By Josh Resnek
Just a few observations about life in Everett as May gets ready to turn into June.
The protest in front of city hall of Everett High School students is unlike anything I have seen in covering the city as a journalist in more than 20 years.
The resignation of Anthony DiPierro was not unexpected but it is shocking never the less as it shows the mayor’s power is in decline.
It has been in decline since Fred Capone almost beat him last November when the mayor spent $400,000 to get re-elected as opposed to Capone spending less than $100,000.
It is notable that in defeat, Capone’s voice has become razor sharp and bold. He is acting very much like a candidate for mayor.
For many thousands of Everett voters in this politically divided city, Capone’s resurgence in defeat is a resurrection of sorts.
Capone represents integrity.
The mayor represents something less than that.
The mayor’s hold on the city is now officially tenuous.
He is not leading the city the city at this time.
Rather, he is attempting to control the city through the use of lawyers and their ruses.
He faces difficulties related to the longevity payments he received that totaled more than $180,000 and which should be a slam dunk indictment for the FBI or for Attorney General Maura Healey.
Healey’s statements on the Jim Braude and Margery Egan Show last week turned the tide against the mayor and his acolytes at city hall.
They are all now looking over their shoulders and wondering, what happens next?
That’s a very good question.
The mayor’s real estate deal gone sour with Sergio Cornelio, and his subsequent effort to have Cornelio removed from his city clerk’s position now becomes academic with DiPierro’s resignation.
DiPierro was proudly leading that evil charge for the mayor.
The real estate deal imbroglio is the stuff of a law suit.
The goings on in Everett reaching the likes of Healey, who wants to be governor, are what some of us would call big medicine.
The outside is coming inside and that spells disaster for the mayor.
This is a period when the mayor ought to be savoring his years of service instead of being mired in charges of racism, sexism, municipal theft, and past indiscretions about inappropriate behavior that dogs him like a tooth ache that never goes away.
A new Everett is rising as I write.
The old Everett is fading away.
And fading away with it is the exclusionary, unfair, quid pro quo city hall power structure built up over the past 12 years.
Protests in front of city hall – the Boston Globe and television and radio stations broadcasting difficulties in Everett are all indications that the mayor is in trouble.
Carlo DeMaria is facing the end of an era.
When that end comes is the question – or does it come at all?