WHILE NEARLY every House Republican wants MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons to step down if he doesn’t demand the resignation of a homophobic member of the state committee, only one stands apart from the crowd: Billerica state Rep. Marc Lombardo.
Lombardo, who frequently teamed up on legislative actions with Lyons when he was Andover’s state rep., told The Sun Friday the demands from his colleagues on Beacon Hill are petty and merely an “attempt at cancel culture.”
“What you’re seeing play out in public is a foolish internal food fight between a couple of bitter state reps who ran for party chair and lost to Jim Lyons,” Lombardo said. “Those reps used the cover of some insulting comments by a state committeewoman to try to attack the chairman and drag all the state reps into their argument.”
Lyons came under fire recently for defending state Committeewoman Deborah Martell, of Ludlow, who told Congressional candidate Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette that she was “sickened” by his adoption of children with his husband.
Despite calls from nearly every elected Republican, including Gov. Charlie Baker, for her to resign, Martell has refused and Lyons has supported that decision, despite calling her remarks offensive.
On June 4, 29 House Republicans signed a letter saying Lyons should himself step down if he doesn’t change his tune, which then caused Lyons to lash out and accuse them of bowing to “poisonous woke cancel culture groupthink.”
“They’d sooner turn their backs on the bedrock American principles of free speech, free expression, and religious liberty, so long as it meant they could appease the Democrats controlling the state Legislature,” Lyons said in an email to party members on Thursday.
Lombardo told The Sun he doesn’t agree with Martell’s comments either and that they don’t represent his viewpoints. However, he didn’t respond when asked if he thinks she should face repercussions for her remarks.
“I refuse to participate in this pettiness,” Lombardo said. “I’d encourage my GOP colleagues to end their bickering and instead focus on reopening the economy and helping Massachusetts families get back to work.”
While Lombardo and Lyons said they don’t share Martell’s views, their seeming refusal to hold her accountable for her offensive remarks poses new questions over whether they truly mean what they say.
Lyons was elected as chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party in 2018, a year after he was ousted as Andover’s state Rep. by Democrat Tram Nguyen.
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TYNGSBORO VOTERS head to the polls Tuesday to settle one of the most hotly contested races for selectmen in years.
Watching the results closely will be Tyngsboro cop Daniel Whitman, who firmly said “not guilty” to each charge in a nine-count indictment alleging over $9 million in bank fraud and felony firearms charges during his arraignment in U.S. District Court last Tuesday.
Despite calls by Police Chief Richard Howe that Whitman should be terminated from the force, the Board of Selectmen have backed Whitman as the high-profile case plays out.
On Wednesday, the board will meet in executive session to consider moving Whitman to unpaid administrative leave. Howe put Whitman on paid administrative in August 2019. Whitman has been there ever since, earning to date more than $137,000.
There are four candidates for two seats on the board: Incumbent David R. Robson, Eric Eldridge, Katerina Kalabokis and Ken Pappas. One seat is open because Selectman Steve Nocco isn’t running for re-election.
If Robson is re-elected, the triumvirate that has protected Whitman — despite Howe’s recommendation — remains intact: Robson, and Selectmen Hillari Wennerstrom and Rick Reault.
If Robson gets the boot, Whitman could be out of the money — literally.
The spotlight is clearly on Robson, too. His father is the embattled animal control officer, David Robson Sr., whom Howe wanted to fire after making racially insensitive social media posts following George Floyd’s murder by former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin.
But just like Whitman, Robson was retained by Wennerstrom, Reault, and Nocco.
For obvious reasons, Selectman Robson recused himself from the case. But if Robson is re-elected, he should also recuse himself from the Whitman case since his father works for Whitman’s security company.
Realistically, Whitman’s got much bigger things to worry about, like the U.S. Justice Department. Less than two hours after entering his plea, his co-defendant in the case pleaded guilty to two related charges in a deal that could see him spend over four years in prison.
Bin Lu, 49, of Westford, pleaded guilty at noon to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and possession of an unregistered firearm before U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole. Lu had already agreed to plead guilty before Whitman was formally indicted.
