Tim Murray

From The Boston Globe

R. T.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-25/opinion/30658332_1_lieutenant-governor-accident-detector-test#.TyIPqlmdBQM.mailto

From The Boston Globe

R. T.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-05/metro/30589498_1_black-ice-troopers-release-black-box-data

Hey, what can we say, Timmy? Money talks, bull-shit walks.

- R. Tirella

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/01/10/murray-state-police-didn-level-with-public-about-crash/rCPGCYmRJdy7yU6SkEKn2M/story.html

It starts here (sort of). This is pay-to-play politics on a very crooked level …

- R. Tirella

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/

articles/2011/11/18/lt_gov_murrays_very_close_ties_to_controversial_

chelsea_housing_official/?page=1

editor’s note: The car crash/black box/bs episode makes Murray look like a weasel/liar. The voters of Massachusetts need to worry about this stuff:http://articles.boston.com/2011-11-22/bostonglobe/30495270_1_murray-pushed-politics-executive-director

And this:  http://articles.boston.com/2011-11-20/news/30422386_1_phone-number-cellphone-records-lieutenant

From Bill McManus:

“Go to OCPF and

“1. put in last name of donor Sargent for town of Clinton in 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007

“2. also run everyone who gave money to Murray in 2008, 2009, 2010 who list employer as UMASS and then again UMASS MEDICAL and also UMASS MED it must be run specifically for each spelling variation YOU THEN HAVE TO RUN THE DONORS NAME AGAINST THE EMPLOYEE TO SEE WHEN THEY WERE FIRST HIRED AND WHEN THEY GOT THEIR LAST PAY RAISE. THE TIMING BETWEEN THE DONATION TO MURRAY AND THE HIRE OR PAY RAISE DATE Click to continue »

From McManus to the T & G owners: New York Times Company

By Rosalie Tirella

Former Worcester pol Jim McManus recently complained about Lt. Governor Murray guy Jim Leary going from working for Murray in Boston to a specially created job – fit just for him!- at UMass Med and now this news: This year Leary got a huge pay raise at UMass. Thousands and thousands of dollars in salary increase while other UMass Med workers (63) have just been laid off. (Could some med school be playing favorites to make some Lt. Gov happy or to thank him for all those stem cell reasearch center bucks? (or so they can get even more research funding)

People hate it when politicians reward their people with sinecures. They hate to see their tax dollars thrown at some poltical operative – thousands and thousands of dollars – while their pay checks shrink.

Telegram & Gazette columnist Dianne Williamson was obviously oblivious to this. In her column, she spent a few paragraphs poking fun at McManus but never reporting on one of his main points: Leary’s huge pay hike (while other UMass Med workers got laid off). Williamson didn’t, however, forget to slime the Med Center’s president Collins for his recent mega-raise. Is it because Collins is not a member of the good ol’ local boys (Tim Murray) club that she – and Jim Leary – belong to? Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

How demoralizing. How weird … .

A week ago I tried to make an appointment with Worcester Mayor Joseph O’Brien. Nothing controversial – just an issue near and dear to my heart. I told this to his appointment people – Ms. Gonzalez and Ms. Berthiaume. I told them both I was approaching the meeting as a citizen – this wasn’t an interview for InCity Times or anything like that.

Well, the ladies told me our mayor was soooo busy! He had no time for walk-ins (a la former Worcester Mayor Konnie Lukes)! He really had no time for day appointments either – as he had so many appointments! In fact, O’Brien was booking weeks in advance. And if I did make an appointment for 3 or 4 weeks down the line, I could be dumped for something bigger and better. Everything was so tentative!

The mayor’s staffers were really pushing for me to see Mayor O’Brien during a 15-minute span of time an hour or so before the city council meeting every Tuesday – his open office hours for the citizens of Worcester, the people who voted him into office. Just like his professor dad probably does at his college. You know the drill: professors always have office hours a few hours right before class – to save them the hassle of doing two jobs at two separate times. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

It is disheartening. L.G. Tim Murray wants more commuter trains coming to Worcester. He’s been harping on this for years. All the yuppies in the Canal District agree with Timmy because they, like Murray and Green Island carpet bagger Allen Fletcher, have rich fantasy lives! Boston artists jumping on the train to fly to Worcester! Worcester artists hoppin’ on the train to zip to Boston! Thousands of ideas cross-pollinating! Money flowing into Worcester. And the dream streams on … .

