture of bullying and fear” since joining the council in January 2024.

Jarrett said the incident leading to a censure vote was a result of a pattern of behavior by Rothenberg, who since joining the council has strongly criticized several department heads, the mayor and superintendent, along with raising several charter objections to delay votes on legislation.

“As a council, we have no executive power,” Jarrett said. “No individual councilor can speak for the whole unless that power is granted by the whole council.”

Rothenberg only joined the meeting briefly at the beginning, but left after stating she needed to recuse herself, saying the censure could lead to “financial penalties” for her.

“I very clearly have a financial conflict of interest,” Rothenberg said, before logging off of the meeting. She did not immediately return requests for comment following the censure vote on Wednesday, but previously defended her actions in an interview with the Gazette on Tuesday, saying she was trying to advocate on behalf of her constituents who were facing unsafe roads during a severe weather incident.

“My only regret was perhaps there was a more tactful way to reveal the information about the DPW director,” Rothenberg said at the time. “But if she [the dispatcher] is routing the calls to someone who may not be there, that’s pertinent information.”

Dubs, who has sided with Rothenberg on several issues during their time on the council and has also criticized the city’s snow and ice removal policies in the past, said he didn’t feel a censure was appropriate for the situation.

“I don’t feel comfortable as a group pointing fingers at people,” Dubs said. “It feels like we’re ganging up.”

Ward 7 Councilor Rachel Maiore, who has also sided with Rothenberg in the past, said that although Rothenberg’s behavior on the call was “irresponsible” and “problematic,” said that she felt there should be a better way to handle such issues in the future, calling for a more “restorative” approach going forward.

“[A censure] is essentially a public shaming tool, and it feels very archaic,” Maiore said. “We need to think about how to be better models for our community as a council … I don’t think we’re modeling how to deal with conflict and how to deal with missteps and behavior.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.