More people running for things!

Yeah, I've been really lazy about the blogging lately. Mostly, this is due to there being no interesting news (there's news, it's just dull) to write about. Today's news isn't super-interesting either, but at least it's something.

The "something" in question should be obvious from the title of this post. People are running for office in Fitchburg, so let's see who they are.

This information comes from the Sentinel & Enterprise, in this article. So who's running?

There are now 10 candidates running for the city's five councilor at-large seats, according to City Hall records.

Councilors Stephan Hay, Marcus DiNatale and Dean Tran have already signed in to run for reelection.

No surprise on any of those, though it's interesting to note that Tran is running for reelection as a City Councilor and not making a mayoral bid. Ditto for DiNatale. Guess the local anti-Wong crowd is going to be disappointed about that (which is fine with me, fuck those jerks!).

We already knew about some of these, though it appears that Conry's supposed reelection bid from that old post has been abandoned. He and Annie DeMartino are not seeking reelection. Councilor Solomito is, though he apparently hasn't filed the paperwork yet to get his name at the top of the article.

That old post also has a few names that appear in today's article. McNutt, Reynolds, Bernard, and Hartman were all previously mentioned.

Also previously mentioned is former mayor Dan Mylott, who is still in the "has pulled papers" stage and is taking his sweet time getting to the "candidate who will lose" stage. Oh well.

So, who are the newcomers?

New candidates that have filed papers within the last six weeks include Robert Boutwell, 57, a Longedge Avenue resident and former member of the Airport Commission.

Boutwell, who's also running for at-large councilor, said he wants to dig into the city finances.

"I believe at this point that everything needs to be looked at and reviewed," he said. "Reforms are needed in policies and procedures, and if at all possible, we need to do more with less."

Standard stuff, really, but that's about all we can reasonably expect at this point. Make with the websites, people!

Who else?

Linda Nicholopoulos, 55, will be running for councilor at-large after she's served on the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Planning Board, the Cultural Council and the Friends of Senior Center.

"I would like to promote a positive image of Fitchburg," Nicholopoulos said. "I've lived here for 31 years and I see the good in Fitchburg."

Nicholopoulos said her priorities would be public safety, the seniors and the schools if she gets elected.

Okay, that's fine. Positive images are nice, and Nicholopoulos has clearly devoted some time to public service already. Good for her.

Next!

Sprauge Street resident and current Planning Board member Michael DiPietro has also pulled papers to run for councilor at-large.

Well, that's sort of content-free. He's run before though, and here's how Jason at the now-defunct Save Fitchburg characterized him in a liveblog:

Michael DiPietro: Live-long resident, seen the good and the bad. Dad was a school teacher, grandfather long-time caretaker at Crocker Field. Wants to give back to the community... Wants to erase negativity and move Fitchburg forward. Nice... Financial issues: Conservative spending, encourage biz and residential development. Mentions city image again... Says one of the reasons people move here is the school system. Uh, that image adjustment can't come all at once, Michael... Says Fitchburg can be better than ever, and the "pre-eminent community in the Montachusett" area. Not too shabby.

Which sounds okay, though it's still standard "I'm running for office and not going to say too much" boilerplate.

So far, so boring. But here's where it gets interesting! Lovable leprechaun, former mayoral candidate, and personal favorite Ron Dionne is running for City Council!

Also running for councilor at-large is former mayoral candidate Ron Dionne.

Dionne said he would bring an "outsider" perspective.

"If this is going to turn around, it's going to turn around from an outsider perspective," he said. "Someone not in politics needs to get in and say this is the way to go."

Well, Dionne is certainly "someone not in politics"!

Will he spend more than 30 bucks on his campaign this time? Who cares? All that matters is that he's in the race, and I'm glad to see him.

We also get a bit more information on some of the people running, like this from Ward 4 candidate Ryan McNutt:

Other new candidates that have filed for election include Ryan McNutt, 32, who is running against incumbent Kevin Starr for the Ward 4 seat.

McNutt said he regularly attends City Council meetings and has worked as an intern in the mayor's office and Board of Health.

"I see things in Ward 4 where I live that really, seriously need to be addressed," McNutt said. "And I don't see any action or plan."

McNutt said, for example, he would like to see a "long-term plan" to address foreclosure issues on Elm and Marshall streets.

See all that new information? McNutt is 32! (Also the internship & meeting-attending stuff is new, I suppose.)

