Member of the reality-based community of progressive (not anonymous) Massachusetts blogs
So, as the cliché goes, ‘the emperor has no clothes.”
Now those in favor of Paul Schlichtman have switched their votes to Dr. Bouquillon #glths
— Sarah Favot (@sarahfavot) June 18, 2013
The deadlocked didn’t break.
Boutin makes motion to appoint Bob Lussier interim superintendent for month of july contingent on successful negotiations. Passes.
— Sarah Favot (@sarahfavot) June 18, 2013
The political stunt by the Boutin faction of the GLTHS school committee lays bare the shallowness of the Gitschier cabal.
My apologizes to soon to be former Supt. Santoro, for drumming up her name with my old mantra. But, it is clear, Cassin style politics is not being forced out of that school. Same shit. Different spoon.
And, to top it off, Mike Hayden pulled papers to run for a seat. Is he running for one of the 4 year seats, occupied by O’Hare & Bahou? Or, is he going to try and snipe Boutin off of the balance of Lenzi’s term?
I’ve been hoping that Erik Gitschier & Ray Boutin could lead the dysfunctional GLTHS School Committee through the troubled waters of selecting their next Supt.
It seems I’m a bit of a naïve optimist:
(h/t Julia Malakie)
Note: Boutin loses his cool, no argument. But, please keep in mind, Gitschier has a way of getting under your skin. He takes pride in it.
…
Maybe, it is supposed to be about the kids? That is, at least, a cute campaign slogan. But, it is also about the admin, staff & teachers that live out there for 20+ years. They matter, in my mind, as much as the kids. Also, it is about the school committee. But, in a different way.
Maybe, it is my military background? I spent about 3 years in Arlington National Cemetery, performing honor duty for fallen soldiers. I say that to say, I believe in the sanctity of institutions, oaths & ceremony. I believe that the School Committee is a body that deserves respect by earning respect.
To be blunt, I favour Paul Schlictman in this kerfuffle. Though, after reading the slimy hit jobs that the Lowell Sun has slammed Dave Norkiewicz with, I’ve lost my appetite to pull for Paul. He’s got some friends that are the worst kind to have. They are not above pulling the same kind of stunts that Chris Scott wants to assign to Gitschier & Fallon. When we get to the point of kettles finger pointing at each other’s blackness, it is time for me to step back.
We are dealing with damaged goods, all around. But, none are more damaged than the reputation of the GLTHS SC. After a fairly decent approach to culling through candidates, one that was noted favourably by those watching; this silly, petty, ego driven clan members have pissed their good names away.
Unfortunately, they are the best we are gonna get out there. Who really cares what the hell happens out there in the woods? How else could Mike Hayden get re-elected, repeatedly? Oddly, they aren’t paying the high salaries in monopoly money. They can still invent jobs like ‘public relations’ or whatever title Mike McGovern has. They can still hire in an incestuous manner that would make a West Virginia moonshiner tip his jug.
Ultimately, they are completely fucked out there. They know it. We know it. And, on it goes. Unabashed.
Update: Put them all together and you get “Bob LeBlanc joined the Morning Show.” h/t to Teddy Panos for putting this ’stuff ‘ on line.
…
F.U.D.: fear, uncertainty and doubt. Also known as scare tactics, either accomplished by threat or making the opponent doubt his standpoint. Not only used in lawsuits, but also in politics and military propaganda.
shit house lawyer: an unqualified person who gives legal advice. Usually distorting the advice to favor a desired outcome.
big mouth: used in reference to somebody who likes to spread gossip, or who cannot keep a secret
The dominoes are tumbling. Everyone has an opinion about Wally Bayliss’ ill gotten goods. This thing is still playing out. And it won’t stop with Wally, (the poor bastard).
From the Blog of Record:
LOWELL — The city is targeting the Retirement Board, an autonomous city agency, for nearly $100,000 the city paid in retiree health benefits to former License Commission member Walter Bayliss Jr., who the current board has determined was improperly granted retirement in 2006.
In a letter submitted to the Retirement Board last Friday, City Solicitor Christine O’Connor says the city paid approximately $97,000 towards Bayliss’ health-insurance premiums from 2006 to the present.
“But for the Board inappropriately allowing Mr. Bayliss into the retirement system in 1995, and further allowing him to retire in 2006, the City would have never incurred such expenses,” O’Connor wrote.
