Everything having to do with contracts and money paid out having to do with the city of Everett belongs to the mayor.
He and he alone decides who does business with the city and more to the point, who does not do business with the city, or more to the heart of this editorial, who is not allowed to do business with the city.
The larger contracts, even if they are bid, always arrive at the same place – to the friends and allies of the mayor.
During the mayor’s 14 years in office very little has been shared in the way of contracts given to vendors other than to allow close friends and supporters to do the city’s business.
Nearly all the city’s major business tends to be done with the same allies and friends which creates conflicts of interest, favoritism, and exclusion.
In fact, the situation here is worse than that, as the mayor goes out of his way to hurt some people seeking to do business with the city by making such a thing impossible for them.
We understand giving friends business is not a crime.
The crime is excluding everyone else from eating out of the same city treasury trough.
The city under this mayor excludes Black and Brown and Hispanic owned businesses as well as businesses owned and managed by principals the mayor does not like or care for.
His tendencies publicly reveal ethnic, color, and gender biases.
The city’s money is not the mayor’s money.
Over the years, the mayor has come to believe the city’s money is his.
Before he lets out a contract, he is known to say in private to the contractor: “What’s in it for me?”
During his 14 years of doing the city’s business that way, there have been as a result state and federal investigations into wrongdoing here. The mayor was forced to sign an agreement with the FBI to provide information to them. He was wiretapped by the FBI. He is believed to have received a commission for the Monsanto land sale to Wynn Corporation, as reported in Superior Court case filings.
It is believed the mayor remains a free man because he is an FBI informant, or at the very least, a provider of information to the FBI.
Many people who know how the mayor does his city business wonder how he is not indicted.
The FBI could tell us that, but the FBI won’t admit anything.
The mayor is also believed to hold silent partnerships in a variety of real estate locations here in the city – and just this week we heard a “straw” may be buying properties for him around the Everett Memorial Stadium, which he is believed to be selling.
Where does this end?
It ends in federal court one day for the mayor. Maybe that day comes. Maybe it doesn’t.
This we can assure our readers and the taxpayers and residents of Everett – that Fred Capone and Gerly Adrien’s may- oral candidacies represent a chance to change the course of history here.
Unlike the mayor, Capone and Adrien are not driven by greed and jealousy to exclude capable people and companies from doing business with the city of Everett.
Adrien and Capone have pristine records.
The mayor does not.
It is time for the voters of Everett to begin considering a change.
We believe this is happening right now.