The rest is the standard stuff, as usual. He does have a pretty decent website up already though, which will be reviewed at a later date, once I'm sure Starr's website has been made current.

Who else?

Juan Rosado, 30, a Madison Street resident, is running against Ward 2 Councilor Norman Boisvert. He said he's lived in the city for six years and he wants to see more action to improve Cleghorn.

"We need to have a better environment for the kids," he said.

Oh man, a guy with an Hispanic name looking to improve Cleghorn? The local wingnuts are going to hate him. I don't think they're too crazy about kids either.

Personally, I like him if only because Boisvert sucks so badly. We'll have to see what he's all about later, though. A single non-controversial sentence in a S&E article isn't much to go on.

Here's something else from the article that I wasn't aware of:

Councilors serve two year terms and are paid $9,000 a year.

Man, that sucks ass. I knew they weren't paid much, but had somehow gotten it in my head that it was eleven or twelve grand. Nine is just terrible.

So there you have it! People, running for office. I'm going to put together a post in the near future listing everyone who's running and providing links to their websites, so if anybody knows where websites for these new candidates are, please give me a hand in the comments.

In the meantime, these are the people for you to stalk.

Override!

City Councilor Kevin Starr has done something that I didn't think anyone on the City Council had the balls to do; he has proposed a Prop 2 1/2 override for Fitchburg.

Ward 4 Councilor Kevin Starr said he'd like to see an override question be put on November's ballot to avert deep cuts in public-safety departments.

"So many people have strong opinions and their voices need to be heard," Starr said. "The choices shouldn't be left up to 11 people on the council. They should be decided by an entire city."

Makes sense to me.

The city needs money, and a way to get it is through a Proposition 2 1/2 override. It certainly seems like the sort of thing that's at least worth exploring. If the voters go for it, then it can help fix a lot of problems. If they don't, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Councilor Jody Joseph sounds like he's on-board with at least having a vote.

Ward 6 Councilor Jody Joseph said he doesn't see many places in the budget to cut.

"I've been through the budget and to me, to cut any more would be taking something that's already bleeding to death and cut it even more," Joseph said.

Joseph said his priorities are not only in the public safety departments, but the human service departments, too.

Joseph said the only option besides cutting is adding new revenues.

Joseph's quotes here address what will most likely be the biggest complaint about an override (besides "I don't want to pay taxes, waaah!"); the idea that it's a lazy way to get around cutting junk from the city budget. There's only so much junk in the budget in the first place, so cutting only works to a degree. After that, you need revenue.

Of course, not everybody is going to be so accepting of the idea.

Ward 2 Councilor Norman Boisvert said he would not support an override.

"Once you add taxes they never come off," Boisvert said.

Boisvert said the city's fiscal problems will not go away next year, or the year after.

"Are we going to have an override every year?" Boisvert said. "Maybe we should just learn to live within our means."

Or, you know, we could understand that Prop 2 1/2 is inherently flawed and counterproductive and look for ways to work around it?

There have been nearly 4,500 attempts (about 1,800 successful) to override Prop 2 1/2 it since it first became possible to do so in 1983. Does that sound like a law that's benefiting communities, or one that's standing in their way?

City Councilor Solomito also weighed in with a bit of stupidity:

Ward 5 Councilor Joseph Solomito said he wouldn't support an override either.

"I think the people have already spoken," Solomito said.

Attention Fitchburg: All future elections are hereby suspended, because Joseph Solomito thinks that you've "already spoken" about everything, and your decision is whatever Solomito says it is. Solomito will be declared councilor-for-life, because if he was able to get elected one time, that must mean he'll get elected every time he runs in the future. Representative democracy is for wussies.

Incidentally, the public perception is arguably that an override can't pass. I don't exactly know why this is the public perception, but it probably has something to do with the loud and incessant whining of the anti-tax brigades.

Luckily, we're not dependent on public perception for our facts here, and can just look at these statistics on overrides from the Mass. Department of Revenue.

Fitchburg has only had one override vote on this list. It was for fiscal '92, seeking $200,000 for ambulance services. It lost almost 2:1. But that was nearly 20 years ago. During the 90's, overrides didn't fare well in general, with 1,843 attempts being defeated and only 931 attempts passing.

