From My Corner: March 8, 2018

Would we ever know the truth?

I read an article written by Matt Murphy of the State House News Service about a private phone conversation between Mayor Rivera and Secretary Francis Galvin. According to Rivera, a heated exchange between both men, cursed at one another and Galvin accused Rivera of disloyalty, suggesting that the mayor owed him his political seat.

“Verbatim, he said, ‘I made you mayor.’ You don’t forget words like that,” Rivera said. This debate started from Rivera endorsing a newcomer vs. Galvin. I would like to ask WHY? Why bring a conversation that happened between two individuals in the privacy of their cell phones to make it public? Perhaps the mayor thought this would score points for his candidate against the current Secretary of State.

Can anything positive come out of this? This community doesn’t need any innuendos and suspicion of fraud of the 2013 Election. I am assuming that Galvin was talking about the 2013 election and not the re-election of the mayor.

“I made you Mayor”, how? I asked myself. Are we ever going to know what Galvin meant by that? A statement like that from the Secretary of State deserves an investigation from our attorney general but, alas, she’s too busy fighting Washington to care for the abuses going on in our state.

In November-December 2013 the rumors of voting fraud were rampant. The residents of this city could not believe that Dan Rivera had won nor did political leaders, community activist and many that we encountered during November 2013. The city had sadness and confusion. This conversation only added more fuel to that rumor mill of fraud.

Even now, many residents have doubts as to the legality of last year’s elections and this statement from Rivera seems to confirm our fears that something also went on at that time.

We may never know what really happened. However, Rumbo continues to be the community watchdog and we will report it when we find out.

The Public Library website

A few weeks ago, Don Serapio, a colorful radio personality said that the Lawrence Public Library had not changed Maureen Nimmo’s picture, the previous director who left in 2016. Kemal Boskurt served as interim director for 14 months and the current director has been there for about one year.

On February 27, 2018, I logged on and printed out the page entitled “From Our Director.” On that page Ms. Nimmo was promoting the upcoming Summer Reading Program and then, under Databases and Online Programs there’s a picture of Kemal Boskurt who was fired almost a year ago.

I couldn’t waste my time checking the rest of the information for accuracy.

Pacific Mills owners being sued by more than 40 tenants

I recently posted an article on Rumbo’s Facebook page entitled “40+ Past & Existing Residents of Brady Sullivan’s Coventry Lofts Are Poised to File Complaints” in one of their Providence, Rhode Island properties alleging being adversely impacted by health impacts from environmental contaminants. If you cannot find it in Facebook, you may google it.

For years, I have been warning about the contaminated soil buried in their Pacific Mills property of 300 Canal Street in Lawrence and the lawsuits by their Manchester, New Hampshire tenants. The State of New Hampshire acted as required and they were forced to clean up the contamination in all the apartments but in Massachusetts government agencies have failed serving the people.

These are some of the greatest contributors to Dan Rivera’s reelection campaign and I wonder if he had anything to do with that relaxation of rules.