Around the city…

Waiting for the bus. (Photo by Joe Resnek)

Primary comes and goes

Like a fast moving weather front with a bit of rain, the 2023 municipal primary has come and gone, just like that, like with the snap of a finger.

The low voter turnout is a sign of the times. The lack of interest in voting for lesser election venues is nationwide.

Everett is no different from a host of cities all over the nation.

Now it is a short rush to the November finale.

Hopefully, and more likely than not, many thousands more will vote in the election.

This is the hope in a democracy where we face many hurdles with our national government, leadership in general, and the wide- spread belief held by so many Americans, that we do not know the way.

The nation has been split for quite some time along ethnic, color and voting lines.

It seems as though men are against women. Women are against men. Whites are against Blacks and Browns. Blacks and Browns are against whites. The rich are in their own space and don’t want to give away any status to the poor. There is no end to this wearying declension.

In November we will find out who the most popular municipal elected officials are in this city.

The voters are the ultimate jury. The vote is the ultimate decision.

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— Eye on Everett —

By JOSH RESNEK with THE BLUE SUIT

From week to week, me, Josh Resnek and the Blue Suit, talk about life in Everett, and about politics, and about a lot of the nothingness that tends to rule all our lives. Truth be known, the Blue Suit could talk the hind legs of a donkey. He’s got the gift of gab. He rarely is speechless. He’s always ready for an intellectual spat about issues great and small. He also loves being in the spotlight.

Everett has about 45,000 residents. It is impossible to know how many residents in the city know about the Blue Suit or read this column or read anything, to tell the truth.

In the first place, a very great number of residents here can’t read or write in the English language.

In the second place, the newspaper reading demographic has drastically changed during the past three decades. Many people 50 and under have never read a newspaper because they get their news on the Internet.

In fact, I can’t recall the last time I bought a newspaper!

That tells you how much things have changed when a newspaper publisher doesn’t buy newspapers anymore.

When I picked up the Blue Suit at the corner of Abbott and Elm Streets Tuesday afternoon, he didn’t seem right.

He was looking especially disheveled. He was wrinkled and spotted with food stains. He just didn’t seem to have that spark for life that he usually exudes and which draws people to him.

He got into my car. He sank into the passenger seat. He let out a big sigh.

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Mastrocola leads Babcock in SC Ward 4 balloting; some think race is tied

Robin Babcock faces an uphill battle to catch opponent James Mastrocola. The insurance man running for school committee.

By Josh Resnek

Thomas Messina, Jr. did not succeed in the primary last week.

Yet many believe his 71 vote total may be the difference between winning and losing for both candidates – James Mastrocola and Robin Babcock.

Mastrocola proved having a good name aids in getting out a good vote in a primary in Everett.

He scored 252 votes against Babcock, who also has a good name, but not a politically based reputation like the Mastrocola Family, of which James Mastrocola is a family member.

Babcock got 181 votes.

Babcock’s strength comes from her well known position in public school circles in Everett.

In a ward with just so many votes to go around, the battle now will be to gain Messina’s 71 votes.

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Political signage

We are publishing a letter to the editor from Jon Puopolo requesting that the city do something to curb the use of political signage or to do away with it entirely.

In a city where politics rules and where awakening is considered a political activity, the suggestion of stopping the placement of political signage all over the city is a very bold suggestion indeed.

We don’t know if residents and politicians would go for such an order against political signage.

After all, the signage only stays up for months and months as political campaigns wind down to election day.

Then, like magic, the signage disappears.

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Modular classrooms

The city is set on adding modular classrooms wherever it can, except for at the high school (unless space can be found for such classrooms).

The cost will be about $14 million, give or take a few million.

The result will be that overcrowding at most of the smaller public schools will be alleviated while overcrowding at the high school awaits a different fate.

Residents here with children, many of them, do not want their children packed into modular classrooms, or so is the claim by several councilors, led by Councilor at Large Stephanie Smith.

Smith refused Monday night to vote for the $150,000 the city requested (and which it got by a 6-4 vote) for an analyst to head the beginnings of the complex operation that will lead to the placement of the modular.

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