On the Eve of the 2015 City Election ...

I've procrastinated this as much as possible, but many of you have asked who I am or would be voting for in the races on tomorrow's ballot. So here I go. As usual, this is just one person's opinion, though probably a person who has researched and followed these things more than most. I'm opinionated about most of these people, based on public, non-public, and private observations and conversations. If you're voting you should be opinionated, too. Use your own judgment, and your ballot, please.

Ward 2 City Councillor:

This one couldn't be any easier for me to pick. 100% Heather Famico deserves re-election. Councillor Famico has a unique blend of thoughtfulness and a willingness to question both the city and her constituents. The former isn't necessarily uncommon among politicians. The latter is utterly uncommon among the political class. Ward 2 is used to having a Ward Councillor who immediately takes up the cause of whichever favored constituent shrieks the loudest, whether they make sense or not. Famico's response is much more nuanced. "I'll have to research this and its impact on the entire ward before spittle flies out of my mouth like it did from Sosnowski's, but if it makes sense I'll take up the cause with vigor." (That's a massive paraphrase, and not the way she'd ever say it, but it's her process.) Nobody with sensible requests should have a problem with that.

For her opponent to claim she lacks substance (and he has) is simply laughable (except the parts that reek of sexism and ageism). He also can't seem to decide why he's running. The reason keeps changing as the last one loses traction. During his SATV video he said he was running because he went to some meetings about the proposed revamp of the Gateway Center project, and never heard "his ward councillor" speak in opposition. That's certainly odd. She spoke at the 9/17 Planning Board meeting chastising the developer for failing to provide information. She spoke at the August 26 Design Review Board meeting criticizing the design. I was at that one, Jenkins wasn't. At the July 30 Planning Board meeting where the Gateway Center proposal was introduced, Famico criticized the density and design, and referred to the developer as a used car salesman. Jenkins was at that meeting, along with his handler/ghost-writer Mr. Carr. They were both close enough to me to touch. I guess they just weren't listening. Or it's just another one of the deceits that seem to be infecting that campaign as it winds down. Of the Gateway Center, JenkCarr says that you know the project is bad because it requires 6 Zoning Board of Appeals variances. More on that later.

In one of his unattributed flyers (campaign finance law violation?) Jenkins (really Carr) discusses two developments in the Bridge Street Neck area. First he praises a project at Bridge and Planters (and yes, Jotim, it's Planters, not Planter) for adding 6 housing units on a .336 acre lot. Next, he rails on the proposed Ward 2 Social Club project (rightly). Only, the gang that can't shoot straight has more lies here. First, in multiple places they say the lots "appear to be the same size." Um, not close. The Planters St. lot is a third of an acre (rounded by 0.003 acres). The Ward 2 Social Club lot is just under (.957) a full acre. So basically three times the size. In fact, the currently proposed density is nearly identical. He also leaves out the fact that the Planters project was approved under the watch of Councilor Famico, who was involved in the hearings that led to a reduction in units. He also fails to mention her role in getting the Social Club project whittled from the original 28, to 24, to 18, her still current opposition, and it sounds like there's another reduction coming that will end with less density than the Planters project he raves about. A project, by the way, that required 5 Zoning Board of Appeals variances. So 6 is "must be awful." 5 is beautiful. Can't shoot straight.

I know, this is dry stuff, but for a city councillor, the devil is often in the details. It's important to understand them, and just as important to be truthful about them, rather than manipulating them to fit whichever smear piece you're filling with untruths.

Who wins? I don't have the foggiest idea. I'm scared for us. I hear Tim is a decent bloke. Some of the people he's surrounded himself with really aren't. The tactics they're resorting to at the last minute are really turning people off, and he's letting them run the show.

Famico has done the job, and done it well. Ward 2 residents would be nuts to try someone new (who resembles the last guy more every day). Ward Councillors are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.


Ward 3 City Councillor:

I'd vote Lise Hansen-Damato in a heartbeat. She'd bring boundless energy, as well as the perspective of a family with young children, which is sorely missing on the council. She's smart, and tough. I can speak from personal experience that she has no problem speaking hard truths. We could really use her voice. Demographically she's way more similar to me than her opponent.

Steve Lovely knows the job, so I can't begin to guess why he wants to go back 30 years to do it again. Admittedly that makes me skeptical. It would seem like a personal step back to me. He's married to our State Senator, so there is power in the house already. I just don't get it.

Who wins? Lovely has every advantage. Basically a lifer. Former councilor, using our current senator as a campaign prop (and he really is). Ask the houses they've knocked on together how that one goes. I wonder if all of those repurposed Joan signs and stickers appear on his campaign finance report as in kind contributions as they should. I asked if anyone wanted to go pull everyone's for me, but I had no takers. They aren't online yet. But yeah, Lovely wins handily. He knows what the job entailed 30 years ago. I imagine it hasn't changed all that much. He'll probably get literally the same chair he had back then, too.

Ward 6 City Councillor:

Ward 6 is weird. I was fine with Paul Prevey in 2013, but I went with Beth Gerard because I knew her well enough to see what she could bring to the table. And if you actually look at what she did (as opposed to what the Mack Park Neighborhood Association says), she did all that and more. Sure, we had snow last winter. Broke records. All the councilors tried to help, but how many of them actually went out to shovel intersections? Yep, Gerard (actually, Legault did as well - and yes, I endorse him also). Lombardini says North Street should have been plowed curb to curb. I wish she had been councilor, so you'd see how meaningless that statement is. Gerard works really hard at the job, has gotten a lot done over in North Salem, and treated everybody well, regardless of their neighborhood. Her predecessors didn't always do that. Has she learned to brag the way all the other ones have? I guess not well enough, because there's actually people planning to vote for Pam.

And one more thing, though I hesitate to mention it, but I know (and trust) one of the sources well: I've heard that some people trying to recruit votes for Pam are actually telling people they shouldn't vote for Gerard because she's Jewish. I've heard this from more than one source. And that's despicable. This is 2015, not 1915. We've grown up since the last century, haven't we? I'm sure Lombardini wouldn't support this behavior, but company you keep, and all. If I dismiss this as utterly false, and if you do I get it, I'd still vote Gerard.

So who wins? I think this is close, but Lombardini. Really, this one feels to me like a referendum on how much power the ward wants Rosie's Mack Park Neighborhood Association to wield.

Ward 7 City Councillor:

In Ward 7, we weren't supposed to have a race this year. Instead, it was supposed to be my biennial write up about how Joe O'Keefe should start thinking about hanging it up. Well, I miss him, dammit.

So instead we have a weird write-in race between Steve Dibble and Bill Luster. From what I can tell, both of them are OK guys and they both annoy me equally, I think. Bill argues on these pages sometimes and even though I think he's full of it I enjoy that he'll come here and play. Dibble is a man who is very important, and he'll tell you so. He also counts all his signs as well as all Luster's.

Luster took the either brave or foolish step of calling out SOS for their confrontational strategies in dealing with SSU. I don't think that wins him friends on Lafayette Street or Raymond Road. But he may be right. I'm not endorsing either one of them, but I look forward to two years of making fun of the winner. They should keep me busy.

Who wins? I'd guess Dibble based on signs, but signs don't vote. Even Luster's nearest neighbors don't seem enthused by his candidacy, so I guess I'll stick with the signs.

At-Large City Councillor:

I'm voting for William Legault (last on your ballot). After that, it's a shitshow of undecided for me.

Legault is the voice we need. He gets to sensible and cuts through the bullcrap on just about everything, even if it's a verbose voyage.

Elaine Milo is just kind of there. I don't know much more about her opinions on issues now than I did before she took office. The next unpopular opinion she publicly takes will be the first. I'm not a fan of that, but there's a lot of talking in that chamber, so I except it. She'll top the ticket, and I'll probably fill in her oval.

I've covered the fraud record of Domingo Dominguez on Facebook. Please go read it there. No vote from me.

I think Furey's heart is in the right place, but his view of his job (support any mayor) and my view of his job (question any mayor) are pretty different.

Jerry Ryan would be in my top 4, but I may not cast a vote for him, as he's the most likely to unseat Legault. They were separated by maybe 20 votes in the last election. It was close, but I'm not looking it up. Sorry.

Sargent is not my cup of tea, but he has plenty of support and will be back. He doesn't need my vote.

Tyler Carlton I'd think about in a few years. He has a future in politics. That both is, and isn't, a compliment.

Who wins? I'd guess the four incumbents. If signs voted, Dominguez, especially if by size of signs. I'd say Ryan is most likely to take a seat, and Legault most likely to lose one. I'm basing that entirely on two years ago. Vote Legault. I may still bullet that. Or Legault and Milo, and Ryan.

And Sawicki, just no.

