Come on Everyone Let’s Play Who Wants to Lose 1.5 Million Dollars!
Published 09/15/00

Maybe Mike Sweeney is right. If Lawrence were a game show it would be called "Who Wants to Lose 1.5 Million Dollars?" Of course we don’t have Regis Filbin as a host we have her honor Patty Dowling. Mind you, the shows are always scheduled to start at 7pm. But sometimes we starts at 8pm. Sometimes it starts at 9:30pm, and sometimes it doesn’t start at all because our host Patty Dowling never bothers to showed up. At least former mayor Mary Claire Kennedy was always there to greet you at the door when you came in. At least she was always concerned with which section you wanted to sit in. But our new host obviously doesn’t take her job as host all that seriously. And with so much money at stake.

On the few occaisions that our host does show up, however, her fill-in host will not be Cathy Lee Gifford. No, No, her stand in host will be Suzanne Piscitello. She will be in our audience for those many times your Mayor Dowling gets up in the middle of the game and walks out. Kind of like the way she attends school committee meetings. You know, those twice monthly meetings where the Mayor and Committee vote on how to spend $100 million dollars of your money for education in the city? On the night the stadium renovations were to be discussed at the School Committee meeting, Dowling got up and politely handed the gavel to Suzanne Piscitello and just walked away. Just like that.

Now, I don’t expect any outrage in the community over this because we are all so use to this type of behavior that we’ve all gotten use to it. But it did seem sort of odd that she didn’t even stick around long enough to look into the audience and take responsibility for the disgusting conditions of the stadium under the last three years of her administration.

So now we will start the game. Since we answered all the easy questions on the stadium last week, we’ll start with the $100,000 question.

"Lawrence has many boards and commissions. Which of the following is a board in Lawrence that has no function?’
A) The School Committee
B) The Licensing Board,
C) The Airport Commission
D) The Stadium Commission

Now I know most of you were tempted to say the School Committee, but no, they actually have a function they just don’t always perform that function. No, kids the answer is D) the Stadium Commission. I bet you didn’t even know we had a stadium commission. I know I didn’t. How come nobody knows about this stadium commission? I think the answer to that question will be revealed by the end of this game.

For half a million dollars, here’s the question: "When does the Stadium commission meet?"
A) Every month
B) Every three months
C) Every week
D) Never

I know my readers are smart enough to see where this game is going, so most of you probably got this one right. It’s D) Never. The stadium commission never meets. They don’t evaluate the problems of the property or the decay and ruins of the stadium structure. They weren’t in on the high school location discussions and they never got together to look into the environmental concerns which the state now says makes building the high school at the stadium "near impossible."

OK, for 1.5 Million Dollars, here’s your final question: "Why doesn’t the stadium commission ever meet?"

A) None of the people on the commission actually exist
B) The Mayor told them not to meet until they can learn how to have meetings
C) They saw that the School Committee meets all the time and they don’t accomplish anything
D) They were waiting for the mayor to give them the 1.5 million dollars to get to work

Now I know this is a tough one. That’s why it’s the 1.5 million dollar question. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you in suspense, the answer is B) The Mayor Told them not to meet until they can learn how to have meetings. That’s right, the Mayors office called each member of the stadium commission last August (1999) and told them not to get together unless they first meet with City Attorney Carl Hajjar McGravey.

This way they can all get together and learn how to have meetings. Or maybe it’s more simple than that. Maybe what she meant to say was that she didn’t want them to meet until she could tell them how to vote the way she did with the search committee for the police chief, the city workers on the school committee or the board of registrars. That certainly makes more sense than telling them they have to learn how to have meeting, doesn’t it?

So, just as soon as I thought the confusion of my last column was clearing away, a new set of confusing questions start to surface. And we can’t even ask Dowling for a life line, (you know, call a friend or ask the audience) because Mayor Dowling controls almost all lines of communication in Lawrence. She has the Tribune on her side, she controls channel 10, channel 22 and she never gave us the facilities for public access television as stated in the cable contract. Not to worry though, help is on the way! You still have Rumbo and now you have Paying Attention the radio show on WCCM every Saturday afternoon from 12-2pm.