Virginia Ryan | InCity Times

Please vote tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20!
It’s our city’s preliminary election, which will narrow the field for Worcester city council at large candidates and candidates for districts 1 and 5.

We ask you to VOTE FOR:

AT LARGE city council candidates:

– Michael Germain
– Konstantina Lukes
– Joseph O’Brien
– William (Bill) Coleman

District One (1) city council candidate:

Virginia Ryan

All the above folks are good people who have a moral compass and will do right by ALL the people of Worcester. These candidates are also hard workers, folks who will study the issues, advocate for YOU and return/will return phone calls! They are passionate about public service!

Vote for them! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

Thank you!

Rosalie Tirella
*************************************************

Now this from the Mass. ACLU:

Massachusetts law permits organizational T-shirts at polling places

In advance of tomorrow’s (Tues., Sept. 20) election, ACLU concurs with Worcester Elections Commission that people may wear T-shirts supporting organizations such as Neighbor to Neighbor at polling places.

WORCESTER — In advance of the preliminary election in Worcester on Tuesday, Sept. 20 – and in light of recent controversy over T-shirts worn at polls by supporters of the community organization Neighbor to Neighbor – the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts concurs with the recent ruling of the Worcester Elections Commission, which affirms the right to wear organizational T-shirts at polling places.

Today the ACLU issued the following statement, attributable to staff attorney Sarah Wunsch:

“Massachusetts law provides for a zone of 150 feet around the entrance to a polling place, within which no one can engage in activity aimed at influencing how a voter will vote on candidates or ballot questions that are on the ballot in that election. Wearing a T-shirt with the name of an organization is not prohibited advocacy.

“Those who tried to get the Worcester Elections Commission to prohibit the wearing of T-shirts bearing Neighbor to Neighbor’s name are not only misrepresenting the law for their own political purposes, they are trying to divert attention away from real issues about access to the polls, such as efforts to intimidate and deter people from voting. Wearing a T-shirt that supports a community organization like Neighbor to Neighbor, the Main South Alliance, or the Worcester Homeless Action Committee is not prohibited at the polls under state law, and people willing to assist with and observe the elections process should not be attacked for their commitment to our democratic system.”

InCity Times candidate endorsement – Virginia W. Ryan – District 1
By Rosalie Tirella

InCity Times asks the voters of Worcester to
make their voices heard and get out
and vote September 20! These trying
times require bright, honest and com-mitted
commuity leaders For this pre-liminary
election, voters must narrow
the City Council at Large, District 1
and District 3 fields.

We are asking that you vote for:

District 1: Virginia W. Ryan

The readers of this column know
how pointless I believe incumbant
Joffrey Smith is – from his half heart-ed
attempt at serving his constituents
to his half-assed movie career as an
extra to his half-finished house in the
West Side. Yeah, it was once cool that
he was young and running for office
several election cycles ago, but now
Smith is not so young and has proved
himself to be just like every other
entrenched incumbent: doesn’t return
phone calls, doesn’t act on constitutent
requests, has no real ideas/passions
about anything and (as proven in last
election cycle) wanted to use his city
council seat as a catapault for new,
higher office Well, Smith ran for state
rep a few years ago and lost big time
He took a drubbing – finished way way
behind the two front runners. Which
means: Smith is most likely stuck in
his Worcester City Council District 1
seat and District 1 is stuck with this
totally lackluster character who thinks
because he is cute you should give him
your vote.

Don’t! He’s a cypher!

But at least he’s not a criminal the
way Tony J Economou is – the next
person running for District 1.

Economou, a real estate agent ILLEGALLY
tried to scare poor folks
out of their homes after they had been foreclosed
upon. Why? To get them out ASAP and turn around and sell the propeerty – to make a killing in the real
estate market.

What’s especially sleazy about Economou is when the bank fore-closed
on the home, Economou took it
upon himself to make out fake legal looking
documents and taping them to the
people’s homes – giving them a few
weeks to move out or else.

This is totally illegal! People do not
have to move out immediately when
the bank forecloses! They can spend
months in their home as their case
makes its way through the legal system.

If Tony Economou had had his (illegal) way,
these folkswould be living at the PIP homeless shelter – and
he would be stuffing his pockets with cash – thousands of dollars!

