VALLEY PATRIOT BASH The Valley Patriot’s 16th Anniversary BASH! will be held at the Firefighter’s Relief In (2 Market St. in Lawrence) on March 27th. Tickets will be available on Eventbrite.com. MARK YOUR CALENDAR. If you enjoy our news coverage please consider making a $1 donation HEROES AND BOZOS OF 2019 HERO – SENATOR DIANA DIZOGLIO Newly […]
By: Brian Genest – Deember, 2019 It was a memorable year in Dracut. Unfortunately, it was memorable for a number of self-inflicted struggles, shenanigans and scandals at town hall that are going to be hard to forget. For a small town, there sure were a lot of big happenings in 2019. Shortly after the beginning […]
If you enjoy our news coverage please consider making a $1 donation December 18, 2019 Methuen Mayor Jim Jajuga has asked the courts to delay – once again – the December 16th arbitration of the Police Superior Officer’s Union Contract dispute. The city has asked for the postponement until March 10th-12th putting the controversy square in the […]
Last week, a Methuen City Council meeting degenerated into a circus, complete with an orchestrated political attack on newly elected mayor Neil Perry. First, City Councilor Steve Saba (who campaigned against Perry) had his brother get up at public participation to lay the groundwork for a later discussion about Perry’s “rumored” choice for a new […]
Ethics Commission Issues “Letter” to Secretary of the Commonwealth Galvin The State Ethics Commission issued a Public Education Letter today to Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin to resolve allegations that he violated the conflict of interest law. According to the letter, Secretary Galvin, a candidate for re-election in 2018, benefited politically from early […]
The election of a new mayor and city council in Methuen, and the impending departure of Mayor James Jajuga will mark the end of conflict, chaos, and controversy that has divided the city and left Methuen’s reputation as a national disgrace. Over the last two years of the Jajuga administration the mayor refused to fulfill […]
BY: Bharani Padmanabhan – Oct. 2019 On September 24, 2019 Governor Charlie Baker suddenly declared a public health emergency and invoked MGL chapter 17 § 2A, which allows the Public Health Commissioner to “during such period of emergency, take such action and incur such liabilities as he may deem necessary to assure the maintenance of […]
October 29, 2019-3:30pm Campaign supporters of Methuen mayoral candidate Jen Kannan – chairman of the Methuen City Council – is calling on her opponent Neil Perry to release his personnel records from Raytheon where Perry has been a top executive for the last few decades. This afternoons press release from the Kannan campaign reiterates her […]
October 1, 2019 The Methuen Police Superior Officers Union has issued a public statement disputing public claims that there was sleight of hand or that two different contracts were used to deceive the city council. The claim is, one contract had “stacking language” in it which grew the police salaries larger than the contract that […]
By: Brian Genest – September, 2019 So much for a nice, quiet summer in Dracut. In recent weeks, a tidal wave of self-inflicted bad news has washed over town hall. With a flood of lawsuits, potential legal issues and plenty of well-deserved scrutiny, it certainly hasn’t been a day at the beach for Town Manager […]
By: Bharani Padmanabhan – Aug 2019 Governor Charlie Baker did nothing over four long years to fix fundamental regulatory problems at the RMV. This led directly to seven innocent people being killed. Charlie owns those deaths. In order to escape censure and future oversight from the Legislature, Charlie bribed them by signing the budget without […]
By: Brian Genest, August, 2019 Have you ever dealt with the Conservation Commission in Dracut? Did the board require staked haybales and siltation fence for your project? Would you be surprised to find out the town didn’t comply with that standard requirement or other environmental regulations for its own Beaver Brook trail project? “Where we […]
Hello Valley Patriot Readers, The devastating events of September 18, 2018, which destroyed homes and buildings in communities in North Andover, Lawrence and Andover will be long remembered. With negligible assistance from the Columbia Gas, residents turned to social media for help and called daily for relief from my office. Not only was restoration […]
Fellow Committee Member Says DiZoglio Should Resign Last month, we learned at an open meeting that whistle-blower Ian Gosselin – the business manager of the Methuen Public Schools – told School Committee member Nick DiZoglio in early 2018 that school finances were out of whack and that the budget numbers were fake. DiZoglio didn’t inform […]
PDF of the August, 2019 Valley Patriot Read in our Flip Page Viewer