School Committee:

I'm not really dazzled by our School Committee choices this year. I know a lot of people including many of my friends are for Kris Wilson. She may be great, but she does nothing to convince me I should be using one of my votes on her, and her debate performance was lackluster. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if she tops the ticket. She seems to know everybody, and all the usual suspects are on her side (and I think convinced her to run), it seems.

I do have an enthusiastic vote, and it's for Andrea French. I've met her a few times, and she's smart, passionate, and really committed. She has run the special ed interest group SEPAC, and she is just as well-liked with every faction we have in the schools - teachers, special ed parents, pro-charter parents, anti-charter parents, and the crazy faction. She was on the superintendent search committee, and after talking to her I'm convinced that she won't be an automatic knee-jerk vote on anything. She'll be thoughtful and try to do things right. I think she’s a really good one. More than anything, she's just a regular old parent. We need more of those on the school committee.

Mary Manning was the principal at Collins as it descended into chaos. She's not solely responsible for that, of course. But she also denied it was happening. I can't get over that. Her teachers were extremely loyal to her, which says good things. She was also endorsed by the Salem Teachers Union, I believe. I have mixed feelings about that.

I've never done it before, but I'm voting for Jim Fleming this time. We're turning over two seats, and have two more still in their first term. We can use his experience. He also tends to question the thinking of the majority, and that's useful. I disagree with him plenty, but at this point his voice is needed. When it's not in Florida. That still bugs me. I am voting for him, though. Right? Yes.

My third vote goes to Joanne Kennedy. She's another parent of a young child. One who decided she couldn't get what she needed from our schools. She's putting her time where her mouth is and saying she's willing to try to fix it. She's a huge proponent of a rounded curriculum and plenty of recess time. I buy that wholeheartedly. I'd be fascinated to watch her have to transition from critic to solver. I think she'd do it. She should have run on her maiden name.

Who wins? Wilson, Manning, Fleming, in some order.

And Sawicki, just no.

Part of me wants to see every non-incumbent making stupid promises win so that we can see the fallout from that. In the end, I like this place too much for that.

The 2014 state election: Say no to Coakley

It's election time again. Here's one Klassy ballot, at least the interesting parts.

Governor:

I generally loathe the concept of voting against a candidate, but my approach in this case is absolutely #ABC (Anybody But Coakley). Charlie Baker gets my vote, but not particularly because of anything about him. He seems OK enough. A non-ideologue Republican check on a far too unbalanced to one end of the political spectrum legislature. I'd be a little more concerned about him in a federal election, but we aren't in danger of too much Republican influence in Massachusetts. I also really like Evan Falchuk. If he were the more likely to beat Coakley I'd gladly vote for him. In this case, a vote for Falchuk is, unfortunately, as good as a vote for Coakley.

So, on to Coakley. Please read this. I'll wait. It was written by Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the 1980s daycare ritual abuse hysteria. She's a foremost expert on the topic.

So now that you've read that, I have a few questions. How do you vote for Martha Coakley if you're a woman? She seems to have a disrespect for your ability to make your own decisions.

How do you vote for Martha Coakley if you're a man? She seems to have a disdain for the male gender. We're pedophiles who drag our innocent womenfolk down a path of evil with us. Never mind, of course, the fact that none of the accusations in the Amirault case ever happened.

How do you vote for Coakley if you're me? I was a Fells Acres student. I remember Miss Vi. I remember Miss Cheryl. Heck, I was at Cheryl Amirault LeFave's wedding. Gerald used to pick me up at my house in a giant station wagon to take me to school. We loved the Amiraults. My brother and I loved our time at that school. My family has lived through the hell of those trials, being called by the police for questioning, the fear, all of it. My parents were able to figure out it was crap in the 80s. And they aren't qualified to be governor, either.

The daycare abuse hysteria reminds one of the witch hysteria that we know about all too well. Here's the thing. Coakley's role was after the daycare hysteria was over and thoroughly debunked. Every thinking person knew they were innocent. Coakley lied through her teeth while protecting the modern day witch hunters well after the bitter end. The Salem witch trials ended in 1693. Coakley's actions are those of someone who in 1710, years after the legislature passed a law making the witch trial results unlawful, stood up and screamed "Burn them, their witches!" How are we not all laughing at her candidacy? The level of naked political viperism Coakley has displayed in this case is chilling to my soul. Salem, let's show we're better than that today.

The worst thing about this is that she'd still tell you she's right today. Anyone who would act in such a way is utterly unfit to be our governor.

This case ought to leave no one feeling confident except for one thing: justice was not done.

— Judge Isaac Borenstein, 12 June 1998

Congress:

This has been an ugly campaign by both major candidates. I don't really want to vote for either. For Tisei, I would very much enjoy our district sending the first openly gay when elected Republican rep to Congress. He'd also have to be a moderate if he had any hope of keeping the seat, and if you don't want the Republicans to be a nutjob party, you have to elect non-nutjob Republicans. Additionally, we're going to have a freshman Congressman. It's probably slightly better to have a freshman in the majority. If it were Tierney in the general, Tisei would get my vote in a second, just as he did two years ago.

But I think I'm voting for Moulton. He's run ugly ass primary and general election campaigns reminiscent of Tierney's run two years ago. I dislike it a lot. At the same time, I'm very concerned that there's a decent chance (Nate Silver put it at about 75% this weekend) that the Republicans will take over the senate. Because of that, I don't think I want to add another Republican to the house, even a moderate one. I'm basically making this vote based on the national level. The other thing that I really like about Moulton is that he really annoys super dems. The kind who during the primary talked insane amounts of trash about the guy daring to challenge Tierney. The kind who within a day after the primary were such partisan Kool-Aid drinkers that they were asking "What kind of Kool-Aid? I love that kind!" before they had an answer to what kind it was. Moulton bugs them. I like that. Moulton claims he'll be a bipartisan problem solver. We'll see. I think Tisei would have to try to be.

If this wasn't a tight race I'd vote for Stockwell. I like what he's selling. Basically, if you think the problem is partisan politics stop electing the partisans.

I may get in the booth and totally change this one tomorrow.

State Rep:

Paul Tucker is basically running unopposed (his opponent hasn't campaigned or filed required campaign finance paperwork). Good for him, after the recent PD issues and the way he was thrown under the bus by city hall in the aftermath, in what I'd guess was a power play making sure he knew who was in charge around here. I'll vote for him, and I think he'll do a fine job.


State Senate:

Joan Lovely unopposed. She's been fine so far. Her votes I've disagreed with the most have seemed to be going along to get along.

Question one:

Yes. Repeal the gas tax indexing. Why? The legislature has the ability to vote on the gas tax annually if they want. Their unwillingness to do so shouldn't be rewarded. In fact, they just did, and I have no problem with that. It's currently 24 cents a gallon (not the dime Martha thought it was) which is fairly middle of the pack. If it needs to go up again, I get it. Roads and bridges are important. We have to pay for them, and a lot of ours are old.

The automatic indexing basically amounts to chickenshit government, and I don't like it. I've heard the argument that plenty of our other taxes are already indexed, but they aren't really. The income tax has been mentioned. The only thing that's indexed to is my income. If I make more, I pay more. If I don't, I don't. Same with the sales tax. If I spend more, I pay more. If I don't, I don't. And by the way, that "already indexed" tax was increased recently anyway ... Most importantly, we are in a prolonged period of wage stagnation for low and middle income workers. It's fantasy to say that the indexing is designed to not make it feel any different down the road when so many people aren't seeing income growth.

One final point, remember that many of the legislators who instituted this indexing barely pay the gas tax at all, as they collect per diems for reporting to the state house. If this bill had ended that practice for legislators inside 495 I'd be a little less opposed.

Question two:

I'll support this, barely. And really only because so many Salemites or visitors are slobs. My next door neighbor's house goes through from one street to the other, and his back yard is next to me. It has a fence, so they can't see the sidewalk behind it. I picked up 14 pieces of plastic, none of which required a deposit, from that sidewalk the other day. There were no deposit containers. That's about it for me.

The truth is, this is a crappy way to do recycling, that is way more expensive to people and businesses than increasing curbside, etc. The vast amount of uncollected deposit money, which will provide more windfall (cash grab) to the state, is all the proof you need of that. If I lived somewhere cleaner I'd vote no.

Question three and four:

Question three undoes the casino law, and puts the prohibition back in, basically.

I'm conflicted, but think I'll vote yes on it. I'm not a casino fan. I think they tend to prey on those who can least afford it. It also appears to be at least a faltering industry, and I don't think the law would pass the legislature today, even with the state managing to finagle 25% of the take. I don't think this is a sound economic development policy. There are better ways to get jobs.

Question four mandates that many employees be able to earn paid sick leave, and others would be allowed to use unpaid sick leave. It's a noble idea. I wonder some about the practice, and how it will impact some service industries, (like restaurants) especially. I will probably vote yes on question 4, unless Diane Wolf tells me it would close the Lobster Shanty.


