Valley Patriot 1st Amendment Lifetime Achievement Award
The Valley Patriot bestowed its highest honor Friday to Michael R. Sweeney with the 1st Amendment Lifetime Achievement Award. The Award ceremony was held at the Firefighters Relief In. Presenting the award to Sweeney were 1st Amendment warriors and media personalities Michele McPhee and The Guy From Boston Joe Ligotti.
Michael Sweeney was first a School Committee member in Lawrence, then he was a city councilor, then he was the planning director under Lawrence Mayor Mike Sullivan. Through all his positions in Lawrence, Michael Sweeney has been a whistle blower and confidential source on more corruption stories than anyone!
In fact Sweeney was involved in the Valley Patriot’s very first front page story in 2004 when the school committee was spending thousands of tax payer dollars dining after school committee meetings and the best part about that was…. that the school committee members who were dining on lobster and steak on our dime were also members of the finance committee charged with approving those expenditures.
Sweeney also helped expose
- leaking toxic chemicals at the Lawrence Water treatment plant
- The National Red Cross throwing flood victims into the streets
- Corrupt developers getting sweetheart deals on city land after paying off members of the city council
- exposed workers compensation fraud
- single handedly stopped the raiding of the Veterans Memorial Stadium restoration funds
- was a source on the story that got the Valley Patriot sued…
- Illegal Dumpping at the Lawrence Cemetery
- Theft of Lawrence City Computers
- and dozens of others
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOq7Gsoh2ug&w=360&h=260]