Charter Review #2 April 18, 2014

The Magoun Room at the Medford Public Library held a two hour meeting on Monday evening discussing Charter Review.  The petition drive is officially on.

The key here is that the citizens are building momentum with new faces showing up, tons of questions being asked, discussed and answered, and citizens arming themselves with the actual charter and learning how it can be modified, amended and changed.  

    SIGNATURE DRIVE

      Each attendee gave her or his name, a bit of information on what they do, and an expression of what improvements they would like to see in Medford, Massachusetts.   Dr. Storella made it clear, the priority has to be signatures, so a signature drive has begun.   But along with that signature drive comes the opportunity to awake the sleeping giant, the 57,000 plus citizens of Medford who don’t think there’s an opportunity to bring in real leadership. 

REAL LEADERSHIP 

   Michael J. McGlynn is truly the man behind the curtain. And as this summer snowball generates some steam and people start looking at the charter, start sharing information, start telling their friends and families and colleagues and business associates that something is happening, McGlynn’s Administration understands business as usual is not what it used to be.

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GOVERNMENT PLAN A, B, C, D, E, AND F. 

     These are really adult education classes.  We learned that you can mix and match ideas from each form of government, you can amend a Plan A or even come up with a new idea to improve the community that isn’t in any of the plans currently on the books.   Jeanne Martin, notes/meeting minutes person, put a presentation together after she did research on the six forms of government in Massachusetts.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER  

    The citizens who have no voice are beginning to realize that freedom of speech, the First Amendment, is something that has to be fought for.  This writer has fought for public access television and now others understand that when you pay money for a service, you want to receive that service.  1.7 million dollars or so floated into Medford City Hall between 2010 and 2011 from the franchise fee(s) on the cable subscriber bills.  Where did that money go?  Should the Mayor have the “right” to distribute those monies as he sees fit with zero transparency ESPECIALLY when McGlynn runs around bragging about transparency.    Where are the Federal Investigators to ask McGlynn why he says the word “transparency” but does the opposite?  McGlynn offers transparency but runs from it.  Lip service is what the 27-year incumbent offers while infrastructur in Medford falls apart.  It matters not whether a million people read this essay tonight or only 50 or 60. We appreciate each page view, and with every page view the word gets out, word-of-mouth generates more hits, and people start arming themselves with information, the thing that frightents a 27-year incumbent. 

    There are other topics starting to emerge – water and sewer rates and how the Mayor uses the monies; residential parking, public access TV, potholes, empty storefronts, as citizens talk about the charter they bring up their other concerns.    People are talking in Medford.   There are twenty pages of notes from August 18, 2014.  More of the information will be disseminated in the coming days with a new date made available for Charter Review discussion #3. 

    Stay tuned for more in-depth reporting on the Monday night meeting at the Medford Public Library and the contributions from concerned residents who know that change is on the horizon, and is going to happen sooner than later.