Now times are different, so let's focus on the years just from 2000-2009. Things have changed pretty dramatically. From 2000-2009 there have been 1185 override attempts. Of those, 580 were defeated and 605 won.

You could perhaps argue that the dramatically lower number of total override attempts explains the wins. Maybe people are less likely to propose overrides after the drubbings of the 90's, and only propose ones they think they can get support for.

Maybe so, but it's already been proposed. I don't know what Starr's thought process is, but I doubt he would have proposed it if he thought it was doomed to go down in flames. So we're already past the first step, and overrides clearly don't carry the same "no way will that happen!" stigma they had for many years.

So yeah, let's vote on it. Up until we do, I'm sure there will be plenty of local idiots ranting about socialism and "unconstitutional" taxes and probably abortion (because they always work it in somehow) for us to enjoy. Which will make for easy blog posts.

Thanks, Kevin!

Still waiting for one valid argument...

I knew it.

This tedious issue of illegal immigration has moved on from just outraging stupid people on message boards.

I heard stupid people arguing about it in my workplace this morning, a bunch of city councilors said stupid things to the newspaper, and McMenemy did what everyone knew he would do and wrote a stupid editorial.

We're approaching a singularity of stupid.

Let me clarify something, in case anyone is under the impression that I'm just calling people stupid because I disagree with their point of view. That's not actually the case.

There's certainly a discussion to be had about illegal immigration and how best to deal with it. Smart, sensible people can have different opinions on the issue. It's a very complicated issue, after all.

But what we're seeing is not smart, sensible people making rational arguments against allowing illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses. If we were, this would be a wonderfully interesting topic to write about and discuss.

No, what we're seeing is a bunch of people putting forward the same fundamentally stupid non-argument. It boils down to saying "illegal is bad" and therefore anyone who's been labeled an "illegal immigrant" or the dehumanizing pseudo-noun "illegal" is bad and should be punished in petty and nonsensical ways.

This "argument" is actually perfectly encapsulated in McMenemy's editorial headline: "Rewarding people for breaking the law."

That's what it's all about. There's no argument about whether allowing illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses makes sense or not. No, it's all about denying them the vast reward of being allowed to legally drive because they're ILLEGALS!

Dean Tran makes the same basic argument in his whining:

"I strongly believe this is an issue of right and wrong," Tran wrote in an e-mail responding to questions Thursday. "We should not condone illegal activities as we do not teach our children to engage in illegal activities."

Incidentally, note that the Sentinel initiated the questioning here. They're the ones trying to drum up outrage. They went looking for quotes condemning DeMoura, and found themselves a number of willing patsies. Way to get used, guys!

Here's the old dumb non-argument again.

Ward 2 City Councilor Norman Boisvert strongly disagrees with DeMoura's stance.

"I must be stuck in the old school," Boisvert said. "I believe anyone who comes here illegally should not be rewarded with a drivers license."

Boisvert is not anti-immigrant, he said, but he wants the laws to be obeyed.

Yes, what a wonderful "reward" driver's licenses are. It's not like anyone needs a driver's license. They're just a nice luxury item, like golden back-scratchers.

Also, please note: anyone who feels the need to state that they're "not anti-immigrant" is most likely anti-immigrant. It's like the people who say "I'm not a racist" before saying something incredibly racist. Just saying it doesn't make it true.

Kevin Starr thinks illegal immigrants should have a way to become legal immigrants, and I agree with him. But what does he think about this specific driver's license issue?

Ward 4 City Councilor Kevin Starr disagrees with DeMoura's position.

"A driver's license is a privilege you have to earn," Star [Sic] said. "It's not a right."

Oh, Kevin. You're a nice guy, but that's a really stupid thing you said. You "earn" the privilege to drive by passing a driving test and paying a fee. There's nothing about that process that inherently disqualifies people who haven't gone through the proper immigration channels.

Believe it or not, even foreign tourists can drive legally as long as they have a valid license in their home country. Have they earned that privilege more than someone who's actually living here but has been labeled as "illegal"?

About the only one in the S&E article who gets it at all (besides DeMoura) is Jody Joseph:

Ward 6 City Councilor Jody Joseph is upset that Patrick has the committee to begin with, saying illegal immigrants should not be receiving any benefits from the state.

"I don't know how comfortable and easy we should make it for refugees and immigrants to come into the area if they are here illegally," Joseph said. "I don't understand the whole concept."

