The Meaning Of Four Votes

The LaMonica-Cornelio recount last Sunday proves one thing – every vote counts in a close election.

LaMonica’s four vote victory is sweet for him.

Cornelio’s four vote loss is a tragedy for her.

If Cornelio had gotten five more people to vote for her, she would have won and not LaMonica.

The same, of course can be said of LaMonica’s effort.

He got the five more people needed to best Cornelio. Which brings us to the meaning of this short missive about the importance of every vote in a close election.

Continue reading “The Meaning Of Four Votes” →

Banning One Time Use Plastic Bags

Banning the use throughout the city of plastic bags is a positive step in attempting to control our own environment.

Restricting the use of plastic bags by banning one time used bags from groceries, markets and the such – and requiring paper bags to replace them – is a positive move a long time coming.

Most cities and towns around us have already made the change.

Why is this necessary?

Because plastic bags have a nearly 1,000 year life span. They end up fouling the environment everywhere they exist. Even sailors traveling the far ends of the earth’s great oceans find plastic bags floating in a mess, or causing the deaths of fish and birds, and of precious ecosystems which tend to die because of foreign items polluting them like plastic bags.

The council said Monday night it needed a bit more time to make a decision.

Continue reading “Banning One Time Use Plastic Bags” →

The Mayor’s Salary

Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s salary is an outrage.

The city council’s acceptance of his salary and its endorsement and approval is also an outrage.

The mayor makes more than the mayor of Boston and the mayor of Springfield and Worcester…and more than every mayor in the state of Massachusetts.

The mayor’s salary here is also OK’d by the city’s officious CFO Eric Demas.

It is believed Demas, the architect of the award winning city budget, is the architect of the $40,000 a year longevity payment to the mayor.

Demas and the budget creators have somehow managed to have the payment made to the mayor without making the record of it accessible to the public in the city budget.

Such a public accounting move in a Massachusetts municipality is truly award winning.

Nearly everyone inside city government and out understands the city charter intended the payment to be $2,500 each year for every term served by a mayor.

The mayor has received $160,000 in longevity payments during the past four years.

According to his cousin, Councilor Anthony DiPierro, nothing can be done to change this even if the council wanted to until four more years have passed.

Continue reading “The Mayor’s Salary” →

Why is Matt Maddox Stepping Down? Mystery Surrounds His Departure

Who leaves a job at $25 million a year?

By Josh Resnek

The mystery surrounding Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox’s departure from the company continues to grow in the absence of additional information first published in the New York Post and the Las Vegas newspaper last week.

The Post reported that Maddox had been investigated by the Wynn Board of Directors about a potential problem that was allegedly company related but had come up with a clean bill of health, apparently, according to industry sources.

However, Maddox leaving is big medicine in the gaming world.

Maddox sits at the very top of the premier gaming enterprise in the world, a gaming juggernaut about to explode with billions of new business when their sports betting platform takes shape and form.

Industry analysts say that Wynn Resorts is trying to get out of the hotel business, and even the casino business, in order to pay closer attention to the making of billions of dollars on Internet gaming.

Rumors circulated two weeks ago that Wynn was attempting to lease its gambling and hotel operation here to Mohegan Sun at a pretty penny while at the same time redoubling its effort to become the nation’s leading gaming on line industry giant.

Continue reading “Why is Matt Maddox Stepping Down? Mystery Surrounds His Departure” →

Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria is Massachusetts’ highest-paid mayor, but he faces blowback over his $40,000 ‘longevity bonus’

Some city officials say the annual payments are excessive, undeserved

By Andrea Estes and Jeremiah Manion Globe Staff
From the Front Page of The Boston Globe November 22nd

The mayor of Everett, a city with fewer than 50,000 residents, has become the highest-paid city leader in Massachusetts thanks to a controversial “longevity bonus” that one political rival denounced as “asinine” and the city clerk reported to the FBI as possibly illegal.

Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria was paid $236,647 in 2020, which is more even than then-Mayor Martin J. Walsh earned for overseeing Boston, a city 15 times larger. DeMaria’s base pay of $185,000 was lower than Walsh’s $199,000 paycheck, but DeMaria’s $40,000 bonus and other perks pushed his total income significantly above Walsh’s.

Defenders of DeMaria, who was narrowly reelected to a fifth term earlier this month, say that he deserves a good salary, though his spokeswoman stressed that DeMaria got no special treatment. His annual bonus has been approved by both the city’s attorney and chief financial officer.

“The salary that Mayor Carlo DeMaria earns is the same salary that any mayor elected by the residents of Everett would earn,” said spokeswoman Deanna Deveney.

But several other city officials say DeMaria and his allies are manipulating the language of a vaguely worded city ordinance to collect $40,000 a year in bonuses when he should be getting only $10,000 every four years.

Continue reading “Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria is Massachusetts’ highest-paid mayor, but he faces blowback over his $40,000 ‘longevity bonus’” →