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Tom Duggan's Notebook
08/02/06

Andrea Won’t Head Stadium… But Was It a Leak or a Lie?

Last month The Valley Patriot learned that Andrea Traficante was lobbying hard to be put in charge of the Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Then we learned that Mayor Sullivan held a few meetings with his department heads to explore ways to turn over maintenance of the stadium to the school department so that the superintendent could create a position for her.

We confirmed the story with several sources who said that meetings did take place and that the superintendent was approached  … but was not thrilled with the idea.

A few days after The Valley Patriot Web site reported the story (www.valleypatriot.com), we received a call from Ms. Traficante who said the story was a lie and denied that she had even HEARD about the story until days after we posted it on line. Despite her amnesia, Traficante then began asking who the “leak” was. “I know who the leak is,” she ranted.

“It’s Frank Bonet … and Mike Sweeney … they are the big leakers around here.” Then she began to repeat herself: “They are the leakers! They are the leakers!”

So my only question is this: Was it a leak or a lie? For someone who thinks she is the smartest person in every room she walks into, you would think Andrea would have her story straight when issuing straight denials. For the record, Traficante was lobbying the Sullivan administration hard for the Stadium position, but maintains to this day that she knows “nothing” about it.

Susan Nicholson Should be Ashamed of Herself!

When North Andover residents attended the Special Town Meeting last month at North Andover High School, they were greeted with a torn and tattered American flag flying outside the school (pictured right). All I can say is this: high school principal Susan Nicholson should be ashamed of herself for allowing a flag in such poor condition to fly over her school.

Thank You, Mike!

For years, the WW II Veterans Memorial Stadium stood crumbling and condemned while Lawrence politicians and members of the community grew numb to its condition. But last week, thanks to the efforts of Lawrence Mayor Mike Sullivan and dozens of community activists, the Mill City Maulers, a semi-pro football team, took to the field for their its first ever home game. If it were not for the efforts of Mayor Sullivan, Lee Balcom, Nunzio DiMarca, and Marcos Devers, and others, the big blue bandstand would still be crumbling before our eyes. Now I know I’m going to get phone calls and e-mails from people whining that I didn’t mention them or one of their friends while thanking the people above - and I’m sorry in advance, so you don’t have to call me.

It would be completely impossible for me to thank everyone by name who had a hand in saving our beloved stadium. The fact is, if it wasn’t for Mayor Sullivan turning that stadium around and committing to get it renovated, there would be no stadium, no semi-pro football, and no soccer … AND people would still be whining about the condition of a dilapidated stadium.

You’re NO Thomas Jefferson!

A very long-winded and overly philosophical Mark DiSalvo just couldn’t help himself last month at North Andover’s Special Town meeting. DiSalvo spoke at the microphone multiple times during the discussion of trash fees, lecturing the audience about Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Constitution, the history of the town of North Andover and a myriad of other unrelated issues.

At first the audience tolerated his grandstanding, but as the night wore on the people quickly turned on him by booing, yelling for him to sit down, and calling for a vote over his insistence to keep droning on and on. It seems that DiSalvo is not the wise town-father he thinks he is. It also appears that the voters are a lot smarter than he thought.

Dr. Chuck Deposed

Just before last month’s North Andover Special Town Meeting, School Committeeman Dr. Chuck Ormsby was stripped of his vice chairman’s seat because of his opposition to the committee’s proposed trash fees. Ormsby was also being punished for proposing an alternative school budget cut list that would produce no teacher layoffs and actually restore three teaching positions. But, you see, if the School Committee had fought for that alternative, there would have been no need for a trash fee, so Perry and company voted out Dr. Chuck and replaced him with Bill Kelly.

Kelly, as you may remember, voted to support the teachers union contract last year (complete with unaffordable raises and bonuses) knowing there was no money in the budget to pay for it, and then heavily lobbied for trash fees to make up the difference.

For the record, Bill Kelly’s “trash fee for contracts” scheme failed badly at town meeting. Since then he has done nothing to try and save teachers other than pandering to parents of the Thomson School. Kelly has long denied that he made a deal with then Superintendent Harry Harutunian to support the bloated teachers contract.

He denied that he supported the contract (one he originally opposed) in exchange for the removal of a school department employee who had fired his brother last year.

Devers’ Sticker Campaign

Former Lawrence Mayor Marcos Devers is now mounting a sticker campaign for state representative against Willie Lantigua after being knocked off the ballot by the Ballot Law Commission. The commission said that Devers had not moved into the 16th Essex District by the legal deadline to challenge Lantigua.

If Devers gets more stickers in the Democrat primary than Lantigua gets actual votes, he may still be prevented from running because of the Ballot Law Commission’s ruling. If that were to happen, then a caucus by the Democrat City Committee can caucus to choose a candidate for the November ballot and may select Devers, Lantigua or maybe even someone else. One thing for sure, Devers is determined to make this race interesting and is going to do everything humanly possible to make things hard for Lantigua.   

 *Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The August, 2006 Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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