The developer of the Exxon Mobil property fails to sign the purchase and sale agreement and pulls out from the project – as reported in the Leader Herald and the Boston Globe.
What does the mayor say to that?
“They haven’t pulled out. They’re negotiating for a better price.”
The developer of the Pope John affordable housing project pulls out of the development.
“Pope John should be used as a school…we are no longer working on this project,” the developer writes in a published article.
What does the mayor say to this?
“They have not pulled out. They’re still working on the project.”
Either the mayor is not telling the truth and making up tall tales, or the developers aren’t telling the truth and making up tall tales.
We know this, there is a disconnect between truth and reality in Everett city hall today.
The mayor is now struggling to perpetuate the myth that his reputation has been ruined by others who simply don’t like him.
He has been written about in the Boston Globe as a sexual harasser.
Recently, a former city employee who worked inside his office for many years claimed the mayor exposed himself to her when they were alone and that he repeatedly sexually harassed her, even when she was pregnant.
All lies, the mayor asserts.
The Pope John School facility is perfect for a public school in a shorter amount of time at a lower cost to house about 1,000 students who are crowded into classrooms and into closets turned into classrooms and into libraries turned into classrooms inside the public schools.
“Trailers are good,” the mayor and his staunchest supporters claim.
“Affordable housing is more important than the integrity of the public schools and the ability of the city to provide education as it is supposed to,” the mayor and his staunch followers seem to be saying.
What is right and what is wrong?
What is just and what is unjust?
What makes good sense and what makes no sense?
These are issues right now for the city council to decide. The school committee is a failure at protecting the city’s public school children. Four members of the school committee should resign for playing political games to support the mayor and to get rid of the superintendent over doing what is right for the kids of this city.
And we would remind everyone, these are Black kids, Brown kid, Hispanic kids and a few remaining white kids. They all need a better place to study and to learn.
Those preferring trailers or pies in the sky like a new high school that is going to cost $500 million and won’t be built for at least a decade as suggested by the mayor are traitors to the children and to their parents.
They are traitors as well to common sense. They should be ashamed of themselves – but they aren’t.
The moment has arrived for the city council to do the right thing about overcrowding in the public schools.
We trust and we hope this will happen.
In ancient Greece, the purpose of education was to produce good citizens. Children were trained in music, art, literature, science, math and politics.
Choosing affordable housing over using a former school facility to improve public school education wouldn’t have computed with the ancient Greeks.
It doesn’t compute here, and never will, no matter what the city government decides to do.