My predictions for the next 4 years
Long before the Primary Election I announced that I had no preference in the mayoral election and would be voting for anyone running against Dan Rivera. This guy has been brutal, evil, arrogant and he enjoys inflicting pain on people. I can only expect him to be even worse during his second term.
In my column last week I mentioned that Christmas is coming and so will the firings. Perfect season to hurt entire families and with him it has been a tradition. Meanwhile, there are employees who will be looking for another job. Their hope of having someone different elected were shattered and they cannot see themselves exposed to more belittling from the third floor. This is good news for him: More spots to place friends, campaign workers and contributors.
One good news that happened this week is that the Department of Education is not going to release the school system to the city anytime soon. Rivera has been hoping for that to expand his employment commitments.
A prediction that I made a while back was that Rivera was trying to eradicate the Commission on Disability just like he did to the Human Rights Commission. He waited long enough to appoint the necessary members and not giving them the budget that the City Council had assigned for them to function and now Chairman Richard Rodriguez’ appointment expired last month. Unfortunately, Mr. Rodriguez is not interested in continuing the struggle with the mayor.
Thank you for your service Richard!
Media scrutiny
Early this week, Jon Keller of WBZ TV was talking about several abuses going on affecting the public that were resolved thanks to “media scrutiny.” Yes, sometimes complaining works but only when the big media is willing to listen. We have been screaming for a long time but Rumbo is not the preferred reading material of politicians or the Boston media.
Jim stokes continues getting parking tickets, even though he has handicapped plates from New Hampshire in his car. He has a collection of $300 fines for parking on spaces reserved for handicap drivers only. When he tried to find the reason since he does have them, he was told that the mayor gave the order to tag cars with out-of-state handicapped plates.
Mr. Stokes hired an attorney to deal with the problem since he had been successful in a settlement of $125,000 against the city. Even though the city has been notified that he is representing him, Maggie Fawcett of the Lawrence Police Department continues to grace his windshield. No word from the police chief on that subject.
So you see, Rumbo is the only one bringing those things up. Deaf ears everywhere!
Kemal Bozkurt was fired
As expected, last Thursday, Kemal became former Assistant Director of the Lawrence Public Library. The Friends of the Library came up with six charges of which he had no previous knowledge. There is no progressive discipline and he was praised for the 14 months he served as Acting Director of the Library.
While the city is paying the new librarian for courses to acquire the knowledge she lacks, the city refused to pay for his courses leaving him unemployed and in debt.
Elections results
I am hearing all kinds of stories about violations at the polls and abuses with the elderly and absentee ballots. Considering that Rivera won by only 365 votes while spending 10 times more than William Lantigua, we must wonder what would have happened if his campaign workers had not been so intimidating to voters.
While I defend the right to vote for your choice, it is expected that the process will be clean. If anyone has stories to tell, give me a call. I’m keeping track on the different ways to cheat in case I want to write a book.
Lawrence Community Access Television
I have been writing and talking about that organization for over 10 years to no avail. Well, this year the city was supposed to sign a new contract with the cable company and for that, they were supposed to ascertain the community and preparations were to begin a year earlier. None of that happened and we have not heard if there’s a new contract.
Also, that group must have an annual meeting which has to be advertised in a local newspaper in October. Through all the years since the formation of that non-profit, I have not seen an announcement anywhere that said meeting will take place.
Remember: You are paying for that station, employee salaries and equipment that was supposed to be for the use of any community member. Like I always said, elections come and go and the public has no information on issues or candidates because the means of communications that we do have, are blocked to us. The epitome of gridlock was just committed closing the radio station for two days to prevent “political chatter” on the air.
By now, one week later, everybody forgot about it. We lay down and play dead.
