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Tag Archives: Tim Murray
Here’s The Boston Globe column on Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce head Tim Murray …
… that we wrote about a week or so ago when we were posting on the Brady Sullivan deal and the former Worcester County Courthouse. … I wanted to add it to the other two Murray fund-raising scandal stories I had posted, but I couldn’t locate it … I have made some sentences bold.
– R. Tirella
Murray’s exit good news for Democrats
By Scot Lehigh
Globe columnist January 18, 2013
In his six years as a statewide office holder, Tim Murray has pulled off an astounding feat. He has become that rare politician who seems too small for the lieutenant governor’s job.
It’s not just that Murray never grew in the job. He actually seemed to shrink there. That reality makes Murray’s announcement that he won’t run for governor good news for the Democratic Party and a victory for common sense.
In his letter to supporters, Murray invoked the usual malarkey that politicians resort to when they decide retreat is their best course: Running would require too much time away from his family.
But everyone knows the real reason Murray is bowing out. After his entanglement with ethically challenged Middlesex County rogue Michael McLaughlin, the lieutenant governor was and is a severely damaged figure.
When the Globe reported that McLaughlin, then the hugely overpaid Chelsea housing authority chief, was raising political funds for Murray, in possible violation of federal law, Murray and his team seemed utterly clueless about how to handle it.
Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Murray claimed he hadn’t realized that McLaughlin was raising money for him. He further complained that no one had told him about McLauglin’s unsavory reputation. Had that latter assertion been true, the best one could say is that it made Murray look like either a dope or a dupe. But as I’ve previously reported, several credible sources say that Murray had indeed been warned about McLaughlin.
His political team seemed to think that ducking into a gopher hole and leaving the impression that Murray was somehow constrained from discussing the matter because McLaughlin is under investigation was a savvy strategy. Actually, that made Murray seem like someone with something to hide, an elected official unwilling to level with the press or the public.
Inside the administration, meanwhile, there were regular worries about the political allies Murray pushed for government posts, all with an eye to his political future.
A prime example of Murray’s propensity for playing pack-a-hack was his recommendation of McLaughlin’s son Matthew for a $60,000 post on a state board that hears appeals from people who have lost their licenses. That appointment came despite Matthew McLaughlin’s own spotty driving record. After the larger McLaughlin scandal broke, the Patrick administration broomed the younger McLaughlin from that job. Murray also embarrassed the administration by larding up various housing authority boards with his cronies.
Still, despite his many political liabilities, Murray would have occupied a certain political space in a Democratic field: That of a reasonably well-funded insider with a network of party regulars and strong ties to organized labor. In this day and age, those are only middling assets, but they could have made him a factor in the Democratic field.
But even in the unlikely event that he had emerged as the nominee, he would have been easy picking for Republican Charlie Baker, if, as expected, he runs again.
At this early stage, the Democrats lack a particularly persuasive gubernatorial hopeful. But Murray’s announcement at least means they won’t be embarrassed by a thoroughly unpersuasive one.
The Tim Murray shit-machine
By Rosalie Tirella
Or: BACKROOM, INCESTUOUS WORCESTER POLITICS! AGAIN!
Well, looks like BRADY SULLIVAN will get its way re: developing the old Worcester Courthouse, now that Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce head and failed/disgraced former lieutenant governor Tim Murray has put the screws on Mayor Petty, Woo City Councilor Ric Rushton and all the other small time politicians in this town.
Did you read The Boston Globe articles about Tim Murray’s main fundraising guy – Michael E. McLaughlin? Like THE WHOLE POLITICAL WORLD KNEW MURRAY’S GUY WAS CROOKED AND BREAKING LAWS! SO DID MURRAY! But he chose to hitch his wagon to the guy cuz he wanted to WIN and didn’t care how rotten the means were to his political ends. Says a TON about Timothy Murray and ambition gone rogue.
Here are The Boston Globe stories:
1. CLICK HERE
Did you know this factoid?
From CITY of WORCESTER WORKER and former Worcester city council candidate MIKE LAVIN:
Several years ago, another Worcester city worker, part-time, a young guy IN A WHEEL CHAIR, got on the Internet to support Tim Murray’s OPPONENT – when Murray was running for Massachusetts lieutenant governor.