There's plenty of other stuff on the ballot, but this was the interesting stuff.

The 2013 City Election

I'm warning you up front. The filter is off. (Yes, there is usually a filter, believe it or not.) I've gotten to know a lot of the people I'm about to write about, and several of them aren't going to like what I have to say. #SorryImNotSorry. A handful of them snarl when I walk into a room already. Oh well. That's never going to change. So let's look at the 2013 election. We'll go race by race, from easiest for me to decide who I'd vote for, to hardest.

For mayor, the obvious choice is Kim. Sorry, Cedric Ashley, Jr. We hardly knew ye. When I say hardly, I mean not at all. There has been no campaign. Nothing. Ken Sawicki would have put up more of a fight. Salem is a 9 figure enterprise. (And yep, that budget number is growing too fast under the current administration.) I'm told that Ashley was working as a gas station attendant, but that he appears to have lost that job. No person in their right mind wants to turn over a nine figure enterprise to him. Don't want to vote for Kim? Blank your ballot. I truly get that. Voting for Ashley shows a lack of common sense. Other than relatives, friends, and a few really messed up individuals, nobody voting for Cedric actually wants him to win. I'll check off Kim's name on the ballot, and continue to give her a hard time when appropriate. (Can't we find a way to fire her from the school committee and have a chair that has the time to focus on it?) After I wrote this paragraph originally, some of the Salem News comment section nattering nabobs of negative have suggested writing in former city assessor Frank Kulik for mayor. I like it. Go for it. I'd enjoy seeing a Kulik administration. From the sound of it, magic would happen. Raises for unions would magically turn into annual decreases. The budged would be slashed by millions. Genies would be put back in bottles. Taxpayers would get rebates. In the immortal words of Bart Scott:

City Councilors from Wards 3, 5, and 7. They are all unopposed on the ballot. In Ward 7, Joe O'Keefe appears to be in that seat until he dies or decides to quit. Nobody runs against him. The only problem with that is that he seems a little more confused about what is going on every year. It's time for him to ask someone else to take the president's gavel when a stand-in is necessary. I'll lump ward 3 and 5 together. Tom Furey can't seem to keep straight which is which. He constantly confuses their names. That's pretty funny, because I'm pretty sure they share a mutual disdain for each other. They balance each other well. Turiel will generally look for reasons to support administration proposals. Siegel will go out of his way to find rationalizations not to. I like the balance.

On to Ward 2 city council. It's sad that this is a bigger no-brainer for me than school committee, but it is. The easy choice here is Heather Famico. When you've been a councilor for ten years, like Mike Sosnowski, and still can't see the difference between a legitimate concern and a black helicopter nutjob conspiracy theory, like Mike Sosnowski, it's time for all of us to move on.  Mike seems to be buying whole hog the ridiculous UN Agenda 21 ICLEI conspiracy claims of the "local" John Birch Society regional field director. What's strange about that, besides the outlandish claims (energy efficiency is bad, mm'kay? There is no climate change!) themselves, is that the "local" person he's buying the snake oil from is actually from West Roxbury. That would usually be enough to disqualify him with Mike, who as we all know, lives and bleeds Salem. (I have no idea what that even means. It's right up there with the meaningless "he votes his conscience" that everyone says about everyone they agree with. Who doesn't vote his conscience? I guess lives and bleeds Salem basically means you're meaningless if you weren't born here.) So this outsider, who works for the same people who believed that Dwight Eisenhower was a commie, and fluoridated water was a communist plot, brings crazy conspiracy theories to Mike, and he eats them up and holds public meetings about the impending dangers of "smart growth" where theoretical UN paratroopers will drop insanely dense tenaments on land they don't own. (Some of his buds, including an attorney on River St., are spreading ridiculous claims that this is his opponent's goal.) Check out Rachel Maddow responding to the JBS complaining about her pointing out some of their insanity.





Moving on from what appears to be Mike's poor judgment, he is also the vice president of a social club that has had its liquor license suspended for two days (1 in abeyance) and has been before the licensing board three times in the last few months, while claiming ignorance of the liquor laws in Salem. If the LB was the NCAA, the penalties imposed would have been for "a lack of institutional control." Councilor Sosnowski, vice president of the club, CHAIRS the city council committee on ordinances, licenses, and legal affairs. Ignorance of the law? Holy Jesus! Isn't that an indictment of his ability to lead? When approached by neighbors with complaints about the activities (noise, fights, after-hours, etc.) at the club, Captain Quality of Life's response to his constituents? "Sorry, we have to raise money for the club." To be fair, the club is in litigation with its former manager, and had problems with the IRS the last I knew. I'm sure they do need to raise funds.

So a social club violating their liquor and entertainment license in the middle of a residential neighborhood is OK. Loud music, fights, screaming, all necessary to save the club. On the other hand, an inanimate metal box that controls street lights, that's bad, mmm'kay? Sosnowski recently told the Salem News that getting a box that was part of the Bridge Street reconstruction moved (a foot or two) and reduced in size was one of his greatest accomplishments. Pay no attention to the fact that it wasn't even during the current two-year term. Let's look at the two boxes.

Big Metal Box, the first

BMB Jr. Note all the extra concrete cuts

Mike Sosnowski said he likes to concentrate on the little things. This definitely qualifies. Unfortunately, he's missing the big things. Check out the building that big, and then little MB sits in front of. Can you even see the box? It's the best looking thing about the building, which appears neglected, if not abandoned. I guess he's right when he says he's focused on the little things.

BMB dwarfs the building... or something

Unfortunately, Sosnowski didn't focus on them enough. The Bridge Street reconstruction had a massive impact on his ward. He had the plans ahead of time. Heck, I had the plans ahead of time. When he complained about BMB, it was made clear by the state that they weren't footing the bill for any changes to the approved plans. Yet the change was made. At what cost? I've never been able to get an answer to that. But hey, I've only lived in Salem for 8 years. Why should anyone care what have to say anyway. I'm sure Mike doesn't. I've only lived in three different states and experienced 5 different forms of local government. Clearly people who have lived elsewhere bring nothing to the table.

One final thought about Sosnowski, and I know this has been really, really harsh already. Mike has this tendency to say things like, "there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes, and I can't wait for the truth to come out." Dude, you have a microphone and a TV camera on you every other week. Use it. You don't, and you sound like a nutter. That said, thank you for your service to our country. 

But let's talk about Heather Famico. I met her for the first time a few months back. I have to say, I was very impressed. She carries herself with a confidence and thoughtfulness that you wouldn't expect of someone her age. She strikes me as the type of person who is a listener. She listens and really thinks before speaking. She's always struck me as extremely intelligent, as well. She has a masters degree, and is an ELL teacher in Malden (a city with similar demographics to us, and much better results. Yes, Drs. Crane and Walsh, that IS possible). Unlike her opponent, Heather doesn't have a foot constantly in danger of entering her mouth. She would like to improve pedestrian and bike access in Salem (bike access is near and dear to me). She's also open to opportunities for community gardens in the ward. When approached about community gardens, Sosnowski didn't want the element that would attract. No idea what that even means. Vegans? Vegetarians? People who want to grow their own food?

Heather has roots in that old Salem that Mike is so desperately trying to cling to. The difference is that she's much more cognizant of the fact that there's a lot more to Salem than people who wish for Almy's to come back, and she values other people's opinions as well. She's willing to work toward the future, while Mike tries to cling to the past. If I lived in Ward 2 I'd gladly vote for her.

On to the school committee. I've written a lot about our under-performing schools over the last few years. Go here to read the blog posts. The schools take up plenty of space on my Facebook feed here. Feel free to review them. I'm not rehashing all of it. The simple summary is this. Our schools are in dire need of fresh direction. They were neglected by an inattentive school committee, adminstration, superintendent and mayor for years. Read the DESE report on our schools. They go to great depths to describe the lack of oversight, administration, cohesive message, or leadership in the system. They do a thorough job of explaining that while maybe we don't have the best demographics, when they declare us a level 4 district, they do so because we're not doing as well as other with similar demographics. We have four school committee candidates (the challengers and Lavoie) who acknowledge these problems, and two incumbents (Walsh and Crane) who have spent months making excuses or stating that there isn't a problem, by saying things like "what we have is a demographics problem," (see earlier note about Malden) or "really, it's just a perception problem," or "if your child is doing OK you should vote for me," or "there's a lot of negative 'hysteria'." When they aren't telling us there is nothing wrong, they scapegoat the state. The DESE doesn't know what it's talking about. The MCAS is a terrible measurement tool. Simply put, it's everything but the school committee. It makes me wonder if the good Drs. believe themselves to be Jedis. They are hoping that we don't see the actual results of their tenure, but will buy platitudes. Walsh, who asked for school committee members to receive a 140% raise shortly before we were declared a level 4 district, asks the parents who attend meetings to ask themselves how their children are doing (though he's not always happy with the result of the question.) Meanwhile, his entire campaign is spent talking about everything he's done for the less fortunate students of Salem. (The ones who can attend campaign forums and the like in smaller numbers.) Here's the thing. Of course he wants you to look at your kid and decide everything is OK. The largest gaps between Salem students and like communities are in exactly the groups that Dr. Walsh has focused on for his entire career. If you study him based on the things he claims credit for, he has failed, as have his programs. Don't be weak minded and fall for Jedi mind tricks. On the other hand, these two definitely aren't the droids you're looking for.

