Thursday, June 29, 2006

The OSCAR, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role goes to:

Josh Resnek, “Editor” of the Everett “Independent.”

Making absolutely no pretense at objective journalism, Josh Resnek should get the OSCAR for his thrilling performance in supporting the Hanlon Administration’s bloated budget throughout the budget hearings, for his history-rewriting editorials and puddle-deep articles. Never mind that the department heads made statements that at times disagreed with that of the Budget Director, Janice Vetrano or City Auditor, Don Andrew…Never mind that Mayor Hanlon ran on a hiring freeze….never mind that the budget is loaded down with do nothing jobs for his supporters….Josh Resnek instead finds fault with any city councilors who dared question this budget, reserving most of his animosity for Ward 3 Alderman, Stephen Smith. Smith, who is running for State Representative against Superintendent Fred Foresteire’s hand-picked candidate, Frank Nuzzo, was the primary target in Josh’s editorializing, leading many to believe that Fred must be getting a little scared for his candidate, who is still walking his dog while other people do his campaigning for him.

Yesterday’s “analysis” of the last ten years of city budgets was more of a whitewash of the Hanlon budget than anything else. While the article looked at the budget recommendations vs. the actual budget – there was no examination of what those costs were! Were they fixed costs? How about transfers to the stabilization fund? Raises? Snowplowing? Police cars or fire trucks? Whatever it was - you don’t know because our resident armchair journalist didn’t bother to break it down. That would be too much like…real journalism.

So, Josh, put your pom-poms down and pick up your OSCAR. You deserve it for your most excellent performance this year in a supporting role. Unfortunately, the Pulitzer’s will have to wait for real journalists.

Monday, June 26, 2006

EMAILED TO THE MIRROR FROM D.A. MARTHA COAKLEY: Open Meeting Law Press Release

THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
MIDDLESEX DISTRICT ATTORNEY
40 THORNDIKE STREET CAMBRIDGE MA 02141
Tel: 617-679-6500
Fax: 617-225-0871


Contact: Emily LaGrassa/Melissa Sherman FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(617) 679-6522 June 21, 2006

DISTRICT ATTORNEY CLARIFIES OPEN MEETING LAW ISSUE

CAMBRIDGE – The Middlesex District Attorney’s office has completed its review of recent activities of the Everett Board of Aldermen in signing and submitting a letter to the editor to the Everett Leader-Herald News Gazette. The letter was printed in the April 27, 2006, edition of the newspaper. Alderman Joseph McGonagle brought the matter to the attention of the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office after Everett Mayor John Hanlon publicly expressed his opinion that the signing of the letter constituted a violation of the Open Meeting Law.

Information reported in the May 25, 2006, Everett Leader-Herald News Gazette, the May 26, 2006, Everett Advocate, and the May 31, 2006, Everett Independent, indicating that Mayor Hanlon had met with District Attorney Martha Coakley regarding this matter, is not accurate. District Attorney Coakley and Mayor Hanlon spoke briefly at an unrelated social event about this potential Open Meeting Law issue, but no legal opinion was provided by the District Attorney. The District Attorney suggested to Mayor Hanlon that he refer the matter to her office for an investigation by the Office’s Open Meeting Law Team.

At this time, after a preliminary review of the facts, including the fact that the letter has been made public and will be available to the public in the minutes of the Board of Aldermen, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office’s Open Meeting Law Team has determined that no further action on this matter is necessary.

NOTE: A copy of the letter issued by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office regarding this investigation is attached.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Budget Battle Predicted

It's the maiden voyage for Mayor Hanlon; he's sailing into his first budget cycle rather late in the year, with storm clouds on the horizon. Although a new mayor can usually expect smooth sailing in his first year, it would appear that a budget battle is working up a good head of steam, and if the newspapers have it correctly - it should be at least an interesting debate. At issue is the significant budget increase this year, of over 7 million dollars, which has been attributed to the increase in fixed costs, "old bills" from the previous administration, as well as a number of hirings (despite a much promised "hiring freeze") and some steep raises.

