Should Franklyn Veloz be on a City Board?
There was an interesting article in the Eagle-Tribune (Mayor Fills Void in Planning Board, August 2, 2019, by Bill Kirk) about a member of the Planning Board that had not attended meetings since March. The newspaper investigated and found that he had been arrested on March 28 on a domestic violence case.
There were many things in that article that caught my attention such as the fact that he was jailed for four months and the mayor or members of the Planning Board made no effort to find out what happened to him. Mayor Rivera appointed a fifth member to make sure that there is quorum in case a member happens to be absent.
All I did was check on Facebook for his Friends. Among them was City Councilor Brian DePeña who was vacationing in the Dominican Republic. Brian told me he went to Veloz Auto Group in North Andover and the employees said he was incarcerated. The Councilor proceeded to visit Veloz’s mother who explained the problem to Brian as being a domestic violence situation.
Rivera and board members told the newspaper they knew nothing about Veloz’s whereabouts. Apparently, they were just covering up for him.
My question is, is this the kind of individual who should be serving on a city board? So much for finding the best qualified candidates!
Where are the domestic violence protectors?
Domestic violence cases continue to occur in Lawrence yet, we don’t hear about them anymore. I just described a story above that sent a man to jail for four months and the trial has not even been held.
Not long ago we had fighters defending these women, having banquets to raise funds and giving recognitions to others, finding temporary housing for abused mothers and their children. Apparently, they all found good paying permanent jobs with the city and the movement became quiet.
Is anybody doing anything for victims of domestic abuse?
The battle for gun control
I don’t usually get involved with national issues but the recent massacres have irked me enough to mention it here.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival in California killings took place on July 28, leaving 3 dead and 16 wounded.
On August 3, in El Paso, Texas, 22 died and 27 others were injured.
Just a few hours later, on August 4, in Dayton, Ohio, 9 more dead and 27 injured.
But, on the same weekend that El Paso and Dayton experienced the horror of a mad man, there were 7 people dead and 55 injured in Chicago, Illinois and nobody was talking about it. There have been 48 innocent people dead in Chicago in 28 days during the month of July and the total for the year is 293 in Chicago alone.
Including El Paso and Dayton, there have been 112 people killed in mass shootings in 216 days into the year. That is about one death every other day. Of course, those figures don’t include Chicago because they were not considered mass shootings but gang violence or drug-related fights, etc.
It is gun violence nevertheless. Why does the media ignore what happens in Chicago?
The gun control movement has been trying to figure out for several years the proper way to put an end to the profusion of guns in the wrong hands and they always end up looking at the legitimate gun owners. They are not the ones committing the assaults and crimes in our communities; sick people and criminals will always find the way to acquire firearms.
The best explanation came from a journalist reporting from Havana on Radio Martí a couple of days ago. He said that Cuba has the best system in the entire hemisphere to control firearms. No one but the army is allowed to own one yet, there are crimes committed using guns that have been stolen. There may be cases also of soldiers selling them to claim it has been lost or stolen.
He emphasized that whoever wants to do such an atrocity, will find the way. Going after legitimate gun owners is the wrong way to go about it.
Primary elections
There is a possibility that the upcoming elections of September 24th could be canceled with the exception of District C, the only district with three candidates and school committee for the Greater Lawrence Technical School. In the next few days, as the city clerk and city attorney research it, we will get more news.
Meanwhile, these are the candidates who will appear on the ballot:
At-Large – Ana Levy, Jackie Marmol, Wander Morel, Pavel Payano, Celina Reyes and Richard Russell.
District A – Maria De La Cruz and Frankie Caraballo.
District B – Estela Reyes and Alcibiades Acosta.
District C – Kendrys Vasquez, Jorge Gonzalez and William Green.
District D – Jeovanny Rodriguez and Lee Fickenworth.
District E – David Abdoo and Jose Madera.
District F – Marc Laplante and Gregory Del Rosario.
Candidates for the GLTS school committee are: Brenda Rozzi, Leo Lamontagne, Stephany Infante, Gary Mannion Jr., Zoila Disla and Vivian Marmol.
Now come the fights!
On June 8th I published this picture of Pedro Ayala’s car with a huge sign of Celina Reyes. Notice that he parks in the “Employee of the Month” space all day long. The mayor made it clear that parking spaces are reserved for people coming to do some business with the city and employees are not even allowed to park on Common St. (with the exception of Franklin Miguel who places his employee ID on the dashboard and parks all day without paying at the meter.)
Another detail is that Pedro was one of several employees allowed to go to work for 6 months for Senator Warren’s campaign, without salary from the city but not losing any of his benefits such as medical insurance. Rivera loans out people that we are paying for as if they were his employees.
On Monday, I was on Carmen Chalas’ radio show and mentioned the fact that parking his car with that political sign there all day “may not be illegal but it’s in poor taste because, after all, he is working.”
I also mentioned that Celina had not opened her account with Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) where she is supposed to declare contributions and expenditures. Considering how long she has been distributing campaign literature and those huge signs, I checked to see how much she paid and who is giving her money. That’s why I know.
Carlos Morel called me on the air insulting me, making a fool of himself so I checked again. He insisted that she had her account open since February and was not about to listen to what I was saying. Yes, that was the account at Enterprise Bank.
On July 26, Michael Sullivan, director of OCPF sent her a letter stating that they, “provisionally set up your committee although we cannot complete the process of registering your committee with our office until the following issues have been resolved: Issue #1: Missing Appointment of Depository Bank Your committee has yet to file its D103: Appointment of Depository Bank form.”
By the way, she filed the report corresponding to 7/15/2019 – 7/31/2019 on August 2 and it shows a starting balance of $243.98, expenses of $48.02 leaving a balance of $292.00. Who paid for her stuff?
This arrangement to benefit a candidate for an at-Large position on the council should be enough to trigger a strong reaction from other candidates and their followers.
One last thing to Carlos Morel. He accused me of having my favorite councilors. During all the years we have been publishing Rumbo, we have never shown preference for any candidate. You may have noticed that even Mayor Rivera gets equal billing when he deserves it and we treat him with respect without editorializing on his press releases.
Any other politician who appears on these pages is a sign that he or she deserved it for doing the job we elected them to do.
