Marketti Launches New Website

Ken O’Brien

Marketti by Marketti

Local pundit, videographer and cartoonist extraordinaire Mike Marketti, has launched a new website.

The site, titled Southbridge Common, styles itself as an alternative source of news for Southbridge.

The initial offerings include a report on the efforts by James Sottile to secure an alternate position on the Liquor Licensing Board, a humorous take on the recent Town Council recognition of Rudy DiGregorio and a summary of the Town Council Chairman’s reaction to a citizen’s petition seeking a return to a town meeting form of government. 

Martinek On Marketti And Friendship

Dennis Martinek

For a long time, I considered Mike Marketti, who used to draw cartoons for The Southbridge Evening News, a good person and a friend.

Then something happened, going back to February, which lasted three weeks in a row:

He hounded me to sign a petition to change the form of government to a Town Meeting form of government. He got incessantly more aggressive and annoying in bugging me to sign it, even showing up at my house unannounced when I wasn't home. 

Southbridge’s Rush Limbaugh Wannabe Revisited

Ken O’Brien

Once again the Southbridge Evening News’ editorial cartoonist has taken a potshot at someone whom, he feels, has not conformed to his narrow view of political correctness.

In today’s Evening News (page 4) he put forward a cartoon portraying Councilor Laurent McDonald (at least that's who people think it is) dancing with the town manager implying that the councilor had supported increases in taxes, water and sewer rates, etc.

The fact of the matter is that anyone who has given the least passing notice to Southbridge politics realizes that Councilor McDonald has been in the forefront of opposing the town manager and his supporters on the council in their efforts to create an imperial town managership.

Responses to Southbridge’s Rush Limbaugh Wannabe

Ken O’Brien

For reasons of copyright I cannot reproduce Mike Marketti’s cartoon from the Southbridge Evening News of March 14^th.

Suffice it to say that it portrayed me, Town Councilor Laurent McDonald and Dennis Martinek as the three stooges trampling his beloved and fatally flawed petition to restore Southbridge to a Town Meeting/Board of Selectmen form of government.

It also showed our town manager reveling in the dissension among those who oppose him. 

Let's Close The Book On This Town Meeting Petition

Ken O’Brien

The proponents of the petition to return Southbridge to a Town Meeting/Board of Selectmen form of government repeatedly cite the 1979 Appeals Court Decision in Marino v. Southbridge as the legal basis of their case.

In that case, the court stated:

JAMES J. MARINO & others vs. TOWN COUNCIL OF SOUTHBRIDGE.

7 Mass. App. Ct. 461

February 15, 1979 - April 25, 1979

Worcester County

Present: BROWN, GREANEY, & KASS, JJ. 

“Take Back Our Town”

A Film by Paul Zotos & Mike Marketti

Southbridge residents James Marino and James Sottile discuss a petition to return Southbridge to a town meeting/board of selectmen form of government.

Following is the text of the petition: