Pointless Primary Provides Predictable Poutcome

So, yesterday's primary election for councilor-at-large is over. Ron Dionne lost, despite having a fancy book on city council procedures or something.

He probably shouldn't have spent his time on FATV whining about the former mayor and complaining that the primary cost thirty grand to get rid of one person. Instead, he should just have dropped out and saved the city thirty grand. Dumbfuck.

This outcome is surprising to nobody, especially if you read the psychic predictions of Mr. Lincoln.

Per the Sentinel, the breakdown went like this:

1. Stephan Hay
2. Thomas Conry
3. Marcus DiNatale
4. Dean Tran
5. Rosemary Reynolds
6. Michael DiPietro
7. Robin Streb
8. Dan Mylott
9. Stephen Seney
10. Robert Boutwell
11. Ron Dionne (eliminated)

Personally, I like exactly two people on this list (Streb and DiPietro, though I have a certain fond sympathy for Boutwell). It's depressing to see lunatic Rosemary Reynolds above them, but it's pretty nice to see Mylott and the deeply-irritating Seney down near the bottom.

Thus ends the obligatory boring-as-fuck post-pointless-primary post.

Does DiNatale value streetlights over firefighters?

Roughly a month ago I wrote this post, about a couple of city councilors making fun of Marcus DiNatale for being an annoying, hypocritical buffoon.

If you recall, the issue at question was the whole streetlight idiocy, and DiNatale wanting to raid the city's free cash in order to keep more streetlights on. Stephan Hay and Jody Joseph then made fun of him for being a self-ordained "fiscal conservative" while being so eager to spend the city's free cash, and also for being an oppositional dummy.

Good times...

Now it's a month later, and we have this story about the city council transferring $91,000 from free cash to pay the city's firefighters. You just know that DiNatale will have something stupid to say about it, and he delivers right off the bat!

"I'm not crazy about taking money out of free cash," said Councilor at-large Marcus DiNatale.

Huh? Where did the freewheeling, free cash-spending Marcus of late March go? That guy would have been totally on board with this plan!

Maybe he just doesn't think firefighters are as important as having some extra streetlights on? Or maybe he's hoping that the light produced by burning homes will eliminate the need for more streetlights? Who knows?

He can believe whatever he likes, but I have to disagree on this issue.

See, if my home is on fire, then I really don't care if the sidewalk near it is well-lit. My bigger concern would be getting rid of the fire, which is where the firefighters come in. It's considerably more important to me to have a home that isn't just a smoking pile of rubble than it is to not stub my toe on a dark sidewalk.

DiNatale's stated reasoning isn't along those lines, of course. Rather, it's a fine example of a dumb idea couched in reasonable-sounding language (like most politics, really).

DiNatale said three budget line items have had money left over in them at the end of the year for each of the last three years.

Those include accounts in the building, health and employee benefits categories.

"Those three accounts, I believe, can cover this overage without using free cash," DiNatale said.

Golly, that almost sounds reasonable on the surface. Well, if you ignore the fact that he's relying on a speculation that maybe there will be money left over at the end of the year.

This argument was pretty-well eviscerated by Mayor Wong.

But Mayor Lisa Wong urged councilors not to support DiNatale's plan.

Wong said the fiscal year is not over, so it is not definitive those accounts will remain where they are. Furthermore, Wong said if those accounts do under run, any money left over would go back into the free cash account.

"At this point it doesn't make sense to transfer money out of those departments," Wong said after the meeting.

Ouch. That's eminently sensible.

If they use free cash and DiNatale's three cited accounts end up with extra money, it'll go back into free cash anyway. Which means what DiNatale is suggesting is basically a stupider and more limiting way of doing the same thing Wong is proposing.

Hmm, if that's the case then why would he be opposed to it? Oh, maybe late-March Marcus is back!

Let's not forget about what Jody Joseph said back then:

Ward 6 Councilor Jody Joseph said he was "tired" of hearing DiNatale criticize Wong.

"I'm constantly hearing the same thing, 'My way is right, her way is wrong,'" Joseph said.

This leaves us with three potential explanations for DiNatale's inconsistency.

1. He could legitimately believe that raiding free cash to turn on a few streetlights is more worthwhile than using it to pay firefighters.
2. He could reflexively disagree with everything the mayor supports, just to be a dick.
3. He could actually not believe anything at all, and just grandstands about any issue he thinks might appeal to local dimwits, in order to get his name in the paper and further his political career.

Whichever of those is correct (I vote for all three), I sure hope he keeps it up.

Not for the good of the city, mind you. Being obstinate doesn't really help the city, as far as I can see. No, he should keep it up because after the disappearance of Rachel, Fitchburg is in desperate need of more insanity in its politics. Because it's funny.

Alternately, he could adopt sensible positions and actually study issues instead of just being a reflexively oppositional nuisance about everything. Then he might actually be well-respected and get something worthwhile accomplished. But where's the fun in that?

Stay the course, Marcus. For the comedy!

In which a couple of city councilors earn my respect

In my perusing of the local news yesterday, I saw and skipped over this article, because it seemed boring.*

Boy, was I wrong! The Progressive Fitchburg City Council-tolerating correspondent sends word that there was a lovely display of asshattery, courtesy of well-known local asshat, Marcus DiNatale!

Apparently, even with some of the streetlights being turned off, there's still a deficit in the streetlight budget. There is also a difference of opinion on how to deal with it!

Even with Wong's plan to shut off about 60 percent of the city's streetlights, the streetlight account in the Department of Public Works still has about a $90,000 deficit.

Wong has proposed leaving two positions within DPW unfilled to cover the rest of the deficit in the streetlight account.