Looking ahead, based on our most recent MCAS results, Bentley is closer to being declared a level 5 school than it is to being moved to level 3. Lots of time, money, and effort has been pumped into Bentley, and there has been no discernible movement in results. Maybe a blip here and there, but overall nothing. We're literally a year from potential receivership. At the time that Bentley was declared a level 4 school, "we" decided to follow the accelerated turnaround model. That model was the path of least resistance, and least pain for staff and administration. If the state does intervene further, there will be a lot more pain. When do we decide that more drastic action is needed?

Dr. Walsh said a few months back, that if something isn't worth what you're paying for it, stop paying. On this, he and I agree. We need to stop paying school committee members who haven't delivered results. We need a fresh perspective. Rachel Hunt runs (currently) a successful charter school in Salem, where low income students are vastly outperforming their local peers. Walsh and Crane view charters as the enemy. Let's see what we can learn from them.

Pat Schultz is a business owner who is a former teacher both in and out of Salem. He is also a former Assistant Principal, and the director of school services for Mass Insight. He also chaired our district turnaround committee. He has also served on the board of the Salem Education Foundation.  In short, he's qualified, and won't have any problem calling BS on the diatribes of others.

Rick Johnson is a Salem parent who has experienced the Bentley School and Saltonstall School as a parent. He also has experience with special ed in Salem, and is knowledgeable about dealing with autism spectrum disorders. He works for the federal government as a technical writer/editor, and runs a road race that benefits autism.

Lisa Lavoie was appointed to the school committee to fill Kevin Carr's seat shortly after it was announced that Bentley was moved to level 4. She is in the unenviable position of being an "incumbent" at a time and place where that's not beneficial. My guess is that she's screwed, and she doesn't deserve it.

The school committee election really is as simple as this. Let me pull a Walsh on you. Ask yourself this. In your job, if the result of your work for an 8 year period was an utter lack of acceptable results, declining results, in fact, would you continue having a job? Remember, there are viable replacements waiting in the wings. Would your employer reward you for completely failing to meet your goals with a four year contract extension? If so, by all means, vote for the two committee members who sat on the board for 8 years while our district devolved into chaos, as documented by the DESE.

If you don't believe me, go check out the final school committee forum on the SATV website. You'll see specific examples of the excuse making I mentioned above, as well as Dr. Walsh spending basically the entire evening actually yelling at the audience. It was odd, to say the least. It seemed like he was floored that we had the temerity to question his omniscience.

I'll be voting for the three first time candidates. I'm sorry Lisa, I just think that's what most people are going to do, and it's vitally important that we relieve at least one of the other Drs. of their duty. It's not fair, and you don't deserve it. You're a victim of circumstance. I'd like to remove both, but it appears that Dr. Walsh has taught almost every Salem voter, or their kids, at some point. It's possible that all of his support came out in the primary, in which case he's in trouble. (See Steve Pinto in 2011.) If not, removing Dr. Crane makes it very difficult for Walsh to be in the majority on anything controversial. That may just be good enough. It's important to note that it is very important to use all three of your votes in this race. Do not leave a blank. I think that part of Walsh's primary win was that he asked supporters to vote only for him. This time, he's asking supporters to vote for he and Dr. Crane only. See SATV video above. Overcoming bullet voting requires multiple candidates to have high vote totals.

In the Ward 4 city council race, I'll be voting for David Eppley. I know him personally, and I have a lot more in common with him than I do with Sean O'Brien. David hasn't lived here his entire life, he's a homeowner, is closer in age to me, is married, and generally seems pretty thoughtful on issues. I trust his judgement. I appreciate someone O'Brien's age expressing interest in local politics. O'Brien ran for school committee two years ago, when he was still a student at SSU. He lives with his parents and works full time. I've seen a few things from him that have reminded me of his age. Specifically, he hasn't mastered the art of controlling his emotions/expressions in a debate, as evidenced by the faces and gestures he occasionally made while Eppley was speaking during their candidate forum.  Additionally, a member of the neighborhood association that ran the debate confirmed to me that O'Brien was untruthful during the debate regarding statements he made about his communications with the group about his availability/willingness to debate. O'Brien and Famico are fairly close in age, but it doesn't feel like it.

I have mixed feelings about the Ward 1 city council election. I got off to a rocky start with Bob McCarthy. I even dubbed him councilor Willows at one point. The truth is, he's gotten much better at constituent service over the last few years, or has at least taken more credit for the work he was doing behind the scenes. While I still lived in Ward 1, there was a major construction project on my street that involved massive construction over a long period of time. It was a giant pain in the butt. Bob did a very good job of being as communicative and responsive as you could expect. He has also worked with John Keenan to try to get the state to allow for the soon to be out of commission transmission cables under Derby Street to be abandoned. That would avoid a massive disturbance for the neighborhood. On the other hand, a return to the council by Steve Pinto would be absolutely fascinating to watch. I'd be very interested to see how he'd be the same or different. I think we'd be pleasantly surprised. I encouraged Steve to run at-large. In the at-large field I would vote for him. If I were voting in Ward 1, I'd vote for Bob. Simply put, I don't see that Bob hasn't earned a return to the seat. For whatever reason, Steve is really polarizing. OK, I might have played a part in that. The truth is, I'm not sure why people see him as either Satan incarnate or a God who must be protected and worshiped at all costs. 300 votes didn't help that. I begged him to bow out that night, after about the first 40 votes. It was fast becoming a no-win for him. Steve is a fiercely loyal guy. Maybe that loyalty just gets returned to him.

I struggled with how to vote in the at-large field. Bill Legault gets my first vote. I doubt I even have to explain it. He's no bullcrap, and he'll always tell you what he thinks. What's not to like about that? My next vote goes to Elaine Milo. I met her shortly before she announced her candidacy. She's generally extremely sweet, but she'll surprise you with a zinger here and there. I think her work in the grants office at SSU may help the council on the finance side, too. My third vote goes to Norene Gachignard. At least in part, she gets my vote for her performance in the at-large candidates forum. She was probably the best public speaker, was comfortable, entertaining, and knowledgeable. I have a question or two with Norene, but we'll see. My final at-large vote will go to Jerry Ryan. I struggled with Ryan or Sargent. I feel like Jerry is a man without a country right now, and I kinda like that. I don't think team pom pom accepts him, and I don't think team Driscoll is Satan trusts him at all. I've heard a few councilors talk about how they make up their minds about something and stick with it. Nothing they can hear will change their mind. That doesn't strike me as a good thing. Jerry has shown that he's willing to change his mind. The fact that he said no to the senior center at first, but was willing to negotiate, ended up with us getting a better deal. That wasn't going to happen with Sargent. Tom Furey believes that it's the job of a councilor to do what the mayor wants. At that point, why have a council at all? That's not the critical thinking I'm looking for. Sawicki is Sawicki.

Ward 6 was my toughest call, by a lot. In his entire time on the city council, Paul Prevey has done very little that has seemed "off the reservation." One item I don't think I'll ever understand is his "interesting" holding up of the appointment of a purchasing agent a few years back. He was also one of the five, along with Pinto, Sosnowski, and Ryan, who voted against saving money by leasing the city hall annex. He voted for a revised lease of the same space this term, as did Sosnowski and Ryan. It was less favorable than the original proposal. Most who have served for any number of years will have one or two of these you can point to. The annex still makes me really mad. You have to be bad at math to pull that. Like Ryan, I think Paul strikes me as the type of person who gets an issue, studies it, and makes a decision. I know and like Beth Gerard. I consider her a friend. I think if I lived in Ward 6 I'd have to vote for her, but it's personal as much as anything. It would be great to have masters degree holding policy analyst on the council. At the same time, I wouldn't be voting against Prevey. The truth is that if not for the fact that I know Beth, I'd probably apply the same logic as I did to McCarthy. The city will be OK whichever way this race goes.

So that's who I'd vote for in each individual race. That said, I don't think I'd want the city council to come out exactly like that. The picks I have here are probably a little more easy on the administration than I'd prefer. If I knew how any specific race was actually going to end up, it may change the picks I'd make in other races. If Furey actually lost that would go a long way to helping some of that, though. If he wins I'd definitely change some of these.

On Primary Eve: A change will do you good!

