Mayor Rivera is cyber Bullying
If you have not seen the mayor’s Facebook posting showing my house with Willy Lantigua’s car in the driveway, I recommend you do before he deletes it because he tends to do that. If he has deleted it, call me and I’ll send you a copy.
When we were made aware of it, my heart sank. I had no idea after 55 years in this country the trauma suffered in Cuba would be flooding back into my memory. Back then, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) had the legal right to come to our door to check who was visiting or the content of any packages brought in. I am sure for Alberto that emotion was even more pronounced because he was there longer.
When you read all the comments you’ll understand that no one had any idea as to the reason for that car to be at my home. They started assuming, accusing, insulting and creating a soap opera from nothing just for the purpose of bullying us.
They were nasty but the one that hurt me most was from Eileen Bernal, the mayor’s chief of staff. After all that exchange, she assumed that he was here for an interview (after all, this is also Rumbo’s office) and concluded that it will be unfair or unethical interviewing one candidate and not the other.
Eileen wants nothing more than to be city attorney and that’s a scary thought. If she could jump to a conclusion after all that gossip, how could she be trusted to follow the law in an impartial way.
We have no idea if the picture was taken by the mayor or someone else driving by, or even the neighbor across the street. One thing is for sure: Danny put it on his Facebook page and there was no good will about that.
Hispanic Week
I know many of you are expecting my criticisms about Hispanic Week but I believe that it will be very unfair of me picking at minor bleeps compared to the lack of support they received from the public. We already referred to that negligence in last week’s editorial. It’s embarrassing that so much effort from just a few people goes unappreciated by the rest of us.
If you are among those who read only headlines in the newspapers instead of going deeper or asking questions, The Eagle-Tribune had an article saying that 113 people were arrested over the weekend. That was enough for some to assume that they were festival goers but the Police Chief Roy Vasque was also quoted in the same article by stressing, “it was a peaceful event and no major issues were reported to police.”
Where’s our School Committee?
I received a notice that The Lawrence Alliance for Education will be meeting on Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 6:00 p.m. at the North Common Educational Complex’s Library located at 233 Haverhill Street, Lawrence and placed it on the Rumbo page in Facebook to let the public be aware.
Then, School Committee member Dr. Marianela Rivera contacted me explaining that their monthly meeting was supposed to be at that time. This decision was made unilaterally by the mayor with no discussion or vote from the elected members of the school committee. He also claims that as chair, he’s the only one that can schedule school committee meetings regardless if the majority wants to meet.
And she added, “This highlights the colonial model of this receivership and how disenfranchising the receivership is to our community. It’s taxation without representation at its finest.”
They keep saying that we are not ready to take control of our schools but nobody is doing anything to train and prepare our school committee members to be ready to do it.
How long are we going to be putting up with this situation? Just like Hispanic Week, the general public has lost interest or hope and they keep walking all over us. Let’s see how many residents show up on the 27th and dare ask questions and demand answers.
