There is power in numbers.
A group of citizens agreeing to run as a slate for both boards, giving each other the strength and wisdom base (since there is a steep learning curve), would begin to fix things. Melrose does not need more of the current batch of clones. It needs common sense advocates. Certainly there have to be plenty of caring and thoughtful individuals from which to choose in such a community. It's past time for them to step up. It's not enough to complain from the shadows, being afraid "to rock the boat," or any of the other lame excuses too many spout here.
Similarly, citizens need to come together to say no to this freight train called the Override about to steamroll over Melrose in order to line the greedy pockets of administration and do nothing to improve anything. It can be derailed, as similar efforts by some of the same players have been in past years. But citizens have to step up and not stay asleep at the wheel. This campaign has money and might, all of which will be meaningless if citizens demand truth and accountability instead. Send this Override Overboard!
There are many folks in Melrose that have lost their homes to foreclosure and from a person in the know I can say there is only more to come. $240 for the first installment IS A LOT OF MONEY! Add that to the trash fee and the inequitable sewer and water hikes that the Aldermen approved (Ms. Mederios excluded) and we’ve got a recipe for disaster.
There was one woman who spoke about the dysfunctional culture of the administration and added that demographically only 28% of households in Melrose have school age children under 18 years of age. That leaves 72% of the rest of us who have voting power to kill this override. Oh Lavendar-Bird and Margolis gushed about how they were concerned about the divide this could cause in the community and their mocking bird calls for “civil discussions” So when are these “civil discussions” going to take place?
Someone suggested that we have a forum at Mem Hall to discuss the pros and cons of the override. When’s that going to happen? Time is running out. Van Campen said that City Hall cannot put biased information on the City’s web site. Well that’s great! But we are not going to get the truth. I think it was Donald Conn who was concerned that the public had the right to know what devil was in the details. Problem is we have two newspapers in town that won’t be objective. Conn also said even the aldermen did not have time to have a serious discussion of the override and Ms. Medieros echoed that sentiment with her concerns that this was one of the most important votes she has seen come before her.
We need to come together Melrose. I’m calling the Mayor’s office today asking that Memorial Hall be available in September or October for a public meeting to discuss the pros and cons and I will volunteer my services to organize it.
The mayor and the superintendent have told the community that these funds are needed or there will be cuts in staff and services. They've given us a lot of information in things like their Budget 101 powerpoint. Mr. DelRusso also explained things. The school committee and aldermen had a chance to ask questions, and then they said they approved it all. Now it's time that we give our officials the authority and money they need so that they don't have to cut teachers or services. They told us they will hire more teachers, and the schools need that. They told us other districts pay more, so Melrose needs to pay more too. I don't want my kids to have teachers cut from their schools. If we care about our kids, we should stop bickering and trust our officials to do this. We're paying the mayor $125,000 and the superintendent something like $180,000, two assistant superintendents around $120,000+ each, a bunch of principals and assistant principals in the $95-135,000 each, so presumably they know something about what they're doing. As Melrosians we should come together and trust our officials who want the best for Melrose.
^hahaha. Trust our officials? They can't even figure out how their own override proposal works!
That MEF parent must be smoking weed or lives underground!
First, our illustrious superintendent had no previous experience before getting the job here....she so lacked experience that she had to attend courses during the summer before to learn her job! Second, she then hired her cronies from other places she worked where these same people created disasterious results elsewhere before cmong here to Melrose. And now you want those of us who are knowledgeable of what's going here to turn a blind eye and give them more money? Stop drinking the MEF kool-aid, put away the weed, and then get into the sunlight and see what's going on!
Hey Melrose Ed Foundation parent, are you really that naive? Since when do those canned bogus powerpoints "prove" anything? Since when does it mean that just because someone is paid a lot that they're actually earning it? And if all those administrators are in fact earning all of that (which is way, way more than teachers earn, even after the new contract, by the way), why are things so bad in the district? From what most of us see, this is the single laziest, least well-educated, least effective bunch of administrators the city of Melrose has ever had. Oh, by the way, try stopping in at any of the various schools or Central Admin for the summer and just do a simple calculation of how few of these district employees and administrators are actually on the job (though contractually they are supposed to be, give or take some expected vacation time). Or just look at the parking lots. Take a look at district stats (the national ones) if they believe for one minute that any of these are actually producing good results. Then go back a few years to see how enormously bloated the admin lines are by comparison, versus the results the district got even just a few years ago.
