351,430 @ 1:23 am
Stephanie Muccini Burke
Medford City Hall (where she still hangs out)
85 Geo. P Hassett Drive
Medford, MA 02155
Dear Ms. Muccini-Burke:
Medford needs a seasoned veteran who can undo the twenty-seven and a half years of damage that Michael J. McGlynn's phony "leadership" has cost us in terms of sports (think West Medford Hillside Little League,) public access television (an uncontrolled mess that attacked you mercilessly until it had to be shuttered,) parking enforcement, road repair, the terrible condition that the library and police station are in, and so much more.
___________________________________
That you have the blessing of the outgoing Mayor, the lame duck administration, is not an appealing thought for the residents of Medford who know that real change cannot happen with remnants of McGlynn's failed team still on board.
Look at the mistake Sheriff Peter Koutoujian made by keeping Paul Camuso on the staff. Didn't Koutoujian promise to remove the Jimmy DiPaola staff AND not have employees contribute to his campaign? Were not both promises broken with the presence of your former nemesis, Paul A. Camuso?
_________________________________
Stephanie, why would you do such a Mitt Romney "flip/flop" and welcome with open arms endorsements from Camuso and Frederick N. Dello Russo, Jr., two individuals who were hardly on your side on the city council.
The voters are smarter than that, give them credit for seeing a woman caving in to the "good old boy" network.
__________________________________
As council presidents both Camuso and Dello Russo antagonized speakers - most notably the well-respected Dr. John Storella, and both have failed to put serious motions on the council agenda that would put this city forward.
The two individuals you praise on your website enabled pay-to-park, stood in the way of access television, voted for their own pay raises, have behaved in an unseemly way in their positions of authority, and now they are flip flopping on issues because there will be a new Mayor in January.
____________________________________
The residents see it, and the voters understand that a woman who once voted with the councilors who care about the people - Penta, Lungo-Koehn and Marks, has now switched sides. It is absolutely like an American defecting and giving our secrets to Russia.
__________________________________
Voters understand that with the endorsements of Paul Camuso and Fred Dello Russo Jr. that you are for Pay-to-Park - the horrible situation that residents hate and Camuso, Knight and Dello Russo were and still are all for. Oh they can feign that it "didn't work," but that's only because McGlynn is leaving and they don't want the residents to remember that they, Knight, Camuso and Dello Russo, rammed pay-to-park through without allowing the citizens to have their say, without allowing for a video to air on the government channel.
Shameful Camuso and Dello Russo are now staining your website with their smudges and tarnished voting record.
__________________________________
Stephanie Muccini-Burke's campaign is embracing all the bad things Camuso and Dello Russo did, their attacks on residents attempting to speak about drug addiction - Camuso's sophomoric "point of information" and then, his dastardly "coming out" about being in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The disruptive individual, Camuso, that you now embrace, your former enemy, betrayed his brothers and sisters in Alcoholics Anonymous, an ANONYMOUS organization for a reason, and glorified himself (at the expense of the mothers and fathers courageous enough to come forward that their families were suffering,) glorified himself in the fact that he was an alleged drunk.
____________________________________
There is something in a Twelve Step program called Step 8. Mr. Camuso violates that step every time he lurks behind city hall to blast his horn at me in the dark - and fails to apologize to me; every time Mr. Camuso provokes a senior citizen like the late Pat Fiorello or myself or Dr. Storella, Camuso violates Step 8 of the program he uses - not for its intended purpose - but to attempt to give himself the "sympathy vote."
IF the allegations of Camuso's own parents having to take an injunction out on him are true, what do you think Camuso will do to you, Stephanie, if he has another mood swing, like the unbalanced person did when he loathed McGlynn about 90 days ago, only to come back like a yo you and take his true place in life, in McGlynn's left hand pocket.
It's repulsive, reprehensible and that, Mrs. Burke, is what you embrace when you accept Paul Camuso's endorsement.
Step 8
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
How It Works
We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are
willing to make amends.
We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a
drastic self- appraisal.
Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the
past. We attempt to sweep away
the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on
self-will and run the show ourselves.
If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it comes.
Remember it was agreed at the beginning
we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.
-A.A. Big Book p.76
_______________________________________________________________
Paul Camuso is a fraud and a charlatan, your fraud friend and charlatan, someone so diametrically opposed to what we liked about you as a councilor, Stephanie, so discordant and clashing with the values that you once held, that it paints a new picture of Stephanie Muccini Burke.
You are seen as a woman caving in to the "old boy network." You are exactly like the woman who fetches the coffee for the boys' club...or carries their campaign sign in obedience and in the bondage that comes with servitude.
The joke around town is that you are Michael J. McGlynn in drag. "They both have white hair, they both are self-absorbed in their campaign rhetoric, they both say nothing with their slogans - "Leadership that Works" to "Partners in Progress," and they both put their own interests above the residents who are paying their huge, obscene salaries in these tough economic times.
It's a Faustian deal with the devil, Stephanie, and his pitch-forked demons - Dello Russo and Camuso (or should we say "Meat-cleaver carrying demons!) Don't laugh, it is all captured on video in Paul A. Camuso's mysterious and ugly performances at the city council (just watch last week's episode of Fwik and Fwak, Kamuso and Knight with each other's foot in each other's mouth) and that's what you are praising as you campaign for the highest office in the city? Where is your honor, integrity and sense of self-worth? Really, Stephanie, how can you have ANY respect for yourself kissing up to someone, Camuso, who is not fit to shine your shoes.