But DiNatale, the at-large councilor, said he would have liked to have seen money taken out of the city's free cash account to reduce the number of lights that would be turned off.

"I think 60 percent is really drastic," DiNatale said.

He said he would like to see a plan that would turn off only a quarter of the city's lights.

Ah, clever plan! Instead of saving money by turning off streetlights (which has caused a lot of whining, but no discernible problems), he wants to raid the city's free cash instead. Because, umm... actually I have no idea how that idea makes any sense.

But DiNatale saying stupid things is not really news. It's just what he does. Lots of sound and fury, signifying a young man's desperate attempt to differentiate himself from his father (while still benefiting from the surname), by acting like an idiot.

Where it gets fun is that at least a couple of other city councilors are clearly getting sick of him too. First, Stephan Hay:

Other councilors said that approach was not looking at the "big picture."

"I'm surprised my fiscally conservative watchdog councilor is so quick to spend our free cash," Council President Stephan Hay said to DiNatale.

Not bad at all! That was pointed and sarcastic, while also shining the light on DiNatale's hypocrisy! Very nice! I give it four out of five stars.

Can anyone beat that? Your turn, Jody Joseph!

Ward 6 Councilor Jody Joseph said she [Sic] was "tired" of hearing DiNatale criticize Wong.

"I'm constantly hearing the same thing, 'My way is right, her way is wrong,'" Joseph said.

Okay, that's pretty decent. I think Hay wins, though. Joseph is blunt, which is good, but Hay is funnier.

See, now is the time when I wish I actually did watch these things. I'm sure there was more entertainment to be had there. Hey, FATV, how about providing edited down clips of only the interesting parts of council meetings? By which I mean the parts where they bicker.

Let's have a contest! The first city councilor to call DiNatale a "twatmonkey" (or an equivalent insult, have fun with it!) during a council meeting will win a fabulous prize!**

I'm rooting for Annie DeMartino, because of her lovely accent.

Oh, DiNatale did defend himself, sort of:

DiNatale responded saying he would "provide criticism when I feel it's appropriate."

In other words: "I will continue to grandstand at every opportunity, even if I have nothing of value to contribute. Because I am a twatmonkey."

That is all.

----

* Also because if I write about city council meetings without having actually watched them personally, Mr. Follies might yell at me. But he seems to have disappeared, so fuck it.

** Prize may not actually exist.

People are running for office!

Oh boy!

Yesterday we had the heartwrenching news that we lost the only challenger to Lisa Wong for mayor. Today, we find out that we in fact have gained a number of candidates for other positions in town.

Let's look at them, shall we?

First off, the city council races present us with both old and new faces.

Stephan Hay, Thomas Conry and Marcus DiNatale are all running for reelection to their at-large city council seats. You may or may not already have an opinion of these people.

For instance, you might see DiNatale as a grandstanding yet poorly-informed buffoon. Or you might not. It's up to you, citizens!

Besides the incumbents, we also have Rosemary Reynolds bringing the crazy church-lady vibe to the at-large council race. Here's what she had to say:

Reynolds, a former City Councilor, has said she filed papers to reinstitute morals in the chamber.

Sweet!

Now that Rachel's not running, I'm hoping Reynolds provides the batshit-insanity this election desperately needs. So far so good, but she really needs a crazy website to bring the fun home.

Also running for the at-large seat is someone named Stephen Hartman, who I know nothing about. Maybe he's awesome! Or maybe he's crazy! It's like a little mystery that we will hopefully explore later.

For the ward seats we have two people so far. Emilio Bernard is running for Ward 6. I don't know anything about Bernard either, but at least the paper has a little information about him.

Bernard, 48, is a native of Puerto Rico and moved to Fitchburg seven months ago. He said he wants to increase racial diversity in city government.

"I think there's a lot we can work on in our race relations," Bernard said. "If we can all look at it in a positive approach, we could help each other."

Racial diversity in city government would certainly be a good thing. Though we'll reserve judgment until he actually puts forward a platform of some sort.

One thing's for sure, though. Whatever his platform, the local mouth-breathing racist sacks of shit are going to hate him. A native of Puerto Rico who has only lived in Fitchburg for seven months and has an interest in improving race relations? That's scary stuff to a lot of Fitchburg's more idiotic residents. Not like what they say matters, but get ready to be depressed about the state of the world.

Moving on, the Ward 4 seat is being contested by Ryan McNutt, who was one of the people behind that civic engagement thing I mentioned last week.

I should disclose up front that I know Ryan socially. So I may not be totally objective on my otherwise-totally-objective-about-everything blog! I can at least say that he's disturbingly well-informed when it comes to political and local government stuff, and he can name all the presidents of the United States in order, off the top of his head! The president thing is probably not that useful for city council meetings, but it's still pretty neat.

You may also recall that former mayor Dan Mylott is running for a city council position. He hasn't gotten around to doing the paperwork yet, apparently. Make snide comments about that fact if you wish.

Finally, we have one guy running for School Committee, by the name of David Thibault-Munoz. Here's what he had to say to the S&E:

Thibault-Munoz, who works as a director for community outreach for the Twin City CDC, said he wants to create a better way for parents and students to participate and give input about school policies.

"I feel that I have my ear to the ground with both students and parents in the community," he said.

Well, that's fine. Website, please.

I think that's everyone. Lisa Wong will be seeking re-election, but hasn't filed yet. Presumably a number of the city councilors and school committee folks will be doing the same.

So there you have it. New people to examine. Old people to re-examine. Will they be boring? Will they be exciting? Nobody knows!

Okay, that's enough fake excitement for now.