First, let's get the easy stuff out of the way. When it comes to mayor, Kim Driscoll is the ONLY viable choice on the ballot. Are there things people don't like about her? Sure. She's in love with development, seemingly above all other things. I don't have as much of a problem with it as some of her ardent detractors. That changes when it becomes largely low income housing. Enough of that already.

But let's be honest. The other names on the ballot are possibly-homeless perpetual candidate Ken (stay out of the port-o-john because he'll tip it over) Sawicki, and Cedric (I just admitted to groping a girl in a bar, but it's OK because it was 3 years ago) Ashley Jr. I can't tell you anything about Ashley. If he's campaigning, I can't find any proof of it. No idea where he stands on anything. Regarding Sawicki, someone who has been a candidate for so many things in the last few years should have a better grasp of the issues than he is capable of displaying. Just no.

For the anti-Driscoll crowd, this primary may be your best chance. Turnout will likely be miserable, and the mayor has put very little effort into campaigning thus far. Organize alphabetically or something. Here's the thing. Even the most ardent Driscoll opponents shouldn't want to deal with the mess that would result from Mayor Sawicki.

Moving on to Ward 6, this is an easy one, too. You have incumbent Paul Prevey, first-time candidate Beth Gerard, and the aforementioned Sawicki. Prevey and Gerard should move on to the general. That may be one of the most interesting races going forward.

Perpetual candidate Sawicki

The Ward 4 primary is one I actually get to vote in for the first time. I'm voting for David Eppley. I know David, and trust that he'll make wise decisions. I also know how hard he's worked on this campaign. He's been to my door at least 3 times. If he weren't in the race, I'd vote for Gina Flynn, and I hope that's how the final race works out. I met Flynn on the day of the Senate election to replace John Kerry. She, like Eppley, was at the polls. She's also been to my door. She and Eppley have somewhat active Facebook pages. Sean O'Brien? First, I thought he wanted to be on the school committee? Second, I didn't see him at the polls, or at my door. Third, Facebook? His last campaign post was in early May, and was about eating a burger. I'm not sure he even wants the job. Finally, have you seen Eppley in lederhosen?

Whatever it takes for charity, right David? (stolen from John Andrews/Social Palates)

The vitally important race on the ballot this Tuesday is the school committee primary. We have a failing school system. People get pissed when you say that, but it's true. We are among the worst school systems in the state, sayeth the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). We have two school committee members who have "served" for eight years each running for re-election. On what grounds? Should we really consider rewarding such epic failures? The members (Walsh and Crane) in question seem to have excuses (usually based around poor kids and evil tests) for everything. Pay no attention to the fact that we still fail when comparing our district to many others with similar socioeconomic demographics. Many districts do much more with equally and even more challenging populations.

Dr. Crane's recent evaluation of Superintendent Russell reads like the case to not re-elect any incumbent school committee members. Insane. In it, she wrote:

"Dr. Russell, unbeknownst to him, when he took the job, inherited a system that need (sic) a substantial instructional overhaul (as indicated in the Level 3 Report and State's Level 4 ranking, which came when Dr. Russell was just 3 months into the job.) Both these reports indicated system problems that would take several years to effectively rectify. ...He has supported and actively participated in introducing more challenging curriculum for our best students, while working to provide equal educational opportunities for all our students, as required the Federal Law. (huh?) This is the kind of instructional leadership that this district has needed."

"When Dr. Russell became Superintendent in August 2011, no one (but perhaps especially him) realized the degree to which the Salem School System needed a deep and thorough overhaul. This is the kind of special circumstance that School Committees must allow for in their evaluation. The Level 4 designation by the state at the end of October that year indicated how much our system needed to change ... I give him high marks for what he (and we) have begun; but this is an ongoing process that will be both data-driven and will benefit from new leadership and new programs ..."

Janet Crane has been on the school committee for eight years. Does it sound like she's done a good job? On her (and Walsh's) watch, we had a system that needed a substantial instructional overhaul. A system full of systemic problems. A system that will benefit from new leadership... but reelect them? Seriously? Why?

There are a few major problems with Crane. The first is that she rarely makes sense when she speaks. Here's the beginning of one of her answers at the recent school committee forum. Watch it.

I at least see what she's saying for the first half. I get the argument, at least. The second half? Public education is under attack by federal and state mandates on large corporations? WHAT? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. Way too frequently, when Crane speaks, I think:

My second big problem with Crane (excepting lack of results) is that I don't believe she knows how to make her own decisions. I've never seen her disagree with Walsh on anything, and I've even seen her wait to see how he's voting to know how to vote. Watch the clip below. At a recent meeting, Mr. Fleming made a motion to table an item on the agenda. This was an unexpected move, so Crane hadn't gotten her orders yet. Watch, as she's about to raise her hand to vote in favor of the motion, (Walsh and Crane frequently vote with Fleming) but stops when she looks down the table to see what boss Walsh is doing. She then changes her mind and votes Walsh's way. Is that really the mindlessness we want on the school committee? (You'll have to excuse me, my disdain got the better of me at the end of the video and I may have said a bad word.)

Dr. Walsh, over the last few years, has asked variations of the below question several times. Go ahead, check it out.

Walsh started slinging blame, excuses, and denial like the video above within weeks of our level 4 status being announced. I love his use of quotes around crisis in this article. If our schools aren't in crisis, what is?

Here's the thing. Walsh keeps asking this question over and over, how is your kid doing, how is the school serving you? The problem is that the answer is VERY frequently negative, and he's just not listening. If he were, he'd stop asking. After he pulled it the second time during the candidates forum, Rick Johnson, a candidate, and very involved parent, addressed it. Johnson's message was that while his child was at Bentley it was an utterly chaotic environment, and that he and his wife had reached out for help to the school, and even as high as the members of the school committee, and received no help at all. Johnson's comments got the longest, loudest, and most sustained applause at the forum.

Walsh says, "If your answer to these questions is uniformly "yes," you have absolutely nothing to fear about your child attending any Salem public school." I'm sorry, but the state, and the dozens of parents I've spoken with, disagree vehemently. Walsh is clearly out of touch. Level 4 status means the state is saying that our district is in a dire situation where intervention is needed. Why should we believe Dr. Walsh above the state, especially when so many parents concur with the state's assessment?

Worse than being out of touch, he seems resigned to failure. DESE cited a culture in our district where some educators believe that certain students or types of students can't and won't learn and achieve academic success. Walsh appears to agree with them. I'll leave you with this. Last year, he proposed a scathing condemnation of the use of standardized testing. Lisa Lavoie correctly pointed out that a board in a district that is failing the test shouldn't be the one passing the test. Walsh comparing us to greyhounds on the track is exactly the kind of culture that DESE cited.

Do you really want a school committee member that believes that we'll never reach our goals? I don't.

Tomorrow, I'm voting for Katie Casiglia, who is endlessly positive, Rick Johnson, who will call shenanigans shenanigans, and Rachel Hunt, who runs a level one school in Salem, with demographics not much different than the rest of the district. For once, I wish I had more votes to give. I could make strong cases for Pat Schultz and Lisa Lavoie as well. I'd think harder about this, but I'm confident that Schultz will make it through the primary. I've come around on Lavoie. I wish she'd be a little more outspoken about her beliefs around the excuse making we've just talked about, but having discussed them with her, she's in the right place. We have a wealth of choices available to us this time. Use them!

Are there enough uninformed people to buy the excuses as valid explanations? Let's hope not. Get out and vote on Tuesday.

An Open Letter to the Salem City Council, and some other people

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-maybe Albert Einstein, maybe Ben Franklin, maybe nobody

It was with increasing disgust that we, the citizens of Salem, watched you, and I do mean ALL of you, carry on your ridiculous charade for 7.5 hours and 300 ballots on Thursday night. It was definitely insanity. What a pitiful display of government at "work." Congratulations. It took you all of three days to prove that you couldn't get by without Joan Lovely. Let's be honest. There is no way on earth that she'd have let that embarrassing debacle take place for 7.5 hours. She's gone for three days, and the city council becomes a biggest balls contest (nobody won). Pathetic.

Let me get a few things out of the way right away. I've been as hard (or harder) on councilor Pinto as anyone. It's fair to say unfairly so. That said, I've had several conversations with him since the election, both about the events that led up to that election, and several issues going on in town since, including the school debacle, and the current appointment issue. I'm convinced that he'd act differently if he were appointed now. Nobody can say that he doesn't care deeply for Salem. But you can say that about all of the people who put their names forward. It's not an easy thing to do. The commitment is large, the rewards small. It's a pretty selfless (a small salary, and some large health insurance benefits aside) act. When councilor Pinto runs in November, I might well vote for him, unlike the last time. I think a meaningful opposition is important. But I do believe that it should be the voters who put councilor Pinto back in office, not 6 councilors. That said, many are portraying this as a battle of good vs. evil. That's ridiculous. We have two distinct factions here, at least nearly equally obstinate in your positions. I guess the difference I see is this. One faction is dead set on not allowing one specific person, of 25k registered voters to take the seat. The other faction is insistent that only 1 specific person, of 25k registered voters, be selected.

