The allegations made by City Clerk Sergio Cornelio against the mayor have a solid ring of truth. Revelations that the mayor recently received $96,000 of Cornelio’s money after threatening Cornelio’s financial well-being with the possible loss of his job, as well as a threat to cut the city clerk’s office budget, unless Cornelio gave him the money is one more reason for voters in this city to remove Mayor Carlo DeMaria from public office.
What the mayor did to Cornelio, threatening him, demanding money from him, receiving $96,000 from him for nothing but to satisfy the mayor’s greed, is a crime against Cornelio, a disgrace for the office of mayor of Everett and it is an abuse of his position, his authority, and his power as the mayor of the city.
The mayor could do such a thing with any number of people who are scared, indeed, petrified they could lose their jobs unless they satisfied his whims.
The mayor’s payment from Cornelio for $96,000 is a dark moment in mayoral history here.
We received many comments about the over-development story we published on the front page last week.
We made the case that the city needs development but that over-development must be stopped.
Lexington St. dwarfed by new a building. (Photo by Jim Mahoney)
Why?
To save the neighborhoods from being trampled and changed so that they are unrecognizable.
The city needs a cohesive development schedule or plan.
Presently, anyone can build anything they want (so long as the mayor is their friend or benefactor).
We need more planning for development than now goes on at city hall.
The vision the mayor has of a great Everett metropolis like Sinclair Lewis’ mythical city of Zenith in his great novel, “Babbitt,” is not going to happen here.
Everett’s charm, if you will, is not found in monstrous apartment houses and now planned for skyscrapers – although the eastern side of the Parkway is a good place for giant developments like that.
Our colossal failure in Afghanistan makes us laughing stocks to the world.
The world’s greatest power defeated by gun-toting, woman-hating, sandal-wearing violent Islamic ignoramus’ is a pathetic happening for us as a nation.
We should be ashamed we spent so much time there – and for what?
To create a western-style democracy out of a medieval cesspool in a place where the Taliban cut off hands and arms, feet, and heads to remind everyone just who is in charge.
The real crime is that we were led down this path by “experts.”
Our generals were crap. Our national security and intelligence experts were crap. Everything we did was crap, and we should have known this before spending $1 trillion in that primitive state.
It is a term, a nickname if you will, that describes the mayor perfectly.
The mayor demands to be paid for whatever he does as the mayor, and for things he does as a private citizen because he is the mayor.
He has blurred the line between public service and municipal corruption.
One of the chief misfortunes of the city of Everett is that, for the most part, the mayor is ruling over honest people. One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.
What do we mean?
Honest people find it impossible to stand up to the mayor because he is so dishonest. He’s a bully. It is hard to stand up to a bully surrounded by the loyal bullies on his payroll.
About the alleged kickbacks…the mayor has conflated the notion that if he approves a development in the city, the developer owes him something in kind for receiving the city’s approval as though he had done the developer a favor.
This is part of the mayor’s essence. Many in Everett have accepted it as a way of life here.
Just as many are now busy rejecting such bad behavior.