Well, little Timmy (little in stature AND spirit!) found out that this kid in a wheelchair was not drinking the MURRAY KOOL AID. Murray flew into a rage and DEMANDED THAT THE KID IN THE WHEEL CHAIR BE FIRED FROM HIS PART TIME CITY OF WORCESTER JOB. Because he was not supporting Tim Murray for lieutenant governor.
Mike Lavin had to talk Murray down. He said: TIM! THE KID’S IN A WHEELCHAIR! Please!
Thank God for Mike Lavin. Murray backed down.
Now Worcester is once again stuck with this asshole, a guy who should be in jail but makes $200,000 a year at our chamber of commerce. Talk about nerve: Shortly after Murray was hired at the Chamber, he hired Christina Andreioli to essentially DO HIS JOB, creating the new chamber vp job especially for her. This means she does all the real work and Tim gets to run around town acting like a politician. So NOT WORTH $200,000 a year!
And I’ll tell you what: this chamber job will NOT reignite Murray’s dead as a door nail political career, no matter how many Worcester County businesses line up behind him and give him $$$$$. The Boston media will insist on uncovering the truth last time around, and the truth could land Murray in jail. It will be a blood bath. And his wife and daughters will drown in the blood, along with him. The Worcester press continues enabling Murray. Totally unhealthy for the city and, ultimately, for Tim Murray.
So … MURRAY HAD CHRISTINA WRITE AN EMAIL tonight URGING ALL CHAMBER MEMBERS TO PUSH FOR BRADY at tomorrow night’s Worcester city council meeting.
Murray also made THE CALLS to Mayor Joe Petty, City Council Economic Development Subcommittee head Ric Rushton and all his other boy buds on the city council.
Naturally, they all fell in line.
The economic development subcommittee meeting has been moved up to like 2 minutes before the city council meeting so Rushton and members can rubberstamp Murray’s demands.
Then onto the Worcester city council meeting, where Mayor Petty, who has just email-blasted a letter of support for the developer (cuz Tim told him to), will urge his colleagues to VOTE YES.
Because TIMMY TOLD HIM TO.
When Murray was in the thick of his criminal state campaign fundraising shit storm, a BOSTON GLOBE columnist wrote a brilliant column about Murray. About how Murray was making the governor’s race and office small. As in small time, ward boss petty small, political hack small, greasy haired pols who wanted their palms greased for delivering the goods small, old time Boston politics small, backroom deals small. Tim Murray had made a world class state race … feel crooked and provincial. SMALL.
And that was a shame.
But tonight, just like when he got the Worcester city council to dump former Worcester City Manager Tom Hoover, Tim Murray moved BIG but acted SMALL. He made his behind the scenes phone calls, twisted arms off the council floor, mailed last minute letters to WIN. SHUT OUT the opposition. Put an end to real DIALOGUE …
Worcester government in action. Transparent as dog shit.
The Tim Murray shit-machine.
Hurtin’
South Worcester Neighborhood Center Executive Director Ron Charette (right) and his brother at SWNIC’s 2014 Holiday celebration. More than 1,000 families went to Camp Street and were given holiday meals, new toys for children, personal care products and/or winter clothing. Ron helps Worcester folks get through tough times! (photo by Ron O’Clair)
By Rosalie Tirella
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to me (cuz this is Worcester politics), but IT DOES (cuz I’m STILL an idealist): Worcester city officials and our local state legislators are gonna pretty much let the South Worcester Neighborhood Center die.
Close its Camp Street doors forever.
Stop caring for and helping hundreds of low-income/working-class South Worcester, Main South and Green Island families.
Within the next couple of months.
Pathetic! Our Worcester city councilors and state legislators vote themselves raises left and right, give themselves perks galore, own nice homes, vacation homes, buy Worcester rental property at sweetheart deal rates, etc, etc, but they can’t come up with the paltry amount of $$ it takes to help a social service agency put food into the mouths of poor kids.
Or give warm winter clothes to a poor local guy or gal who needs to brave the Woo elements.
Nope! It’s to hell with you! I’ve got mine! And Worcester’s destitute get more destitute. Every day the city feels poorer, more and more like Pottersville in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Before Jimmy Stewart rubs his eyes and realizes it was all a BAD DREAM.
SWNIC IS HURTIN!
The South Worcester Neighborhood Center goes WITHOUT HEAT THIS WINTER!
It goes without $$ to pay its Crompton Park site manager.
But who cares?
