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August 6, 2007

Tsongas nets some negative publicity

THE INTERNET can be a fickle place.

Democratic congressional candidate Niki Tsongas had the first campaign Web site among candidates to replace former U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan. She joined networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, endearing herself to the connected generation while listing songs like "Beautiful Day" by U2.

She even had a clever marketing campaign on the search engine Google, which placed her name prominently on the page every time someone searched for one of her rivals.

But times have changed.

Posters on YouTube lately have been taking shots at Tsongas, posting videos titled, "Niki the Incumbent," and "Niki THE Dean," meant to show Tsongas inflating her past experience in politics and education.

And while there are several videos on YouTube showing 5th Congressional District candidates in forums and at public events, these are the first overtly negative ones.

Perhaps other candidates, who are also joining MySpace sites and sharing photos on flickr.com should take note: Sometimes the Internet bites back.

TSONGAS ISN'T the only candidate being called on the carpet for not watching her words.

A short story in last Friday's Boston Herald quotes Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe skewering Lowell City Councilor Eileen Donoghue for making a comment that made it sound like she wanted to be involved in the selection process for the next Supreme Court justice.

Of course, the Senate not the House, confirms supreme judicial nominees.

Donoghue said if she were lucky enough to get appointed to the Judiciary Committee in the House, she would be very concerned about the next justice appointed to the bench.

Tribe said any high-school student who has taken civics, let alone a lawyer like Donoghue should know the House has nothing to do with the confirmation process.

Donoghue aid she knows that. She simply meant to say that everyone should be concerned about the Supreme Court, and she would like to raise questions about whoever comes next.

Speak carefully, candidates. With a month to go, it seems everything is fair game.

IT'S CRUNCH time for candidates interested in entering the Lowell City Council race, as Tuesday's deadline for submitting nomination papers approaches.

Last week's big news was that Michael Lenzi, a member of the Greater Lowell Technical High School board and owner of a well-known Dracut function hall and catering business, pulled papers to run for council in addition to the tech board.

He was joined by Louis Stylos, 50, a Chelmsford dentist, self-described booster of professional government and a fan of City Manager Bernie Lynch.

Stylos said he plans to turn in his nomination papers by Tuesday.

Lenzi, who had been on the Cape vacationing with his family until Thursday evening, said he's in. He returned papers for both races Friday.

Coincidentally, both Lenzi and Stylos live on Holyrood Avenue in the city's Belvidere section.

LENZI WILL BE considered a favorite among the challengers, by virtue of his large political family and because the gregarious caterer knows a great many voters.

The big question for Lenzi is whether he is running to avenge former City Manager John Cox's ouster by a six-member council majority in April 2006. (Lenzi and Cox are friends.) But others say he's upset with the alleged mistreatment of his longtime friend, Lowell Public Works Commissioner Ed Walsh.

Lenzi said neither is the case.

OTHERS HAVE tried to leap from the Greater Lowell Tech School Committee to one of the city's more high-profile elected bodies.

Former Greater Lowell Tech board member Ralph Hogan, for example, was unsuccessful in his 2003 bid for the Lowell School Committee, despite winning his last tech-board election with more than 8,000 votes. Tech-board member David Laferriere is making his seventh council bid this year. Meanwhile, George Kouloheras was able to serve on both the Greater Lowell Tech board and the Lowell School Committee for many years. A wing of Lowell High School is named after him.

AS OF last Friday, a city preliminary election was seeming increasingly unlikely. Sixteen candidates, including Lenzi, had turned in their nomination papers: incumbents Kevin Broderick, Edward "Bud" Caulfield, Rodney Elliott, Bill Martin, Joseph Mendonca, Armand Mercier, Rita Mercier and Jim Milinazzo, and challengers Alan Kazanjian, Jo-Ann Keegan, David Koch, Laferriere, Lenzi, Curtis LeMay, McMahon and Kristin Ross-Sitcawich.

Challengers Mehmed Ali and Stylos both said they will return their nomination papers.

Adding in Ali and Stylos makes 18 candidates. A preliminary election can be held if there are 19 or more candidates for the nine council seats.

Darius Mitchell, who ran unsuccessful council campaigns in 2003 and 2005, and first-time challengers Curtis Freeman and Patricia Stratton have yet to return their papers.