“This letter is to inform the board that the city intends to hold the board responsible for its actions in this matter as well as for any and all damage that the city has and may incur as a result of such actions.”
In the letter, O’Connor highlights that the board approved Bayliss’ entrance into the retirement system in 1995 based on documents saying he had served on the License Commission.
Bayliss had in fact served on the Lowell Memorial Auditorium Board of Trustees from 1984 to 1995 and was not compensated.
Level heads will prevail. The Tuesday Night Kabuki, City Life & the Blogs will all go quite, right after the November election.
And, it will all come down to these:
Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission (PERAC)
General Laws >> PART I >> TITLE IV >> CHAPTER 32
I’ll see you on the other side.
Hey, Teddy.
Your ass is in a knot over welfare fraud. (Yes. I do listen.) And, you are a proponent of the big government intrusion of mandating citizens present photo identification when they go to exercise control over government, via ballots. As social engineering is an incrementalist’s game, whether progressive or classic liberal, you should be happy as a clam to hear this:
From the Boston Dead Tree Rag:
It’s time to slap photos on EBT cards and crank up oversight of the state’s “broken” welfare system before more dead people can collect benefits, an incensed House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the Herald yesterday.
“Why do we have to let the wound fester? We have to stop this fraud, and we have to stop it now,” DeLeo said, adding he was “appalled” by a state audit released Tuesday that showed $2.4 million paid to more than 1,100 dead people and $27 million to live recipients collecting EBT benefits out of state, including in Alaska and Hawaii.
DeLeo said House proposals to put photos on EBT cards, create a Bureau of Program Integrity and allow the Inspector General to monitor the embattled agency “are needed now more than ever,” and promises by the Patrick administration that they are addressing the problems aren’t enough.
No?
For sure, if EBT cards are printed with a photo id of the benefit holder, an idea I fully support; then this will be a valid id. Thus, should the photo id intrusion into our ballot system of checks and balances move forward, those of us guarding against voter suppression will be partially relieved.
I love ‘checks and balances.’ It’s the wisest creation of The Founders.
Update: David Bernstein, of Boston Magazine, did a nice job sorting through the spin factor around the Auditor’s report. Such revelations will not help Teddy regain his composure. Maybe, it will help you, as it did me. Please proceed below the fold for an outtake.
(more…)
I went to watch the Council meeting, last Tuesday. Partly, I went to watch the chicken dance, but also to watch a motion brought by C.Elliott:
21. C. Elliott - Req. City Solicitor provide an explanation on damage claim refused for 58 Carroll Parkway.
Thankfully, the motion was moved up in the agenda and I got to go home after and watch most of the Bruins game. #gameon
What I saw was, as this motion unravelled, a travesty. First off, C. Elliott pulled a bait and switch. His motion prompts an explanation. Of course, the motion would have to carry and the Solicitor would follow, at least a week, later. Immediate gratification is not the normal course of the Council’s outcome. Yet, C.Elliott structured the proceeding to drag forth his desired outcome. The Council was degraded into a Kangaroo Court.
Over on Gerry Nutter’s Blog, you can read his reaction to the proceedings. For sure, the analysis is hyperbolic; but I concur with the gist of Gerry’s assertion. Words such as ‘grandstanding’ and ‘pandering’ gelled in my head, as I sat there that night. So, Gerry’s reaction is familiar to me.
One very important point, I will carry in to this diary:
EVERY person who argues and loses a traffic or parking ticket they received here in Lowell, Everyone who appeals to the Assessor’s Office and loses and Everyone who puts in any claim to the City and loses or has lost in the past year, PLEASE PLEASE Call Councilor Rodney Elliot his phone number is in the Phone book and ask him to put you on the Council Agenda. He has now set a president and the rest of the City Council by allowing this ludicrousness to happen have opened the door to a new Agenda Item every week and the people of this city need to take advantage of this and call Rodney Elliot 978- You can look it up and get on the agenda.
