The brothel ring generated millions of dollars in revenue by selling exploited women for sex to an elite clientele. It is a case, advocates for trafficked women say, that highlights the exploitative nature of the illicit industry and the power imbalances between the men buying sex and the women selling it.
Now, Toner’s political future remains hazy in a city that is often jokingly referred locally to as “the People’s Republic,” and that prides itself on being a beacon of progressivism.
As of Friday morning, it was not immediately clear if any of Toner’s council colleagues would call for his resignation.
Here’s a look at who Toner:
Toner, a Democrat, was first elected to the City Council in November 2021, according to his profile on the city’s website. He won his second term in the November 2023 election. His council post pays just over $96,000 annually.
Toner, who grew up in Cambridge, as of last year lived with his family in a tightly packed North Cambridge neighborhood near the Somerville line, not far from the intersection of the Alewife Brook Parkway and Massachusetts Avenue. He started his career teaching social studies to 7th and 8th grade students at the city’s Harrington Elementary School, according to his social media accounts. While he was teaching classes, he attended law school at Suffolk University at night.
In 2004, he portrayed himself to the Globe as a pragmatic voice willing to consider differing opinions.
“I’m reasonable and I can see the other point of view,” said Toner.
“I see a problem and I try to fix it.”
His tenure with the Cambridge Teachers Association:
In 2001, he was elected president of the Cambridge Teachers Association. Later, between 2006 and 2014, he served as vice president and then president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, a powerful labor organization that represents 117,000 members in 400 local associations throughout the state. As a union chief, he gained a reputation as someone with whom administrators could cooperate.
In 2010, when he was the president of state’s largest teachers union, Toner angered many of his own members with a proposal to use student performance on the state MCAS exam as one of several measures to evaluate teachers, according to Globe coverage.
An upbringing in Cambridge:
At the time that he was president of the state’s largest teachers union, the Globe described him as growing up “the oldest of four boys in a working class family.”
In 1981, when Toner was 15, his father died suddenly, leaving his mother to raise Toner and his brothers, which became biographical background that he referenced in a 2017 Cambridge Chronicle column promoting his political candidacy. After that tragedy, he said, the Cambridge community supported his family.
“My role models and heroes were my neighbors — teachers, firefighters, police officers, and mothers and fathers just trying to give their children something more than they had,” he wrote.
In 2011, he penned an opinion piece in the Globe where he batted away attacks on unionized workers.
“Our union fights to help both students and teachers,” he wrote in the Globe. “We led efforts to defeat two recent ballot questions that would have eliminated essential public services. We advocate for small class sizes and strong public colleges. In the 1990s, we funded a lawsuit to increase state funding for low-income school districts.”
In the past, Toner, who is a lawyer, has run for public office on the message that “experience matters,” touting his time as a former teacher and leader of the MTA and at one point vice president of Massachusetts AFL-CIO. He also campaigned on bridging the divide between “old and new” so that Cambridge could “move forward together with a vision for the future that preserves the best of our past.”
“I benefited from growing up and living in a city where people support one another. The people of Cambridge have shaped my values,” his campaign website says. “They are values I hold dear: supporting your neighbors, helping others, and a commitment to public service.”
In an interview with the Harvard Crimson in Nov. 2023, ahead of the election, Toner described himself as a “practical progressive,” and “the more moderate of the candidates” running for office.
“I’ve kind of been described as the adult in the room,” he told the student newspaper. “It’s great to be passionate about a subject, but we also have to be practical about a subject.”
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.
