Exploiting The Victims

Ken O'Brien

Dan Butler, who has gained prominence as a voice of Southbridge tornado victims, posted the following on the Southbridge Tornado Relief FaceBook page on May 8.

UPDATE on the "Rebuild Western Mass" rebate crooks: about 3 weeks before the 1 year anniversary of the tornado and we have STILL yet to see a dime from this ripoff program and they just continue to give us excuse after excuse. today i got a phone call from them, and the guy told me that he received a call from Peter Durant's office claiming that we had issues with the program....

Bravo Butch!

Ken O'Brien

Monday's Southbridge Town Council meeting was a combination of laughable incompetence, amusing non-sequiturs and sinister despotism.

The incompetence was the repeated emergence of failures to proof read official town documents rife with typographical errors.

The agenda contained at least three. 

Southbridge Town Council - A Year in Review

Ken O’Brien

The last year has been a tumultuous one in Southbridge politics ("So what else is new?").

The year was marked by a major power shift on the town council as a result of a special election in February to fill the unexpired term of Councilor Laurent E. McDonald who passed away in November of 2010.

The election resulted in the councilorship of Larry Spinelli, widely perceived as the candidate of the Future of Southbridge coalition.

The power shift was consolidated in the June election which returned councilor Nikolla for her third term (and re-ascension to the chair) and the election of Darlene Marcucci and David Langevin, both of whom had served on the council in previous years. All of these were similarly viewed as the candidates of the same coalition.

Now, as 2011 comes to a close, and before the inevitable emergence of a new campaign season, it seems appropriate to review and analyze what the result of this shift in power has been on Southbridge's town council.

Future Of Southbridge?

Generally I have refrained from duplicating reporting from other sources.

However, the following just struck a chord that somehow I could not resist.

Thus with all due credit and attribution I bring to your attention the following story from the Chicago Sun Times.

Town of Cicero spent $500,000 on trinkets from board member’s firm

By Steve Warmbir
Staff Reporter/swarmbir@suntimes.com
Last Modified: Jul 18, 2011 02:58AM

Why did the Town of Cicero buy 250 rubber chickens?

Make It Trifecta Tuesday

Kenneth M. O’Brien

Vote Tuesday, June 28, 2011

8 AM to 8PM

If you need a ride to the polls, call

774-230-7626

or

774-230-1489

Fontaine, Lazo, Logan.

Those are the names to vote for in Tuesday’s Southbridge election for town council.

The reasons are crystal clear.

For over ten years two groups have dominated the Southbridge town council. The first time they called themselves the “Restore Confidence Group”. These days they call themselves the “Future Of Southbridge”.