Should one or two of those three enter the race, meaning 19 or 20 candidates, councilors would likely seek to waive the preliminary election. Should all three run, 21 candidates would force a preliminary runoff.

Two possible candidates who haven't requests papers yet are Donoghue and commercial landowner Tom Byrne, a local radio personality. Donoghue is widely expected to choose to retire as the congressional candidate heads toward the Sept. 4 Democratic primary. Byrne said he will make up his mind this weekend.

Westford Street convenience-store owner Fred Bahou is the only potential challenger to Laferriere and Lenzi in the tech-board race.

ACTON STATE Sen. Pam Resor, 65, is rumored to be contemplating retirement after her current term ends in 2008.

Asked her plans, Resor, who has been in the state Senate since 1999, said "there have been rumors like that for years."

"I haven't made that decision yet," she said. "I've got a few more months. You don't have to make that decision right away."

The state representative in her hometown, Jamie Eldridge, is running in the congressional special election, with Resor's endorsement. He has campaigned hard, and has raised his profile significantly, especially in Resor's district.

If Eldridge is unsuccessful in his congressional bid, and Resor -- whose elective career dates back to the Acton Board of Selectmen in the early 1980s -- decides to retire, Eldridge would have to be considered a favorite to succeed her.

THIS WEEK, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern introduced a proposal in Congress that would tax Americans when the country decides to go to war.

An add-on to the federal income tax, the so-called "war tax" would not only help finance the war effort, but also ensure that every citizen has a stake in the decision to go to war.

Where have we heard that before? Ah, yes. From Independent congressional candidate Patrick Murphy.

Murphy, 25, has been talking up a war tax since he announced in June that he is running for Congress. He even sent his proposal to members of the Massachusetts delegation looking to find a sponsor. Looks like he found one in McGovern.

"We're just happy that the idea is going forward," Murphy said. "It will at least make people think before we do go to war."

PAGING JIM Ogonowski.

One of two Republicans running to replace Meehan in Congress, Ogonowski has been a no-show thus far at the candidate debates. And it's not like there has been a shortage of invitations. His absence has left his Republican opponent Tom Tierney, of Framingham, with the mike all to himself.

Tierney was left to debate himself last Thursday at a forum sponsored by the AARP. And again on Friday, Tierney sat next to an empty chair at a health-care debate for all candidates in Westford.

"I've met all the Democrats in the race, and they're all wonderful people," Tierney said. "But I have yet to meet him.

"I've been asked if I'm insulted that he doesn't show up at these events. I'm not, but the people really being insulted is the audience. You should be able to hear from him how he feels about issues like health care."

Ogonowski has been campaigning hard. He has just chosen not to make these debates a big part of his strategy.

Don't expect to see him go head-to-head with Tierney until Aug. 13, when he plans to appear at a debate sponsored by Channel 5 WCVB.

"We've been focusing on the grass-roots part of the campaign," said Ogonowski spokesman Barney Keller, son of WBZ-TV political reporter Jon Keller.

Ogonowski is confirmed for four debates, including two more sponsored by the League of Women Voters and a final debate Aug. 27 sponsored by UMass Lowell and The Sun.

OGONOWSKI HAS been knocking on all sorts of doors. But this week he sought support in the biggest house, the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Republican candidate addressed GOP lawmakers in a closed caucus meeting in Washington after attending an "issue class" with the Republican National Committee.

"I got introduced to the entire caucus," Ogonowski said. "The room looked full. In fact, based on the look of the room, you would have thought we had a Republican majority in Washington."

Ogonowski told lawmakers about himself and said he'll win the Oct. 16 special election. He received a standing ovation, according to a campaign aide.

FORMER STATE Sen. Sal Albano of Somerville recently called Warren Shaw, the radio talk-show host and former Dracut selectman, to entice him into supporting Tsongas in the 5th District race.

Shaw told Albano he hadn't decided who to support. So to sweeten the deal, Albano invited Shaw to a Tsongas fundraiser at Mike's Ice Cream Stand on Nashua Road.

Shaw says the ensuing conversation went something like this.

Shaw: "Well, you just helped me make up my mind."

Albano: "Great. We'll see you there."

Shaw: "I don't think this is going the way you want it to. Do you know what I do for a living?"

Albano, who probably doesn't get up to the Merrimack Valley much, didn't know Shaw's main work is operating a farm and ice-cream stand.