A contingent of you complains bitterly that the Salem News has it in for you, that they spin things, and misinform. Congratulations. You couldn't have made their jobs easier. You put it on a platter for them this time.

So grow up. All of you. Yes, all. The ABP (Anybody But Pinto) faction is in just as intractable position as the "Only Pinto" group. Find a solution to this mess, and do it quickly. Here's a little advice. Find someone new. Clearly team Pinto isn't getting a sixth vote, ever. Clearly Corchado isn't either. You have four other candidates. I'd submit that Bill Legault is at least as closely aligned politically (maybe more so) to several of you, including members of Team Pinto, as Mr. Pinto. If none of the six who expressed interest work for you, draft someone new. The Charter simply states that you must appoint a replacement. It doesn't prescribe the process you used. It doesn't prescribe that you stick with it, either. Matt Veno comes to mind. What about some of the mouthy Lofters? Marlene Faust? Shirley Walker? They're both involved in Salem doings. How about Ed Wolfe? Chester Suchecki? You can't claim that any of them are shills for her Lordship. Just find someone who can get six votes.

Let's talk about the fallacy that there is widespread support for councilor Pinto. 5,364 people voted in the last city council election. They each had the ability to select as many as four candidates for at-large councilor. Even with four selections available, Mr. Pinto was only named by 35% of the voters. 65% of voters couldn't put Mr. Pinto in their top 4.  He finished sixth, in a field of nine, as an incumbent. The call for change was clear.

Here are some individual notes:

Councilor Turiel: Demanding a compromise, while being unwilling to offer one yourself, is at least a little disingenuous. What you're really demanding is a surrender. Switching from Barcikowski to Corchado, when Barcikowski didn't enter, isn't a compromise. Neither is switching from Corchado to Legault, who you'd prefer anyway. When your position is (exaggeratedly) all but one of 25k voters would be OK, and the other side is only 1 of 25k voters would be OK, maybe calling for surrender is OK. But let's call it what it is.

Councilor Furey: If only you had a computer, and would read this. Blind support for a sitting mayor, we expect nothing else. Wasn't one of councilor Turiel's campaign promises that he'd get you on email?

Councilor O'Keefe: Every time you have to assume the president's chair, which happened a few times during the Lovely campaign, I'm reminded that it's probably time for you to hang up your gavel soon. Fortunately, Chris Sicuranza seems like a worthy Ward 7 replacement. His speech was the best one given the other night.

Councilor Ryan: With every shouted "Steven AAAAA Pinto" you lost a few at-large votes. My wife, who doesn't know you from Adam, walked through the room, and asked "Who is that petulant child?" Twitter noticed too. Also, "Joan did it after three terms" isn't a good reason to jump into the at-large race. I hope you have a better reason than that, though nobody who has discussed it with you can articulate one. Joan also topped the ticket over and over again. Why? She found common ground. Please try it. Be a leader. Councilor Pinto finished second in your ward. Residents there wanted him retained. I understand you supporting him. I can appreciate the loyalty, even when politically, it may be really dumb. That makes the loyalty you're showing more impressive, I guess. Let me ask, at what cost? For how long? Will we still be doing this in May? When does it move from being loyalty to something worse? The man we saw on Thursday will never be a ticket-topper, even if Joan did it first.

Councilor Siegel: When you start your comments by saying that you can vote for whoever you want, per the Charter, you basically admit that you don't have much of an argument FOR the person you've selected. Don't start with excuses! Additionally, saying that 3 of 11 councilors being newly elected shows that there is no benefit to incumbency demonstrates that you may be math-challenged. You do realize that means that 8 of 11, including 3 of the 4 at-large seats were retained by incumbents, yes? I know you don't think all of the incumbents deserved to be retained (your reported mouthing of "You disappoint me!" at one of them during Thursday's meeting, as reported on Twitter by a witness in the chamber)

Councilor Prevey: Councilor Pinto was far from being re-elected in your ward. Teasie almost beat him there. With 4 votes at their disposal, only 31% of ward 6 voters gave councilor Pinto one of their votes. They aren't clamoring for him. Additionally, I was present for the HDSNA meeting where you debated Mickey Northcutt on the CPA. One of the reasons you gave during the meeting for not supporting putting the CPA on the ballot was that voters rejected the CPA 5 years earlier. Your support of councilor Pinto, who voters rejected about a year ago, seems pretty hypocritical.

Councilor Sosnowski: 678 people in your ward voted in the last election. Of those 678, 27% of them gave councilor Pinto one of their four votes. 187 Ward 2 residents asked for councilor Pinto as one of their councilors. He finished seventh of nine in your ward. In comparison, Darek Barcikowski, who you told you wouldn't support, finished second of the nine candidates in the election. How can you claim to be representing your constituents? Additionally, please stop treating the voters like we're stupid. Your caterwauling about how Steve Pinto was the victim of a vast misinformation campaign is simply insulting. Does the snooze really dislike Pinto? Absolutely. Here's the thing. We know that. We judged Steve on several things he did himself. I know you are ALWAYS the smartest guy in the room, but we aren't as dumb as you give us credit for. Steve was judged harshly for his decision on the City Hall Annex lease, which has cost us much more than it would have otherwise. As predicted here, we're still waiting for you to have just one meeting on the concept of an alternative, which you (collectively) promised to do, when you didn't approve the lease. Meanwhile, I expect that we've already received a new RFP response from RCG for the annex. (I'll note, the RFP was written in such a way to be tailor made for the RCG-owned annex to be the successful spot. Go read it. There's some inside politics to complain about.) Have you given up on running for mayor? This isn't helping your cause.

SATV: C'mon man! You drop the meeting and go back to your slide show at 1:30? Do better! There seems to be a pattern here. I get it. No money, and limited staff. Demand that the city support you.

Darek Barcikowski: C'mon man! Corchado may have been a compromise candidate, if your name had been in there, but it's not. Disappointed.

Senator Lovely: Thanks a lot. There hasn't been much fun to blog about recently. While that continues, at least this is something. Please go knock some heads together, quickly.

Spring Pond Woods: I'm sorry, we're going to have to cut you down. We need some more paper after last week. Green city? Not anymore.

OK, back to the group.

You're hurting yourselves, the city, and councilor Pinto's chances in November. There has been very little controversy on the city council in a year. A few boring little things here, but nothing fracturing. It's interesting that when city council fractures again, councilor Pinto's name is involved. What is it about him that is so divisive? I think voters will notice. What inspires the blind loyalty allowing some of you (on both sides) to engage in the politics of personal destruction? I suggested to councilor Pinto fairly early (50 votes in, or so) in the process on Thursday that he could score a lot of points with voters if he announced that it was clear that he wasn't going to get a sixth vote, and as such, he'd withdraw, and take his case to the voters. He'd immediately have been responsible for consensus building, which is what many voters viewed as lacking. True or not (I believe not), the impression now is that no lesson was learned in November 2011.

For a few years now, there has been constant speculation about when mayor Driscoll will leave for bigger and better things. She's not going anywhere in the next few years. She'll be re-elected in November. She may even be here for the full four years after that. God, I hope so. I definitely saw absolutely no mayoral material in that room on Thursday. No matter who you appoint, she doesn't have the votes for several of the things many of you oppose the most. Appoint her, even, and you still won't see a transfer station or wind turbine proposal before council. The reason they haven't appeared yet is that she knows she's not even close to the votes she needs to pass either one.

In closing, I implore you to start acting like the leaders you claim to be. You can start by actually electing a president on Monday. Finish by ending this debacle immediately on Tuesday.

State Senate Primary This Week

Thursday is primary day in Massachusetts. I know! Thursday, of a holiday week? Insane. But it is, so let's talk about it.

Let me get the easy candidates out of the way. Edward Carroll has a fantasyland proposal to put a gigantic resort casino less than a football field from my house. He has no plan to get people into or out of it, though clearly Derby Street can't handle the traffic something like that would bring. Neither can Webb Street, Bridge Street, North Street, or any other local street. Carroll estimates 5,000 new jobs at that location. The roads won't get the employees there, nevermind the customers. Beyond that fact, he talks about the Chapter 91 and DPA designations like they are nothing. They aren't easily waived, as he asserts. Sorry Ed, just no. You're off my list. Even if elected, his one and only plan will never see the light of day. Basically, he offers nothing.