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AFTER THIS humdinger of a comment, Wennerstrom is lucky she isn’t on the ballot Tuesday.
In the recent dust-up between selectmen and Town Clerk Joanne Shifres over polling hours, Wennerstrom commented that Shifres is a department head, and selectmen ought to let her do her job without meddling from the town’s executive board.
“We get a lot of backlash for not listening to the ‘hired’ professionals. And, while Joann is elected she’s still a professional. She’s a certified town clerk and understands the election laws and what is required before, after and during an election. This (polling hours) is her recommendation, and so I feel it’s important to support that,” Wennerstrom said.
Selectman Rick Reault also appeared to take some responsibility for the confusion. “We were remiss not to discuss this with her,” he said of Shifres.
Howe is aware of the comments and just shook his head.
Polling hours are from noon until 8 p.m.
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MIDDLESEX COMMUNITY College got a nice shot in the arm for its efforts in getting its population vaccinated against COVID-19 on Friday afternoon during a Zoom webinar with colleges nationwide, the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The college’s social media campaign to help boost the numbers of people vaccinated was recognized with a White House shoutout during the national call.
Middlesex has joined President Biden’s COVID College Vaccine Challenge and has been partnering for months with the teams at Lowell General who’ve been running the MVP site on Pawtucket Boulevard.
This Thursday, the college is hosting a vaccine clinic in its Lowell cafeteria at 33 Kearney Square and raffling off a free college course for one of the folks who gets the vaccine that day. There’s still slots available. Go to www.middlesex.mass.edu/ to snag one of the shots.
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IN AN election year, no amount of showboating and grandstanding is unexpected.
Take for instance, Councilor Rita Mercier at Tuesday’s council meeting.
After all the years she’s served on the City Council, we’re sure Mercier hasn’t forgotten how fiscal years and budgets work. It’s not at all a surprise that a department’s money in certain line items might be running low just a few weeks before a fiscal year ends — especially when lean budgeting was the norm in a year like the past one.
So when Mercier made a big show of there not being enough asphalt money left in the DPW budget for a new berm to be made in front of a few Barbara Street residences, it was obvious her motives were political.
“Madam manager, I’m outraged. I’m angry — $464 million and we have no money for asphalt for the people that pay taxes and our salary?” Mercier said, referring to the fiscal 2022 budget the council approved that night.
She said she was “flabbergasted” and asked if she was “in the Twilight Zone.” Referencing the city’s free cash from the last fiscal year — which the council already voted on allocating at a previous meeting — she also wondered if “we can’t take that little bit of money and fill a damn pothole?”
“Councilor, we do fill potholes,” City Manager Eileen Donoghue responded, before going into a larger explanation of the funding.
Mercier promised that at the first council meeting in July, she plans to put forward a motion to create a berm for the three houses, where the yards are being washed out by rainwater going down the hill.
“The house down at the bottom of the hill, who initiated this request, has a 6- to 8-inch depth deep, because of the washout. That is unacceptable in a city where this person and the rest of the people pay taxes and pay our salary, and I’m gonna try to deliver,” Mercier said. “Because when I go door-to-door or I talk to people, they’re not asking me about economic development or the formula for this, that or the other — they want public safety and they want holes filled in their street. These people want a berm and I want to deliver.”
Mercier, who’s been plagued by her own political issues in the past year with comments about race, racism and hate that have come off as tone-deaf to many in the current climate, is used to coming in first place in city elections. It’s clear she’s hoping to maintain that status by reminding Lowellians in the loudest possible fashion what she’s long been known for being best at: constituent services.
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SPEAKING OF Lowell City Council at-large candidates, Bobby Tugbiyele released a lengthy letter last week that asks the city to hold a series of forums to allow the community to provide input on how Lowell’s federal American Rescue Plan funding should be prioritized.
“We must be prepared and plan to start these conversations now to account for losses and vulnerabilities in our social and physical infrastructure experienced and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Tugbiyele wrote in a press release sent to The Sun. “Together, as a community, we must bridge our collective ideas with policies toward strengthening our future via investments, infrastructure, and services.”