But Joseph is not opposed to DeMoura's stance on giving licenses to undocumented immigrants.

"The chief just wants to be able to identify all of them," he said.

Sure, the first part of that quote is stupid (way to attack refugees for no reason, asshole), but at least Joseph understands that this isn't about "rewarding" anyone, it's about pragmatism.

Chief DeMoura didn't suggest allowing illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses as a reward, it's for purely pragmatic purposes. Let's actually see what he says:

DeMoura defended his comments Thursday. He said giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants is a good policy.

"It's a procedural step that makes sense," DeMoura said.

It would allow police to be able to identify those immigrants during traffic stops or other police encounters, he said.

And the proposal would also give the state a way to get a fingerprint from the immigrant, he said.

Most illegal immigrants are people whose temporary work visas have expired, DeMoura said.

Clearly, this isn't about some stupid "reward", it's about making the job of the police easier. People have to drive. Not driving is really not an option if you live in Central Massachusetts and hope to have a job, or do pretty much anything.

There just aren't a whole lot of other options. Not everyone has an endlessly supportive friend who can ferry them around all the time. Not everyone has access to public transportation (which sucks around here). Taxis cost more than many people can realistically afford, assuming they can even get one when they need one.

And even if there were viable alternatives, the reality of the situation is that people are driving anyway. Doing this illegally causes problems. So instead of stamping our feet and whining about it, DeMoura put forward an idea that's very simple and solves a lot of problems.

So, can anyone point to problems that DeMoura's suggestion creates? I mean besides pissing off people who "earned" the privilege of having a driver's license by virtue of their mom getting knocked up while living in the United States?

Here's the closest I could find to an argument against DeMoura's suggestion, and it doesn't actually have anything to do with driver's licenses, it's just whining that anyone dare to give a shit about what happens to illegal immigrants. Cue Dean Tran:

And Tran thinks Patrick ought to be doing more for the legal residents of the state before he deals with illegal immigrants.

"If Gov. Patrick wants to help the people of the Commonwealth, he should be focusing his energy on creating jobs and lowering taxes," Tran wrote. "His committee is another representation of bigger government and more tax dollars going to waste."

Blah blah blah, typical conservative nonsense. You know, Dean, it is possible to do more than one thing at a time.

Or should we wait until every single problem faced by naturalized citizens is solved before we do anything for illegal immigrants? Because if that's how you think government works, it's no wonder you think Rachel is some kind of political genius.

Finally, McMenemy does present an "argument" that slightly deviates from the prevalent "stop rewarding the wetbacks" argument. Here it is:

Again, no matter how well intentioned DeMoura is, we think his proposal, if enacted, would only encourage more illegal aliens to come into Massachusetts, where residents and business owners are already paying high taxes which go, in part, to educating and housing illegal immigrants.

This, like everything that comes out of McMenemy's brain, is only valid in the peculiar little fantasy world that he inhabits.

I'll just discard outright the totally-unsupported-by-facts assertion that this would somehow turn Massachusetts into some sort of vacation resort for illegal immigrants. It's nonsense.

Also, please note that illegal immigrants pay less in taxes than citizens, but they also use less in services. Depending on who you listen to, they either use slightly more than they pay or pay slightly more than they use, but either way it pretty much comes out as a wash.

Sure, schooling illegal immigrants costs money, but illegal immigrants also pay into Social Security without ever getting any benefits from it. Sales tax hits everyone, of course. It's not a simple issue, unless you just choose to ignore all the complexities.

As for our "high taxes," Massachusetts was ranked 23rd in the country in 2008 for "tax burden." That puts us squarely in the middle. Of course, any tax is high in McMenemy's eyes.

But that's beside the point.

The point is, if you have a valid argument against allowing illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses, go ahead and make it. But base it on the real world, not some imaginary land where driver's licenses are considered "rewards" and a police chief expressing a desire to do one very simple thing to make the job of the police easier is some deep moral outrage.

In other words, disagree with DeMoura all you want, but please stop being so fucking stupid about it.

More Campaign Website Reviews!

Good news, people who like my reviews of campaign websites! I'm doing it again!

I've exhausted the mayoral candidates of course, and even though one of our mayoral contenders has scandalously changed her website, I'm not going to focus there anymore.

Rather, it's time to dig deeper into the bowels of Fitchburg politics (yes I know that's a disgusting metaphor) and look at some of the city council candidates! Fun!

