By Felix Batista
As we all know this year we will hold elections to choose local authorities such as the mayor and the council. As always, great challenges and opportunities await them, because each year the problems of the community are aggravated.
We want to refer to two topics in a special way: 1st safety and 2nd education (schools), but not before making some points. In the case of garbage, the city lacks a solid waste management program.
Recycling: the city has had a recycling department for six years but its coverage does not reach 10% because it needs a technical program that reaches all homes and buildings. In addition to inform, educate and penalize complemented in coordination with the school department to educate students about ornaments and recycling and include a mandatory exam question from sixth grade through fourth year of high school.
This problem in Lawrence has received what we call the three strokes:
1. Violating environmental laws.
2. Contaminate the city.
3. The city misses out earning millions of dollars between what they pay for trash and what could be sold as recycling.
It is pitiful that Lawrence being a historic city and unique in its design has more than 50% of public properties and sidewalks are full of weed (grass) that makes it look like an abandoned city and its ordinances are not enforced.
Citizen security: it is chimerical pretending to face and solve a social problem if it is not based on two premises. The causes that generate it. Such as single-parent homes, lack of a residence law, excessive fun centers without police surveillance, lack of monitoring (security cameras), immigration from third world countries living in a the laws are fulfilled), the lack of a culture of citizen responsibility and non-integration, etc.
Without the participation of the actors who are affected by the problem that in this case we are the whole community we could not ever resolve them.
Public education. In the past six years, the school department has been led by the state to solve a problem of underperformance, but the new mayor will receive the schools to be led by local authorities.
Of the aspirants to the mayor’s office, we have one of them that by his academic preparation and his experience as an educator for a long time becomes the best one because it possesses all the certifications to be school superintendent. This is a guarantee that schools will maintain the high standards they have today and will continue to grow as students need and deserve. This candidate is the architect and professor Modesto Maldonado.
With the democratization of the media we place ourselves in the world of knowledge and information. Today, people want to participate in decision-making to be authors of their own history because we are informed in real time. In the case of Lawrence and his election, Modesto Maldonado, because of his preparation, his path of struggle and an integrationist vision, becomes the most suitable candidate to face and solve the great evils we have in the community. He will be taken into consideration by the parents of the students in a particular way and the population in general so that we can give a step forward as a community.
