Around Town

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Everett Police Chief Steve Mazzie set to retire in 2024 after serving for 20 years

Josh Resnek

One of the longest serving local police chiefs in the area, Steve Mazzie, has announced his intention to retire in 2024.

The announcement was not a surprise, but rather, an indication that he felt his time has come to begin the next chapter in his life.

With a two page resignation letter sent to the mayor, Mazzie thanked the mayor.

Mazzie has served on the Everett Police Department for 32 years with an unblemished record, and along the way, has made many, many friends here in this changing community.

Mazzie is descended from a local family that has served on the Everett Police Department since 1926 when his grandfather Adolph Mazzie, Sr. joined the force. His father, Mazzie’s two brothers and a sister have devoted their lives to the EPD. Mazzie joined up in 1992.

Throughout his tenure, he has been a proactive leader of the department.

“Since then (when he was appointed), the combination of policing and people, has been a labor of love for me,” he wrote in the letter.

He thanked the city government for taking a chance with him, for giving him the opportunity to create a police culture that strives to do the job with compassion, empathy integrity and the utmost care. He also promised to remain on the job until the city has chosen his successor sometime around June, 2024.

“The department is made up of good people committed to doing the right thing for the people of this city,” he wrote.Continue Reading

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Spotlight on School Committee attempt to name new superintendent in December

By Leader Herald Staff

The long-running saga over control of Everett Public Schools is set to take yet another turn, one that critics say is being engineered by Mayor Carlo DeMaria in a last ditch effort to consolidate power.

That’s how the Boston Globe described the situation exactly in a Monday piece appearing in the newspaper and online.

Just weeks after a municipal election that unseated or rejected most of his candidates for the School Committee, the lame-duck board is poised to appoint a new superintendent to replace the one he and his allies had forced out earlier this year despite objections from members of the school community, according to the Globe.

The district began the search for former superintendent Priya Tahiliani’s replacement in the fall, and according to the current timeline, is aiming to make community members are demanding the committee pause the process until the new year, to prevent the mayor and the old guard from installing a new superintendent and locking the district into a binding contract, before the new members take office in January, the Globe wrote in its Monday piece.

Voters in November overwhelmingly rejected School Committee candidates DeMaria endorsed: Of the six he backed, four lost their races, including three highly-established incumbents who were unseated by newcomers. All three current members who voted to renew Tahiliani’s contract as well as against placing her on leave won their re-election races, the Globe reported.

Put more simply, the Globe added, the mayor’s allies on the committee have dwindled, from six people on the 10-member committee to only two. The results are set to entirely shift the makeup of the governing body, with DeMaria no longer having the support of the majority. DeMaria is still a voting member of the committee.The mayor declined the Globe’s requests for comment the newspaper reported.Continue Reading

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Follow renowned local authors Arnie Jarmak and Josh Resnek as they recount life in Chelsea, Ma in the ’70s & ’80s

Rugged takes the reader on a tour of Chelsea through a first person narrative that details the truth about the city and the trials and tribulations of its people and their leaders. Rugged captures the city’s true essence in all its gritty glory and tragic history with Jarmak’s photographs cleverly woven into the sublime narrative. Volume 2 of this multi-volume series is a continuation of Jarmak and Resnek unveiling the hardscrabble city they encountered and loved when they were much younger men with their lives spread before them like an endless dream.

Click the photo above to purchase your copy of Rugged today!

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Looking at Politics

Boston Mayor should support Revolution coming to Everett instead of complaining

By Josh Resnek

Everyone with common sense in this city knows how much the Revolution soccer team building a stadium here means to Everett.

Two weeks ago the deal appeared to be done.

All kinds of bureaucratic obstacles appeared to have been overcome.

The State Senate was all set to go.

Then came Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s public complaint last week asking how a soccer stadium could be built in Everett without first consulting with her.

She was miffed. What was that about?

The city of Boston owns a sliver of land (Alford Street) abutting the soccer stadium property – now a largely unused electric generating plant with something like ten million bricks and ten story high chimneys that stand as a monument to a time long past, to ugliness, and to the ongoing effort to overcome a phalanx of useless harbor requirements and Coast Guard rules intended to keep the Everett shoreline only for industrial or water born use.Continue Reading

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Everett Kiwanis Donates Thanksgiving Meals with a great holiday effort

Special to the Leader Herald

The Everett Kiwanis Club recently donated turkeys with all the trimmings (stuffing, corn bread, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, dessert, etc.) to help local families in need celebrate Thanksgiving.

In total, the Club provided turkeys and provisions for over 150 families!Continue Reading

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60 years and counting since the day the world stood still when JFK was killed

By Josh Resnek
Editor
The Leader Herald

A photograph of JFK I cut out of Life Magazine a few weeks after his assassination has remained with me for a lifetime.

I was 13 when he was killed in Dallas on a day those of us old enough to recall it will never forget.

That photo shown in the photograph accompanying this article reveals John F. Kennedy as most of us who lived through that era remember him – handsome, impeccably dressed, and looking quite unlike any president this nation had known up to the time he was killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

With all the troubles our government has been experiencing, nothing really compares to the fracture in the nation Kennedy’s assassination caused.

Killing an American president – and he likely died due to a government inspired conspiracy – is the rough equivalent of an atomic attack on our way of life.