Among the areas of focus he suggested the city consider: small business and economic revitalization, public health, housing insecurity, and green space and neighborhood integrity.
Within those overarching areas, Tugbiyele made a number of suggestions the money could be invested in, including: municipal broadband, workforce development and employment training programs, grants to help small businesses that suffered during the pandemic, hiring multilingual community health coordinators to address social determinants of health and improve access to health services, addressing health risks in public housing and improving accessibility and ADA compliance.
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WITH THE announcement that 14th Middlesex District Rep. Tami Gouveia is running for lieutenant governor, potential candidates for the district — which includes Precincts 1 and 9 of Chelmsford — are already starting to make themselves known.
In a press release to The Sun, Vivian Kobusingye Birchall announced she is exploring a run to succeed Gouveia as state rep.
“The fear of stepping forward to lead can sometimes be very real for people of color, and it is for me. As a Black woman, if elected I would be the first person of color to ever represent the 14th Middlesex District,” Kobusingye Birchall wrote. “But it is our responsibility to ‘be the change we wish to see in the world,’ and proactively diversify the political and policy space, especially at the state level.”
A resident of Acton for over five years, Kobusingye Birchall is a naturalized citizen originally from Uganda. She is married and has two daughters who attend Acton-Boxboro schools.
She currently works as production and outreach coordinator for Acton TV, and has produced shows since 2017. She previously worked for the town of Acton and Hagar’s Sisters, a local nonprofit that supports women who have experienced domestic abuse.
Kobusingye Birchall has also served on the Acton-Boxboro Cultural Council and as pro bono executive director of a Boston-area nonprofit serving African immigrants. She is on the boards of the Acton-Boxboro United Way and the Acton Memorial Library Foundation, a corporator for Emerson Hospital and a member of the Rotary Club of Acton-Boxboro.
Among her priorities would be education, racial justice, expanding women’s rights, dignified treatment of immigrants, public health, health care as a right, protecting the environment and combatting climate change.
“I am excited to begin talking to more voters throughout the district and learning about their concerns at the state level,” Kobusingye Birchall wrote. “My career thus far has centered around serving, listening and engaging with communities at local, national and international levels, and I will listen to, and work hard for, all residents of the district in the State House of Representatives.”
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FIVE DAYS after it was revealed that there was a 12-hour combined sewer overflow (CSO) that discharged 84 million gallons of rainwater mixed with raw sewage into the Merrimack River in Lowell on April 29, U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan testified before the House Appropriations Committee about the need for long-overdue federal investments in preventing such overflows.
“Each time CSO events occur, we gamble with exposing our constituents to a toxic stew,” Trahan testified Wednesday. “We can be certain that, as the climate warms and storms increase in frequency and intensity, our CSO challenge will grow worse. Please build upon the progress of the last two years and include the highest possible funding for the Sewer Overflow Control grants program.”
Earlier this year, Trahan reintroduced the Stop Sewage Overflow Act, her bipartisan legislation that seeks to expand and improve the Environmental Protection Agency’s Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grant program, which awards federal grants to states and municipalities for planning, design and construction for combined sewer overflows.
Trahan also testified in support of providing more federal funding for research on fusion energy, a renewable energy source that could help the U.S. transition away from fossil fuels.
“Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a spinoff from MIT, has already begun planning for a proof-of-concept plant in the 3rd Congressional District. I’m hopeful that America’s clean energy revolution will be born within a few miles of the birthplaces of the American Revolution and our Industrial Revolution,” Trahan said in her testimony. “Whatever approach proves to be the most cost-effective and technically feasible, fusion could serve as the foundation for our zero-carbon energy economy of the future. Our need for clean, emissions-free energy is a race against time — not only to prevent the worst effects of climate change, but also to ensure that the United States is the global leader in solving this challenge.”
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WITH THE 2022 statewide elections approaching, rumors have been percolating that Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin may not seek re-election after decades in office.
If Galvin doesn’t run, one of the most liberal members of the state Senate is eyeing the seat. Sen. Jamie Eldridge, of Acton, told The Column last week he would run for the office, but only on the condition the incumbent isn’t in the race.
