Phoenix Academy Graduation
When Phoenix Charter Academy opened in Lawrence two years ago, I was impressed with their goals serving the most difficult students. Now that they celebrated their first commencement exercises, I could not miss it. While there were only five students, the accomplishments were tremendous. These students coped with the most intense circumstances to complete their school work but the amazing part is that in such time, they accumulated college credits at Northern Essex Community College.
During the last year, they attended NECC as regular students, including carrying a badge of identification from the university. That was the incentive showing they could make it there. They all graduated with college credits and ready to continue their education this fall.
Phoenix Academy works. I congratulate the staff, faculty and particularly the Head of School Olivia Lahann. I was planning on writing about the celebration but her speech said it all so I decided to just translate it. Read it on page 8.
A raise for Mayor Zanni
The Methuen City Council was considering last week whether to give Mayor Zanni a $20,000 increase in pay to his current $80,000 salary.
Some councilors agreed with the mayor saying that many city employees make more than the mayor and the CEO of a corporation should be paid better than his employees, refusing the suggestion of approving the increase for the next term. They wanted it now, beginning July 1st.
Then, I heard Lou Blasi of “The Morning Show” on WCCM 1110 AM commenting on this. He said that elected officials are always hesitant to say you can run a government like a business, but in the case of the Methuen Mayor, they justify a raise by calling him a CEO, and saying a CEO shouldn’t be paid less than department heads and they worry that some employees are getting raises, while others aren’t.
“That makes it sound like they are putting it on par with a business,” Lou said. “And if I have a business that always wants to spend more money than it’s generating in revenues; if the business is incapable of spending less than it makes, or limiting its spending so that current revenues can cover it, I’m not sure it’s good business for anyone in the business should be getting a raise.”
He went on to say that you raise the salary for a position when you think you aren’t getting enough good candidates for the job. He is an elected official who fought to get that job and he knew very well what the pay scale was.
That got me thinking. In Lawrence, we have a mayor who goes by the title of CEO yet, he is creating positions and giving out raises while increasing fees and creating the new system of rental inspections to earned revenues.
Residency Requirement
There are many opinions making the rounds in Lawrence over the residency requirement and if it should be brought back. In this edition, we have an analysis by Gilda Duran on page 11 looking at what this measure would do but also her study of the current situation in this city.
