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tetris
Advanced Member
1480 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2008 : 08:26:20 AM
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Sorry, one more tidbit from this week's Advocate.
The following item from this week's BOA agenda was refered back to sponsor at the request of the administration, according to RVC, without any further explanation:
5.
A0260-08 Order/s/Alderman Robert J. Van Campen, as President
Subject to confirmation by the Honorable Board of Aldermen, I hereby appoint Mr. Roland Hughes, Esquire, to serve as a member of the Everett Licensing Board, term ending in June 2009
The Advocate got it wrong that the Aldermen held up the appointment but it did mention that Mr. Hughes reportedly lives in Stoneham. Probably the wrong week to appoint an out-of-towner to a city board. |
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tetris
Advanced Member
1480 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 8:37:28 PM
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A few items of interest from this week's Advocate;
Two stories shared the cover. One was about Tuesday's City Council meeting, focusing on the exchange between Mazzie and McKinnon. Pretty matter of fact; but, if you're interested, you can read it on the Advocate web site. Totally off subject, but the article cleaned up the fact that Ranieri did not know the difference between the words "transient" and "transit" the other night. The other cover story was about the opening of EHS football season. Guess they found a way to keep the school department on the front page most weeks for the rest of the fall.
Matewsky had a new ad in the paper. If form holds, you'll probably be receiving a copy of it in the mail over the next couple of days. This ad mainly focused on Smith's record with the School Department when he was on the city council. I'm not one of those people who finds it to be negative campaigning when you run against your opponents record; however, I do have a problem when you over spin that record to your own benefit. To be honest, I only have vague recollections of the events detailed in the ad so I can't really comment how fair these re-tellings are. However, I don't think that was a good idea to spent most of the ad talking about you opponent and providing little detail of what you've done yourself with school department issues. It just made the person behind the ad way too obvious. And all you needed to figure that out was to read the ad's headline and its tag line, "Everett's schools are Everett's pride".
The last item that I thought deserved some comment was a letter to the editor about the Stephanie Smith situation. I'll post that letter, some pertinent research and my comments on the letter in the Stephanie Smith thread as soon I can.
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massdee
Moderator
4242 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2008 : 9:14:25 PM
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| Thanks, Tetris. I am never able to get the Advocate anymore. |
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tetris
Advanced Member
1480 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2008 : 12:26:03 AM
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Things in this week's Advocate that I caught my eye:
Stop the presses! The school department didn't make the front page this week! But don't worry, the Advocate had the same homecoming coverage that the Leader-Herald had plus three and a half pages of what looked to be free game coverage. So don't despair.
Along with all of the advertising, the Advocate actually managed to squeeze three or so paragraphs of their lead story on the front page. The headline of the story was "Matewsky favored rep. race". Since it is a long story by Advocate standards (it spans portions of three pages) and it will probably posted on their web site later today for anyone that is interested, I won't reproduce the whole thing here. But I think that there are a few interesting passages that we can get a head start on. The ones that I found interesting were as follows:
"Ironically, it is Matewsky who is largely credited with engineering much of Smith's political successes over the years. The two were long-time close friends and Matewsky, the more experienced pol, was Smith's mentor in the past and coordinated most of Smith's campaigns, including his winning run for state representative two years ago."
"Rep. Smith claims he deserves re-election because he's responsible for Everett receiving the "most generous" local aid package in the city's history. That assertion is more than a bit exaggerated because local aid is largely determined by state formula."
"The candidate who does the better job of "pulling" their vote out, and who does the better job on absentee ballots, will most likely win -- and the view from here is that when all the dust settles Tuesday night, Matewsky will have proved to have done a better job in both areas."
Page 3 had a picture of the mayor and the lawyers with "the check". Thibeault was not in the picture. Page three also had Matewsky's latest ad in the form of a short letter from Wayne. If the pattern of the last few weeks holds, we'll probably receive a copy of it in the mail on Saturday. Also from Wayne, later on in the paper, a page of pictures from his BBQ last week.
Page 5 had an almost half page article on the sale of the city yards that was then continued on page 9. What's up with longer articles this week? The article certainly had its own slant on the events of Monday, which they are entitled to. The most interesting thing that I found about the article was its title "Mayor DeMaria gets it done, City yard sold for $3.5 million". I found that interesting because on page 9 there is a commentary on the sale of the city yards that is entitled "The mayor & city council did the right thing". Which was it? After you read the following text of that commentary, I think that it will be clear what the Advocate really thinks.