It’s only poor people! Most of them don’t even vote! And they’re not politically “connected” in any way, shape or form! So there are no consequences for politicians who drop the ball.
Oh, well!
Hungry little kids?
Too bad!They’re only Worcester’s future!
Why should Worcester political LEADERS care if SWNIC’s summer program for kids – the one that has Holy Cross college students volunteering with low income kids all summer long FOR FREE FOR FAMILIES – why should our city councilors give a hoot if that program ends? And working parents have one less FREE child care option?
One more latch-key kid roaming Hacker Street shouldn’t make a bit of difference!
Why should the Worcester City Council or Worcester officials care if SWNIC’s food pantry closes? Or its referral program ends? Or its bilingual staff becomes unemployed?
Their tushies are warm on their SUV’s heated cushies! In some instances, courtesy of the Worcester taxpayer!
To enter a FREEZING COLD South Worcester Neighborhood Center in the middle of winter because Worcester city councilors or our local state legislators can’t cobble together the grant money or funds from somewhere to keep SWNIC staff and volunteers warm is heart-breaking. The elderly SWNIC volunteers who come in to the center to knit winter hats and scarves for the poor of Cambridge, Southbridge, Webster or Canterbury streets have to sit in front of little electric space heaters to do their knitting!
Why should Worcester pols care? It’s only Worcester’s old people! Why honor or even respect our senior citizens?! They just toiled in our factories, built this city! Who gives a fig?!
This brand of thoughtlessness was on full display when then Worcester Mayor Tim Murray, heading out the door to become Massachusetts’ newly minted LG, DOUBLED the salaries of all Worcester city councilors and Worcester school committee members pretty much on the heels of cutting the Worcester School Department’s recently hired minority teacher recruitment officer. The person was part time and made around $20,000 a year. Murray did this knowing there would be no political consequences for him because he was leaving city politics – only to self-destruct on the state and national political stages. Money, greed and selfishness brought Timmy down when he was lieutenant governor. Tim had a false sense of security because he graduated from, got his “diploma” from the Worcester School of Good Ol’ White Irish Boys Politics. He, like the rest of his fellow grads, hit all the right benchmarks: white, Catholic, Irish, St. John’s High School, Holy Cross college, Fordham University or Boston College, trips to Ireland, Christ the King Church, those pointless, beige cable-knit sweaters … . Too bad Tim was a moron and threw all his blessings away! Too bad he wasn’t listening to more Sinead O’Connor and less crooked fundraiser pal. (For Murray to play the naive altar boy and deny knowing anything crooked was going on was a stupid Murray lie on top of more Murray lies!)
But Tim Murray begat City Manager Mike O’Brien, and former City Manager Mike O’Brien changed over the decade he lorded over us Worcesterites. In the end, Mike O’Brien became a Republican leading a Democratic city, and too many organizations and people with clout in Worcester resisted him. He couldn’t realize his vision. So he left. O’Brien, who once said, almost teary eyed!, that Worcester was THE VERY FIBER OF HIS VERY SOUL and who was also on a not-so-secret mission to kill all affordable housing in Worcester is now living in very Republican Southboro and schlepping affordable housing for Winn Development! HA! How’s that for poetic justice?!
But I digress!
It was Mike O’Brien, as Worcester City Manager, who began freezing South Worcester Neighborhood Center’s funding a few years back. But SWNIC Executive Director Ron Charette soldiered on, running the center, helping more people than ever, running a kick ass summer program, etc. He called O’Brien’s City Hall office and asked for meetings with O’Brien every other day. To talk, discuss the center and all the people it serves. O’Brien’s office never once returned Ron’s phone calls.
Then things got tighter. New City Manager Ed Augustus was supposed to meet with Ron, then cancelled, then acquiesced – but only if he could bring his lawyer to the meeting with Ron.
Pathetic.
Does Augustus know a Worcester social service center needs heat? Does Augustus know the center will close without some money earmarked for it? Does Augustus, who makes almost $200,000 as HEAD OF WORCESTER and lives just outside BOSTON IN MILLIS, where I’m certain he supports his town’s social service center, even CARE?
Like I said: SWNIC is hurtin’. Which means more poor families in Worcester will be hurtin’. Soon.
