Editorials – Everett Leader Herald

The mayor’s disingenuousness

Not telling anyone he was going to Aruba for two weeks during a city emergency is one thing.

Turning up on a Zoom School Committee meeting from his vacation room in Aruba last Monday is another.

The mayor’s ruse was to attend the meeting as though he was inside his mansion on Abbott Avenue.

It was very important for him to make it like he was here when he was far, far away during a difficult time in the city’s modern history.

President Wayne Matewsky is right

City Council President Wayne Matwksy has introduced a few thoughts about the city council cutting down its sometimes endless, repetitive, over and over debate among its members about subjects great and small.

His effort, he tells the Leader Herald, is to shorten city council meetings, which can often run into midnight endings. Matewsky is smart to do this for several reasons.
There is way too much talk about nothing among many of the councilors.

The need for 10 councilors to respond to every bit on the bi-weekly agenda is like having to watch the same television commercial 10 times in a row.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Somehow everyone receiving an abatement has discovered to their great concern it was not subtracted from the total tax amount due. Tax bills showed the abatement amount, but the abatement was not subtracted from the total. I called city hall for an elderly resident who was in shock when she opened her tax bill. The woman who answered the phone was aware of the problem.

That’s encouraging.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Residents of Everett,

My family and I would like to extend to each of you a Happy and Healthy New Year greeting. We are glad that 2020 is over and like most families are optimistic that 2021 will be better. The New Year is an opportunity to envision the future, but it is also a time to reflect on the past. Like many, we have lost friends and family in 2020 to COVID 19 and other causes. Nevertheless, their spirit remains with us and they will never be forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have experienced a similar loss.

I realize that many of you are tired: tired of not being able to visit friends and loved ones, celebrate holidays together, to give someone a needed hug, to attend in-person school and work, and to enjoy your favorite places. Quite frankly, it has been a long, difficult, and exhausting year. That said, it was also a year that demonstrated our resilience and tenacity. As I reflected upon the year 2020, I was moved by how much we accomplished by working together and the countless examples of commitment to the community.

Disregarding the governor and his duties

The mayor’s trip to Aruba last week is the surest sign hat the mayor’s need to satisfy himself goes way beyond his desire to do his job and to stand side by side with his constituents during a difficult time.

Anyway, one wishes to look at it, leaving for a trip on an airplane during the height of a pandemic and returning as though he went to the corner store is not a preferred thing to do for the mayor of a besieged city of almost 60,000 people.

In addition, the mayor’s futile effort to make believe he didn’t go to Aruba fooled more than a handful of people, including some of his closest allies.

Going to Aruba when the city is in the grips of a health catastrophe that also impacts business interests and the city’s finances, is par for the course for the mayor.

Covering up the trip as though it didn’t happen is also par for the course for this mayor.