Incidentally, do you know how hard it is to find a good list online of just who's running for what? The answer: pretty hard!

Lucky for me a bunch of the candidates don't have websites, so we can just ignore them. And because I'm incredibly lazy, I got all these sites from the handy list Jason has posted over at Save Fitchburg. So if anyone's missing, blame him.

Now, let's begin!

Ward Six

Why Ward 6 first? Because there's just one candidate with a website. It's incumbent and City Council President Jody Joseph!Before I relentlessly make fun of Joseph's site, let me just say it is nice to see an unopposed incumbent who actually bothered to have a website. Way to go Jody!

Oh, but wait... I don't think it was made for this election. On the front page there's a link to something called Ward Six Contest Looms which is talking about an old election. There's also this thing:Also, nowhere does it mention that he's currently the City Council President, which seems like it would belong pretty well in his accomplishments section or something.

Also, as you can see, the site is flesh-colored! Gross!

Okay, in fairness it's not exactly flesh-colored. If my flesh looked like that I'd be concerned. It's more like the Crayola color called "flesh" than actual Caucasoid flesh. Still sort of gross.

Either way, I call foul on this website! It's old and not sufficiently updated for the current election (it does have the date right though).

Disqualified!

Ward Four

Okay, moving on to a ward that actually has two active websites and no incumbents! Ward 4 is a hotbed of internet activity!

Let's go in alphabetical order!

Stephen Seney: www.steveseney.com
The first thing that pops out about Seney's website is that it's really incredibly ugly. I mean super-ugly. Fugly, even. It was apparently made by Kreative Dezign, who seem to suffer from color blindness in addition to dyslexia.

I used to live right near Kreative Dezign's storefront and I actually thought it was a car customization shop for quite awhile. Obviously I was mistaken, because they make websites and stuff! Seney's site would fit in pretty well at a custom car rally, though. It's like a Honda Civic with a gigantic spoiler and spinny hubcaps. Style but very little substance.

As I am wont to do, my first step was to examine his Issues page. This is what I found...
As you can see, Seney has no issues! That screenshot there is all you get, concerned voters! Incidentally, the "my site is always being updated with new information" bit seems to not be the case. This issues page hasn't changed in the few months since I first looked at it.

Well, maybe the issues are cleverly hidden elsewhere. Perhaps the terrible navigation is to blame! So I clicked on the thing that looks like a play button beneath the heading "Who is Steve Seney?" and was presented with five options to find out! Sweet!

First up was Background, where I learned little of interest. Seney likes ice cream and fishing. Also, Fitchburg is his "home by choice." I guess it's nice that nobody's forcing him to live here. So that's something.

Next we have Education. In addition to his formal education we get this awesome bit!

I also consider myself self-taught in many areas that interest me. Real estate and finance are two of these areas. Additionally, and at times more important is the education that my parents gave me. They taught me thru their example as well as by their rules.

Okay, here's my contribution to Seney's education: "Thru" is not a word! The word you're looking for is "through". I know it's longer and sort of ugly, but that's the way it goes.

Also, who isn't self-taught in areas that interest them? I'm interested in physics, self-taught even! That doesn't mean I'm going to get hired at CERN anytime soon. I'm also self-taught in how to find good internet porn. So what?

Third, "Additionally, and at times more important is the education that my parents gave me." is a terrible sentence. Fix that please.

Okay, the "Education" page sucked, what about the exciting-sounding Commitment page?

Sigh...

Okay, the page is summed up in this one quote: "The citizens of Fitchburg deserve results not rhetoric."

Ironically, the entire rest of the page is nothing but stupid rhetoric. Basically, take every cliched thing you've ever heard a politician say and cram it all into the same page. That's what you have here.

Next!

Alright, Vision! I love a candidate with vision! I crave a candidate with vision! Tell me about your vision, Steve!

My vision for Fitchburg as a whole is to work with the Council, the Mayors office, Department Heads, and City Employees to strengthen our city. We are all on the same team and we must act that way. Everyone must bring their best to the table for the benefit of the resident’s Fitchburg.

Shit!

That's not vision, that's more rhetoric! Worse yet, it's rhetoric with bad capitalization and missing apostrophes! Fitchburg should be run like a business, blah blah blah. So it's another page of nothing but vapid rhetoric. God this is getting tiresome.

One more, please let it be good...

