Blogs and Clean Government

The Valley blogosphere takes down Mazza-Moriarty.

 



No one has said so officially, but the controversial nomination of Springfield City Councilor Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty to a position that she appeared to be the least qualified candidate for seems to be dead. In no small measure she lost the job, which had once seemed a certainty, due to pressure from citizen-based media.

In the past, there were few barriers to placing undeserving hacks in high-paying taxpayer financed jobs. When Francis Keough was made the homeless shelter director, a position for which he had no known qualifications, the cries of outrage from homeless activists were censored. When Gerry Phillips was made director of a city job training center, a position for which he had no known qualifications, the cries of outrage from educators was censored. When Brian Santaniello was made Election Commissioner, a position for which he had no known qualifications, the cries of outrage from good government activists were censored.

In those days, if you didn't own a printing press or a TV or radio broadcasting tower, and the powers that be that controlled those presses and broadcasting towers decided not to report your point of view, then you were just plain out of luck. Oh, you could do like I did and print your own little zine and pass it out on the streets, but then the power players would point at you and say "If he had any credibility, wouldn't he be working for a newspaper or broadcasting station?"

Well guess what? We don't need your fuckin presses or broadcasting towers anymore!

Today every individual with access to the internet is a printing press. And a TV Show. And a Radio Program.

WE ARE ALL MASS MEDIA NOW!

The day of their monopoly control over the dissemination of information is over.

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S MEDIA!

The revolution is already underway and the revolution will be blogged.

When it was announced that Councilor Mazza-Moriarty was being recommended for the 65 to 70 thousand dollar job as administrator of the International Baccalaureate middle years program at Van Sickle Middle School, it was reported at first like a done deal, despite the fact that as reported in the Springfield Republican yesterday these were Mazza-Moriarty's qualifications:

A homemaker, Mazza Moriarty taught algebra from 1998 to 2000 at the High School of Commerce and has a master's degree in business administration from Western New England College.

However, the supposedly less qualified competitors for the job brought these credentials to the table:

Officials said the other two finalists were Catherine Luke, of Chicopee, and Donald A. Lacharite, of Warren.

Luke has a doctorate in education, is a consultant and has experience in the International Baccalaureate Organization programs, officials said.

Lacharite has 15 years of experience as a principal in Leominster and at Brookfield Elementary School and White Brook Middle School in Easthampton, officials said.

No sane person could compare those contenders and conclude that Mazza-Moriarty was the most qualified. But no one could have said so about Keough, or Phillips or Santaniello or so many others who in the past simply waltzed into their positions past far more worthy contenders. So what' the difference?

Citizen's media. No longer can those in political control determine what the public knows. No longer can they control how much coverage critics can receive, if any. Today a sleazy deal can have a public spotlight cast on it by any member of the public that cares to cast it. It doesn't really matter much whether the blogosphere even covers a certain story, the very fact that it exists and could cover it makes it something that political people must take into account before taking any action. No one wanted to have to defend the Mazza-Moriarty appointment to the army of bloggers that would have descended had she been appointed. Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty was the Valley blogosphere's first scalp.

Trust me, she will not be the last.

Here's the latest on my brave brother:

We are back at the hospital this afternoon -- It is a special room where the air is controlled so that we don't share with the rest of the hospital. Since nobody is sure what the rash is yet, we cannot put other patients at risk. So, this time I not only have to gown up and mask up, I also have to glove up. Have you ever keyboarded with gloves on?

Mr. Tough Guy just about did himself in this time. His temp was spiking last night and we have orders to call at a certain temp, but he didn't want to. I said "I'm calling the hospital" He said,"No!" He was sure it would go back down and be OK. I chose to not call, but just kept monitoring it every half hour. So, when we arrived at the Infusion Center this morning, it was still up and everyone was scurrying around to get antibiotics and antivirals started. The nurse just looked at us and said, "Like was your phone broken last night?" We felt pretty stupid.

It has been a tough day for sure. Lots of temperature fluctuations and chills. They just checked his temp and it was 103.4. So some more meds are on the way. We are set to stay until his white cell count goes back up -- probably 5 days. I am feeling relieved and I think he is too. It is a lot to manage on our own and a lot of important decision making involved. Life and death decisions. That will all be done by the professionals now.

God is good and we know that He is in our corner. We continue to pray for a great outcome from this transplant. Sometimes it seems like the treatment is worse than the disease, though. Thanks for being there for us.

We love you all,
C & J

This morning it was only five degrees out! However, that did not prevent me from catching the dawn express from Northampton to Amherst. 