"I don't know what all the fuss by the aldermen was all about at the public hearing on abandoning a portion of Fourth Street as a public way which was a must to complete the sale of the old city yard for $3.5 million. After six years and three mayors, Mayor DeMaria finally got it done. Sold! Finally sold! A non-tax producing rundown city building is now in the hands of a respected developer. William Thibeault. And rest assured, Mr. Thibeault can't wait to answer the naysayers by putting in its place a first class business development. I believe him when he says he'll get rid of the mountain of debris at the Wood Waste site. Why would he want it there? He brought Stop & Shop to the Parkway and also developed BJ's and condo units on an overgrown with weeds parcel of land in Revere. The Revere city council has nothing but praise for Billy Thibeault. Give the mayor credit. The city needs the $3.5 million. He did his job in the best interest of the taxpayers. Mr. Thibeault is sincere and he knows elected officials will be watching. Who else would pay $3.5 million for an old city yard? We can't go wrong in choosing Mr. Thibeault as the developer. Just think. When the development is completed the land and the buildings will be on the city's tax rolls. How can we lose? It's a win-win situation."
To finish up this week's Advocate coverage, a couple of items from the "Sounds of Everett" column:
Mayor vents frustration over "persecution"
Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. used Monday night's board of aldermen meeting to vent his personal frustration over what he claims is unfair criticism of him -- criticism that he says makes fun of him and his family and borders on "persecution". According to the mayor, the issue driving the criticism is the sale of the former city yard property to the owner of Wood Waste. That owner was a campaign contributor to the mayor in the last election. Mayor DeMaria told the board that he and his family have been ridiculed on internet sites "and "I'm tired of it". He went on to add "I don't deserve the persecution that I'm going through." DeMaria said that on the former city yard issue, his only interest is what's right for the city of Everett. The $3.5-million sale of the property is in the city's best interests and the city can use the money, and that's why he's pushing for the sale, but that doesn't mean he's for letting Wood Waste do whatever they want to do in the area. "I'd stand on my head if that would get those piles (of construction debris) removed from the site," asserted the mayor.
Question raised over Van Campen's Ruling
A highly questionable ruling by Ald. Pres. Robert Van Campen allowed passage of a resolution that calls upon the purchasing office to ask all bidders for city contracts to give preference to "unionized organizations." The measure, sponsored by Ald. Jason Marcus, was strongly opposed by Ald. Mike Marchese who said that the stipulation would be unfair to a lot of good local businesses. Ald. Sal Sachetta noted that it's a moot point since the low bidder is required to pay the "prevailing wage". However, the matter never got voted upon because Ald. Pres. Van Campen, a labor lawyer by profession, ruled that the resolution passed on a non-roll call "voice vote" despite the fact that at least some loud "no" votes were clearly heard. Usually when that happens, the president calls for a clarifying roll call vote, but in this case Van Campen chose instead to quickly bang his gavel and moved on to the next item on the agenda. |
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charm
Senior Member
189 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2008 : 08:19:34 AM
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| I have a question Marcus brought up about the police doing details and Marchese said something about it, does anyone remember or know what he was referring to? |
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tetris
Advanced Member
1480 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2008 : 09:01:01 AM
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This was the item on the agenda that was in question:
16. A0268-08 Ordinance/s/Alderman Jason Marcus
To amend Chapter 17, Section 17-55 of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Everett, by adding "subsection (a) All details be performed by Everett Police Officers or individuals appointed under Chapter 24 of the Acts of 2008."
The following is a link to the actual act:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/seslaw08/sl080024.htm
I hadn't thought to look up the act before, so the purpose of the item is different than what I first thought. Basically, the change will only allow current and retired Everett police officers to perform traffic details in Everett. Marcus seemed to indicate that this was at the request of the chief. Marchese seemed to have a problem with this. So the flagman debate begins in Everett. |
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Tails
Administrator
1757 Posts |
 Posted - 09/12/2008 : 09:59:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by tetris
Mayor vents frustration over "persecution"
Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. used Monday night's board of aldermen meeting to vent his personal frustration over what he claims is unfair criticism of him -- criticism that he says makes fun of him and his family and borders on "persecution". According to the mayor, the issue driving the criticism is the sale of the former city yard property to the owner of Wood Waste. That owner was a campaign contributor to the mayor in the last election. Mayor DeMaria told the board that he and his family have been ridiculed on internet sites "and "I'm tired of it". He went on to add "I don't deserve the persecution that I'm going through."
