The
Lawrence School Committee as a whole is
incompetent and has been neglecting their
responsibilities. The Mayor has attended barely
50% of the school committee meetings. The School
Committee has not once followed the budget policy
guidelines, which mandate each department head
justify their spending and make a public
presentation on their proposed increases. The
veteran members continue to be apathetic and have
obviously learned nothing from the Scully
debacle.
I sat on the Lawrence School Committee for two
years and I went through the Scully firing. I
watched Ralph Carerro and others vote for
millions of dollars in spending without ever
reading their budget information. I was
constantly told by Carol Bannon that one person
could not make a difference. I was told over and
over by others that my political office was in
jeopardy every time I asked to see travel
expenses and consultant contracts, especially
when I was digging on the city side. Sound
Familiar? It should.
Last week Michael Sweeney was told by a member of
the School Committee that he was about to meet
the same fate I did. They threatened to expose
parts of his personal life and the people that he
cares about. Sweeney is being threatened because
he can't be bought off. Period. This is how the
game is played. If you don't play ball with the
powers that be, you can expect to have every
detail of your private life exposed and publicly
attacked. You can expect to have lies and rumors
printed about you as though they were fact. When
Suzanne Pischitello threatened to spread stories
(most of them untrue) about my private life I
told her and the teachers union to go to hell. So
they lied and attacked my girlfriend. And when my
(then) girlfriend made me promise not to resign
from the committee, my grandfather was threatened
and my car was set on fire. Two months after I
resigned my house as set on fire.
Mike Sweeney looked very worried as he spoke out
about the recent threat to his political career.
And he should be worried. He saw the price I paid
for making waves and asking questions. My
political enemies are still running around
spreading perverted stories about me being on the
Internet as some kind of porn mogul. And some
people still believe it. Perception is more
important than reality and people love to believe
the worst. Mike Sweeney doesn’t want to talk
about the scary details on how character
assassination works in this city, so allow me.
First, your enemies start a rumor that is based
on (maybe) 10%, truth to see where it will go.
Then the local paper looks for someone who is
willing to make a public accusation against you.
That way, it isn't the paper making any charges,
they are just reporting on someone else’s
accusation. This protects them from a law suit
when the charges prove to be untrue and the
damage is done. They always keep one or two
damaging stories in their files too. This is in
case you survive the initial scandal and people
are still publicly defending you. This helps them
sell papers and lets them drag out the scandal so
they can make money. If that doesn't work, your
political adversaries are always looking for
parking tickets, back taxes and even your high
school and college grades. Everyone has something
they are not proud of. But if they can't find any
serious dirt on you that will stick, then it's an
all out attack on anyone you care about.
Mike Sweeney saw the threats and the attacks on
my character. He saw the psychological effects it
had on the woman I loved. He was there when I
finally walked away (and when she walked away).
He knows how viscous Suzanne Piscitello, the
teachers union, and the political insiders can
be. He also knows that the truth is no defense
against the public assaults, rumors and
innuendoes. It makes no difference that I
presented proof to the local paper showing I had
nothing to do with the Internet postings. It made
no difference that someone else took
responsibility for it. People love to believe
dirt. Once allegations are made and rumors start,
it becomes harder and harder to stop that
avalanche and get the public to see the truth.
Your effectiveness as a public official
diminishes very quickly and you are always under
a cloud of suspicion. This is important to the
character assassins because if you choose not to
resign after all that, any issue you try to
champion is tainted by your new image as a bad
guy!
Mike Sweeney is doing the right thing. And
because he is doing the right thing, he is a
threat to people who are not doing the right
thing. Its that simple. I don't know if Mae
Gaskins is a good superintendent or not. I'm not
on the school committee anymore. But I do know
that Mike Sweeney will fire Mae Gaskins if she
did anything wrong, whether he likes her or not.
Because Mike Sweeney is a fair and honest person.
The issue here is whether or not Gaskins is
guilty of the allegations against her. The only
way to find out the answer to that is to conduct
an investigation and give the superintendent an
opportunity to answer the charges. Of course, we
all saw what happened when Jim Scully answered
allegations against him. Members of the committee
made up their mind before the investigation had
begun. By the way, we just paid Scully over
$600,000 of your tax money because Ralph Carerro
and the school committee WRONGFULLY fired him.
So, here we are, three years later. Not much has
changed has it? Sure the names are different,
most of them, but over all the situation is
almost identical. This time however Mike Sweeney
has two things in his corner that I never had
when my character and credibility was
assassinated; the benefit of having lived through
my scandal and he has RUMBO!
Since I left the school committee I have been
doing a lot of research on the public activities
of our elected officials. I think you all know
from the Scully hearings how good I am at digging
up documentation. Over the years I have come
across quite a bit on the private lives of our
school committee members. I have always believed
that this private information was off limits.
After all, private lives are private, aren’t
they? Well I promise you this, if I read one word
in the local paper about Mike Sweeney's personal
life, if I hear any member of the School
Committee is spreading rumors about his family,
if I find out that anyone is targeting his
friends or supporters, I will print two pages
every week in Rumbo dedicated to the personal and
financial details of Suzanne Piscitello, Patty
Dowling and any other member of the committee who
thinks that attacking someone's personal life is
fair game. If that happens, I will print every
official document I have to prove my information
is genuine. Tax returns, employment records,
resumes, everything I have will be made public.
And I promise you this, I have enough material to
make this a weekly paper with special editions. I
only hope that our elected officials will act
responsibly. I am prepared however, if they do
not.
THE NEXT SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING IS FEBRUARY 10,
2000
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