The mist was rising on the Connecticut River as we crossed the Calvin Coolidge bridge. 

Slowly the sun rose over the farmfields of Hadley.

 



The church next to the Hadley Town Hall was bathed in twilight. 

Finally, here's my new year's resolution. 

A guy goes to the supermarket and notices an attractive woman waving at him. She says hello.

He's rather taken aback because he can't place where he knows her from. So he says, "Do you know me?"

To which she replied, "I think you're the father of one of my kids."

Now his mind travels back as he looks with panic into her eyes, "My God, are you the stripper from my brother's bachelor party that I made love to on the pool table in the basement?"

She looked into his eyes and stated calmly, "No . . . I'm your son's teacher."

Truth at Last in Springfield

Better late than never.

 



I must say I am pleased with the article in yesterday's Springfield Republican about the Springfield homeless shelter's recovery from years of corruption. The Stephanie Barry article did a nice job of summarizing the total picture of what went on at Springfield's homeless shelter under the now imprisoned former director Francis Keough. It isn't a pretty picture:

The charges accused Keough of fleecing the homeless charity through no-show job scams, stealing appliances and other goods for his personal use; trading subsidized housing vouchers for sexual favors; and using shelter employees (working on public time) and the homeless to spruce up his residences.

Yet this was a man who was once the City Council President, and when then Councilors Kateri Walsh and Barbara Garde demanded that Keough be removed from power after he was indicted on (the original) array of charges, politicians all over the city leaped to his defense. Now all who ever defended Keough or allied themselves with him politically, must now hang their heads in shame.

Especially gratifying was to read this passage from the article:

A former Springfield City Council president who pleaded guilty to tax evasion in the late 1980s, Keough seemed a curious choice when he was hired in 1994 over the strong objections of homeless advocates in the city.

A real estate developer with no experience in human services, Keough was hired after the board fired director Margaret Cahillane without cause. Social service leaders at the time pointed to a platform he championed on the council to limit affordable housing in the city.

"I'd be hard-pressed to think of a worse choice," Bernie Cohen, then-president of the Affordable Housing Alliance, told a reporter when Keough's hire was announced.

However, Keough ran the shelter with its more than $1 million annual budget with little public strife until a federal corruption probe drew him in.

For years I have been pointing out that Keough was chosen for the homeless position even though he had no known qualifications for the job and applicants with their doctorates in social work were passed over. However, it was impossible, outside of the Valley Advocate, to get anyone else to point out this obvious truth. Many are critical of him today, but it was not so easy to attack Keough when he was at the height of his power.

It is especially gratifying that it is the Springfield Newspapers who are now verifying my observations. After all, it was David Starr, the president of the Springfield Newspapers, who was on the board of the Friends of the Homeless at the time Keough was hired and his paper editorialized strongly in Keough's behalf. Of course they left that important detail out of the story, but hey, at least they finally admitted the truth that those who opposed Keough's hiring were in the right all along.

Still, there is more that could have been said. Why was Springfield's political establishment so damned and determined to put a sleazy character like Keough into a job he was neither qualified for nor deserved? We will never know the full story, but what is known is intriguing. 

At the time Keough was hired, a major corruption probe into Springfield by then State Attorney General Scott Harshbarger had just been concluded. That was when Keough was indicted while Council President, and the charges against him were eventually settled with a plea bargain. Among the terms was the agreement that Keough would testify fully about any other political figures that Harshbarger wanted information on.

Which figures? According to the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, the target of Harshbarger's probe was Congressman Richard Neal. So when all of a sudden Francis Keough was given this juicy job with all these opportunities for self-enrichment (which apparently he took full advantage of) it was hard not to wonder whether this was a way to make sure that the guy who had agreed as part of his plea bargain to rat on everyone else would keep his mouth shut.

But what matters now is to see the Springfield Newspapers finally coming clean about some of these things and thereby sending a much needed message to all of our local media that the time has come to finally tell the truth. 

At lunchtime at UMass a DJ and a soundboard suddenly appeared.

 



Students arrived colorfully dressed and wearing masks. 

The following flyer was passed out to everyone:

This is NOT a protest.
This is NOT a rally.
This is a parade.

It's time for all of us, from wherever we may be from around the world, to come together.
For all of us, as a people, to unite.

There is too much separation in this world and we need to start fixing that. Change has got to start somewhere. Why not have it be here?

Join us and dance.
Join us and sing.
Join us....
because together...we can...
we will make things change.

So dance, dammit, while you still can.

Springfield Fish That Got Away

 

In an unsigned article in the Valley Advocate last week in their "Splash" section, someone who may or may not have been Maureen Turner wrote about the declining drama of the Springfield, Massachusetts corruption investigations, stating:

Perhaps the disappointment comes from the creeping sense that, after years of providing the best show in town, the feds have more or less closed up shop in their public corruption probe. While we've seen a flurry of convictions of late, it's been a long time since we've been treated to a nice, juicy indictment - and there are plenty of creeps still hanging around the city who deserve one.

Oh yes, indeed there are! And if in fact the probe has petered out (although never underestimate the FBI) then what better time to take stock of the fish who got away. Here's an incomplete listing:

Congressman Richard Neal - In the 1990's corruption probe by former State Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, both the Washington Post and the Boston Globe reported that the real target of the investigation was Congressman Neal. Even the Springfield Newspapers admitted as much, but only after the probe was safely over.

Harshbarger failed to bag his congressman because longtime Neal crony and confidant Francis Keough, after at first promising to co-operate with Harshbarger as part of a plea bargain, developed a bad case of amnesia. Perhaps more importantly, Harshbarger developed a bad case of gubernatorial ambition, and feared that pressing the probe would alienate the Western Mass Democrat machine. Although Harshbarger backed off, it still left hard feelings. When Harshbarger ran for Governor in 1998, at Neal's instruction the local Dems sat on their hands as a act of vengeance.

So when later the FBI came around, it seemed like common sense that they would pick up the ball where Harshbarger had dropped it and go after Neal again. That seemed especially likely when another key Neal ally, Raymond "Papa Ray" Asselin went down in a hail of indictments. The Asselins were handling a lot of federal funds administered through federal programs, meaning a close working relationship between Neal and Asselin was essential. Did that close relationship lead Neal to know anything about all the dirty deals that went down?

When shortly after his arrest Asselin was spotted prominently dining with Neal at The Fort restaurant, it was seen by many as an important signal to the local Democrat machine members: We're standing by the Asselins so KEEP YOUR MOUTHS SHUT! Apparently it worked, as no prominent local Democrat ever spoke against either of them. Although wiretaps insured that nothing could save Papa Ray from a lengthy prison term, amazingly not a drop of mud ever splashed on Richie.

Mayor Michael Albano - Oh how his enemies salivated at the thought of watching the TV footage of the former Hizzoner being taken away in handcuffs. But although almost the entire top echelon of his administration were either disgraced, indicted or convicted, Albano himself somehow escaped scot free. However, he cannot escape the judgement of local historians, who will certainly declare him to be the worst mayor in the history of Springfield.

Rep. Saco Catjakis - In his heyday he was a Mr. Fixit known to have his fingers in many pies. His indictment seemed a certainty after federal agents raided his home, but to everyone's surprise no charges were ever filed.

Atty. Raipher Pellegrino - Once regarded as the wonderboy of Springfield politics, former City Councilor Raipher fell in with a bad crowd, namely Albano and his pals the Ardolino brothers. By the time the voters threw him out of office, Raipher was known as a cynical deal maker whose name was associated with numerous shady and controversial affairs. People expected that a series of indictments would clear the air, but while the feds made it obvious that they were looking at him very closely, in the end nothing happened.

Ray Jordan - Even while he was in office charges of conflicts of interest dogged this former state rep. It seemed natural that as the feds did their homework that they would take an interest in his controversies. Not only did that not materialize, but Jordan, never known for his humility, now brazenly poses as an elder statesman in the Sarno for Mayor campaign.

Robert McCollum- The plunging of the city into debt over the building of palatial school buildings of dubious need came to symbolize the wild fiscal irresponsibility of the Albano years. Overseeing it all was former School Committee member McCollum, who also served as the affirmative action enforcer, deciding who would get the fat plums awarded strictly on the basis of skin color. As one minority contractor told me who refused to participate in bidding after dealing with McCollum, "No white supremacist would have made me grovel before him like McCollum expected you to do to get those affirmative action set-aside contracts." With so much money involved, and so many enemies, it seemed impossible for McCollum not to get caught in the web; and investigators did indeed give the school construction program a serious look. Yet McCollum never did the perp walk.

And no doubt there were others, with ties to these big fish, who perhaps should have gone down as well. However, it looks like they all swam safely away. Or did they? Francis Keough thought he was home free when the Harshbarger probe fell through, only to find himself heading to prison at a later date. Who knows who may yet face a similar fate?