And if you are going to believe the threats that "teachers and services will be cut," then you really have drunk the koolaid full-on. They are Threats, and they are being put out there to manipulate and cause fear so that you'll vote for their Agenda (with a capital O). After the election when the Override goes down in flames (as it should) and when the pinheads seeking reelection have stopped campaigning, they will be thinking of how they are going to smooth things over and not have a lot of grief from constituents. Cutting teachers would cause mutiny and furor, which the pinhead elected officials don't want. They'll scramble and find some hidden slush funds that no one bothered to unearth for scrutiny, and things will get paid for. There may likely be some new faces who could make things quite uncomfortable for them, so they won't want to have any visible trouble. It will be back to Wonderful-Wonderful, and soon Margaret will be telling us how she's hearing her angels again during the next insufferable powerpoint.
Not worth feeding all the trolls on this board. Even when they repeat themselves, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. They are just trolling.
This is the email I sent to the Mayor, the aldermen, the school committee, Dello Russo, the new Auditor, human rights commission, parks department and anyone else I could think of.
Dear Mayor Dolan,
Since the Aldermen have approved your request for an override to be placed on the ballot, I would like to collaborate with the City in having a public forum to discuss the pros and cons of what this override will cost the taxpayers now and over time.
Alderman Conn was quite vociferous, to his credit, in calling for a public meeting to inform all the voters in the City of what the facts are relative to this extremely important issue. I’m sure you would agree that this vote will inevitably lead to pitting neighbor against neighbor unless the City engages in a proactive approach to supporting the dissemination of fair and unbiased information for the public to digest and make an informed decision either for or against the override.
Misinformation and bias on any issue harms both the proponents and the opponents equally on any issue. The people of this City deserve an administration (that was supposed to be "administrative"...I goofed) response to their questions. It is my hope that you will welcome and embrace a healthy dialog in the form of at least one “town” meeting to vet the override question.
MelroseMessages is the only forum in this City where folks can express their opinions in this community anonymously. This should not be necessary for two reasons: one, many feel safer voicing their opinions without fear of reprisals and two, that the newspapers in this City do not adequately cover issues that are of great import to our community.
That being said, I would like to volunteer my services to organize a public meeting on the override question. I have experience organizing forums of this nature but I need your help. I would like to have your blessing on a date in September or October (or multiple dates) for Memorial Hall to be available for such a meeting. I’d like to work closely with your office to prepare an agenda, coordinate a public relations effort to inform the public in advance of the meeting (including the assistance of Ms. Margolis in having MMTV videotape it), and to assemble a printed program of the unbiased facts for the public to take with them after the meeting.
I can be reached at my Wilmington office, or of course via email. I look forward to your response.
Thanking you in advance.
Patty
Just received my $600.00 water bill so I guess my next $600 or more will be arriving in time for my vote!
My water bill was $230. What are you doing to get your water bill so high?
Patricia Wright, great letter! I hope the Mayor agrees with your suggestion and does not hinder the process of informing the public. Thanks for trying to get the word out.
I certainly applaud Patricia's efforts in getting this pubic forum established - but it won't happen because the last thing these city leaders want is - sunshine on the issues! They know their justifictaion for the override won't hold up in a public airing of the issues involved.
Can you imagine Chief Lyle sitting there trying to justifiy two additional officers which won't make a difference in annual overtime, that he didn't request them, and that the Melrose crime statistics don't warrant more police?
Can you imagine the Mayor or school superintendent standing there in front of the public trying to justify the added staff and how they will improve student outcomes based on establlished metrics, and that many of these positions will not be filled for 1-2 years?
The last thing these officials want is close scrutiny of these and many other aspects of their override request.
Reading Patricia's email she seems to be asking for collaboration not running it by herself. Personally I'd like to see if Dolan has the stones to answer her.
Sure The Melrose League of Women Vultures isn't biased or anything. Right. Next bad joke....
Let's just ask Lisa Lewis, Jen McAndrew and Grover to moderate. They can have all the other MEF gals ask the hard questions.
Awe C'mon. These women are so much smarter than everyone else. Maybe Cyndy can have Martha and Lisa and Jen, along with her pitbulls on the SC (Jess, Marg, Chris, Kristin with their snarling TVuVu) tell that mean ol' Federal Civil Rights Investigation Team and that bunch of haters in the Secretary of State's Office just how silly they are. They can rally that bunch of Melrose Big Boys (Robbie, Vanny, Donnie C, and maybe a few of the BOA "freedom fighters" like Petie) to put up their dukes and defend their "honor"! Yeah. That'll do it. Robbie can have another few drinks with Joe and chalk it up to another "tempest in a teapot by those haters in the OML crowd." And the Chamberpots can all tsk-tsk about those silly haters. Everyone else will be selling raffle tickets or brushing sand out of their boxers before they get back to more golf. Before you know it there'll be another Parade and then the VFair, and it'll all be good again so that Linda O can sell some more young parents another bridge (or a few more houses) over very troubled waters, but then no one will care and everyone will get reelected and the Override will pass and then they'll get ready for more bonds and another Override (since this one was obviously only the beginning) because It's All Good. More raffle tickets and rum in the punch bowls. Who cares about bad district scores, exodus of the last good teachers or a few silly racist remarks anyway? (Kids must've deserved it! And Melrose doesn't want so many of "those" people moving in from Malden, anyway, lowering the test scores and causing so much trouble.) Right?
Vicious? Maybe no, maybe yes. Accurate? Absolutely.
By the way, where are the strangely silent VuVu and the rest of the oh-so-connected administration shills anyway? Nothing to say now?
This is a perfectly accurate description of how this place works. Not vicious at all- just true.
Well I hope you don't teach your kids to speak of others the way that you throw insults around. And I am assuming no one is posting because there is nothing much to say - it is the same repetitive vicious vitriol over and over. Say something new or constructive for once and maybe you will get a response.
Uhmmmm... YOU responded. No one is posting? Haven't you read what has been posted these past few days? Lots of excellent posts. Didn't you read the newspaper article about how a student was racially targeted and mistreated and our school system did nothing to protect him? THAT is vicious. How about the teacher who made the racial remark? Did you happen to hear about how she was reprimanded for her poor behavior? No? That is because she wasn't reprimanded at all. Your superintendent thought it better to protect the teacher, rather than the student. THAT is vicious. How about the alderman and assessor who lied to the public about important details of the override? Using their position of power to deceive the tax-paying public. THAT is vicious. MEF moms who care only about their kids, instead of the good of the school system (didn't hear them come to the defense of that minority student), and who suck up just to to get ahead, the rest of us be ****ed. THAT is vicious. You can tell yourself that a simple post that simply says it like it is is vicious, but you only do that because you live in denial, and wish your city was the city in your idyllic dreams. Don't worry about what people on this board teach their kids- worry about your delusional ideas about this place. Wake up.
Read the Free Press front page article and see why there can be zero justification for authorizing any additional tax monies. Shame shame shame!
So has anyone heard if the arrogant ba$tards in the school admin have coughed up the documents they have been ordered to produce by the Secretary of State's Office?
The proponents are spewing typical democratic rhetoric. The schools won't magically improve. The crappy teachers and administration will still be in place. On the list of what the monies will be allotted for there was nothing significant. Another cop on the streets? Please. Hire an overtime shift a day. This will actually save money when you factor in benefits such as health insurance.
My family of five is having a difficult time as it is. Please don't give me a snobbish answer such as if we can't afford it we shouldn't be here. When we bought the home ten years ago we had no problem but since, we've added a child, food prices, heating prices, water rates, trash fees, health insurance have all gone up and our salaries have not increased to keep up with them.
Vote NO on override.
Yes the proponent message is full of baloney. It's not "democratic" at all, really (though the local Dem Party knuckleheads portray themselves in a certain way that is not at all keeping with actual democratic practices in the real and best sense; in fact some of them are just as foolish and offensive as Trump! Watch any SC or BOA meeting if you don't believe this!).
The abysmal administration and fleet of subpar teachers won't change a bit, regardless of the election results. In fact, unless some good candidates run, things are well on their way to a much worse district than it is even now. With the best teachers, like Dr. Peterson, having left in disgust, the only ones who'll still be here are those who want to leave but can't (and are therefore demoralized and miserable) or those brought in by this administration to whom they feel they owe and therefore will be confirmed sycophants until they eventually bail in the typical 3 years or less that they'll be here (after collecting a largely district-compensated "master's" degree and enough cred to move on).
Watch the administration roll out all of its self-praise in the next few weeks/months (during the super's bid for another large raise this summer and during the wretched election crap that is already befouling the community). They'll have plenty of cooked pretty data to smear around in hopes that it covers what any fool knows about the reality. None of it passes the sniff test.