Everett MA – Page 2 – Everett Leader Herald

City spent more on holiday decorations than mortgage, rent assistance in December

Only $216K has reached needy residents so far

By JOSH RESNEK

The city has so far distributed $216,000 in rent and mortgage assistance to those qualifying for it since December, according to the mayor’s chief of staff, who reported the official figure to the city council last week.

Ironically, that amount for rent and mortgage assistance is $53,000 less than what the mayor’s office approved to spend for Christmas decorations and in fact paid for.

More $838 wreaths (about 250) were placed on light poles than applications processed (70) for working people behind on their rent and mortgages because of being laid off from their jobs.

The report from the mayor’s office produced the predictable amount of gushing and perfunctory thank you’s from the mayor’s obedient city government.

“I’m really glad at the great job you’re doing,” Councilor Stephanie Martins gushed.

She told the mayor’s chief of staff at the council’s Zoom meeting she couldn’t say enough about the mayor’s effort.

Martin Luther King

American public figures due to world acclaim do not get much bigger than Martin Luther King.

MLK was our Mahatma Gandhi.

He was our profit of peace gained over madness and doom by never using violence.

MLK got it. He understood the human mind, the human predicament, the insanity that pushes white people to injustice and hate judging black people by the color of their skin.

MLK’s life was an homage to non-violence, to turning his cheek, to being beaten and arrested, set upon by dogs, and knocked to the ground by powerful streams of water at the hands of white haters.

White America didn’t come easily or willingly to grant black people their rights.

Martin Luther King was the enemy for many white Americans.

But many more white Americans approved of him and what he stood for.

The vast majority of Christian America and Jewish America stood for him and the just cause for equality he waged a life- long battle to achieve.

When he was cut down in the prime of his life in 1968, the nation was teetering somewhat like it teeters today.

The inauguration of Pres. Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris

JANUARY 18: The United States flag flies in fro of the State House. (Photo by Jim Mahoney)

We wish the president and vice-president good luck.

They are going to need it.

The nation is rather hopelessly divided without much unifying force to bring people together for the general good.

The nation is languishing during an era when science is trashed, when leadership is missing, when there are no heroes. Biden and Harris will find exercising leadership difficult to impossible in such a jaundiced national social and political environment.

The divisions between the rich and the poor continue to grow. They will be hard pressed to do anything to change all that.

Bringing the nation together is a fantasy at this point. Certainly, they know this.
What can they do?

2020 a year to forget for gaming giant Encore

JANUARY 15: The Encore Boston Harbor resort. (Photo by Jim Mahoney)

By JOSH RESNEK

The roll-out of the anti-virus vaccines can’t come soon enough for Encore of Everett.

In Las Vegas, the Encore

Hotel and Casino there is being retrofitted into a mass inoculation site.

There is no official talk about such a thing happening here in Everett.

It is a possibility.

The sooner the entire population is vaccinated, the sooner business and especially the gaming business can get back to normal.

What exactly the new normal will be is anyone’s guess right now, but there is the assurance it will be better than what came before in 2020.

With December 2020 figures published by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission late last week, it was revealed Encore’s revenues rose slightly – about $1.8 million over November’s take.

The total take was $29.2 million, up from November’s reported figure of $27.3.

Aruba vacation reactions heated

Leader Herald Facebook page commenters not happy

By JOSH RESNEK

The mayor likes to tell his supporters that the Leader Herald is nasty, untruthful, and
involved in a personal plot – something dark and illegal – to end his mayoralty.

Our Facebook comments on his two-week Aruba vacation at a time of emergency attracted 3,800 visitors and more than 150 comments regarding the vacation.

This is what is called blowback.

After all, Everett people aren’t blind and stupid.

On the mayor’s Facebook site, under photographs of him all tan and ready to go . . . in the water in Aruba . . . this warning attributed to him is printed for all to see: “Stay at home. It saves lives.”

Whatever the mayor says about the Leader Herald is one thing.

How he attempts to deceive the people of this city writing about the value of family as the reason he took the Aruba jaunt during an emergency is something for the record books.