By:Tom Duggan – October, 2007 District “A” – Council president survives … barely Lawrence city council president Patrick Blanchette rightly brags that his family name has been on the ballot in the Prospect Hill section of Lawrence for more than 25 years. However, the embattled District “A” councilor nearly lost his seat on […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EXCLUSIVE By: Tom Duggan – October, 2007 NORTH ANDOVER – Tracy Watson has announced to The Valley Patriot that she will run for the Board of Selectman this March. There are two open seats for Selectmen this coming election with the announcements from Selectmen Licciardello and Xenakis of their intentions not to […]
An exclusive interview with Bob Ansin. By: Tom Duggan – October, 2007 Earlier this month, several erroneous Eagle-Tribune stories alleged that Robert Ansin, CEO of sustainable development company MassInnovation, was running out of funds and that asbestos was found inside the Monarch on the Merrimack building. On Sunday, September 16, the Eagle-Tribune ran a […]
October 10,2007 Election season is in full swing here in the Valley with a special congressional election in the 5th district this month and the general municipal elections in November. Few people, however, seem to care. During the Lawrence primaries last month, only 12% of registered voters bothered to brave the 80 degree weather and […]
PAYING ATTENTION! With TOM DUGGAN By; Tom Duggan – September, April, 2007 Did anyone else notice in the Alabama Eagle~Tribune’s story on Ethics among elected officials on Sunday quoted Lawrence Council President Patrick Blanchette without mentioning that he had his city council office renovated out of the DPW budget, all the while he was […]
Ansin Offers Condo Buyers a Refund Most Refuse & Stick with Monarch Project In the face of adversity, developer’s commitment to sustainable business practices goes beyond environmental concerns By: Tom Duggan (09/21/07) LAWRENCE, MA – The Eagle~Tribune’s bogus hit piece (story here) on sustainable developer Bob Ansin’s $200 million “Monarch on the Merrimack” project (Valley Patriot […]
“I will Support a Border Fence and Deporting Illegals” September 21, 2007 Fifth District Congressional candidate Jim Ogonowski visited Lawrence again Friday morning holding a press conference at the Lawrence Fire Station on Lowell Street. Ogonowski spoke for ten minutes before a small crowd of Lawrence residents declaring his support for deporting illegal […]
Eagle~Tribune Hit Piece Costs Ansin $40 Million PART 1 WEB EXTRA By: Tom Duggan (09/20/07) An Exclusive Interview with Bob Ansin (Part 1) Sustainable developer Bob Ansin has pumped $25 million dollars of his own money into the Monarch on the Merrimack project (MIRACLE ON MERRIMACK ST) to revitalize the old Wood Mill on […]
By: Robert O’Koniewski, Esq. – September, 2007 On the threshold of Labor Day weekend as the unofficial close of summer approached, many of us were enjoying the last throes of warm weather, or preparing our children for the new school year, or just plain wondering “Where did it all go?” In Lawrence, however, […]
By: Tom Duggan, September, 2007 Most Lawrence residents know Francisco Urena as the city’s Veterans’ Services Director, but long before Urena came to work for the city of Lawrence he was serving the United States Marines in the 1st Tank Battalion in Iraq. Urena was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in […]
By: Tom Duggan (09/05/07) An ethics complaint has been filed against Lawrence City Councilor Nunzio DiMarca for a trip he admittedly took to Italy last spring. DiMarca’s plane fare and expenses were all paid for by a local businessman whom he openly lobbied for at the city council table and behind the scenes with other elected […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL September, 2007 Thanks to Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan, police officers in Lawrence will not be laid off this year, a firehouse will not close and DPW workers will be able to continue maintaining Lawrence’s ball fields, streets and sewer system without political interference by the Lawrence City Council. Over the last three […]
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – September 05, 2007 In our July edition, I wrote an article entitled “Snookered” that analyzed a highly questionable pro-override campaign postcard distributed by North Andover United (NAU) just days before our recent override vote (See figure below). The group’s postcard cited home sales statistics for […]
PAYING ATTENTION EXTRA! (video here) By: Tom Duggan – August 28, 2007 Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan marched into city hall Thursday night to a packed city council chambers. Hundreds of police and firefighters crowded the hall bearing signs that chastised the city council for trying to cut public safety in the city. Mayor Sullivan took […]
By: Tom Duggan – August, 2008 James Desrosiers does not like to talk about his troubled childhood growing up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, but mentions that he had lacked any goals and had no real direction in school. At 17 years old, Desrosiers joined the military and was ordered to run two miles. “Two miles?” […]