We have a city attorney
Finally, the City Council voted to approve Raquel Ruano as the city attorney and the mayor said he will sign it.
The vote was 7-0 with Councilors David Abdoo and Marc Laplante voting NO.
Congratulations Ms. Ruano!
The State of the City Address
Mayor Dan Rivera’s State of the City Address Tuesday night suggested several things that I cannot overlook. Please take the time to read my rebuttal on page 5 but some other things popped into my mind after finalizing it.
He wants the state to get rid of the fiscal overseer because he is doing such a great job. I don’t believe Sean Cronin is ever in Lawrence. If that was the case, how come he allowed Rivera to make the decision he has made such as firing Assistant City Attorney Brian Corrigan?
Mr. Cronin is either looking the other way when it comes to the Oliver School renovations or coasting along to permit Estela Reyes and her cohorts become wealthier instead of recommending taking the building and lot of land by eminent domain.
He has not pressured the mayor into settling a union contract with the police and firefighters. I believe he comes around far in between to make an appearance. Period.
It was a nice speech about the gas explosions and the pain caused to our residents but he never mentioned the number of businesses that disappeared or did not receive the proper remedies from the gas company. Those families continue to suffer.
Rivera claims that the city’s schools are close to ending receivership but that’s doubtful because it was recently published that Lawrence’s Public Schools were back up to Level 5 so we are going backwards.
Regarding the crime rate, Rumbo receives the stats from the Police Department also but each day has become more difficult to check if they are accurate.
Nice speech. Faith lost.
The new abortion law in VA
This is one issue never mentioned by me because it is very controversial, mostly moved by emotions and religious beliefs.
Even though I don’t agree with abortion as a birth control method, it is legal since the Supreme Court approved Roe vs Wade in 1973. On that premise, let it be on the conscious of the women having it performed and answer to their religious leaders and God.
The new law passed in Virginia allows an abortion to be performed up to the third trimester of the pregnancy, when the fetus is fully formed and able to live on its own outside of the womb. That alone is sickening!
But the new law goes further. It explains that the decision to abort could be made up to the last minute when the mother is dilating and the birthing is beginning to occur. Also, if the baby is born, doctors “will keep it comfortable until the mother decides if she wants it or not.” That’s not aborting, that’s infanticide!
How can killing a baby that has been born be called an abortion?
How low can we fall as a society?
Allow me to speculate. If 46 years after passing Row vs Wade we are still fighting against abortion and this happened, what can we expect 30 or 40 years from now? If a child develops a handicap or disease that would require the care families cannot afford, they can decide to terminate his or her life?
Perhaps, given the same situation with an elderly member of the family whose care is draining their finances, it could be decided to terminate his or her life under an unconscionable law.
Then, we would have created a society of animals.
Another barbaric practice in MA
Sometimes things happen right around us while we go about our lives until it hits us right in the face – probably too late to do anything about it.
Did you know that more than 230,000 residents have signed a petition to outlaw Female Genital Mutilation in Massachusetts?
There’s a national campaign EndFGMToday that has been calling on Massachusetts to criminalize the cruel and barbaric practice of FGM.
Twenty-two states do not have legal protections in place for women and girls who are at risk for female genital mutilation (FGM). Among them is Massachusetts, and now, residents are taking action to make sure FGM is criminalized in their state and pass a law that would punish perpetrators who inflict this unnecessary procedure that leaves both physical and emotional scars for a lifetime.
The Massachusetts petition was started by three women, Mariya Taher, Aisha Yusuf and Hanna Stern, who are “pleading to the Massachusetts State Legislature to pass a law making it illegal for someone to carry out (FGM) on young girls.”
Taher was born in the United States and now lives in Massachusetts, but at the age of 7, she was subjected to FGM in India. Her friends and relatives also living in the U.S. have undergone FGM both in America and in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Australia and many other countries.
Yusuf was subjected to FGM at the age of 5. “I know many women who also got it done,” she says. “Personally, I know people in my community who talk about it as if it’s normal. I was aware of people practicing it behind closed doors, but I also know that some people are looking for ways to keep the practice alive here in the states even though it might mean legal action is taken against them.”
Stern said she came upon the subject of FGM while searching for a global health research topic online for a school project. “I knew nothing about it and was concerned that others would find it uncomfortable and unrelatable,” she said. “My teacher told me that was all the more reason to focus on FGM. It’s not a cultural issue; it’s not a third-world problem. FGM happens all over the world; it is happening in Massachusetts!”
Yore said that state laws are even more crucial now, as the federal law criminalizing female genital mutilation was ruled unconstitutional by a district judge in late 2018.
As FGM is “nearly always carried out on minors, is a violation of the rights of children, and reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes that constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women, we must protect girls from undergoing FGM.” The petition page also points to the fact that Massachusetts ranks 12th in the nation for at-risk populations with an estimated 14,591 women and girls who are at risk for FGM.
Yore also noted that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, more than a half million girls and women in the U.S. are at risk of female genital mutilation.
FGM is also recognized by both the World Health Organization and the United Nations as a human rights violation perpetrated upon little girls and women, and over 200 million women worldwide have been subjected to FGM.
One big happy family
Never ceases to amaze me the connections in this City of Lawrence. Every time you pick up a rock, there’s a new surprised underneath. How can we expect fairness when the people placed on boards are tightly connected to the mayor? He not only controls City Hall but many of the organizations and companies in the area by placing people of his choosing on their boards.
I was in the process of making a list when this came to my attention: Jessica Vilas Novas (Library Director formerly known as Jessica Valentin) is a board member of the organization Elevated Thought. That’s the same organization that was awarded money to paint the Buckley Garage and other art paid projects in the city.
Some might say that it’s a good idea giving those contracts to local people and I agree. My problem is with the boards, not the agencies. It appears as if, the way to get the benefits is going through a board member and Mayor Dan Rivera has his friends positioned on several of them. These people can influence the organization’s decisions in return satisfying the administration’s wishes.