Experience... well here's a handy quote

Owning a business taught me several things about myself and my abilities. I am constantly pushing myself to achieve more. I have learned to set goals and achieve them.

Oh yeah, more rhetoric. To hell with this!

Conclusion: Stephen Seney's website really sucks. He doesn't say anything at all about the issues, gives no specifics about anything, and does nothing but bullshit us with the very rhetoric he derides. Bad website! Bad!

Okay, now his opponent!

Kevin Starr: www.kevinstarr.org

So what's the first impression here? Well, Starr clearly likes the color red. Red signs, red website. Also, the black-and-white picture of him on the top of the page looks almost identical to the color picture of him in the middle of the page, but I think is different. But I'm not sure! It's kind of creepy if he can pose the exact same way in two separate photos, but maybe that could be considered a political skill. Sort of creeps me out.

Also, while the picture of his family is nice and all, I don't know what's propping up his daughter! She appears to be levitating between them somehow! Yeah, I know he's probably holding her, but I prefer to believe she's somehow magically floating there.

Anyway, this is a much more simple site than Seney's. No fancy but horribly-conceived navigation here, just a few pages. Is it a case of substance triumphing over style though? Let's see!

Wait a second! I was going to put a link here to another page, but there's trickery afoot! All the links are controlled by Javascript, so no matter what you click on the page still claims it's just kevinstarr.org. Sneaky! Points lost for this, because it means that when I went there with Javascript disabled none of the links worked and I saw this:... which isn't very appealing.

Why the subterfuge? Digging into the site reveals the horrible truth! It's all hosted on the joemccarthy.net domain! Yes, Joe McCarthy! Probably a Joe McCarthy who makes websites and not the Joe McCarthy who gave birth to McCarthyism (and who died in 1957), but still scary! I wonder what Mr. McCarthy thinks of Starr's red theme...

Oh well, on to the About Me page. Note that if you follow that link it's not actually the way the page looks if you just go to the website and click the link, but I couldn't freaking link to it otherwise!

It's the basic background/biography page. He went to meetings at city hall when he was five? That's child abuse!

Nothing terribly exciting there, but it does have this bit:

My focus now is working with Councilor Boisvert and others to create a World War II Honor Roll. Over 11,000 city residents answered the call of their country. The Honor Roll will list each of those brave people, including my grandfather Peter Starr. We have a long way to go to raise an estimated $200,000.This monument would eventually be placed in Riverfront Park.

I didn't know about that before, and that's actually pretty cool. So way to go!

Still, the page is a throwaway, on to the similarly crazy-linked Issues page!

Okay, the page is pretty slim. Better than Seney's, but nothing to write home about. Basically he focuses on financial stuff, which is pretty sensible at this time. He does the same "treat the city like a business" bullshit that it seems like everyone running for everything anywhere does. Man I'm tired of hearing that. The only real specific on the page is this:

I will ask our mayor to have each city department make public quarterly financial reports stating the goals and objectives of each department. This would give the residents the opportunity to see how their tax dollars are spent every three months.

Decent enough idea. Still a pretty slim page.

Okay, one page left, but it's the one that may put Starr over the top! So far things have been pretty slim, but now we get to his Blog! It actually pops up in a new window and has a bit different design, but I'm going to consider it part of the site anyway.

Starr is the first candidate whose site I've examined who has a blog, and it's a good move on his part.

It's only been active since early October, but he comes across well in his posts. Positive, articulate, etc. Good things to be! It also gives him a bit of humanity, which is something that can often be missing from candidate websites. It could use a few more posts, though.

Conclusion: This is definitely not the fanciest website in the world, and could really use some more information on the issues. It is clean and simple though, and doesn't irritate or insult you with giant flag pictures and pages of rhetoric (there is rhetoric, but it's minor). The site doesn't really do anything wrong, but it doesn't really impress either. The blog is a very nice touch.


So who wins the showdown for Ward 4 website? Easy, Starr does. Not that either website is fantastic, but Seney's was actually annoying while Starr's was just sort of plain.

(On a side note, you may be interested in this information about Seney, which is also sort of disheartening.)

Anyway, that's it for this installment of campaign website reviews. I'll be getting to the candidates for Councilor-at-Large in a bit, but we have four websites to review for them and the post would just be way too big with all that in it! I might even deal with the school committee candidates. Anything could happen!

Stay tuned!