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.

The emperors are naked

Sometimes they make it too easy for me. It's as if they want me to have material.

Last night's school committee meeting was one of those times. It was mostly quite dull, and the only thing that struck me was how little detail has been made public about our school turnaround plans. Then finally it happened. Watch for yourself, as first Mr. Fleming, and then Dr. Walsh, go off. Then we'll talk.

First, Mr. Fleming may well have been in Florida while this investigation was going on. Who knows. Maybe we tried to contact him. You'd think with that raise that he caterwauled about deserving, along with Dr. Walsh, that he'd know what's been going on in the schools regarding purchasing SINCE 2006!

The hypocrisy of Dr. Walsh is amazing. He doesn't sound upset to learn that we were violating public requisition laws on his watch. He sounds upset that someone, who today he describes as, "having more to do with his own inadequacies" is "throwing gasoline."

He went on to say, "I know what the former business manager who brought this up, what his status would have been if he had not left. He would have been shoved out the door, as far as I'm concerned." The not veiled implication is that the accuser is incompetent.

These are two of the same school committee members who heaped praise on Dr. Cameron (since utterly discredited by the DESE) in his 2010 evaluation. Can we trust them to judge competence? (Note that none of the criteria used to measure Cameron's performance involved student achievement. Unbelievable!)

Meanwhile, looking back, Walsh had this to say, when Sheehan gave his resignation in 2010:

The school committee minutes report the following:

Dr. Walsh thanked Mr. Sheehan for his service and noted that it has been a pleasure to work with him.

Dr. Walsh moved to accept Mr. Sheehan’s resignation effective January 1, 2011 so that the School Department can begin the process of hiring a Business Manager. Mr. Carr seconded the motion carried.

If he was so horrible, why did he note what a pleasure it was to work with him? Why didn't he move that the resignation be accepted effective immediately?

The Salem News quoted Walsh thusly:

"It has been a pleasure and will continue to be a pleasure, I'm sure, to be in Tim's company. He has worked extremely hard in his position."

That sounds a lot different than the story that Walsh is spinning today. What happened to everything in the schools having the overt or tacit approval of the school committee? Careful what you say, Dr. Walsh, your words can come back to bite you. Don't you own what went on in L'Heureux's department for at least four, and probably more, years?

I mean, was he just lying about Sheehan? Or is he the one throwing gas now? I can only conclude, yet again, that our emperors have no clothes.

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.

______________

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.

______________

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?

______________

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.

______________

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.

______________

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.

______________

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.