When InCity Times called him on
this and published a story, Economou
bull shitted – told the public that it wasn’t him making
the GET OFF THIS PROP-ERTY
notices – it was Freddie
mac/Fanny Mae, to which these non-profits
said NO WAY, we neverd o
that, we never gave Tony Economou
such forms to paste on doors.

What a lying low-life, Economou is. No upstanding businessman from the community – no matter how hard he tries to pretend. This guy is simply greedy and will do anything for a buck – even if it is lying and breaking the law.

Do the people of Worcester’s District 1 really want a low-life
llike Tony Economou representing
them?

D oes Worcester want this guy to voice the concerns of the people?

NO!

Which brings us to the person we want you to vote for: VIRGINA RYAN

Yeas ago, when I was a student at
Burncoat Senior High School, Virginia
Ryan was a biology teacher there. She
was tough and no-nonsense – and I
was a little afraid of her. The 15-year-old me was glad when I learned I got the sweet and brillliant
Mr. LaBelle as my 10th grade biology
teacher, But my good pal Paula T. had Miss Ryan
– and liked her.

The years have gone by and we (meaning I – Rosalie)
have toughened up. We have
learned to look beyound a person’s
exterior to find, in Miss Ryan’s case at
least, a very good, hardworking,
straigh-shooting person. And we like Ryan’s platform.

This is what District 1 and the Worcester
City Council needs: someone
(Virigina Ryan) who is going to fight
for home owners (Ryan’s for the lowest residential taxr ate), our schools (she was a WPSchool teacher for years and years, our students (she was committed to all her kids learning!). Plus she was a biology teacher – so she will/and has done her homework on the Asian Long-horned beetle and Worcester’s trees.

District 1, if you folks
elect Virginia Ryan, will be getting a person
with a ton of energy! I know she is
retired and I know that retirees’ contributions
and their premiums via City of Worcester was what put Ryan in the limelight, but she has many more interests/goals.

Ryan cares about being fair – and she
is not afraid to speak her mind. She has a ton of energy – has
been going door to door meeting a ton
of District 1 voters!

This is a good
thing!

But why do I like Virginia Ryan? It’s the personal stuff – the small stuff. The kind feelings she has shown me through her letters and even actions these last three years. For instance, over
these past few years Ryan has sent me leeters to the
editor. They have not been about her or the retirees of the City of Worcester. They have been about kids and poor
folks. For instance, one letter she wrote
us detailed how for years and years she
took the Worcester Public Schools students
to all kinds of cities and countries
via the Burncoats/WPS field-trip system.
And I remembered Miss Ryan did do that – every
year taking a bus -oad of Burncoat students
to Washington DC to learn about our Capitol and our government. She did this every year!
Would I, as a sanity-loving adult,
want to do the same? Take a bunch of teenagers to DC? Heck no! Well, Miss Ryan beleived in kids,
in history, in our nation’s history and DID IT!
Put it all together with her yearly
field trips to Washington. She did this for
years. The letters she wrote to me
talked of keeping the field trip system
alive and well in our public schools. Ryan knew that going
to DC or Canada or maybe even France was a
cool thing for kids – was yet another way for
students to learn. Learn other stuff
than what she was teaching them in bio
class.

Finally, one of Virginia
Ryan’s last letters to the editor to me detailed this incident: Virginia was shopping at Wal Mart in
West Boylston – it was wintertime and
she was appalled, just appalled, that the
cashiers of Wal Mart had no real barriier
between their cashier stations and the cold/cold wind
– that is the cashiers were working
right in front of the automatic exit
door. She wrote the wind was cold and was
whipping in every time a customer paid the cashier and walked out of Wal Mart. And they didn’t even
have coats on! What a crumby way to
work for five or so hours! Where,
Virginia Ryan wanted to know, was
the barrier that protected these workers
from the elements? Why didn’t
Wal Mart errect some kind of partition?
Do the right thing? I think she even
complained to Wal Mart.

This impressed me the most! This made me
think: Virgina Ryan is sensitive and moral – she cares about
folks most people don’t think twice
about.

So, based on my adult dealings
with Virgina Ryan, I say she is a biologist,
a champion of kids and public school education. She is someone who will always do
the right thing!

She is not a politician like Smith and, God forbid, the creep-meister Tony Ecomou – kicking folks like the Wal Mart cashiers Ryan defended out of their homes!

Please! No sleaze ball Tony Economou for District 1.

Vote for Virgina Ryan – District 1 City Councilor