Sadness when a Police Officer dies
Watching the caravan of police cars and First Responders carrying the body of Weymouth Police Officer Michael Chesna to the coroner in Boston, makes us realize how fickle life is. When an officer dies in the line of duty reminds us how unfair life can be, too.
Selection of a new City Attorney
The circus has just begun!
Last Monday, the Personnel Committee of the City Council met to interview the four candidates for the position of City Attorney. The interviews were conducted individually in Executive Session.
The candidates are two assistant city attorneys, Raquel Ruano and Brian Corrigan; the mayor’s Chief of Staff Eileen Bernal; and Anne Randazzo, assistant city attorney in Methuen. Ms. Randazzo also held that position in Lawrence for several years during the Patricia Dowling and Michael Sullivan administrations. She left in 2012.
I said this is going to be another farce of the administration because the person has been long selected and qualifications have nothing to do with it. When you consider that Randazzo negotiated union contracts during the Sullivan years (and we know how he left the city financially), and she was also responsible for the police union contract in Methuen, leaving Mayor Jim Jajuga asking for a loan to get the city out of the hole she created. I don’t think she should be in the running.
Brian Corrigan and Eileen Bernal have been working on real estate and the city attorney has to deal with a myriad of situations. Raquel Ruano has been in charge of labor relations and union negotiations for many years. She also has expertise in arguing cases in Federal Court, which the others have not.
Does Raquel have a chance? Not in a million years. The mayor is pushing for Eileen and the City Council does whatever the mayor wants, regardless of qualifications. We have seen the rest of the examples they approved or have been appointed by Danny.
Because Raquel speaks Spanish, she was promptly invited to El Tapón, the show produced by Santiago Matías on Power800. Matías later heard that the mayor forbade her from being on radio interviews.
Meanwhile, Rafael Disla of Fortaleciendo la Familia on WCCM 1490 AM told me that they are insisting that he should interview Eileen Bernal. The fix is in!
Do you believe Eileen Bernal is the best qualified for city attorney? This is the person who wrote on Facebook, based on gossip that if Willie Lantigua was at my home it must have been for an interview and it would not be right for us to interview one candidate and not the other.
That was the result of Mayor Rivera’s posting of a picture of my house with Lantigua’s car in the driveway. No one knows why he was here and Ms. Bernal not only assumed that it was for an interview but she speculated that I was not going to interview his opponent. See my column on the June 22, 2018 edition.
Is that a trait of an independent thinker, a lawyer who checks all the evidence before passing judgement? Is that the way you want your city functioning?
Meeting on ADA violations
Last Wednesday, July 11, I attended a meeting with department heads and leaders of Lawrence government who are trying to comply with the demands from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a letter dated September 15, 2016. They had found dozens of violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the city’s polling places.
Early this year, the city was threatened with heavy fines if those violations did not get fix before the September 4th elections. Some of the items listed were as simple as changing a door know, others required more labor and expense such as building or repairing wheelchair ramps.
On May 1, 2018, the City Council voted to create a task force to address the violations on polling places and the city council affirmed the members at their May 7, 2018 meeting.
The members of the task force are:
Richard Rodriguez, Commission on Disabilities Director;
Carlos Jaquez, Director of Public Works;
Milagros Puello, City Engineer;
William Maloney, City Clerk;
Christopher Merlino, Building Superintendent Lawrence Schools;
Brian Corrigan, Assistant City Attorney;
Mark Ianello, Finance Director;
Glen Gary,
Julissa Núñez, Community Advocate
Ana Levy, City Councilor
Franklin Miguel
I am not sure what Franklin Miguel does for his $95,000 salary, but he was the only one not showing up for this important meeting. They also mentioned that Richard Rodriguez would be coming but I announced that he wouldn’t be there; he had been fired from the Commission on Disability by the mayor.
They were surprised to hear that but, that’s what happens when people don’t read Rumbo to find out what goes on in this city; it was explained in last week’s column.
Needless to say that I was the only one in the audience. They started promptly and immediately got into a very productive session.
Some of the suggestions were about changing polling places if they could not handle the repairs in a timely manner but City Clerk Maloney explained the urgency of the matter. He is required by law to notify voters 20 days prior to the elections where people will be voting. That meant that they only have a couple of weeks.
The Rollins School violations, being the oldest school with 7 violations, will cost the most to complete. Carlos Jaquez suggested tackling it first and Brian Corrigan agreed that we must begin with the most egregious places and it is Rollins.
Interestingly, the city hired engineers (consultants) to give an opinion and they disagree with the DOJ report. Many of the problems listed are not violations after all.
Milagros Puello presented another problem. This school is right next to a private property; expanding walkways or wheelchair ramps may infringe on them and we have to deal with that.
Then they turned to the money issue not having enough to do all the repairs on city properties. Mark Ianello suggested using some of the sidewalk money to fix violations.
City Clerk Maloney reminded them, once again, “I am 30 days away from the DOJ deadline.” Carlos Jaquez added, “We cannot wait for the next City Council meeting to vote on this.”
I came out of that meeting encouraged seeing the different departments working to find the solution to a very difficult problem. I saw nothing but cooperation among them.
Their next meeting is scheduled for July 26 at 10:00 AM.
Total incompetence
Take a look at this traffic sign in the corner of Haverhill and Prospect streets. There is a fire hydrant and only two feet away from it, a sign of no parking to the corner.
The fire hydrant is just a few feet from the corner and we all know we shouldn’t park in front of one so, why is it necessary to remind drivers not to park from here to the corner? DUH!
Your tax dollars at work.
The future of hookahs in Lawrence
There are complaints in the community about the way the Board of Health meeting was conducted. With over 200 people in attendance, it was obvious that this was a hot topic to be discussed.
The problem is that there was no “hot topic” on the agenda. Let me explain: The Board of Health sent a letter to all tobacco retailers, bars, night clubs and restaurants announcing the upcoming public hearing on July 10, 2018. In that letter, they also explain the five proposed changes to the Board of Health regulations that were to be discussed.
-
Allow the sale of flavored tobacco products ONLY at Bars/Night Clubs and Adult-Only Retail Tobacco Stores;
-
Allow the sale of drug paraphernalia, including glass pipes and hookah pipes ONLY at Adult-only Retail Tobacco Stores;
-
Restrict smoking at outdoor work places, including construction sites;
-
Prohibit smoking at Adult-Only Retail tobacco Stores.
Bar and restaurant owners showed up in droves thinking that the use of hookahs in their establishments would be debated and that was not the case.
Cesar Pungirum, director of Tobacco Control for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts explained to the audience that it was not on the agenda for the night. They would not be taking comments on the hookahs issue. The board did allow students to present their thoughts on the above issues involving tobacco.
We published a flyer sent by Lawrence/Methuen Community Coalition on July 1st and it explained the subjects to be discussed at that meeting.
I met with Cesar Pungirum and Diane Knight for a couple of hours and they gave me much information regarding hookahs which I will bring to you next week.
Meanwhile, everyone has an opportunity to send written proposals, complaints, concerns, etc. to Lawrence Board of Health, Lawrence City Hall, 200 Common St., Lawrence, MA 01840 before August 1st and they will be heard at the next Board of Health meeting.
Fire Department
Don’t miss the article on the Lawrence Fire Department on page 13.
