How to Reverse Federal Testing Potlatch, Improve the Education of Low-Income Students

How to Reverse Federal Testing Potlatch, Improve the Education of Low-Income Students

By: Sandra Stotsky – April, 2015 The past 50 years have witnessed the strange evolution of the chief instrument of the federal government for improving the education of low-income children—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Since its inception in 1965, it has morphed from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s effort to provide more and better […]

Family and Friends of Murdered Child in 1985 Trying to Raise Money for Headstone

Family and Friends of Murdered Child in 1985 Trying to Raise Money for Headstone

The friends and family of a child murdered in 1985 are desperately trying to raise money for her headstone 30 years later.  By: Tom Duggan – 4-26-14 In 1985 a middle school student at the Kane Jr. High School in Lawrence was brutally stabbed to death by her step father after she came forward to school […]

Paying Attention with Tom Duggan – April 25, 2015 – A Gravestone for a Murdered Child, Media Manipulation and the Death Penalty

Paying Attention with Tom Duggan – April 25, 2015 – A Gravestone for a Murdered Child,  Media Manipulation and the Death Penalty

CLICK TO LISTEN TO OR DOWNLOAD HOUR 1 CLICK TO LISTEN TO OR DOWNLOAD HOUR 2 Today Tom and Paul interviewed the sister of Michelle Pimentel a 7th grader girl who was murdered by her step father 30 years ago and still does not have a grave stone on her grave. Other topics, should 16 […]

Man Who Recorded, Interfered with Arrest is Himself up on Drug Charges

Man Who Recorded, Interfered with Arrest is Himself up on Drug Charges

        UPDATED 4-23-15 – CLICK ALL 4 IMAGES ABOVE TO READ According to documents obtained by the Valley Patriot, the man involved in videotaping police officers and walking between police and suspects during a a drug arrest, (see initial story below) is himself on charges for drugs. Initially, identified as Jay Carattz by an on […]

Lawrence Councilor Files Open Meeting Law Violation Complaint Against Council, Neighborhood Carnival Runs Afoul of Law

Lawrence Councilor Files Open Meeting Law Violation Complaint Against Council, Neighborhood Carnival Runs Afoul of Law

Lawrence City Councilor Marc Laplante (District F) has filed an Opening Meeting Law complaint to the City Clerk claiming that the city council approved the use of the South Lawrence Common (O’Connell Park) for a carnival without giving proper notice to city residents.   The Lawrence City Council has held several illegal meetings without notifying the […]

Rutland DPW Superintendent Gary Kellaher Hired His Son – Fined $2,500 for Conflict of Interest Law Violations

Rutland DPW Superintendent Gary Kellaher Hired His Son – Fined $2,500 for Conflict of Interest Law Violations

The State Ethics Commission approved a Disposition Agreement (“Agreement”) in which Rutland Department of Public Works (“DPW”) Superintendent Gary Kellaher admitted to violating G.L. c. 268A, the conflict of interest law, by hiring his son into a seasonal DPW position without posting the position.  Pursuant to the Agreement, Kellaher paid a $2,500 civil penalty. According […]

Running for Acadia in Boston

Running for Acadia in Boston

By: Alex Talcott – April, 2015 Chylothorax is unfortunately not the genus of a beautiful spring flower. It’s the congenital lung disease that took the life of a day-young Durham child two Aprils ago. Kristin and Alex Talcott, parents of the late Acadia Jeanne Talcott, still think of their daughter as strong and of early […]

Carly Fiorina: On Charity, China, Crime, and Citizenship

Carly Fiorina: On Charity, China, Crime, and Citizenship

By: Alex Talcott, April 17, 2015 (Expected 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina was chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999-2005 after positions at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. She was the 2010 Republican U.S. Senate nominee in California and now resides in Virginia. Since 2014, the Unlocking Potential Project has been her primary political cause, […]

Teen from Tennessee Arrested on Terrorism Charges for Making Bomb Threats at MA Schools

Teen from Tennessee Arrested on Terrorism Charges for Making Bomb Threats at MA Schools

5-17-15 A joint investigation by the FBI Boston Division and detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department in Nashville, TN led to the overnight arrest of a South Nashville teenager suspected of making bomb threats to three high schools in Whitman and Brockton, Massachusetts. The schools involved are: Brockton High School, Whitman-Hanson Regional High School and […]

Lawrence Contractor Penalized $46,150 for Asbestos Violations Found During Inspection in Burlington

Lawrence Contractor Penalized $46,150 for Asbestos Violations Found During Inspection in Burlington

Licensed Asbestos-abatement Contractors Working at Commercial Building BOSTON – The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) penalized two asbestos-abatement contractors $46,150 each for violations found during a routine inspection of a work site at 64 Cambridge Street in Burlington. All State Abatement Professionals of Plaistow, N.H. and Cruz Abatement and Contracting Services of Lawrence had […]

Haverhill Police Station Sprinklers Recalled, City Officials Never Replaced Them

Haverhill Police Station Sprinklers Recalled, City Officials Never Replaced Them

By: Tom Duggan – April, 2015 Earlier this year The Valley Patriot published a report concerning the health dangers of leaking windows and the long term effects of the leaking roof at the Haverhill Police Station. These issues have existed going back to the actual construction of the station in 1998 and resulted in mold […]

From Syphilis to Global Warming in 500 Years

From Syphilis to Global Warming in 500 Years

By: Christine Morabito – April 2015 In the late fifteenth century, the cause of disease was still a mystery. Astrology, on the other hand, was “settled science.” After much debate, a consensus was reached concerning the highly contagious sexually transmitted disease, called syphilis. The so-called French Disease arose from the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter […]

A Tax-week Talk with Former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson

A Tax-week Talk with Former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson

By: Alex Talcott, April 14, 2015 (Mark Everson of Mississippi is vice chairman of alliantgroup tax specialists and the former Commissioner of Internal Revenue, directing the IRS from 2003-7. He also worked in the federal Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Justice as deputy commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service during […]