February, 2011 Valley Patriot readers will recall that last summer, residents living near the Shawsheen River reported the smell of raw sewage and a foul, cloudy discharge coming from a stormwater drain behind the South Lawrence East School. In May of last year, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent a letter to Lawrence DPW Director […]
SCULLY RETURNS! By: Tom Duggan – February, 2011 When Lawrence School Superintendent Jim Scully was fired by the School Committee back in 1997, the injustices were numerous. He was accused of misspending public dollars by a School Committee that had approved every single expenditure they fired him for. The press, in particular Boston […]
Corruption, Law Breaking, And No Solutions for Troubled City PAYING ATTENTION WITH TOM DUGGAN By: TOM DUGGAN, FEBRUARY 8, 2011 Well, the Willie Lantigua administration celebrated it’s one year anniversary last month and a quick review of his first year in office has proven to be one of the most disastrous years for the […]
Scully talks of his departure from Lawrence in 1998, the challenges Haverhill faces and the controversy on his salary By: Tom Duggan – February, 2011 Former Lawrence School superintendent Jim Scully has been hired as the new superintendent in Haverhill. Valley Patriot president Tom Duggan interviewed Scully on WHAV last week about his […]
Fire Chief Resigns at Council Meeting, opposes taking job out of Civil Service… Council Backs Mayor By: Tom Duggan, February, 2011 After months of personal attacks and shoddy treatment by the Lantigua administration, Lawrence Fire Chief Murphy spoke out at a Lawrence City Council meeting last month saying he opposed taking the Chief’s job out […]
Freedom of Information Laws MUST be Respected Valley Patriot Editorial February 5, 2011 Lawrence Mayor Willie Lantigua seems to think he owns the City of Lawrence. Since taking office in January of 2010, the Boston Herald and The Valley Patriot have reported Lantigua refusing to comply with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. Those are requests […]
January, 2011 Northern Essex Community College’s laboratory science associate degree, which prepares students for biotechnology jobs, has just received the highest endorsement from representatives from the biotechnology industry. The college’s program was one of eight community college programs to be endorsed by the Massachusetts Life Science Education Consortium (MLSEC) and one of four colleges […]
By: Attorney Robert O’Koniewski – January, 2011 As the New Year dawns, the fiscal clock is ticking for Lawrence. It should be a watershed year for the folks residing at 200 Common Street. It is do or die time, just as the state prepares to send even less money to cities and towns this […]
By: Peter Larocque -January, 2011 As we begin 2011, should we even dare ask this question? It would seem to me that before we place a list of complaints at the feet of our Public Schools we should at least let them know what our expectations are! It is totally unfair to our public […]
By: Jamison Tomasek – January, 2011 It would be helpful to read Part 1 of this from last month’s Valley Patriot, but to briefly recap the first article finished with the conclusion that Lawrence is a city that votes overwhelmingly Democratic and this influences any election where the people of the city play a […]
By: Jamison Tomasek – December, 2010 I was recently a candidate for the Massachusetts State Senate representing Andover, Dracut, Lawrence and Tewksbury. I have time on my hands to write this because I lost the election. While doing well in the towns, I lost Lawrence, and I lost it big. Voters, VP readers or […]
By; Robert O’Koniewski – December, 2010 Recently state treasurer-elect Steve Grossman was whining in the press about legislation his pal, U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), had filed to legalize on-line video poker across the country. Grossman’s gripe? Legalized on-line poker would hurt, allegedly, the Massachusetts state lottery’s revenues and the almost $900 […]
By; State Representative Paul Adams – December, 2010 An Eagle Tribune story last month called into question the source of campaign money spent by State Representative-elect Paul Adams and even insinuated that he lied about his background and work experience prior to the election. Adams issued this press release a few days later, and, […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL NOVEMBER, 2010 Election night 2010 was stunning for many here in Massachusetts, but the results were not always what we hoped for. Many of us worked hard on campaigns, taking time away from families and jobs to help elect our favorite candidates. When the candidates we worked for were defeated, it […]
By: Robert O’Koniewki – November, 2010 If one had paid the slightest bit of attention to the progression of the latest gubernatorial election one would not have been surprised that Democrat Deval Patrick topped Republican Charlie Baker to grab the governor’s office for another four years. The result seemed to possess some shock to […]