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 […]
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: 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 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 […]
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 […]
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: Tom Duggan, May 3, 2016|820pm The Lawrence City Council refused to tear down a crumbling building owned by one of their own councilors by refusing to take the measure up as an emergency. The roof of the building has collapsed and the cinder blocks at the top of the building and are […]
By: Tom Duggan – 2-22-16 The Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF ) has fined two Lawrence City Councilors and warned a third because of campaign finance violations from the last city election. Lawrence City Councilor at Large Nilka Alvarez-Rodriguez, who has served more than 10 years on the city council, was fined […]
HEROES – REP. DIANA DIZOGLIO (Methuen) and STATE SENATOR KATY IVES (Newburyport). Both DiZoglio and Ives worked tirelessly to get my public records bill a fair hearing in sub committees, made sure they were voted out of those committees favorably, held strong on penalties for law breakers, and then forced a full vote in the […]
By: Kathy Runge – December, 2015 Merry Christmas and greetings from Apache territory! In a pre-election article published at editorialweek.com, Jose Alfonso Garica’s website, South Lawrence was referred to as Apache territory. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be offensive to Apaches, Anglos, or both. This man works for the school department. It’s been […]
By: Tom Duggan – Dec. 11, 2015 The recall efforts against Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera was dealt a critical blow Friday as recall supporters fell 655 signatures short of the 5,645 required to trigger a special election to throw Rivera out of office. This is only one of two recall efforts to unseat Rivera. Both recalls are being […]