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Around the city…

A million for kids

The city council is about to hand over $1 million to a group of Everett High School students from the city’s $47 million ARPA Fund bonanza account.

Theta’s the money given to the city to compensate for what was spent and what was lost during the COVID-19 crisis.

This is a big step for the city but it is an even bigger step for high school students here who have learned how to be empowered by speaking out, doing their homework, and working with public officials to step up to the plate with their ideas of how to make Everett a better place.

This is an amazing moment…and the kids understand this and are motivated by it.

Modular classroom spaces

In a perfect world, the former Pope John High School might already have been about half renovated and enough new classroom space made available to take the rough edge off the city’s public school overcrowding crisis.

But this isn’t a perfect world.

The powers at be wants modular classrooms and that’s what are coming.

Something like $14 million has been set aside and plans are underway and that is what is going to happen. This writer recently visited and spent some time in a modular classroom at Lynn English High School.

The result?

The modular there are pretty nice, spacious, well lit and constructed and altogether conducive for learning. Not much natural light from several smaller windows, but overall comfortable and sturdy spaces.

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Robert Van Campen’s official announcement a call to service

Van Campen’s return to politics creates a stir in the Everett electorate

By Josh Resnek

In last week’s Leader Herald we briefly discussed the return to the Everett political frying pan, Robert J. Van Campen.

The local attorney and former councilor and mayoral candidate has caused quite a stir announcing his return.

Many Everett voters on all sides of the political spectrum are wondering – what is Van Campen up to?

What is he trying to do?

One might well ask such a question.

Where is he heading with this candidacy for a ward seat? The Everett political world Van Campen is attempting a return to is a far different place than it was when he left it more than a decade ago.

His run for mayor was futile in the Everett political world when the present mayor was rising to his place of prominence as an impossible candidate to beat.

The city has changed dramatically although the politics remain recognizable.

There are many new faces inside city hall and on the various boards and commissions as well as on the city council and the school committee.

Those who follow the life and times of this city, and of most cities like it, seem to believe that every five years the city is basically a new place.

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— Eye on Everett —

Josh Resnek and the Blue Suit discuss Josh’s trip to Croatia last week…and everything that happened. It was quite the trip with some twists and turns the Blue Suit got out of Josh that reveal magical excursions to gorgeous faraway places sometimes comes at a very high price.

I showed the Blue Suit the above photograph of a guy sitting on the ferry as it made its way across the Adriatic from the former Greek and Roman ancient place called Split to Vis in the nation of Croatia. I took my family there for a wedding last week. It was quite a week.”

“What made it quite a week?” the Blue Suit asked me.

“First off, on day one when we got to London, one of my daughters lost her passport, her debit and credit cards and all her identification. She couldn’t travel with us. All our flights were cancelled – which we had already paid for, and three more flights had to be paid for me, my wife and my daughter who didn’t lose her passport. Then we had to put my daughter up in London as we made our way to Croatia for a family wedding. The new flights were about $800. The cancelled flights were about $800. Another $800 was added on for the air bnb we found for my daughter who couldn’t leave the country and for eating money because she’d have to be in London to go to the US Embassy to get a replacement passport just to be able to go home! We made many calls, frantic calls to the US Embassy. We arrived there like good soldiers at 8:00am in the morning the next day as were instructed to do only to find the embassy was closed on Monday – more trains and busses and Ubers and meals and wasted time on calls and … you just have to know that vaping and playing games on a cell should not be allowed to translate into losing your passport and everything else.”

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The Boston Celtics

With official beginning of the summer now under our belts, and as we move on with our lives, there is the matter of the Boston Celtics losing the 7th game of a rather incredible series.

For those of us who have occasionally been down in our lives, coming back is always the dividing line, the defining bit about our lives, between the men and the boys or the girls and the women.

The Celtics comeback after nearly being beaten to death by the Miami Heat in three consecutive losses was nothing a modern day sensation.

Actually, it was a miracle.

The 7th game was to have been the triumph of all triumphs, the comeback of all comebacks.

Regrettably, it wasn’t.

Instead of triumph, the Celtics failed.

In the biggest moment to confront them during this dramatic season, the Celtics chose not to show up.

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The Beginning of Summer

The beginning of another summer of our lives is always a right of passage – at least every summer has the ability to change our lives.

None of us can know how a summer will affect us…not until the summer is over.

From year to year, editorialists with a sense of adventure, and of dread, write about the summer as it is upon us.

Summer is indeed upon us.

The heat of summer has not shown its sweaty hand…but it is for sure coming.

What we do not know at this moment is who will fall in love this summer?

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