When his brother Robert Kennedy died from an assassin’s bullet in 1968, the nation was being torn apart by radicalism and violence with the rich against the poor, whites against Blacks, women against men, and the old against the young.Continue Reading

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Around the city…

Inflation

Virtually nothing we buy or use in our homes or which we eat at our own tables or outside, nothing, escapes the cruel grip inflation has cast upon all of us.

If you are really rich, inflation doesn’t matter. Spending a bit more to satisfy the same lifestyle is no big deal.

But if you live from week to week on your paycheck, or you are a two paycheck household, and you are living week to week on that, there is no rest for the weary.

A spate of recent economic studies indicates that owning an automobile – in other words, making a car payment, paying for insurance and putting gasoline into the car each week – costs the average American from $600-$800 a month. Think about this – operating one vehicle can cost an individual $7200 – $9600 a year!

We all need our automobiles and we also need food.

Supermarket prices for groceries, meats, chicken, fish, canned goods, cereals and on and on are rising by the week. It has gotten so that where ever we shop at a supermarket (Market Basket, Stop and Shop, McKinnon’s)prices for goods seem to fall into an average of about $5 per item. If you buy 30 items that’s a cool $150 or more compared with about half that amount just three or four years ago..

Thanksgiving dinners this year are emblematic of the effect inflation is causing. Turkey prices per pound were a bit lower than last year – but the prices for all the fixings were way up.Continue Reading

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— Eye on Everett —

If you think the Blue Suit is not real, or if you believe he is real, the following story he told me has many elements that will resonate with our readers.

At times like these, the Blue Suit tells stories that are exploding with truth while many others might say there isn’t a bit of truth to whatever he tells me.

Let’s face it, the Blue Suit is controversial figure, inspiring to some, infuriating to others, to be absolutely believed, to be absolutely castigated for taking no notes, for having no sources, and for making up stories completely that have no basis in fact.

Then there are some stories that seem to have a basis in fact, except for the harsh reality that a cloth blue suit is not a breathing, living human being capable of discussions with other human beings.

This brings whatever the Blue Suit reveals to me down to this: should we believe anything written here about the Blue Suit and what he has to say, or do we reject it everything he has to say as false and fake, and riddled with inaccuracies, talking rubbish like a fabulist.

You, the reader, must be the judge. Not me, the writer of the column, Josh Resnek or the Blue Suit, a plain cloth off the rack blue suit worn by the most important political figure in the city.

I got a call from the Blue Suit Monday morning.

“I need a ride to the MGH over in Boston,” the Blue Suit told me. “What’s going on? Anything I should know about?” I asked the Blue Suit.

“Just come and pick me up. I’ve got to be there by 2,” he asked.

I sped over to the corner of Abbott Avenue and Main Street. There he stood, bigger than life, overweight, out of shape, waiting for me and not feeling too good about having to go to the hospital.

Turns out, the Blue Suit hasn’t had a check up in 3 years.Continue Reading

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51st E Club Banquet

It was a well-attended affair at Spinelli’s with a hearty and delicious meal, first class speakers, and a rich assembly of members and followers of the E Club.

The E Club is led by Executive Director Carl Colson and President Michael LaCourt.

Councilwoman elect Holly Garcia served as the evening’s emcee.

Tony Massarotti, who is co-host of the No. 1-rated Felger and Mazz show with Michael Felger, on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, was the guest speaker. Massarotti, an author of five books and former Herald and Globe sportswriter and columnist, showcased his incredible knowledge of the Boston sports scene (and his trademark wit) in his remarks. Massarotti also took questions from guests in the audience.Continue Reading

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DiDomenico Secures Funding for New Everett High School Music Program Truck

Senator Sal DiDomenico secured funding in the state budget so that the Everett High School Music Program could purchase a brand-new truck for their competitions. The school’s marching band, percussion ensemble, and color guard will use this truck to transport their equipment as they compete and perform throughout Massachusetts and the United States.

“This amazing and talented group of students has dedicated countless hours perfecting their performances and they deserve a new truck like this one that reflects their passion and care for the marching band, percussion ensemble and color guard,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico, Assistant Majority Leader of the Massachusetts Senate.Continue Reading

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Editorials

The School Committee

We are not lawyers here at the Leader Herald.

But we’ve had enough involvement with lawyers to learn a few things about litigation.

Right now, as we understand it, Priya Tahiliani, who is technically the school superintendent but who is on paid administrative leave, is apparently being investigated or scrutinized for allegedly being ready to retaliate against ten Everett public school employees who have complained about their employment pointing out they are afraid of retaliation if Tahiliani acts on their complaints.

We believe this action placing Tahiliani on administrative leave with pay is contrived to defame her, to smear her, to make it appear she is a bad actor.

That being the case, there has been a great deal of public discussion about William Hart, the acting superintendent of schools, and whether or not he or anyone else suggested by the school committee, could become the permanent superintendent by a vote of the committee in December.

Again, we are not lawyers, but we wonder about the morality and the legality of the school committee doing anything about a permanent superintendent before Tahiliani’s “case,” “investigation” or whatever one wishes to call it, is resolved.

Such an action by a lame duck school committee would be of no benefit to Tahilani, Hart or whomever is chosen as a permanent superintendent.Continue Reading

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Everett High School 2023 Fall Sports Banquet

The star athletes of EHS fall sports honored for their efforts. (Photos courtesy of Robin Babcock)

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