By: Tom Duggan – July 17, 2017 `In response to the State’s Office of Campaign and Political Financing (OCPF) demanding he disclose donors to his campaign, Lawrence City Councilor and mayoral candidate Modesto Maldonado, says the OCPF is “wrong” in its’ assessment of his campaign finance reports, and said the media should be more focused […]
By: Tom Duggan – July 8, 2017 OCPF-contributions maldonado OCPF-expenditures maldonado According to The Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, (OCPF) an enforcement arm of the Secretary of State’s Office, Lawrence City Councilor Modesto Maldonado has taken more than $2,410 in campaign contributions that have not been accounted for. Maldonado is running for mayor […]
By: Tom Duggan Sept, 1, 2015 Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has ruled that Lawrence City Council President Modesto Maldonado has violated the open meeting law by holding secret meetings and not notifying the public of what was to be discussed or what was discussed during their secret session. Ruling The state’s open meeting law […]
July, 2015 Now that his pal Willie Lantigua is out of office, you will hardly find another politician in Lawrence as slick and sleazy as City Council President Modesto Maldonado. Maldonado was a part of the Lantigua machine. His job in that span of four years on the council was to advance Lantigua’s agenda and […]
By: Kathy Runge – January 2018 In the past month, the city has created two positions requiring fluency in the Spanish language. In December, a community liaison position in the city council office was posted requiring Spanish fluency. The council was appropriated a sum of $9K for a part-time interpreter in this year’s budget. I […]
By: Kathy Runge – Dec. 2017 The city election has come and gone and not much has changed. Mayor Rivera is happy thinking that most of the voters preferred him. We have the usual murders and mayhem. I was surprised by the number of people who came out and said they only voted for Rivera […]
THE RACE FOR CONGRESS AND THE DEMOCRAT RESHUFFLE Lawrence’s freshman State Representative Juana Matias certainly doesn’t have any self esteem problems these days. Defeating Marcos Devers in a low turnout state primary a year ago, Mattias has already declared she’s ready to replace Niki Tsongas as your next congressman for this district. Yeah… seriously. Wide […]
On September 26th, Lawrence voters will choose between 8 candidates running for mayor. Incumbent Mayor Dan Rivera is finishing up his first four-year term. The two candidates who get the highest number of votes on Sept. 26th will face each other in the November final election. The winner will be sworn in as mayor in […]
I’ve been gone for a few months and there’s so much news you may not have heard about it’ll take two months to catch up. Council Business: The Ordinance Committee didn’t have a quorum of regular members at any of its meetings during March and April. Each of the four members of the committee missed […]
Lantigua’s Money, Rivera’s Headaches and the Hotly Contested Mayor’s Race By: Tom Duggan – June, 2017 The Lawrence mayor’s seat is a four year term and is limited to two terms. The mayor is in charge of the day to day operations of each city department, from police and fire, to water and sewer services, […]
By: Kathy Runge – Feb. 2017 First, I would like to thank Mayor Rivera and Governor Baker for protecting us from the snow. Snow is easy. Snow doesn’t vote. Let’s protect the people from the evil snow! Mayor Rivera is proposing a gun buyback program. It’s scheduled to go before the council at the first […]
By: Kathy Runge – January, 2017 In December ex-District A Councilor and potential mayoral candidate Sandy Almonte verbally abused a Lawrence police officer at the scene of an accident involving her son. Elsewhere in this month’s edition she is quoted as saying: “He acted like he didn’t know me, and told me I couldn’t pick […]
Dr. William Heineman, vice president of academic and students affairs, Northern Essex Community College, is pleased to announce the appointment of students to the Dean’s List for the Fall 2016 term. To be included, students must attain a grade point average of 3.3 or higher within the term, carry six or more credits within the […]
HEROES AND BOZOS OF 2016 HERO CHARLIE BAKER – One of the most important things that happened in Massachusetts this year was the passage of a new public records law that actually holds public officials accountable for concealing public documents. When Charlie Baker was running for the governor he said on my radio show that […]
By: Kathy Runge – Nov. 2016 First, the DA can’t prove that a worker is stealing from this city because the City of Lawrence hires incompetents and can’t keep records. Please put this city into receivership! Secondly, when politicians argue for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and say “Of course we will make […]