Let's hope cooler heads prevail, despite the silliness surrounding the open meeting debacle, which we mentioned in the previous post. Although the city council has every right to be annoyed with the mayor over that nonsense, the city budget is important business for the citizens of Everett; it's a legal document that frames the finances of the city. The bond rating depends on solid budgeting and we hope that Mayor Hanlon's team is up to the task.

Here are some questions we would like to see posed to the Mayor:

1. How many new hires were made in total? Why did you think this was necessary? Are you anticipating any further hiring beyond the current budget totals?

2. Why is at least one position, which was previously paid a stipend of $5,000, now worth $20,000?

3. Why have raises, which typically run between 2-3%, edged up significantly this year?

4. Please itemize all the old bills of the previous administration which weren't covered in the FY 2006 budget.

5. How much do you think taxes will go up this year?

6. How many lawsuits are pending?

7. How much money is outside counsel costing, including the school department? What are the outstanding lawsuits?

8. What is our tax and local aid revenue expected to be for the year?

Have any more questions? Please post them.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Much Ado About Nothing - The Alleged Open Meeting Law Violation

It's hard to understand why John Hanlon would publicly embarrass himself by accusing the City Council of violating the open meeting law because they signed a petition that was distributed by Alderman Joe McGonagle. To make 25 enemies on such a pathetic little charge has to go down in history as one of the worst all-time local political missteps, not to mention one of the more childish temper tantrums we've seen coming from an elected official in quite some time. The man has only been in office for five months . . . and he's already managed to turn the City Council against him? That has to be some sort of record.

Who is advising this man?

The Open Meeting Guidelines can be found here:

http://www.cbsys.ago.state.ma.us/pubs/oml.htm

The answer to the question "how can a petition drive intended to show legislative disapproval of the TDK electric generation project can be twisted into a violation of the open meeting law" can only be found in whatever resembles logic to Mayor Hanlon. Petitions course through the state house and the congressional offices all the time - are all these elected officials in violation of the open meeting law? Of course not. This is a ham-handed attempt to put the city council "in its place." The full court press that Everett citizens have been treated to in the past couple of weeks is a familiar public relations tactic - allege all kinds of illegalities in the paper, and then the noisemakers will shut up and dissent will be squelched. In this case, however, the tactic seems to have backfired. The Mayor cannot possibly expect a "spirit of cooperation" from the City Council now. And again, our local papers seem content to jump into this hole that the Mayor seems to be digging for himself, although at least the Independent did a little digging of its own and found out that Mayor Hanlon hasn't even filed a formal complaint with District Attorney Coakley's office. It will be interesting to see if the "written opinion" that Mayor Hanlon is expecting from Ms. Coakley's office ever shows up.

Unfortunately for John Hanlon, it would appear that neither Alderman McGonagle nor his colleagues are that unsophisticated as to cower in fear of this silly charge. No one believes for a minute that Martha Coakley would indulge Hanlon is this silliness without real evidence and the Mayor is going to have a hard time coming up with that, given that a meeting -- open or otherwise -- never took place. Each member was approached separately and asked if he/she would care to sign. No quorum - no violation.

Hopefully the Mayor is up for the fight he's started. The first return volley from the Aldermen can be found on page 3 of last Friday's Advocate, in which Aldermen McGonagle and DiPerri opposed the significant salary raises proposed for several city department heads. From what we hear, the budget hearings should be -- interesting -- with several city councilors playing "count the consultants" and "guess how many people work in the mayor's office." The Advocate also reported that Mayor Hanlon says that the $4.3 million dollar surplus that Mayor Ragucci left behind has dwindled to zero! Perhaps this is why the mayor was so quick to accept TDK's million bucks to put the electrical plant next to a city park.

Congratulations to Aldermen McGonagle and the other members of city government who stood up for the citizens of Everett and prevented a project that would have done far more harm than good. Everett has been a host community to enough of these types of projects, and it's about time that another community took on the burden.

Also - memo to Mayor Hanlon. George Bush just apologized to the country for saying "bring it on," and "dead or alive" during the war. The tough talk in Independent about the "rift" between you and city government is not the way to mend fences with people you're going to need in the upcoming months to keep this city operating. Put your seatbelt on, Mr. Mayor...'cause you're in for a bumpy ride!