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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
 Posted - 03/26/2008 : 4:05:42 PM
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Thanks Dreams for the links.
I don't know anything about the law... but isn't this like when a mortgage company takes over your old mortgage that they take over the same "contract" (My mortgage was sold to another company a few years back but they had to abide by the same agreement)
My question is....wouldn't DCR have to follow the same "agreement" someone had with MDC? If not, then why not?
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deleted
11 Posts |
Posted - 03/26/2008 : 9:16:10 PM
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| I read about these blogs in the papers and I did not hear of them before. The article was blog or not to blog. The Independent says to blog. I thought Demaria was a good guy but what I am reading here and in the papers it dosnt sound good. Hes got alot of problems already with people. I remember Hanlon had the problem with the audit and the budjet but that was the election year. I never paid attemtion I have been reading this afternoon kinda cathing up. Demaria is in over his head from what I read. Today I read about the the rotary and the landscaping problem. He could have stopped that. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2008 : 5:29:14 PM
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Deja vu - all over again!
Or is it just that great minds think alike?
Or is just coincidence that so many of the "articles" and pictures in this week's Leader-Herald and Advocate seem to be identical? |
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charm
Senior Member
264 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2008 : 05:51:54 AM
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No good deed goes unpunished
By Augustine Parziale
Most public officials and local residents will tell you that it's difficult, if not impossible, to get officials from the state Department of Recreation and Conservation (DCR) to respond to requests that they maintain the property they own in the city in a timely manner.
Yet the DCR apparently found plenty of time this week to dismantle the improvements to the Sweetser Circle Rotary that a local resident spent nearly a decade building and maintaing, at no cost to the state or city.
Everett resident Richard Brandano has received numerous citations, awards and recognitions for the work he has done beautifying the Sweetser Circle Rotary that is located just across the street from his Bow Street home over the years.
Now the local landscape artist is heartbroken after the DCR spent the day on Monday tearing out the trees, plants and ornaments that he installed and maintained on his own dime for roughly nine years. "I feel like someone ripped my stomach out," Brandano said this week while surveying the aftermath. "They just came in today [Monday, March 24] with a front end loader and tore everything out."
Brandano had received permission to beautify the area from the old Metropolitan District Commission(MDC), the state agency that later became the DCR, and he had done so to great acclaim.
Brandano had received numerous citations from previous mayoral administrations and the DCR itself over the years, even earning the key to the city and the recognition of several media outlets.
However, in February of this year, Brandano received a letter DCR Deputy Commissioner of Operations Jack Murray stating he was violating the agency's "adopt a rotary" program.
According to the letter, Brandano was cited as being in non-compliance for failing to sign an agreement to maintain the area ta his own expense. That agreement also included a stipulation that he would promise not to plant any trees or plants or add any ornaments to the rotary that might obstruct the view of traffic. "What they basically wanted me to agree to is just mow the lawn," Brandano said, " I told them that I had permission to put all of that stuff up there and they told me that was when it was the MDC. Now, it's the DCR.
However, Brandano also has a letter dated June 13, 2005 from then-DCR Acting North Region Director Bill Morrissey, thanking him for all the work he'd done over the years in maintaing the area.
Brandano said this week that he believes the sudden change of heart from the state agency stems from a dispute with a current city department head over Brandano's refusal to place a campaign sign in front of his home last year. "I told them that I don't do that." Brandano said, "I've never put anyone's signs up; I try not to get involved. I never did this [maintaing the rotary] for myself or for the politicians. I did this for our fallen heroes, and so that the people would have something nice to look at."
Brandano now believes that the DCR undid all of his work at the behest of the city employee.
Calls to both the DCR and Mayor Carlo DeMaria's office weren't returned in time for publication.
Over the years, Brandano has done thousands of dollars' worth of work in the area, including installing a full sprinkler system.
As upset as he is to see his years of hard work go up in smoke, Brandano said he is equally sad and mystified by the entire ordeal. "With all of the problems we have in this city; the potholes, the broken bridges, the streetlights that don't work and all that, the thing that they go after is what I did to improve the area," Brandano said, " I just don't understand it."
from the everett mirror, who is the employee? |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2008 : 08:03:13 AM
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Charm,
It's actually from the Independent and was probably posted on the mirror from the copy of story that appears earlier in this thread that was provided by Massdee. But, anyways...
