May, 2024
It’s hard to imagine how a country such as ours can survive as a constitutional republic much longer when local officials in every community are free to use the agencies of government to enact revenge against their political opposition.
Yet here we are.
While the actions of corrupt Haverhill officials like Mayor Melinda Barrett and School Committeeman Paul Magliochetti are only a local issue, the fact that they so willingly commit these acts of corruption out in the open with the blessing of (actually the assistance of) WHAV media shows that the legitimacy of our “government of the people” at every level is no more.
For more than 200 years we could always rely on agencies of the media, local, state, and federal government to hold each other accountable when one goes astray and abuses their power.
That concept is no more.
Case and Point: whatever you think about former Haverhill School Committeeman Scott Wood, he is being punished for committing a carnal sin in today’s political climate. He ran for office against an authoritarian who had the support of the corrupt political machine in Haverhill.
For that, Wood was wrongly accused of being a racist, complete with a bogus allegation that he might have… maybe… sent a text message 25 years ago, using the “N” word.
Mind you, this was orchestrated with no proof of an actual text message, no chain of custody showing it came from his phone, no IP address, no actual evidence that it was even real, or anything more than something typed up on a word document twenty minutes ago.
Yet, the Haverhill City Council used the power of their governmental body to hold an illegal, secret-meeting, engaged in illegal deliberations, and then abused their authority by interfering in the mayoral election to “condemn” Wood and boost the mayoral campaign of Melinda Barrett. Mind you, Barrett sat on that very city council at the time.
Wood is also a police officer in Haverhill, so in order to punish him further for campaigning against the “equity diversity, and inclusion” mob, he was illegally refused a shift work.
That’s right, they didn’t fire him legally, they just wouldn’t give Wood a shift, meaning Wood can’t pay his mortgage.
Even after The Valley Patriot filed an open meeting law violation against Haverhill officials, – and the Attorney General spanked the Haverhill Council for breaking the law – the hacks in Haverhill government didn’t stop. In fact, they went even further, spitting in the face of the voters and the taxpayers.
Last month, Mayor Barrett engaged in yet another open meeting law violation to punish Wood for daring to challenge her quest for power. Only this time, she had the help of hack School Committeeman Paul Magliochetti, who himself has a shady background that we will be talking about at a future date.
As Scott Wood sits on the Whittier Tech School Board and is appointed by the Haverhill School Committee, Magliochetti and Barrett enlisted the assistance of the other school committee members to change the rules, policies, and procedures of appointing members of the Whittier Tech committee, to throw Wood off that board, even though his term wasn’t up yet.
To accomplish this, they discussed the issue in secret, conspired to change the policies … violating their own procedures … voted at an illegal meeting without putting the item on the agenda, and not notifying the public as required by law.
Then, they were so cocky and arrogant in their law breaking – knowing that the levers of power in state government would do nothing to hold them accountable – that they publicly posted Wood’s job while he was still there, and sent him a letter notifying him he was terminated from the board.
So, The Valley Patriot filed yet another open meeting law complaint, which will result in yet another slap on the wrist for Barrett and her cronies, who will continue to abuse their power five minutes after everyone stops paying attention again!
Where was WHAV Radio in all this? Well, they were cheering Barrett on and providing cover for the corrupt political insiders, only mentioning the possibility of wrongdoing after The Valley Patriot took action weeks after the incident. Which means Barrett and the hack insiders like Magliochetti will do it again, and again, not just to Scott Wood, but anyone else who dares to challenge their obsession with power.
Any why not?
As long as they yell “equity, diversity, and inclusion” really, really loudly, corrupt government officials can get away with – literally – anything they want. ◊