Eldridge said he’s spoken with Galvin, but has no indication on which way he’s leaning.
Eldridge has flirted with higher office previously. He considered running for the state’s 3rd Congressional seat after Rep. Niki Tsongas announced her retirement in 2017.
But it was in the 2007 race for Congress where Eldridge left an impression. Then the 5th Congressional District, Rep. Marty Meehan resigned to take over UMass Lowell. In the crowded Democratic primary, won by Tsongas, Eldridge finished third.
That was quite the race: Lowell City Manager Eileen Donoghue came tantalizingly close to beating Tsongas. Finishing behind Eldridge was state Sen. Barry Finegold and the late Rep. Jim Miceli, of Wilmington.
Following the primary, The Sun editorialized on Eldridge’s strong showing that it was “a sign of a bright future.”
Should Eldridge run that would leave a massive opportunity for someone to seize his seat in the Senate which includes Acton, Ayer, Boxboro, Harvard, Hudson, Littleton, Marlboro, Maynard, Northboro, Shirley, Southboro, Stow, Sudbury, and Westboro.
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DRACUT’S RECENTLY postponed town meeting cost taxpayers $6,100. Not a large sum in an $84 million proposed operating budget, but, to paraphrase the late, great Illinois Republican Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen, “A thousand here and a thousand there and pretty soon we are talking about real money.”
A heat wave and a Bruins game conspired to cost Dracut taxpayers that sum of money by keeping voters from turning out on Monday night to form a quorum at the air-conditioned high school auditorium.
Town Clerk Kathy Graham posted a notice on the town’s web site Monday trying to assure residents that they would be comfortable inside the building, despite 90 degree temperatures outside.
A quorum for the Annual Town Meeting is 250 voters. When Town Moderator George Malliaros was set to call the meeting to order, the meeting was 80 votes short of a quorum. He recessed the meeting for 30 minutes in the hope that people would straggle into the high school. They didn’t, so the town will try again Monday night.
A police detail and custodial staff represent the bulk of costs of running a town meeting. Not included in that $6,100 was the cost of air conditioning the auditorium for no-shows.
Perhaps, the town will be luckier Monday night than it was last week and at least 250 voters will be on hand at 7 p.m. After all, the high temperature is forecast to be a mild 79 degrees. And, the Bruins were knocked out of the playoffs with a 6-2 loss to the New York Islanders.
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WHAT WOULD the author of Robert’s Rules of Order say about a recent Tyngsboro Finance Committee action? The question arises out of a vote against $50,000 for Community Preservation Commission funding that appears on a proposed warrant article for the June 26 Town Meeting.
The action took place at a recent meeting, which The Sun viewed on Tyngsboro TV, when member Marie Lambert pressed the committee to strike that appropriation for open space funding near the First Parish Meetinghouse. The funding would be used for new curbing and granite post fencing in the area.
But this project would affect her property as a direct abutter, and she said abutters were not notified of the proposal.
In normal parliamentary procedure a motion would be made, seconded, and then voted on. If someone voting in the affirmative on the motion changes her or his mind, then she or he would make a motion to reconsider.
So far, almost so good.
“I’m supporting my Finance Committee member,” said Tyngsboro FinCom Chairman Billy Crawford, as he made the motion to recommend the warrant article, but striking the line item.
“His” Finance Committee member, Lambert, then seconded the motion.
The vote was 3-0-2 — three in favor and two abstentions. Lambert was one of the abstentions. The other was Scott Pozerski.
Member Christopher Mellen, asked if it were possible to second a motion and then abstain. “That’s a good point,” Crawford said.
Then without a motion to reconsider, Crawford asked again for a vote. This time the action to strike the funds passed 4-0-1. Lambert this time voted in the affirmative to recommend against including $50,000 in CPC funding in the warrant article.
Although Robert’s Rules of Order were written in the 19th century, they are still the most widely used guide to parliamentary procedure in the country.
This week’s Sunday Column was prepared by Reporters Alana Melanson in Lowell, Stefan Geller in Billerica, Jacob Vitali in the Nashoba Valley and Enterprise Editor Christopher Scott.
