Basketball – Everett Leader Herald

Hoop dreams on hold at EHS

An array of shoe colors line the bench of Everett’s varsity girls basketball team during a game at Everett High School last season. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso)

Pandemic puts winter sports season on the bench, local towns virus rate too high

By LORENZO RECUPERO

The Monday after Thanksgiving is supposed to be the day high school basketball teams get to dig in.

In Everett, it’s marked the first official day of the winter sports season, when nets are set free and shots go flying.

This past Monday, though, Everett High School’s gymnasium remained shuttered to sports events, blocked by the ongoing pandemic still denying organized sports in the area.

Everett and other surrounding communities, including Chelsea and Revere, are still ‘Red Zone’ areas where COVID infection rates are too high to allow organized team sports within the public schools.

So, instead of athletes bouncing balls, the court at EHS remains scuff-less and is now being used as an E-Learning center to accommodate students who are unable to learn from home.

What would have been a day of excitement and try-outs turned into a day without basketball, a development something Head Coach Stanley Chamblain laments.

Donated basketball nets disappear from mayor’s home

A donated basketball net has been removed from the driveway of the mayor’s home on Abbott Street. (Photo by Jim Mahoney)

Electrical Department lighting remains on nearby pole

BY JOSH RESNEK

The professional grade, expensive basketball net and stan- chion that arrived in front of the mayor’s home on Abbott Ave- nue about a month ago has disappeared.

According to a local resident, she saw it being removed and taken away on Thursday.

Where it has been taken is another matter.

Remaining on a light pole outside the mayor’s home is light- ing put up there by the Electrical Department shortly after the basketball net and stanchion arrived.

The lighting would have illuminated the mayor’s driveway and the net for evening play.

That basketball net and stanchion was one of three donated to the city by Catholic Memorial High School.

Again, they were intended as a donation to the city – not the mayor.

They are worth about $10,000 each.

They apparently were not purchased by the mayor as that would have been an Ethics Department violation of the firstorder.

The mayor is not allowed by law to purchase or to receive gifts worth more than $50.

What’s up with the basketball nets, Mr. Mayor?

When an expensive gift by Catholic Memorial High School of three professional style basketball nets and stanchions apparently hijacked with one of them ending up in the mayor’s driveway and two more in front of a friend’s home, we are left to wonder aloud, again and again.

What is going on?

Does it matter that the mayor appears to have taken a gift for himself and for his friend?

Does anyone care?

Do the folks at Catholic Memorial care?

We are led to understand they do care.

Were the nets and stanchions given to the mayor and his friend or were they donated by Catholic Memorial to the city. It is one or the other but not both.

The mayor insists privately that the Leader Herald is attempting to smear him, that “everything is legal.”

But is it legal for the mayor to accept such a gift when it was intended for the city?

Of course not.

— Eye on Everett —

Hoop Dreams

BY JOSH RESNEK

I guess the mayor was trying to create a bit of wonder and question among his neighbors about the NBA basketball net and stanchion that showed up at his home on Abbott Avenue about three weeks ago.

The piece, one of three donated to the city of Everett by an official at Catholic Memorial High School, found its new home in the unlikeliest of places – in the mayor’s front driveway.

The piece is valued online at about $10,000.

On the same day the mayor received the basketball net and stanchion, a dear friend of his received the other two given as presents to the city of Everett.

That represented a gift of about $20,000.

They are now standing in front of the mayor’s friend’s home on the North Shore. I told the person who received them that I would not reveal who he is because he is not a municipal employee like Jerry Navarro, the mayor’s chief supporter and cheerleader at city hall (who we call the “Paperboy” because he steals the Leader Herald for the boss).

As a municipal employee, Navarro is bound by the state’s conflict of interest statute, Chapter 268A because he is the one who received the basketball nets and stanchions from the official at Catholic Memorial High School on the strict and uncompromising conditions from him that they were being donated to the city of Everett – not to the mayor and a friend of his who lives on the North Shore.

To take these pieces and then to give them, one to the mayor and two to his friend, constitutes a violation of Chapter 268A.

In other words, the mayor cannot accept such a gift from his head cheerleader and the head cheerleader cannot dole out the gifts to the city as presents to the mayor and his friend. It is stunningly clear but simple violation of the ethics laws he is bound by as a city employee.

The mayor can’t accept the donated basketball net and stanchion and take possession of it by putting it in his front driveway because it is worth too much money.

Continue reading — Eye on Everett —

Gifted hoop ends up in mayor’s driveway with no explanation

A full sized basketball hoop in front of 75 Abbott Ave. on June 9, 2020 in Everett, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Mahoney)

BY JOSH RESNEK

Three professional level basketball nets and stanchions donated by Catholic Memorial High School to the city of Everett have found their way into the mayor’s driveway and to a friend’s driveway, with no explanation, yet, coming from the mayor.

“He is upset and disturbed by this,” a source told the Leader Herald regarding the Catholic Memorial official who made the donation in behalf of the high school to the city.

The three Under Armour professional level nets and stanchions are advertised on the Internet and Amazon.com for about $12,000 new. The donated pieces have barely been used. They are in pristine condition.

Their estimated value is about $30,000.

Under Chapter 268A of the Massachusetts General Laws, the mayor and his aide, Jerry Navarro, who took the pieces from Catholic Memorial for the city, are liable under that statute if it is proven the basketball nets and stanchions now in private use were intended for public use in the city of Everett.

“The Catholic Memorial official who made the donation to the city of Everett will stand by his word,” said the source.

“These were for the city specifically, not for the mayor and his friend,” he added.

Continue reading Gifted hoop ends up in mayor’s driveway with no explanation