Quite a contrast
By Josh Resnek
When Senator Sal came out to bring the greetings of the State Senate to the good people of our city attending the mid-term festivities at city hall Monday night, he did it with class and style befitting a longtime senator.
He made short remarks noting that we are all basically family here and that families, in general, seated in the council chamber, deserved credit for aiding the elected public officials who were about to take their oath of office for the new session.
His comments were greeted with strong applause.
Senator Sal always comes prepared and ready to go.
He would not appear otherwise. You can put your money on that. He entered the council chamber with Everett State Rep. Joe McGonagle, who was neither prepared nor ready to go.
McGonagle seemed lost, like a guy with the flu or a virus bothering him, smothering him, and making it almost impossible for him to say anything approaching coherency.
From the moment he began his greetings from the Massachusetts House of Representatives, he kind of stumbled through a few thoughts that were having trouble being recited together.
At one point, he stopped altogether, with an empty gap that many of those who packed the council chamber certainly felt.
Then Mcgonagle appeared to gain a hold of himself temporarily.
“I guess I must have lost my train of thought,” he said.
His remarks ended shortly after that.
He took his seat behind the podium.
This was a moment Mcgonagle wishes he could retrieve – but he can’t. The damage is done.
With reports that Councilor Mike McLaughlin is going to run against him this time around, the rep better spruce up his act just a bit to meet the challenge or he will assuredly be gone.
He will be no match for McLaughlin unless he is bright eyed and bushy tailed every day until Election Day in November.
Mcgonagle has been and remains a popular guy.
McLaughlin on his tail is disconcerting to him.
Mcgonagle has taken on the persona of the guy up on the Hill too busy doing the peoples’ important work that he doesn’t really have the time or the interest to prepare meaningful remarks for the swearing in of the new city council and school committee.
McLaughlin will campaign like a survivalist in the forest foraging for food trying to stay alive.
McLaughlin has the energy and the desire necessary to take on and to defeat an incumbent rep.
If they meet in political battle and McLaughlin wins, he can serve as both councilor and Mcgonagle, something he might be inclined to do and to do rather well.
If McLaughlin wins and Mcgonagle loses, Al Lattanzi could be appointed councilor by the right of succession guaranteed in the city charter if McLaughlin resigns his council seat.
What thing that would be for Lattanzi, and for his best friend the mayor.
That won’t happen.
On the other hand, many voters might insist that McLaughlin take one position and the keep the other during the campaign. He could be made to make such a promise.
Promises however are made to be broken.
Another important factor in a McLaughlin rep race is that Mcgonagle is the mayor’s guy.
McLaughlin is not the mayor’s guy.
If McLaughlin were to win, this is a very bad sign for the mayor of worse things to come.
Some of this was visible inside city hall Monday night where the Paperboy Gerry Navarro appeared disappointed with the mayor’s speech and his apparent lack of sincerity, even refusing to applaud the mayor many times during the speech.
The Paperboy wore a noticeably glum expression on his face.
Last, it would appear Gerly Adrien will not be running against McGonagle, at least this is what she has told McLaughlin.
Look for McLaughlin to shortly announce he is running against McGonagle.
Capone a liar?
The mayor has set off Councilor Fred Capone by recently calling him a liar during a council session.
The mayor doesn’t care for Capone.
Capone doesn’t care for the mayor.
The political cartoon appearing in today’s Leader Herald on page 4 likely spells the end of whatever remained of their relationship. Capone’s letter to the editor appearing in today’s Leader Herald says it all in Capone style – and if Capone runs – his style will be a mirror of the sentiment expressed in that letter.
That is to say, he will not get down into the gutter with the mayor. Capone wants to show the people of Everett who the liar is. Capone is an Honest Abe Lincoln compared to Mayor DeMaria. There’s only one Kickback Carlo.
One is enough, Capone will tell the people.