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Published 05/15/01

A Brief Look at the Mayoral Candidates

For the record, here are the declared candidates for mayor. Please do not pick someone as your candidate until you have looked carefully at their entire record, experience, political positions on important issues, and until you have listened to each of them speak in public. Some of them will mislead you, some of them are in the race purposely to support an agenda and you owe it to the city to choose very carefully who will sit in the mayors office for the next four years.

Isabel Melendez:

She barely speaks the English language, and has said she will not debate any other candidates in the race. This makes it much harder for English speaking residents to evaluate her platform, her ideas and her stand on important issues facing the city. She has been involved in raising money for poor people in foreign countries, established several charitable organizations which exclusively benefit Spanish speaking Lawrencians and is a department head at the Community Action Council. As the former head of the Hispanic Week organization she left the group with a heavy debt when she stepped down six years ago.

Joe Quartarone;

As the former President of the Lawrence City Council, Quartarone fought for the residency requirement, stood alone in favor of giving the public access to meetings on channel 22, advocated the airing of political debates on cable access, and served a total of eight years on the City Council. Quartarone paired up with State Representative Jose Santiago to stop the Food to Fertilizer plant from being built in South Lawrence, and opposes the privatization of the water department. He was defeated for reelection as a district councilor two years ago by former State Trooper Gil Frechette who had the support of Mayor Dowling and Former City Councilor Pam Neilon whom he is related to.

Jose Santiago;

The only Lawrence State Representative, Santiago has fought to enforce the residency requirement, voted against funding the so-called clean elections law, single handedly saved our water department from being sold to a private entity by removing the word "sale" from legislation and inserting the word "lease" thereby stopping the loss of control to private contractors. Santiago also voted to allow convicted felons who are in prison to have the right to vote. He supports the protection of marriage bill which will save the commonwealth 15 million dollars in the first year alone. He is a former district "C" City Councilor, is a strong advocate of bilingual education and is responsible for bringing thousands, if not, millions of dollars to the city in state funds.


Ralph Carrero;

Mr. Carrero has been on the Lawrence School Committee for nine years. Among his more memorable votes was his stand to fire Jim Scully as the Superintendent of Schools after approving every expenditure Scully brought before the Committee. He consistently voted for contracts after admitting in public that he did not read them. Carrero has voted against an English graduation exam at Lawrence High School, supported Superintendent Mae Gaskins, sat on the finance committee, the union negotiation committee, and has been one of the least vocal member of the school committee. Carrero is the dean of discipline at the Greater Lawrence Technical School (which has one of the worst discipline problems ever) and is on the board of directors for he West Street Charter School (which was rated worst in the state by the department of education.) Members of the racist organization "The Latino Agenda" are backing him. He is married with two children.

Nester DeJesus:

Nestor has challenged District "D" City Councilor Marc LaPlante in the last city election. He is a business owner, a family man, and has refused to accept any support form the racist group Latino Agenda. DeJesus was recently appointed to the Human Rights Commission by Mayor Patricia Dowling. His English skills will be an obstacle to communicating effectively with the English speaking voters In Lawrence, however, DeJesus is genuine in his quest to speak English more fluently and considers himself an American.

Jimi Carter:

You may have read in the Tribune that Mr. Carter is a "local radio commentator." As we try to point out frequently, you have to be very careful what you believe in that paper. Jimi is not a local radio commentator, he is the head producer for the number one radio talk show in New England, "Extreme Games" on 96.9 FM Talk in Boston. Carter is the former "Hot Line" host on WCCM, and comes from a family of political activists in the city. Carter was recently married and last week his wife gave birth to little Victoria.

Gabriel Parent and Mr. Foote are both political newcomers. In the next edition of Rumbo I will examine both of these men and their ideas on how to moving the city forward. Do not dismiss newcomers because you do not recognize their names or because they are not as entrenched in Lawrence politics as other candidates. Sometimes a fresh perspective is just what a city like Lawrence needs and they should be considered every bit as important to the race as the big name candidates.