By Dr. Charles Ormsby – December 6, 2005 ANDOVER, MA – John Doherty had a lot of family history to uphold. His family had lived in Andover for over 150 years and the Doherty Elementary School is named after his uncle, Bill Doherty, after he served 39 years on the Andover School Committee. John’s […]
November, 2005 The running joke before last week’s election was: “who is going to LOSE by a wider margin, Marcos Devers in Lawrence or Ellen Bahan in Methuen?” Well, Ellen won that one, but not much else. She lost the mayoral race to Bill Manzi by a margin of 28% to 68%, a resounding victory […]
November 14, 2005 North Andover is having its Special Town Meeting on December 5, 2005, yet everyone I speak to want to know why. The meeting was initially scheduled so that voters could decide on whether or not to rezone the Lucent Technologies site now owned by Ozzy Properties. Ozzy Properties want to rezone […]
By: Tom Duggan – November, 2005 With 80,000 plus people crammed into six square miles, Lawrence has been a very attractive (and profitable) place for poverty pimps to ply their trade: mainly, strong-arming local officials to give them government money for their so-called non profit organizations. Of course, these poverty pimps pretend that their goal […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL November, 2005 Some Massachusetts legislators are always seeking newer and better ways to mug the Massachusetts taxpayers. The ongoing effort to allow the children of illegal aliens to attend state colleges at the same cost as legal residents, rather than at the higher out-of-state rate, is another example of flouting the […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – November, 2005 Harvey Gibeau was born in Lawrence in 1923 and after high school he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s. He vividly remembers the ever-present sense of patriotism that prevailed. Patriotism was a common household word and was an expected personal trait in his family. In […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL October, 2005 Last month, the City of Lawrence held a preliminary municipal election for mayor, school committee and city council. Less than 20% of the 32,000 registered voters bothered to participate. With more than 70,000 people living in the city of Lawrence that means less than 9% of the population bothered […]
By; Michael R. Sweeney – October, 2005 A moment of clarity. After all is said and done that is what election results, whether a primary or final, provides to those seeking public office and to the people who support them. Some candidates grow under that light and some crumble. This past primary night in […]
By: Tom Duggan – October, 2005 Last month the North Andover School Committee approved measures to evaluate academic expectations and goals for students in the North Andover School System. School Committee member Charles Ormsby made a motions, which was unanimously approved. The motion was to intended to support the school committee initiatives adopted last […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL September, 2005 Amid much dissention and psychological trauma, Israel has withdrawn all Israeli settlers from Gaza. Regardless of debates concerning who lived in Gaza first, or who should be entitled to live there now, or whether withdrawal will reward the terrorists, Israel has chosen to pull out. Right, wrong or otherwise, Gaza […]
By: Charles Ormsby – September, 2005 NORTH ANDOVER – Alexander Milne rarely speaks of his wartime experiences, even with fellow veterans. Such conversations were uncommon even with his brother, Donald, who served on the Battleship Texas at Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and who passed away two years ago. Alex found it difficult to […]
By: Barbara Peary, M.Ed. – January, 2005 My 10 and 12 year olds like to play board games. Whoever wins gloats for quite a while after the game ends. Any solutions? An effective rule to initiate is to always have the winner clean up. Picking up the pieces, sorting them, putting the lid on the box, […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – January, 2005 We have been bombarded with news stories recently detailing the abysmal state of public education in the US. It is a theme I have been preaching for decades and a disaster that I am now witnessing up close and personal. The spate of recent articles was prompted […]
PAYING ATTENTION WITH TOM DUGGAN By: Tom Duggan – August 25, 2005 Lawrence City Councilor Marie Gosselin is always complaining about the “measly $97 a week” she gets paid for being a City Councilor. And she is right, of course. Lawrence School Committee members and City Councilors should be paid more for the amount of […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL August, 2005 You cannot put a price on democracy. Yet, the city of Methuen recently tried to cancel their preliminary election, officials said, because too few candidates took out nomination papers. Why have a preliminary election, they asked, and spend thousands of tax dollars when most races for mayor, school committee and city council are uncontested? […]