Next, we have John Slattery. He's the endorsed candidate of the Boston Globe, for what that's worth. I think Mary-Ellen Manning said it best. "I thought I was reading The Onion... The Boston Globe just endorsed my opponent because he wants to raise taxes!" If you haven't been paying attention, Slattery has been endorsed by just about every public employee union under the sun, and a large portion of his campaign has been underwritten by out-of-district union money. (Why is the Boston Teachers Union endorsing someone for our district?) Check his recent campaign finance filing yourself. PAC this, and PAC that, all over the place. I pay for those union contracts, and as retiring incumbent Fred Berry recently said, "One candidate is totally sold to the unions..." I don't need to tell you that he was referring to Slattery, even though he never mentioned his name. He seems to owe a lot of people at this point, and they are people who benefit from me paying more taxes. What's in it for me with Slattery? Just a world of hurt. No thanks. Luckily for him, there is an absurdly large portion of the state on the public payroll. Not supporting Slattery is another easy choice for me.

The Boston Herald (which, with Howie Carr on board, and their right slant, should be fertile Manning Country) had the following to say about this race.

In the Second Essex district now held by the retiring Sen. Fred Berry, which contains Beverly, Peabody, Salem, Danvers and Topsfield, the sensible choice in the Democratic primary is Salem City Councilor Joan B. Lovely. Her opponents include John Slattery of Peabody, who famously staked out both sides of the death penalty issue when he previously served in the House (and cast the fatal vote that killed a death penalty bill); and current Governor’s Councilor Mary-Ellen Manning, who needn’t bring her brand of insular politics from the Council Chamber to the Senate chamber.

The criticism of Manning is one that seems to be repeated frequently, and gives me pause. While I enjoy that (really a lot) from her as a Governor's Councilor, I'm not sure it would serve the district well as a state senator, where compromise and cooperation will be necessary to make sure the district gets its share of economic support from the state. A contrarian is really easy to ignore when it's time to dole out the goodies. I'd probably vote for her for governor, or mayor, but I don't know that she can (or wants to) play nicely with others, which the district needs from its Senator (I have the same concerns about self-described "rock thrower" Elizabeth Warren). Berry's comment directed at her (though thinly veiled) was, "... and the other candidate has a history of caring more about finding fault with others than working with others to find solutions to serious problems.” Enough smoke, and there is probably a fire.

So that brings me to Joan Lovely, who I've criticized plenty over the years, but who I'll vote for on Thursday. In her many years on the city council, I've disagreed with her on plenty. Between her and Manning, I'm much closer to Manning's position on taxes. (Are we sure she's not a Republican?) That said, Manning has never had to pass a budget, so it's easy to say no tax increases. I disagreed with Joan on the St. Joe's senior center proposal. It was the first issue I ever discussed with her. We ended up agreeing to disagree, but I came away with confidence that she had put plenty of thought and reason into her position, and she was very respectful of my position, and had clearly already considered the points I raised with her. My overwhelming impression of Joan is that she does her homework, considers all options, looks for common ground and compromise, and is an excellent consensus builder. Those are all things we need in a State Senator. She's the only candidate who fits that bill. Sometimes I wish she'd state her opinions a little more forcefully, and differentiate herself from her opponents a little more. She should borrow from Manning there.

I think the Berry endorsement really helps Lovely, especially in Peabody. I think the gaggle of pro-Manning sock puppets with numerous made-up real-sounding names and one message clearly demonstrate that the other candidates think so, too. On that topic, the gaggle as a whole really turns me off to Manning. It concerns me that her people don't know that the type of people reading that stuff aren't changing their minds because of made-up internet people. My favorite, posted while I'm writing this, was this line. "How can you trust a woman [Lovely] who wears a scarf in a facebook photo on a 95 degree day." Just wow. That's desperate. The newest line of thinking supported by the puppets is that Berry didn't actually endorse Joan, and Lovely made it up, with help from two Boston Globe staffers, a Salem News reporter, and Patch reporters. By the way, Senator Berry must be in on it. Clearly if someone claimed he endorsed them, and he hadn't, he'd stay quiet about it, right? The Salem News quoted him thusly, “To be effective in the state Senate requires a combination of experience, intelligence and the ability to work with others to solve problems for the people you represent,” he said. “I believe City Councilor Joan Lovely has the attributes needed to most effectively serve the people of the 2nd Essex District.” These people believe that the snooze made it up? I bag on the snooze a lot, but that's insane. Beyond that, the whole sock puppet thing is a terrible (and desperate) strategy.

Seriously? Let me have one of my own. How can you trust a woman whose campaign supporters are pretty obviously behind about 15-20 fake IDs (none of the supposedly-real names are registered voters in the district) throwing what amounts to libel around on a regular basis, accusing people not involved in the campaign with crimes (people the candidate would have to work with if elected, btw), complete with witty phrases like "Phoney Baloney Joanie" that sound like they were written by a twelve-year-old? That said, I generally like her chutzpah a lot. If Lovely were out she'd have my vote, even though I question the sanity of the people she has supporting her campaign.

One last good (ok, maybe just fun) reason to root for Joan, the race to take her seat on the Salem City Council will be really fun. Two people involved with her campaign think they have the inside track to replace her. Good motivation for them, and great entertainment for us, down the road, when it eventually explodes. Someone will find out that someone they think has their back actually doesn't.

Who will win? I don't have the foggiest idea. I think it will probably be one of the two women. I hope so anyway. I think a lot of Slattery's support is puffed up union leadership, where the rank and file may not follow. Lovely has to get Salem to the polls, and I still have major doubts there. I must not be alone, as this letter from Salem Democratic Committee member (and Lovely supporter) Darek Barcikowski shows.  I'd vote for either woman in the general. If not, it's Jolitz for me in the general election.

Cleaning out the closet

Here's a bunch of stuff that's been swirling around my mind for the last month or two.

That's not blood in the water.

It appears that poop pumper Peter's Rockmore floating cesspool may be returning. First came this blog post, which I shared on Facebook. Now, this article confirms the earlier blog post.

Noyes doesn't sound reformed. He's now downplaying the earlier incident, which cost him a cool 300k (not including the lawyers). His statement, from the article:

"The restaurant was never charged with anything," said owner Peter Noyes, further explaining that the charges were brought solely against the Hannah Glover.

Looking back at the original press release from the US Attorney, it included the following:  "During some summers, the company allowed the sewage holding tank aboard the Rockmore intermittently to overflow, such that raw, untreated sewage spilled into Salem Harbor." Officials from both Salem and Marblehead  appeared to back this claim up. So while his statement above may be technically accurate, it's at least somewhat deceptive, and ignores the DA's claim. He was accused of allowing the Rockmore to leak poop into the harbor, but those charges weren't brought because he agreed to the plea deal. Convenient.

A lack of transparency, and care for the environment, isn't new for Noyes, as you can read here.

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Things we can learn from Lawrence ... yes, Lawrence.

As part of the Lawrence school turnaround plan, six Lawrence school principals have been informed that they will not be asked back for next school year. Additionally, a large number of tenured teachers are being forced out. The state is running Lawrence's turnaround, and having that outside voice is probably helpful. The state doesn't care about stepping on toes, and isn't mired in the local politics of payback. They are aggressively weeding out those that don't contribute enough. This includes telling the local teacher's union what's going to happen. It was my understanding that one of the "benefits" of having a level four school, was greater autonomy for the district to make unilateral decisions that normally need to be collectively bargained. We don't seem to have the stomach for that here, if today's Salem News article is to be believed.

I hate rewarding failure. It just seems unfair. That's not to say that I think teachers deserve all of the blame. There's plenty of that to go around, and I'm sure many parents need to accept a share. I know administrators and the school committee need to accept their slice. (Don't hold your breath.) But we're talking about this because our schools have failed. We paid our teachers to do the job. They haven't, whatever obstacles they face. Now they want to be rewarded for failing grades? Have you no shame, Joyce Harrington? Have you no balls (figuratively, of course), Kim Driscoll?

Another thing that the state is doing really well in Lawrence is involving the leadership of successful charter schools. Here in Salem, some in local leadership choose to demonize them, rather than learn from them. The Lawrence plan goes the other way, actually asking the leaderships of several successful charter schools to take over running several of the Lawrence public schools. Over Brendan Walsh's dead body will we see our own very successful charter school taking over a Salem school. Click that link and see how much more successful Salem Academy Charter School has been with similar students.

I laughed at Willy Scamtigua when he asked the state to takeover the Lawrence schools. What a failure to lead! Maybe it's not such a bad idea. We don't seem willing to discuss whether or not principals need to be removed. At least not out loud. Several people have whispered to me that the middle school's failings start at the head. Nobody wants to say it out loud, but the words "dinosaur" and "backward-thinking" have been used in private. I've asked around, and can't find any parents looking to sing the praises of our middle school principal. But again, we don't seem to have the stomach to address the real lack of leadership that appears (according to the DESE) to be pervasive around here. I haven't had any personal experience with Ms. Manning. I see her actively involved and attending and participating in school committee meetings, but can a really diverse population with seemingly one opinion be wrong? I'll add that I did witness an exchange between Manning and several of her teachers after one school committee meeting, and it appeared that there was real affection there, both ways. That may not help kids learn.

