CommonWealth Magazine published a lengthy article entitled “Lawrence’s Rivera facing tough reelection fight” by Ted Siefer, for which I was interviewed. I had no idea about the reporter’s intentions and which way it would turn out but I was surprised right from the headline saying, “City showing signs of progress, but mayor faces battle to retain his post” (https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/lawrences-rivera-facing-tough-reelection-fight/)
The piece was damaging to Rivera for many reasons. He described the main four candidates running against him (William Lantigua, Modesto Maldonado, Jorge Jaime and William Green) and Mr. Siefert probably agrees with me regarding the rest of the candidates. I don’t think they should even be in the race. They know they can’t win and the only thing they’ll accomplish will be stealing votes from the top contenders and that way, anything can happen. At this point, with so many people thinking they have what it takes to be mayor of Lawrence, no one can tell what would happen on September 26.
There were statements by Mayor Rivera that I want to outline here because a mayor with three and one-half years’ experience on the job should not be answering in that unintelligent way. It goes to show once again that he doesn’t listen to anyone. He doesn’t consult with any of the “competent” people in his staff; otherwise, he would have been more of a politician.
For example, how could he admit to the following? “I think people probably feel less safe today than when I became mayor.” Of course! You can play with the stats all you want but we see crimes happening in our community.
He also admits that the violence has increased and it is caused by the opioid epidemic. The article cites that there were 13 overdoses in the city in 2013; the number grew by nearly 400 percent last year. The mayor’s response: “And a good majority of them are people who don’t live in our community, are people who come here to buy and use, and they O.D. here and they die here,” he says.
The only step the mayor has taken is creating the position of Homeless Coordinator to provide services to them. It is safe to assume they will continue coming to Lawrence to die here.
What I consider truly insulting of any candidate is the rejection he feels towards his own heritage and the large community he is supposed to be serving. “You know, I’m not as Dominican as everyone is,” he says. “I don’t hang out at the clubs as much as these other politicians do. I don’t go to casinos. I don’t do any of that stuff. At the end of work, I go home and hang out with my family.”
Do all Dominicans hang around at clubs and don’t go home after work to be with their families? Any person with two cents worth of brain cells won’t even think of those things – let alone using it as a selling point in his quest for another four years. Besides, he hangs around the Claddagh Pub and the LANAM Club in Andover.
Police training on customer service
We attended the press conference held at Northern Essex Community College to announce that former Police Commissioner of the Boston Police Department Edward Davis will be training all 133 police officers on the force on “customer service, de-escalation, interactions with the public, conflict resolution, perception vs. reality, cultural understanding with a focus on ESL, problem solving and maintaining community relationships,” according to the press release issued by the mayor’s office.
Chief James Fitzpatrick explained that these are things taught at the academy prior to graduation but only in recent years. When he attended the academy over 20 years ago, it was taken for granted and most old police officers have never had that type of training.
First of all, that’s common sense. Treating people fairly is a matter of common decency and usually the officers at the front window are antagonistic from the moment they ask, “What do you want?” Also, the new young officers are behaving like the senior officers who are training them on the job. Apparently, they forget what they learned at the academy, if it is so that they teach it there.
This is nothing more than a political maneuver from Rivera to make believe that he is doing something about the complaints residents have. Bringing Commissioner Davis is a show of force. He is bigger than life, not just in his build but the reputation that precedes him. He was Police Chief in Lowell from 1993 to 2006 and later Police Commissioner in Boston from 2006 to 2013. His leadership during the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 earned him a great reputation when he was able to solve the terror attack in a matter of days identifying Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar as the culprits. He retired in September of that year and founded serving as President and CEO of Edward Davis, LLC Security and Management Consulting.
Mr. Davis’ fame has taken him to several countries and all over the United States.
This training will cost the police department $14,000 but I asked why not use the Northeast Regional Police Institute (NERPI) because they offer six Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for $200 per officer. Chief Fitzpatrick and the mayor said they are no longer in this area and Mr. Davis said he went through NERPI’s training and it is outdated. Upon checking, they are still viable and the next training begins in September at Middlesex Community College in Bedford.
I also found out that they lied to us. Lawrence Police Officers are required to attend NERPI’s In-Service Training every year thus making this effort with Mr. Davis totally unnecessary and only a political move to show this community that he is listening to our complaints. The subjects Mr. Davis will be covering (customer service, de-escalation, interactions with the public, conflict resolution, perception vs. reality, cultural understanding, etc.) are all covered by NERPI in the community policing segment of their training.
Furthermore, on the day the press conference was held, a group of Lawrence police officers went through their first session and I was told that it was nothing more than a talk on community policing, useless, boring and some of them even fell asleep. The worst part is that they were obligated to be there. When they asked for volunteers, no one signed up; after they were offered four hours’ worth of pay for an hour and one half of listening, the sheet filled up.
Mayor’s decision on Jaime backfired
Mayor Rivera has given a promotion the Jorge Jaime, foreman of Parks at DPW to Acting Superintendent of the Bellevue Cemetery. The promotion includes a $20,000 raise and it produced a quick reaction from Mr. Jaime rejecting it. In a letter to the mayor, he emphatically said that he never requested a promotion or a raise and explained that he is completely incapable of doing the job. He has no knowledge of running a cemetery and believes this is a move to get the Cemetery’s Board of Trustees to fire him for his ineptness.
The union representing Mr. Jaime at DPW is fighting it because the most senior employee should have been offered the job and, hopefully, the board will be able to see the mayor’s intentions as well.
Mr. Jaime is a candidate for mayor in the upcoming elections and this new responsibility will isolate him from the community and he’ll be forced to work long hours which will prevent him from campaigning.
Those are the facts.
Mayor Rivera was interviewed by Telemundo and he said that Jorge has done such a good job with the parks that he needed him at the cemetery. The reaction from the public was that they could see hypocrisy and sarcasm in his face while he spoke. He has launched a barrage of comments on the radio chastising the mayor and favoring Jorge. Even other mayoral candidates have pitched in with their comments against the mayor’s twisted and perverse action.
Yes, it backfired on the mayor. Look at how much free publicity Jorge is now getting compared to the negativism the mayor endured in the media.