Hope gov-elect Charlie Baker reads this editorial …
… because this is how it feels for most of us Worcesterites! Read this editorial from The New York Times because the right-wing Telegram and Gazette editorial board won’t print the truth for ya and former Democratic hero and Mass Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, now making $200,000 a year at the Chamber of Commerce, urged everyone to VOTE WRONG ON THE BALLOT QUESTIONS, shitting all over working people (and the environment). Murray, this past election, was anti-living wage, anti-expanded bottle bill, anti-earned sick time … what a whore.
– Rosalie Tirella
Job Growth, but No Raises
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NOVEMBER 7, 2014
The employment report for October, released on Friday, reflects a steady-as-she-goes economy. And that is a problem, because for most Americans, more of the same is not good enough. Since the recovery began in mid-2009, inflation-adjusted figures show that the economy has grown by 12 percent; corporate profits, by 46 percent; and the broad stock market, by 92 percent. Median household income has contracted by 3 percent.
Against that backdrop, the economic challenge is to reshape the economy in ways that allow a fair share of economic growth to flow into worker pay. The October report offers scant evidence that this challenge is being met. Worse,the legislative agenda of the new Republican congressional majority, including corporate tax cuts and more deficit reduction, would reinforce rather than reverse the lopsided status quo. …
To read entire editorial, CLICK HERE
PATRICK, MURRAY AND GROSSMAN RECEIVED BAIN DONATIONS
First this:
http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-15/news/32257240_1_grand-jury-investigators-authority-employees
Now this:
By Steven R. Maher
Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray, and Treasurer Steven Grossman are among the Massachusetts Democratic leaders who received campaign donations from employees of Bain Capital, the investment company Republican nominee Mitt Romney presided over.
Patrick, a long time political ally of President Barack H. Obama, shocked many in the political world when he told CNN Bain was not a “bad company”. Patrick’s comments have reportedly appeared in Romney campaign advertisements in battleground states.
Obama and most of the Republican candidates had portrayed Romney’s Bain as a corporate predator, taking over and selling off other companies’ assets, or leveraging them to the hilt for profit. In the process, Bain was alleged to have devastated entire communities with massive layoffs.
State law requires campaign donations over a certain amount to include the name of the donor’s employer. So we went to the website of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) which allows a search of campaign donations by a donor’s employer, and then sub-search by candidate. We searched Contributor Employers containing the name “Bain,” sorted by candidate.
Like start up
Deval Patrick received 31 donations from Bain employees totaling $11,500. The fascinating thing about this support is that 65% of it came at the time Patrick needed it most: prior to his first election as Governor in 2006. Patrick received 14 donations totaling $4,900 prior to the September 26, 2006 Democratic primary and another 7 donations totaling $2,500 before the November 2006 general election. It may not sound like much, but for a struggling gubernatorial candidate without spectacular personal wealth of his own, such amounts go a long way in the early stages of a campaign.
Romney received only two Bain donations worth $700 in 2007, the same amount in 2008, one Bain donation of $200 in 2009, $1,200.00 in five donations in 2010, and none at all in 2011 and 2012.
Bain looked at Patrick the way an investment company looks at a start up company with an attractive new product: a good investment, providing seed money for a struggling political entrepreneur. For Mitt Romney, the payback he received from the Bain donations was enormous: staggering under the blows from Obama’s attacks on Bain, he got a rebuttal from an African American supporter of Obama. It was a return on investment, in political terms, that was priceless, a working man’s equivalent of having a winning Power Ball ticket.
Other notables
Patrick was not the only high level Massachusetts Democrat to benefit from Bain employees’ largesse:
• Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray received ten donations worth $4,350 from Bain employees, all but one of which were made in 2006.
• Treasurer Steven Grossman received six donations totaling $2,350.• Boston May Thomas Menino received $500 in 2005 from a Bain employee.
• In 2008 Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi, now in jail, received a $250 donation from a Bain employee.
• The Massachusetts Democratic State Committee received $35,000 in donations from Bain employees.
• Former Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly received $1,000 in contributions from Bain employees.
• Former State Senate President Robert E. Travaglini received $700 from Bain employees.
Tim Murray investigates … himself
Murray must tell all
From The Boston Globe
R. T.
http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-05/metro/30589498_1_black-ice-troopers-release-black-box-data
Today’s Boston Globe editorial: Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray lied
Hey, what can we say, Timmy? Money talks, bull-shit walks.
– R. Tirella
Tim Murray and Chelsea’s McLaughlin
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