I am convinced that C.Elliott is trying to poison the atmosphere in the Council chamber. That his demeanour is consistently contrary to the social norms of the Council’s decorum. C.Elliott acts this way with such ferocity and consistency, he has convinced me that he wishes to undermine the smooth operations of these meetings. This ploy is masked as “asking tough question.” They are only tough in the sense that they are presented in a way to befuddle and aggravate emotions. That residents will grow sick and tired and quit observing the meeting. That other Councilors will fatigue and surrender. That he is bent on punishing the Council that did not elect him Mayor. I am convinced that C.Elliott’s strategy is to erode the public trust in City government and facilitate the removal of Bernie Lynch as the City Manager.
This is a war.
Watch for yourself. In this battle, the City Solicitor is targeted.
(more…)
Found this note in my Facebook messages. The author is known to me.
Keep me off your trashy blog.
I do not want my name appearing in print on that piece of shit blog you write.
Out of respect, I will limit my future entries, with regards to the offended, to only passages from the Blog of Record. While I won’t argue the “Eye of the Beholder” aspect of my blogging being a ‘piece of shit,’ I do take exception to the notion that the Sunday Column is any less so.
Lowell’s been struggling to get a handle on labelling the different political factions that grace our home town. The challenge is made more difficult by so many pols that straddle the lines between disparate special interests. Such an awkward balancing act is the plague of local pols, as everyone is close to them to some degree. Those that do it well, go far. For example, former State Senator Stephen Panagiotakos has a broad swath of Lowell’s political scene covered. His ‘counsel’ is taken/received from very opposite ends of Lowell’s political spectrum. This sort of political capital is hard to come by.
So, earlier today, I was chatting local politics with one of my favourite grassroots activists. He remarked how I seemed to be enjoying myself, here. We talked about the different factions in Lowell and some of the personalities that are prominent in each. When I prodded about a faction that ran closer to the “Nangle brand,” he quipped, “They will never have a chance with the Left in Lowell crowd.”
(more…)
This motion will get fast tracked to subcommittee, where it will wallow.
Update:
This graph compares total voter turnout to C. Elliott’s support, for the last 6 City elections. What would happen, if this November the turnout went up to 12,000?
(more…)
Greg Page coined the phrase, Home Run Derby.
After a recent Council meeting in which there were a series of emotional speeches preceding what would clearly be a 9-0 vote, I was searching for a term for these sorts of things, and settled on “Home Run Derby.” Why?
Because everyone can get up, take their cuts for the fence in Barry Bonds-ahead-of-the-count-and-nothing-to-lose fashion, while the pitches are coming in straight to the wheelhouse and no one is playing defense.
Last night’s City Council meeting met the criteria for a ‘Home Run Derby’ and then some. Unfortunately, we need a new phrase for the ‘and then some.’ What do we call it, or should call it, when a Councilor jumps in front of a moving band wagon, in the hopes of taking credit for the soon to come achievement.
Let’s focus, now, because this is EXACTLY what C.Kennedy is doing with the motion he directed at the License Commission. (more…)
Update: Greg Page digs into this ruse, using analytical tools As Greg Page says, “Stylometry basically involves looking at patterns in someone’s linguistic style in order to determine authorship — it has been used to look at everything from Shakespeare to the Federalist Papers to anonymous letters in corporations.”
Why anyone, or cabal, would try to frame me for issuing such a silly screed is beyond my comprehension. Maybe you can help me out? I scanned the original document and used MS Paint to add red underlines.
There are 4 things to take note of: 1) The use of my ‘blog vanacular.’ Note the inclusion of modern references to the current drama. 2) The attempt to paint Bernie Lynch and me as conjoined in an effort to defeat a common foe. (Like everyone driving down Rte 93S at 7:30 am are all going to the same place.) 3) The promulgation that I, little ol’ Jackie, sees myself as a political demigod. 4) The odd reference to some forthcoming revelation, via the Library.
Dear readers, please pity the author of this note. They have their ass, soooo twisted in a knot, that they laboured to craft this clumsy deception. That is not to excuse the ugly intent and the heinous attempt to smear my name. (I can ruin my own reputation, thank you.)
All I can figure is that whatever pies I currently have my digits stuffed in, I have struck several nerves.
For those of you rowing in the same direction as me, take heart. The advantage is clearly ours. For those of you defending the defunct ways of a by-gone political error, you folks should really think about your ‘comrades in arms.’ For sure, your crew, is feeble and flailing. Especially, if the note below is any indication.
[powered by WordPress.]
57 queries. 1.508 seconds