Mayor Carlo DeMaria – Everett Leader Herald

Stealing from Everett’s kids is like stealing from the church

The mayor is refusing to shed light on his involvement in an apparent scheme to divert a donation made to the city by Catholic Memorial High School of three professional grade basketball nets and stanchions worth tens of thousands of dollars to himself and a friend.

The mayor received one of the nets. It was delivered to his front driveway. A friend living in another town received two. They were placed in front of his home.

As usual, the mayor is telling friends and anyone who will listen “not to believe what you read in the newspaper.”

In this instance, we believe that is bad advice, short of the mayor explaining how the basketball net ended up in his driveway when the net was donated by a Catholic Memorial High school official to the city of Everett.

The mayor may believe he owns the city and the city treasury.

He does not, however, cannot take for himself and for his own use expensive gifts given to the city. For that matter, ethics regulations would not allow him to receive gifts of any kind over the price of $50 in value.

The appearance of the basketball net in the mayor’s driveway is made worse by the Electrical Department two Fridays ago installing lighting on a city pole to shine upon the basket for nighttime use.

As we understand it from the source of the donation at Catholic Memorial High School, the three baskets were handed over to city employee Jerry Navarro. Navarro allegedly knew exactly what to do with the donation, which was to have them delivered to the mayor’s driveway and the driveway of the mayor’s friend.

City won’t stop $750 an hour pay for mayor’s legal tab

Some members turn blind eye on Pappalardo fee

By JOSH RESNEK

During these trying times there is always the hope that the city council will stand up and be counted when the mayor’s wastefulness, greed and his foolishness, go well beyond the boundaries of common sense.

Except for several councilors, most of those from the business private sector are afraid of the mayor, the way city employees are afraid of the mayor, the same way the mayor would like the Leader Herald to be afraid of him.

When the mayor informed the city council several weeks ago that the city will be paying his attorney $750 an hour to review what is written and spoken about him in the local press and on the Internet on social media, most members of the city council looked the other way.

Now, with the city laying off hundreds of employees to plug a debt hole that cannot be filled, residents, quite rightfully, are questioning why they, the taxpayers, should be paying the mayor’s self-generated legal bills.

The city council’s quiet about the matter is predictable. No one wants to get involved. No one wants to challenge the mayor.

The mayor is a Donald Trump clone the way he treats people. He is much worse the way he spends taxpayer dollars. He says one thing. He does another. What’s on his mind is himself.

Every councilor knows the city paying for the mayor’s legal representation is wrong, a total waste of taxpayer dollars when the ship is sinking but only three councilors will stand up and be counted: Fred Capone, Gerly Adrien, Mike McLaughlin.

— 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 —

Mayor hypocritical about race

The mayor’s call for racism to be considered a city health emergency is ludicrous given his absolute disregard for inte- grating the city’s entire workforce for the past 12 years.

The mayor has steadfastly stood against the integration of the city’s workforce and the make-up of every department in this city during the past decade. A simple count of the numbers of minority people working for the city reveals the mayor’s ap- palling disinterest, with breathtaking honesty and simplicity, in hiring minorities to position with the city.

It is typical of the mayor’s transparent smoke and mirror public announcements to complain righteously about racism while overseeing a city of minorities where the minorities are under- represented across the board when it comes to who the mayor hires.

The mayor’s hypocrisy is so naked and raw that his attempt to be considered a man for all seasons by the city’s minorities is made to appear ridiculous.

There are so few men and women of color and ethnicity employed by the city that it stands as a daily reminder, and as a depressing embarrassment, to all of us who care about integration that it hasn’t yet happened in Everett.

Continue reading Mayor hypocritical about race

Bent, spindled and mutilated

thumbnail-2 — A look at the entrance to the Parlin Memorial Library. (Photos by Jim Mahoney)

Many seem not to care about poor state of city libraries

BY JOSH RESNEK

Mayor Carlo DeMaria is continuing his plan eviscerating the Everett Public Libraries by laying off all of its part-time employees.

Such a move at a time when the libraries could be used to disseminate information and to continue programs during the time of Coronavirus is a step in the wrong direction, according to those familiar with the workings of public libraries.

But why should we be surprised? The mayor who once proudly boasted that he went through four years at Northeastern University without ever setting foot in the “library” has embarked on a plan to make the Everett Public Libraries irrelevant, just like – in his opinion – the people that the libraries serve.

The libraries have been closed since March 15. The online possibilities have neither been explored nor implemented by the mayor and his management staff during the virus crisis.

The first step in the mayor’s Machiavellian plan was to reorganize the governance structure of the libraries and take control away from an appointed Board of Trustees (in most cases, people who actually use libraries and know what they are for) and place it under his direct control.

This being accomplished, the newly named and reorganized Board of Trustees no longer has any responsibility for the management of the libraries and their role has been relegated to deciding how to spend the interest generated by the Parlin Trust. And, of course, the members of the Libraries’ Board of Trustees, still continue to collect the $2,000 per year stipend for serving on the Board.

In addition, a number of local library advocates believe that the mayor’s appointments to the library trustees of family members, who are collecting their annual stipend for doing, essentially, nothing constitutes a conflict of interest or violation of the prohibition on nepotism here.

Continue reading Bent, spindled and mutilated