Your dance with the devil is so breathtakingly immoral, especially given all the suspicions surrounding McGlynn's quick exit, that tying your campaign to McGlynn's wagon when any kind of scandal could emerge to rock McGlynn's world AT ANY TIME, well, it's a bet that wouldn't fly in Vegas, just ask Freddy.
___________________________________
Stephanie, you personally told me you could go to "Homeland Security" for possible monies for a Part 15 FCC regional Medford radio station. You never got back to me while your pal, Mike McGlynn, has intentionally cheated the cable tv subscribers. McGlynn knows what transparency did to Vinny Piro, and McGlynn keeps lying about wanting to have an access TV station,. Let's look at the facts - I have stated from day 1 that the problem is the Mayor when it comes to the citizens and their ability to learn computers and cameras.
We pay for an educational tool that you and McGlynn are denying us. Mrs. Vincent Mase stated her case to the city council, she wanted her daughter to learn computers at an access TV station. I put in a proposal to put a station together, and the Mayor, rather than work with creative, gifted, talented people, takes our money and runs.
That is now on YOU, Stephanie Muccini-Burke. Your campaign, much like McGlynn's past campaigns, says nothing about what you will do for us. Your literature is so chock full of "I, me, mine" that people who follow local politics understand you are the firewall, that roadblock to transparency. You are campaigning only to continue carrying McGlynn's campaign sign. As a mayor you would still be holding on to McGlynn's campaign sign while in the corner office, and we just can't risk that kind of boomerang.
You wouldn't be your own woman, you would be a shill and a coward with your apron on, still shining McGlynn's shoes, being his surrogate in an office you didn't earn, an office you fully expect the McGlynn Machine to deliver to you. Much like Adam Knight. And we see what a disaster those tens of thousands of dollars delivered - an obnoxious adolescent who has to correct himself when he's not congratulating everyone and anyone, the only thing he's done in office.
Do you really want to be seen as the new Adam Knight after all your hard work on the council? Are you ready to tarnish that work that you did five years ago by prostituting yourself to the highest bidder? It is very upsetting to those of us who trusted you to see this betrayal play out in front of our very eyes.
When you announced you were running for office, you had an obligation, a moral obligation, to step down as Budget Director and Director of Personnel. But like McGlynn, you chose to wear out your welcome, the sweet goes sour, the milk so bitter that one has to spit it out, and the value to Medford citizens just isn't there.
There is absolutely no value in voting for Stephanie Muccini-Burke's beauty pageant.
I truly liked your work as a councilor, Stephanie, but five years later you are a different person. You have put yourself first, in front of the public you say you want to serve.
Partners in progress? What the hell does that mean? When you say you will help with radio and TV, and then you run and hide in the McGlynn inner sanctum, it just spells trouble for citizens tired of living in a city called Medford that resembles Havana. Can you, with a straight face, defend McGlynn?
Medford needs more than a spring clean, it needs total fumigation. You aren't going to fumigate the devil that you worked for over the past half a decade. It's 2:50 AM on June 15, I am very passionate about my city and about righting the ship. Barack Obama had to fix a mess that George W. Bush created, that no successor could fix fully. We have more than three times the debacle that Bush's eight years represented. And you, Stephanie Muccini-Burke, represent more of the same; extending Bush/McGlynn into the next two years?
We need a breather. We need some fresh air. Medford is stagnant, broken, no night life, a square that is useless, and a Chevalier Theater with no air conditioning, few shows to speak of, and a pay-to-park scandal that grows worse with each passing day. You, Stephanie Muccini-Burke, are part of that pay-to-park disaster. Pay-to-Park happened on your watch, and not once did the budget director write an editorial and tell the public why McGlynn's move was so wrong, and so deceitful. We thought you were our ombudsman, and you proved us wrong. We trusted you, Stephanie, and you let us down.
And now, what? You want our vote? You think you are entitled to it because McGlynn told you so? News flash to Stephanie Muccini-Burke, McGlynn's track record of endorsing candidates lately, from Erin DiBenedetto for State Rep to Carl Sciortino for Congress (Peter Koutoujian, how did you like THAT slap in the face??? That's McGlynn) to Martha Coakley for Governor. McGlynn is three for three in the loss column, and that didn't used to happen to him before.
So here you are, McGlynn's tarnished reputation with Pay-to-Park, all sorts of rumors swirling about McGlynn's real reason for telling the press in April that he's not running, and Stephanie, always the bridesmaid, never the bride, having to eat crow and put Camuso and Dello Russo endorsements on her website. A candidate who doesn't have the integrity to tell Paul and Freddy "Thank you but NO THANK YOU" is not someone who can be trusted.
Stephanie, this is about trust. You betrayed us when you left the council and left us thinking you would be our voice on the inside. Now you want us to forgive you like some battered spouse throwing their arms open to take the abuser back?
Well, if you can't say "no" to Freddy and Paul, guess what? We can say no to you. For you truly are McGlynn in drag, and one thing is for damn sure, McGlynn and the horse that he rode in on must go.