All the Mayor's Men

In 1971, John Dean, White House Counsel to Richard Nixon sent a memo to Laurence Higby, Chief of Staff to HR Haldeman, which stated in part, "This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration, Stated a bit more bluntly —how we can use the available . . . machinery to screw our political enemies." Given the current state of affairs in the Hanlon Administration, these words could just as easily be coming from the twisted mechanism working at City Hall. This is an administration seemingly bent on revenge and fueled by paranoia that would rival the Nixon White House. Hanlon has gathered together his own version of Haldeman, Erlichmann, Mitchell and Dean in the form of Ravanesi, Andrew, D'Angelo and Kryzovic. The only person missing is the one filling the role of Charles Colson, the man who compiled Nixon's Enemies List, although an argument could be made that the role of Colson is being played by someone occupying an office on Vine Street.

Coming from a man who pledged during his inaugural address to work to bring the city back together, the past eight months have been a huge disappointment to many. The obsession of this administration to trash the reputation of the former Mayor and anyone associated with him is a sad commetary on a career that has spanned many decades of public service to the City of Everett.

Don't misunderstand us -- if there was some "wrongdoing" during the Ragucci administration, the taxpayers should know what that is. But Hanlon's appearance before the Board of Aldermen requesting $60,000 for a "forensic audit" of the city's books was suspect at best; when asked what kind of evidence the Mayor had to indicate that a deeper probe was needed, he said "I'm not going to tell you that . . . believe me, you don't want to know." One almost expected him to say "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Hanlon claims glaring irregularies but would not elaborate -- or even give a general idea -- of what those irregularities might be. For $60,000, the taxpayers deserve more than that.

Hanlon may also want to take another scenario into consideration. Depending on how far back this audit will go -- and one has to assume a "forensic" audit would cut pretty deep -- if there are improprieties found, he may very well find his own advisors implicated. Let us not forget that the aforementioned "Mayor's Men" were at one time associated with the Ragucci administration.

Nixon's paranoia and thirst for power were his ultimate downfall. It would be very sad if Hanlon allowed those same qualities to shout down his own better angels and make him, in the end, a caricature of himself.