But getting what he wants from CSX has been tough: Murray and pals have been working on making Worcester a true suburb of Boston for years!!! Usually to no avail!

So, what finally happens? CSX says “yes” to more commuter trains for Worcester IF (and only IF) they can turn the bottom of Grafton Hill into their own personal toilet: a huge freight yard. Doubling the size of what’s already there! Which, for the Grafton Street folks, means: Lots more freight trains, lots more noise, lots more pollution, lots more ugliness.

For what? More commuter trains? Some fantasty of hundreds of people from Boston and Worcester riding into each other’s cities for art/work? Come on! We will never have that kind of exchange – the kind of exchange TRUE suburbs of Boston have with Beantown.

Illusion #1: More Boston folks coming to Worcester for less expensive housing and then commuting to Boston to their regular jobs.

These folks are in the minority!! My sister did the opposite for years – lived in Worcester and commuted to her job in Boston. Exhausting. After an 8 or 9 hour day, it was a drag to spend 45 minutes to an hour getting home. And let’s not forget the almost 1-hour commute to work in the morning! Not a whole lot of Worcesterites did this back then. I can’t imagine thousands doing it now. A few yuppies? Maybe. But hundreds of worker bees, like my sis? No way. The 5-day-work-week commute is simply too exhausting/time consuming.

Let’s remember: Most Bostonians do not want to leave their cool nest in Boston for digs in Worcester. They may make the transition only if they can trade in their Boston condo for a real house in Worcester (costs way less $$ than house in Metro Boston). But then again, there is the extra two hours (a day) to be tacked on to EVERY WORK day. No fun.

Oh, but that’s gonna work out, everything is OK because CSX is giving the City of Worcester more than $20 million in “mitigation” dough and $1 for every train that rolls into Worcester (this is forever).

We agree with District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller: Things are challenging for Worcester in these tough economic times, and any new partner/partnership is welcome. Especially a relationship with a deep-pocketed partner such as CSX.

But come on, folks! We are dumping on a working class neighborhood! We don’t know how all this pollution is going to affect nearby workers/residents. We guess everyone and their mother will have asthma. Maybe cancer rates will rise.

The buck always rules. It is always poor/blue collar folks and neighborhoods who get dumped on (sometimes literally). What happened to the old Italian neighborhood in East Boston? Razed to make way for Logan Airport. Locally, what happened to the good folks of Quinsig Village who struggled for years to close the (some said toxic) landfill in their neighborhood? City officials, DPW head Bob Moylan and let’s-leave-my district-in-the-dirt District 3 City Councilor Paul Clancy allowed for the landfill to be reopened – reopened to TOXIC shit from Boston. For money, of course. Money that was to go to Quinsig Village – more mitigation dough, I guess. Yeah, there’s a playground built with the funds, but, the God only knows what’s in the landfill.

And, I guess, God only knows what’s in store (on the health front) for the people of lower Grafton Hill.

But, hey, the rich have always gambled with the lives of the poor.

By Rosalie Tirella

After reading all the pieces on Joe O’Brien’s inauguration day festivities (I wasn’t invited to the ball and InCity Times was emailed no public announcement about it to post in the paper so our readers could attend – unlike two years ago, when Konnie Lukes became mayor and I got ALL the info and a beautiful invitation to boot), I ask: Will things really change in Worcester with Joe at the helm? Will O’Brien really be any different from a pol who rewards his pals and punishes anyone who doesn’t agree with him? More important: Will things really change/improve in the Worcester Public Schools now that Mayor O’Brien says he wants to make the WPS system the best urban school system in America?

Actions speak louder than words, my momma always told me. This is what I have to go on so far: Click to continue »