Despite the call, "I'm still undeclared," Shaw told The Column.

BEFORE HE hangs his lawyer's shingle, would-be attorney David St. Hilaire should take a closer read of state conflict-of-interest rules.

St. Hilaire, the city's senior building inspector, went on the radio last Monday in defense of ZBA Chairman Kazanjian, who earlier this month cast a vote in favor of converting a Dutton Street car wash into a new, drive-through Dunkin' Donuts. Kazanjian owns several properties in the immediate vicinity, including one across the street.

Kazanjian certainly appeared to have violated the state law with his vote.

The council candidate's apparent transgression was no deadly sin. The project had no opposition, and Kazanjian could have been making an honest mistake.

St. Hilaire, drawing upon 16-year-old educational materials from the state Ethics Commission that he said are distributed to all city officials, told radio listeners that Kazanjian was acting perfectly within his rights, that he is prohibited only from voting on a property that "directly abuts" his own. So, even though Kazanjian's closest holding is across the street from the Dunkin' Donuts, it was OK for him to vote, according to St. Hilaire.

"It's in black and white," St. Hilaire told The Column last week. "That's what we were taught by the Ethics Commission."

Not quite.

An Ethics Commission advisory from 2005 clearly defines the central question in such cases as whether a public employee could have a financial interest in the matter at hand. According to that opinion, a public official is presumed to have such a financial interest whenever his "property is directly opposite a street, public way or private way, or (he) is an abutter to an abutter within 300 feet of the property" on which the vote is to be taken.

DENNIS PETERSON, who retired last month after 32 years on the Tewksbury police force, is adamant that his abrupt departure had nothing to do with a growing rift between him and Chief Alfred Donovan.

In an e-mail to The Sun last week, Peterson said he was "deeply disturbed" by a story that had laid out how his two-week retirement notice to the town coincided with the trial of former Tewksbury dispatcher Neil McLaughlin.

Peterson and Donovan, who are said to already have had a strained relationship, presented conflicting testimony during the trial on whether Peterson told Donovan about a quasi-confession that McLaughlin had made.

"My retirement has nothing to do with any court case or my relationship with Chief Donovan," Peterson wrote, qualifying arguments to the contrary as "speculation and rumors."

Peterson retired as a lieutenant. He founded the Tewksbury detective bureau's narcotics division and the Tewksbury Police Athletic League, and there is no question he will be missed. It also wasn't a secret that he was considering retirement.

But many still question whether politics ended up being the final straw.

IN DRACUT, even a new concession stand can become a political football.

Four people have come forward to fill a vacancy on the 12-member Veterans Memorial Park Committee. Selectman James O'Loughlin suggested putting all four on the board. But selectmen John Zimini, Bob Cox and Joe DiRocco balked at expanding the group, saying there is no reason to expand a committee whose work is essentially done.

One of the applicants is Ted Kosiavelon, of Ted's Construction, who says he donated countless hours of labor during construction of the snack shack.

Kosiavelon plans to run for selectman next year. Both Cox and Zimini are up for re-election in 2008, and observers think this may be an effort to keep Kosiavelon out of the limelight.

A STRUGGLE could be brewing over where the Pelham Police Department has its vehicles maintained.

The department currently brings its fleet to Woody's Auto Repair on Nashua Road. Charging $74 per hour for labor, it's the most expensive garage in town. By contrast, Laurent's Auto Services on Old Bridge Street is the cheapest, charging $60 per hour.

Selectman Bob Haverty is questioning the logic of spending nearly 20 percent more for Woody's. This year, the Police Department is asking for $35,000 to maintain its vehicles.

But Police Chief Joseph Roark cites Woody's 24-hour towing capabilities, the quality of the mechanics, and the garage's willingness to move police vehicles to the front of the line as reasons to stick with the mechanic.

Expect selectmen to push Woody's to give Pelham a "special deal" if it wants to keep its lucrative contract with the town.

Contributing to the Column this week were City Hall reporter Michael Lafleur, Pelham reporter Chris Camire, Statehouse Bureau Chief Hillary Chabot, Statehouse reporter Matt Murphy, Sun Washington Bureau reporter Evan Lehmann, Tewksbury reporter Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl, and Dracut reporter Dennis Shaughnessey.

Posted by Admin at August 6, 2007 12:59 PM

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Posted by: Bill Deignan at August 9, 2007 5:58 PM

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