416 hits in the past 24-36 hours
7,928 page views in past 30 days
130,895 all time page views
Medford's Most Trusted News Source!
_____________________________________
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.
__________________________________________
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.