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Terrible timing, Dr. Walsh

Speaking of Dr. Walsh, he must have the worst timing on Earth. Two weeks ago, he wrote a letter to the editor chastising Salem CyberSpace director Linda Saris for not giving the school committee credit for everything going on in the Salem schools. The following day came word that the Attorney General reached a settlement with the city regarding malfeasance in the schools around bidding and purchasing.

Somehow, I'm guessing that if the state had taken over our schools, like Lawrence, that Paul L'Hereux would be looking for a new job today. Wasting tens or hundreds of thousands of our dollars must just be all in a days work here.

Saris, by the way, is actively getting her hands dirty truly helping the toughest cases in our district. Dr. Walsh might want to try that. (Yeah, I know, he did his time. Save the belly-aching.)

Strangely, Dr. Walsh, who as a school committee member, claims responsibility for all that goes on in the Salem schools, has not stepped forward to accept responsibility for allowing these misdeeds. The article about this includes a great picture or Walsh, smiling with the whistleblower, who detailed the allegations in his resignation, which Walsh moved to accept when it came before the school committee. Oops.

The Snooze article back when Mr. Sheehan resigned failed to delve into the contents of the resignation letter, and included quotes from Cameron about Mr. Sheehan leaving due to timing on his pension, and Walsh lauding him for being a pleasure to be around. He was similarly congratulatory of Cameron when he left. Is he really this clueless?

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Election Shenanigans


State senate election season is in full swing, and with it comes plenty of insanity. Read any Patch articles recently? If so, you've probably read plenty of comments from commenters who all seem to have a very similar message. The phrases "evil Kim Driscoll," "phoney baloney Joanie Lovely" and yelling and screaming about "the gay agenda" appear over and over, as if they were written by one person... The names used don't have any other local web presence at all, not even white pages listings. They claim to support Ed Carroll (who supports gay marriage) for state senate, at least on Salem Patch. I recall one of them, while writing on Peabody Patch, proclaiming support for a different candidate. The person behind the people claims to have plenty of inside election knowledge, and even wrote the following:

Janet Marino-Johnson
2:15 pm on Sunday, August 19, 2012
LOVELY CAMPAIGN IN BIG TROUBLE! She is going to be hit next week with multiple Ethics & Campaign violation for ILLEGALY mailing absentee ballots to people this week and demanding they vote for her because " I expect a low turnout and really need your help!" That is not how absentee ballots are to be distributed-- a clear violation of state and federal law! Plus just read on Peabody Patch a group of Lovely volunteers are jumping ship and supporting Edward Carroll because of way too much interferance from the arrogant Kim Driscoll her aide Jason Silva--accusing them of Nazi like tactics on her own volunteers! Vote Edward Carroll State Senate like me!

Patch removed it, probably due to its patent insanity/libel, but you can see the cached version here.

Someone with one of these campaigns has way too much time on their hands. Somebody should let them know that we don't go to the Interwebs to have our minds changed. We go there to spout when they're already made up. The fellowship of the miserable is a terrible predictor of elections. Look at Tom Furey for proof.

The central question for Joan Lovely in this election is, "How do I get people in Salem to go vote in the primary?" I've asked around, and haven't really heard a compelling answer yet. If she can't come up with one, it will be a sad day for team Lovely on September 6. The tactic alleged above may be her best shot. And yes, the primary this year is on September 6, a Thursday, during a holiday (and for some, back to school) week. That should help turnout.

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Tom Watkins leaving, Paul Prevey repeat?

City Purchasing Agent Tom Watkins is leaving for a job in Andover. I'll be interested to see if Paul Prevey pulls another sit in on the next appointment. Watkins stayed "acting" for quite a while because Prevey refused to allow a confirmation vote, in an apparent power struggle with the mayor. He demanded copies of the resumes of all who applied, and refused to go to the city HR office to review them. It was an odd move from the normally pretty level-headed councilor, who never really explained his position to satisfaction. I'll be interested to see if there is a repeat with the next purchasing appointment. If not, it will make me wonder about the first instance even more.

Andover must think Watkins is qualified. They've made him their Director of Purchasing. Of course, that news came out the day before news of the Salem schools purchasing/bidding fiasco. Related? Good question. I'll admit I know very little about how much carryover there is in purchasing between the city and the schools. They sound unrelated, but the timing was curious, and Sheehan specifically mentioned the fact that there was a new city purchasing agent (Watkins) in place when he came to town, and that the purchasing agent had to sign off on all requisitions as well. Maybe Watkins got out while he could.

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SESD oversight

Sleep well at night, everyone. City engineer Dave Knowlton is Salem's lone representative/oversight on the the South Essex Sewerage District. We only send them almost 7 million dollars of tax money a year. For a little more info on that board, check this out, the only blog post that I've been threatened with litigation over (yet). I think Dave Knowlton spends most of his life dealing with complaints about all manners of city life and construction around. I'm sure he's not finding too much time to dig into the spending at SESD.

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Blaney Pier

It's interesting to see that construction has finally started on the Blaney Pier extension. I say finally, because it was originally slated to start back in early November, and be completed by now. I'm still not sure that it was wise to go forward with this phase while the neighboring power plant site is up in the air. They have a ready made dock for the type of large ship we're looking to attract.

Election tidbits

Salem resident Edward Carroll announced that he's running in the democratic primary for state senate, against Mary-Ellen Manning, John Slattery, and Joan Lovely. It's a pretty massively huge coincidence that his landlord is also his opponent, Mary-Ellen Manning. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I have a hard time buying that. My guess is that one of two things must be true. Either Mr. Carroll really hates his landlord, or really likes her. I'm sure both would claim it's a coincidence, but I can't really believe that.

Insiders tell me that they believe that Manning asked Carroll to run, so that there would be two Salem residents on the ballot, hoping to pull Salem votes away from Joan Lovely in her own backyard. The joke, of course, is on Manning (and maybe Lovely), if this is true. Because, we all know, Salemites don't vote, especially in primaries. All those signatures gathered for nothing. If you saw the blog post "Patch Asleep at the Switch," which was posted on Salem Patch for a few days, but has since been removed, you'd have a hard time taking Mr. Carroll's campaign seriously. Let's just say that the spelling, grammar, and punctuation in this post touting Mr. Carroll made the piece almost unreadable. It also read like something from the free republic, right wing nutjob play-book. It would seem odd that if Mr. Carroll shared the beliefs of that particular supporter, that he would be a much better fit on the (also less crowded) Republican ballot. Something fishy there.

The Carroll campaign doesn't appear to have any sort of web site, phone number, Facebook page, etc.

While researching the claim that Manning owns Carroll's builiding, I stumbled across this little tidbit. His landlord recently had another of her rental properties in foreclosure. And she's even paid all of her printer's bills ...

Oops, someone didn't open the mail!

Still haven't decided who I'm voting for on Thursday, Sept. 6. Thoughts?

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Salem mayor Kim Driscoll will face her toughest opponent since her first election in the next mayoral go-round. Of course, when the toilet tipper was your last opponent, that's not saying much. Current ward 2 councilor Mike Sosnowski hasn't been quiet enough about his intention to jump full force into the next mayoral election. Though he hasn't made any official announcements, he's told many supporters that he fully intends to run. Can he cobble together enough special interests to defeat a mostly popular incumbent? We'll see. I tend to doubt it, but the longer someone sits in office, the more people they piss off. Sosnowski is sure to lend a sympathetic ear to people who oppose lots of different things. A short list would start with wind turbine, transfer station, parking meter, 40b housing, Saltonstall special treatment, Bridge St senior center, increased liquor licenses, and/or condos without parking spaces opponents. His game will need to be cobbling together enough people who will be single-issue voters on those specific issues, plus whatever else comes up in the next year. (See why it gets harder and harder to keep office the longer you're in it?) The longer that list gets the easier for a challenger. Maybe he does have a shot. He'll do well with the old Salem, lifer, don't want to vote for a woman crowd, too. Then again, maybe I pay too much attention to the Patch/Snews/Salemweb fellowship of the miserable. I was convinced that councilors Pinto and Ronan would win in a landslide as well. In hindsight I'd probably take Pinto back. Carr is bo-ring. Council on a whole has been pretty boring.

Nobody ran against Sosnowski last go around in Ward 2, but I hear it's not his intention to file papers for both the mayor's seat and the ward 2 spot. It's wise, don't be a Sawicki. Any chance that Ward 2 has nobody file to run? Big Metal Box is gone. (What did that cost us?) I guess we could see a retread. Claudia Chuber is in Ward 2 now (not sure what the museum would think of her running for office with her new role with them), as is frequent candidate Mike Blatty, who hates seeing people run unopposed. It would be ironic if he got elected that way.

Should be an interesting mayoral race in 2013, probably offering residents a stark choice of two pretty different visions for the future of the city.