An open letter to Kathy McCabe at the Globe

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Kathy McCabe
Globe North
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/north?event=event12

Dear Boston Globe:

Katherine McCabe's excellent article on council salaries is something I've been writing - and speaking about at the council in Medford - for months and months now.   Thank you for putting the problem front and center in the Globe North this Sunday (10/20/13.)

However McCabe could have gone a little deeper into how these alleged "public servants" are really self-serving in many cases, and how they fail to do the jobs required of them.   It's obscene for Medford residents to fork over approximately $3,700 a week and have a council meet once in July, once in August and twice in September, especially during a critical election cycle when their very seats are under more scrutiny than in an off-year.

Robert A. Maiocco appears to be the highest paid city councilor in all of New England, unless there's someone else who has that distinction.  Yet Maiocco is so tightly aligned with the 26 year incumbent Mayor, Michael J McGlynn,  that his presence as the head of the city council is almost like a safeguard for the Mayor to keep dissenting opinions stifled. Where a council should be the "checks and balances" in a city, the highest paid councilor is also the Mayor's right hand man.  How fair is that?

To further complicate matters, when Maiocco and the council were asked to intervene in the TV3 debacle, the Medford Public Access station, Maiocco would point to his friend McGlynn's corner office, passing the buck instead of being proactive.

For Maiocco to take Thirty Thousand Dollars and be ineffective, that ineffective, to simply wash his hands like Pontius Pilate over key issues, is disgraceful.   Do you think the sale of Maiocco's late mother-in-law's home to the son-in-law of Michael J. McGlynn, Cepas to Brady, had something to do with such indecision?

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/medford/2012/04/recent_real_estate_sales_in_to_91.html

165 Woburn St.  — Cepas Henry Est and Iiona L. Baranauskas to William B. Brady and Kathleen M. Brady, $295,000

165
Woburn St.  — Cepas Nancy J. Est and Cheryl Maiocco to William B. Brady
and Kathleen M. Brady, $295,000 - See more at:
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/medford/2012/04/recent_real_estate_sales_in_to_91.html#sthash.Dy5zInT0.dpuf


Then there's the troubling quote from Maiocco:

“We were the only body [of employees] that didn’t receive a raise,”  said Maiocco, who is retiring this year after 30 years in office. “I  voted for the raise. I felt the council deserved a small increase in the salary."

Well, when a financial adviser like Robert A. Maicco gets hit with three complaints, one of them for 1.8 million dollars, and he has to fork over $402,000.00 for that particular settlement, you'd better believe the "small increase" was very important to a Council President more interested in fixing his tie for the camera than allowing free speech at the people's forum.  On April 9, 2013 the Council President cracked a joke about a big, dirty metal pipe saying "I could have used that a few moments ago."  The public servant was saying that he wanted to use the metal pipe on this speaker because he didn't want to allow me free speech at what he - falsely - calls "the people's forum."  But, heck, in a city where the late Sheriff DiPaola's wife is secretary and slams the phone in your ear if you call City Hall and she doesn't like you, what's a little censorship by the Wells Fargo employee at City Hall?

When the Chief of Police, Leo Sacco, calls Bob Maiocco's pipe threat "inappropriate" - there's no doubt that if Mr. Maiocco made such a comment at Wells Fargo one could imagine the company getting sued for being a "hostile workplace."

Why are these facts not in the Globe article to show that the rhetoric from the councilors defending high pay with little work effort - one local doctor welcoming the city council back from their "vacation" a few weeks ago in a most condescending - and deserved - way!


This letter won't be popular with the government officials who believe we should all "play nice" and not talk about such things.    Excuse me?  Public servants serving themselves needs scrutiny after scrutiny, especially when there is a media blackout in Medford with the Mayor controlling the press and shutting down the access TV station to the cable subscribers two decades ago.

The removal of Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. from censoring and bullying citizens only exposed the man behind the curtain, Michael J. McGlynn, who I believe has tampered with the 2013 election by not having a functioning access television station and allegedly blocking people even from Video on Demand via Comcast's Project Open Voice.   You can see my interview with Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots, but the other four videos promised me by the agency that Comcast hired, Think Argus, have been made "difficult" - and given Mike McGlynn's penchant for silencing the masses, it is clear who is standing in the way of free speech, despite the City Solicitor telling Judge Jackson-Thompson that he would find the squelching of free speech "repugnant."

More rhetoric from City Hall.   Solicitor Rumley was given his marching orders and is one of the main reasons you have no access TV in Medford.   An election in 15 days and no Channel 3 for the residents to ask questions of the city council and the mayor, despite the fact that City Hall keeps taking as much money as it possibly can from the cable TV subscribers, and no effort by the Globe or any other local publication (save mine) to look at this problem with any efficiency, effectiveness or objectivity.

Marcia Dick at the Globe is as much a part of the problem as Nell Coakley at the Transcript.  Why was there no follow-up to the revelation on Candidates Night that the Mayor's MVDC (Mystic Valley Development Commission) had to pay over 4 million dollars over the "eminent domain" at River's Edge?   Because there's no access television to trumpet the fact, McGlynn remembering how embarrassed his colleague Vinnie PIro was in Somerville back in the 80's when Dead Air Live on Somerville Community Access TV exposed Piro's wrongful conduct.

The Boston Globe's story on council pay while Maiocco is stepping down (most likely - almost certainly - because this journalist uncovered the 1.8 million complaint on Maiocco at Wells Fargo) doesn't go far enough.  It seems like a "plant" story to go after the other councilors in an election year because McGlynn lost a "consigliere" and seems to want to get his new faces in place to further keep the public in the dark.


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A LETTER TO CANDIDATE JEANNE MARTIN

To Candidate Martin: We do need change in Medford, change that has new councilors concerned about the citizens, not about themselves. One Council President fixes his tie meeting after meeting after meeting, meanwhile you refer to yourself over 18 times in the above essay. You certainly know how to spell the word "I" and that is not what the residents want. They want a councilor more concerned about THEIR needs, not the needs of a city council that takes the summer off. Yes, Medford needs change. Medford also needs people for the job who are focused on the needs of the citizens, not getting so self-absorbed that the campaign is all about them.