Lawrence Mayor Lantigua has brought nothing but chaos and has no plan By: Robert O’Koniewski, Esq. – July, 2010 When Mayor William Lantigua took over city government in January, he promised a break from the business as usual that we have seen under all previous administrations. His rhetoric may have been lofty, but it belied the […]
Corruption 101: Willie Lantigua, Lenny Degnan and Patrick Blanhette, By: Robert O’Koniewski, Esq.- June, 2010 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts comprises 351 cities and towns. From the Berkshires to the Cape, 350 communities and their leaders play by the rules and actually follow the laws as written. Then there is Lawrence, where apparently no rules or […]
Is it time for City Councilor Grisel Silva to resign? By: Robert O’Koniewski, Esq., – March, 2010 Just how far Lawrence can sink has yet to be seen. The recent events surrounding Mayor Lantigua’s insistence on keeping, and then resigning from, his State Representative job certainly has enabled us to plunge to the […]
Valley Patriot Questions Tsongas, Governor Patrick on Spending By: Tom Duggan – January, 2010 LINK: How Some of Your Money Was Spent Deval Patrick: As the senator said, we have had to close a multi-billion dollar budget gap in the last few years, nine billion dollars, actually over the last 18 months and we have […]
By: Robert O’Koniewski – November, 2009 The votes are in and Lawrence finally has met demographic expectations to attain its first popularly elected mayor of Hispanic descent. We will not use the trite adjective of “historic” to describe State Representative William Lantigua’s victory over District E City Councilor David Abdoo, as that has really […]
By: Tom Duggan – October, 2009 ELECTION EDITION Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan is finishing his final term because the city charter limits the mayor’s job to two, four year terms. Sullivan defeated Isabel Melendez in 2001 and Marcos Devers in 2005. Ironically Willie Lantigua endorsed and supported Isabel Melendez in ’01 but flipped in ’05 […]
By: Tom Duggan – October, 2009 Only half of the ten candidates running for mayor in Lawrence filed their campaign finances reports with Lawrence City clerk Billy Maloney by the September 15th deadline before the primary. By state law, candidates for all municipal offices must record and file a detailed accounting of all money raised and spent on […]
By: Tom Duggan – September, 2009 There are ten candidates running to replace Lawrence Mayor Mike Sullivan in the September 22nd city primary elections. The top two candidates will face a runoff election on November 3rd. Here is a snapshot of each candidate. David Abdoo Abdoo is the District “E” city councilor representing South […]
By: Tom Duggan – July, 2009 An investigation by the Massachusetts office of Campaign and Political Finance may not have issued their report yet on which elected officials benefited from campaign material printed in the Lawrence Public Schools I’m gong to tell you who they right now. At least three members of the Lawrence School Committee (Morris, Larocque and Mejia) benefited from literature printed […]
Israel Reyes at the center of lawsuit over allegations on May Street By: Paula Porten December, 2008 Former Lawrence City Councilor and candidate for Mayor, Israel Reyes, is wrangled in a lawsuit involving May Street Partners, LLC, Reyes Group, Inc. and several properties on May Street in Lawrence. May Street Partners owns the […]
PAYING ATTENTION! with Tom Duggan Former Congressman Jim Shannon Endorses Tsongas By: Tom Duggan, May 16, 2007 Niki Tsongas, the front runner in the race for the 5th congressional district visited the city of Lawrence last night at the opening of her Essex Street headquarters only feet away from city hall. Tsongas is […]
By: Atty. Robert O’Koniewski – February, 2007 Recently a local Latino publication bemoaned in inflammatory racist terms the development of the Wood Mill by Robert Ansin. The writer speculated that the development would lead to an influx of 500-600 white residents into Lawrence. The writer was rather upset that this anticipated white migration into […]
By: Tom Duggan – June, 2006 It was the usual circus at last nights meeting of the Lawrence City Council’s Housing Committee as Councilor Nilka Alvarez, (who is supposed to chair the meeting), completely lost control, allowing the meeting to degenerate into name calling, accusations of racism, a spate of misinformation, and a […]
EDITORIAL When the average voter goes to the polls during local elections, he is usually not thinking of party politics. During local races, average voters look at individual candidates and cast a vote based upon which man or woman can serve their community better. A candidate’s party affiliation rarely comes to play during local races. […]
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 […]