THE BLUE SUIT
Conversations, observations, and wide ranging discussions about things great and small all having to do with Everett between the mayor’s Blue Suit and Leader Herald editor Josh Resnek.
“What did you think of that Zoning Board meeting last night?” I asked the Blue Suit. We were eating breakfast at the Sunrise on Main Street. Great food at the Sunrise – and nice people running the place. Always friendly. The food is fresh. It is a solid breakfast experience.
Of course, eating was made almost impossible by a line of early morning admirers all wanting to shake hands or to say hello to the Blue Suit.
He took it in stride.
“Good morning. Nice to see you. Thanks for coming over to say hello,” the Blue Suit said time and again. He got pats on the back, high fives and clenched fists butting one another.
At one point, a group of DPW employees came over to him and said they wanted to speak with him “Privately.”
“Josh. Do you mind. These guys need a minute of two with me,” the Blue Suit told me.
“Josh, that means I need to be alone at the table with these guys. Get moving!”
I know when I’m not wanted.
God knows what they talked about – that is – the Blue Suit and five DPW guys.
Finally, I got my seat back. I devoured my breakfast.
Again, I asked the Blue Suit: “What did you think about that planning board hearing last night?”
A developer’s attorney appeared at the meeting to tout his multi-unit property proposal for the corner of Abbott Avenue and Elm Street.
“It was a meeting for the ages,” the Blue Suit waxed eloquent.
“It was an incredible meeting,” the Blue Suit added.
“The place was packed. People were angry. If I were a betting man, I’d say that project doesn’t have a chance,” the Blue Suit said to me.
There were so many people wishing to be heard that the meeting had to be moved from the zoning board room into the city council chamber.
Inside the council chamber, things got rough.
A well- known and respected Everett old-timer got up and spoke: “This is the wrong building in the wrong place,” he said.
The crowd cheered.
“It was that kind of meeting,” said the Blue Suit.
“It made me wonder whether or not anyone around here has a bit of common sense left,” he added.
The Blue Suit wondered what disgraced former councilor Anthony DiPierro was doing there with Frank Parker. “What was that all about,” the Blue Suit said aloud.
Good question isn’t it.
Anyway, the meeting was a mess for guy wishing to sell his home on Elm Street. It was a mess for his attorney. It was a mess for the neighbors who came out to complain and rather self-righteously at that.
“So what happens now?” I asked the Blue Suit.
“Well, Josh. I’ve had a great deal of experience with proposals such as these. First off, the Elm Street proposal is done by right unless I am wrong. This means they don’t really need the Zoning Board’s OK to move forward. The big question is whether or not the mayor will intervene. Another possibility is what the lawyer does when he returns on December 5 to the planning board with a new plan for the property, reducing the number of units and asking everyone to be pleased with his handiwork. I don’t think that will work,” the Blue Suit said.
“I also think there’s a bit of good guy bad guy going on. Why was DiPierro there? And supposedly to speak against the project? That makes no sense. He’s the mayor’s cousin. This is on the may- or’s street. The mayor’s chief fundraiser is the lawyer and the mayor hasn’t spoken up. It leaves me to wonder, what the hell is up or as Shakespeare put it so cleverly ‘mischief though art afoot.’
I told the Blue Suit is was more like what Shakespeare had to say about a bad deal.
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”