Either Mr. Brandano was unwilling to provide an exact name or the Independent wasn't comfortable publishing it. I was very surprised to see even this information included in the article since it is an unproven allegation. Sorry, I don't I know Mr. Brandano but I also have no reason to believe that he would lie about this either; it's just that not enough proof was provided to so it can be accepted as fact. However, if you want to believe that it is true, I would suggest that you consider the phrase "current city department head" and think about who was involved in the campaign last fall and draw your own possible conclusions. |
Edited by - tetris on 03/28/2008 08:03:59 AM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 10:23:26 AM
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| I guess I don't understand the meaning of the term "flip-flop" or at least the Independent's definition of it. In today's edition, they claim that Matewsky didn't flip-flop on the residency requirement for public safety officials and they didn't flip-flop on their request last fall for Mr. Keverian to just accept retirement gracefully. I guess I have my Everett High school education to thank for that. |
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Marie
Senior Member
114 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 10:39:24 AM
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| I think we can see where the Independent is going with this. I wonder which candidate they will be supporting for State Rep.? |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 11:00:06 AM
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| I'm going with Stat Smith and the Independent should be fair. Stat has done a lot at the State House....and I dont see any reason for him to be replaced so early on. I may have leaned towards Matewsky before but he does flip flop and I dont like it and I dont like what I am seeing on the BOA this year. Matewsky has not stood up on any important issues and he was all for the residency requirement then all of a sudden he was not. It's the unions, that's why. At least Stat sticks to his word on something. The CC is a different story. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 11:29:09 AM
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| Let's see. The Independedent lately has had at least two full pages every week that are apparently bought and paid for by the school department (and they are not the only local paper to do so). Follow the money. They have started to run the cable listings for ECTV-15 but not the other two local cable channels. The tensions seem to rise between FFF and Stat at every school committee meetings. FFF and Wayne Matewsky....strange bedfellows to say the least....or maybe not. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 9:01:23 PM
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I had no problem with what was reported in the article about the school committee meeting in today's Independent; however it only told half the story. And if you haven't read it, it won't be hard to guess to which part of the story was left out. New reporter, same old "journalism".
The editorial asking for Smith to step down from the school committee though was over the top and a bit too obvious. Keep cashing those School Department checks. |
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Marie
Senior Member
114 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2008 : 09:59:52 AM
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| The problem with half a story is for those who did not see the meeting will not know that FFF and Parker were not blameless in this. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone write an honest account of the happenings in Everett? I know, follow the money. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2008 : 11:50:39 PM
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Some very interesting content in this week's Independent. Let's start with the editorial page. Besides the VSO letter that has been discussed in another thread, there was also a letter to the editor from Keith Spencer. Is this the same Keith Spencer who wrote the School Committee related articles in last week's paper and has a half page "In Brief" column on page 2 of this week's paper as well as another article of the back page of the first section of the this week's paper? Although the letter seemed to express the prevailing opinion on the Devens School sale, the problem that I have with it is the paper trying to pass off a piece written by someone who is employed by them in some fashion as an unsolicited submission. Even it was, it don't believe it is editorially wise for the paper to run a letter to editor from someone who is in their employ. Maybe it was something that was originally supposed to be part of his "In Brief" column on page 2? More on Mr. Spencer and his "In Brief" column later.
Also of note on the editorial page was another commentary about last week's School Committee meeting. It seems like they have backed down on the their call from last week for Smith to resign his school committee position but still question whether he can handle everything that he currently has on his plate, including a re-election battle. Still no mention of the others that did not cover themselves with glory either at last week's meeting. Most reasonable people would have expected this to happen at some point after Smith got a seat on the school committee and the degree of ugliness of it should not have been any surprise either.
Getting back to the "In Brief" column, one of the items in this column kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I would have expected a column of this type to contain straight news. I didn't feel that the item about the street repair committee met this criteria. Anybody who reads this board regularly knows my position on the creation of this committee. However, I accept that this is the way that this issue is going to get addressed, so my problem is not about that. I thought that this was more of an opinion piece than it was straight news. I'll admit that I also didn't agree with opinion either. I thought that the mayor was getting too much credit for something that has been initiated by the members of the BOA and CC. I also thought that Simonelli got too much credit for initiating this proposal. There were a number of the members of the CC and BOA who have brought this up since January and he wasn't even the first; he might have been the most tenacious on it though. Also, Mr. Spencer's personal experiences probably don't belong in a news article either. (I can sympathize though since I've had my own pothole issue this spring.) This item belonged on the newpaper's side of the editorial page.
I think that the Independent might want to re-think some of the editorial choices that they made this week. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 08:43:03 AM
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| As far as the Independent goes with the VSO letter to the Editor.....how would this person be privy to this information and don't you think an announcement like that should be coming from the Mayor? I know the Mayor has no control over what the Independent prints but he must not be too happy about it. They printed that with no facts behind it, never asked the person where he got his information from (and that should have been printed too).........unless, the stage was getting set. Absolutely nothing person against either candidate but Mayor DeMaria would be making a mistake making this type of appointment political. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 08:51:44 AM
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Tails
I hope that you read my commentary over the VSO thread about that letter; I truly believe that there are some questions that need to be answered about it about before we can judge it too harshly. With that said though, I believe it was a mistake for the Independent to let be presented in the way that it was. |
Edited by - tetris on 05/15/2008 09:32:32 AM |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 09:14:04 AM
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| All we can do now is wait and see how this plays out. |
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The Independent