First of all, I have never seen any posts regarding family, and that would be very wrong. That was highly exaggerated at best, from the mayor. He is the mayor and there are consequences to his actions. I'm sorry, he's too involved with Thibeault instead of the community. Again, he is the mayor, if he cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
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EverettsPride
Advanced Member
1140 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2008 : 11:48:18 AM
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There have been posts on other blogs about his alleged infidelity. And have you see the doughboy chronicles?
Sally |
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Tails
Administrator
1757 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2008 : 11:56:27 AM
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I don't pay attention to that. That is wrong. If you just ignore that type of post and not say anything, they'll go away. It's to bad Topix is not modified, but that happened with Ragucci and Hanlon too.
I have seen The Doughboy Chronicles, and and while it may be written in fun, it is based on facts, and family was never mentioned, as far as I saw. |
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tetris
Advanced Member
1480 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2008 : 10:51:52 PM
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A brief recap (thank God) of this week's Advocate:
The cover story was on the election. According to it, Matewsky lost because of low turnout and the fact that Smith spent more money. Should be posted on the Advocate web site tomorrow if anyone is interested.
There was an interview with an eyewitness of Tuesday's crash. Very sad incident.
I have to give the Advocate credit. They had a lot more coverage of the city's 9/11 vigil than any of the other papers.
The school department stuff. What more can I say that I already haven't said in the last few weeks? |
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imbroglio
Member
34 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2008 : 12:35:19 PM
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| The Advocate had it backwards. A low turnout benefitted Matewsky. The higher the turnout, the better for Smith. Their are just so many Wayniacs in town. |
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Gadzooks
Member
16 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2008 : 4:46:23 PM
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| I think Wayne lost because a some people really did understand that Foresteire was engineering Wayne's campaign and advertising. I'm glad that Fred didn't win this one. The one thing I did notice in the Independent (Augie Parziale's article) that Wayne's insistence on calling attention to Steven Smith's behavior during school committee meetings wasn't going to be a winning strategy for him, because the people who elected Smith to the school committee want him to hold Fred's feet to the fire. |
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tetris
Advanced Member
1480 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2008 : 9:03:15 PM
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Imbroglio has a good point. A lot of people, myself included, thought that the candidate who did the best job of getting his vote out would win last Tuesday. If you're dealing with a smaller base of voters, that theory doesn't work out as well.
Gadzooks, the one problem that I had with Augie's theory was that Smith really wasn't elected to the school committee. Smith won the School Committee seat when he filed the papers for it. There were only three candidates for the three School Committee At-Large seats in the last election. Smith may have gotten a lot of votes last November but didn't he and Matewsky still share a lot of the same voter base at that time? I like your version of the theory better.
I would also like to throw a litle cold water on the Advocate's theory that Smith's win was due in part to the fact that he outspent Matewsky by a large amount. If you look at the bottom line of both campaign finance reports, it does show that Smith did outspend Matewsky by a little less than $10,200. However, if you look at the details of the reports, you will see $10,000 of Smith's expenses went to paying himself back for a personal loan that he had made to his election committee in a prior election. That expense didn't earn him one additional vote in this election. So if you exclude that expense, Smith only spent less than $200 more than Matewsky thru August 29. At this point, who knows who spent more during the final weeks of the campaign? I know that I got five pieces of mail from Matewsky in the last four weeks of the campaign and none from Smith in the same period.
The links below with take you to each candidate's campaign finance report so that you can evaluate them for yourself.
http://www.efs.cpf.state.ma.us/SearchReportResults.aspx?cpfId=14819
http://www.efs.cpf.state.ma.us/SearchReportResults.aspx?cpfId=14305 |
Edited by - tetris on 09/20/2008 9:06:36 PM |
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Gadzooks
Member
16 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2008 : 10:23:40 PM
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Testris, I think the vote that Smith received for school committee says that the citizens of Everett aren't nearly as stupid as Foresteire thinks they are. I also think that many of them were paying attention to this race. Although the margin wasn't significant - it still means that people ARE paying attention. Think about it; they weren't exactly paying attention to the John Buonomo mess and still voted for him - but Fred's hand-picked, highly supported candidate for State rep lost.
I also agree with you that Smith did not won as a result of spending. In fact, I doubt that Wayne's report is accurate. The postage he has listed is chump change, and hardly enough for the mailings he put out. He wouldn't be the first Fred candidate to have less than inaccurate reports. |
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imbroglio
Member
34 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 12:16:22 PM
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Tetris,
The campaign reports are not the final figueres. I beleive there will be two additional reports filed before the end of the year.
There are still a lot of bills to be paid.
Also, in the future, you can just refer to me as "Bro". |
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Everett Advocate Newspaper
