Incumbents win everything

Okay, the election is over. Here's how it came out.

First, in a result that should surprise no one, Lisa Wong handily beat Fuzzy and Tom Donnelly in the mayoral "race".

• Lisa Wong - 60%
• "Write-in votes" (presumably mostly for Donnelly) - 26%
• Fuzzy Voisine - 14%

The city council elections were also predictable, sadly. All the incumbents are back, and known crazy person Rosemary Reynolds joins them. Blech.

In the ward elections, incumbents Boisvert and Starr beat their challengers (Rosado and McNutt).

Fitchburg sure does love its incumbents!

I have no idea why.

Today is a good day to vote!

So, it's election day.

You can see where to vote here. Choose wisely.

That's all.

Fuzzy states his case!

As they often do, the good folks at FATV have put together another informative video of municipal candidates stating their cases. It's pretty long, as they were each invited to give five-minute speeches and 17 candidates are involved, but there's one part of it you have to watch.



The part I'm referring to is Michael "Fuzzy" Voisine's message from 5:19 to 5:55 (yes, his five-minute message was 36 seconds long). It runs right after Lisa Wong's message.

If you're too lazy/at work to watch 36 seconds of haplessness, here's a complete transcript of Fuzzy's message (courtesy of Mr. Lincoln):

Hello Fitchburg. I'm Michael Voisine... Fuzzy as most of you know me. I'm running for mayor... and I'm looking to be all the people’s mayor. I'm hoping to get everybody out there voting. Every vote counts, so... I need your help to make things happen. If we all work together, I think we're gonna have a great time. Thank you very much.

Inspiring words indeed! Too bad the delivery really sucks all the life out of them (yes, the video is actually even worse than the text). He delivers it with all the certainty and vigor of a student trying to give an oral report on a book he didn't bother to read.

But whatever. C'mon Fitchburg, let's have a great time!*


*Preferably, by voting for someone who wouldn't be a total embarrassment to the city, unlike Fuzzy.

Guy with funny nickname running for mayor!

I'm a day late on this (due to laziness), but there's big news in Fitchburg politics!

According to the Sentinel, here's the deal:

Local sandwich shop owner Michael "Fuzzy" Voisine has pulled papers to run for mayor against incumbent Lisa Wong.

Voisine, 43, a Maverick Street resident, said he's running on a campaign of "change" and that he's fed up with the "good old boys" network that permeates city politics.

"I'm going to give it a shot," Voisine said.

I like that winning attitude, Fuzzy!

So, besides giving Mayor Wong something to do during the run-up to the election, what's Fuzzy all about? Besides sandwiches, I mean.

He's known widely around the city as "Fuzzy," a nickname he said he's had since junior high school.

I'm sure there's an interesting and/or humiliating story behind that nickname. Sadly, we don't get the backstory. I'm going to assume Fuzzy was either remarkably hirsute in junior high, had an unfortunate haircut, or maybe it was something to do with pubic hair (kids that age are crazy about pubic hair!).

What else do we know about Fuzzy?

He's worked on Main Street in Fitchburg for most of his life, first at Domino's Pizza, then managing Espresso Pizza for 14 years.

He left Espresso almost five years ago to start his own sub shop, Premier Subs, at 500 Main St.

"No one thought I would last a year, and I've been here for four and a half," he said.

Well, now I'm a little embarrassed. I drive by that place fairly often and had no idea it was still operational. My mistake! (Hey commenters, is the food any good?)

Anyway, it's nice to know that in addition to sandwiches, Fuzzy also enjoys pizza. He's a man of the people! Except maybe the people who think that sugary-sweet sauce they use at Espresso Pizza is incredibly disgusting, like me.

Maybe it's time to get into the part that's actually relevant to politics, though. Knowing his culinary habits is fine and all, but doesn't really say much about his qualifications.

Voisine said has been considering a run for public office for a few weeks.

He got frustrated during the Civic Days celebration when, he said, some city officials would not allow him to have a band or a vendor's tent during the city's block party celebration on July 3.

"I've had some tough runnings with certain people in the mayor's office and I don't like to be talked down to," Voisine said.

Crap.

Running for mayor after minimal consideration, based on some petty frustration, is not really the best way to get into things. Remember what happened with Rachel, who ran essentially the same way and then had to drop out due to shame health problems?

Also, dude, your name is "Fuzzy." If you don't like to be talked down to, you might want to choose a different nickname. I suggest "Admiral Ignatius." That would get you much more respect.

Perhaps it's part of a larger problem?

Voisine said that points to a larger issue of city officials not being receptive to local residents and business owners.

"It seems like they don't care about existing businesses," he said. "Whoever is in office needs to listen to everyone."

Well, those are some... pretty vague charges, actually. I mean, I agree that officeholders need to listen to everyone (within reason, anyway), but do you really think your one little difficulty means that the city government is ignoring huge constituencies? I'd like some more examples, please.

So, what are Fuzzy's plans for improving things?

He said after two decades of working on Main Street in Fitchburg, he would like to see more change.

"Downtown is dying with all the empty storefronts," he said.

One idea, he said, is to make parking more accessible and he likes Wong's idea of angled parking on Main Street.

He also said he would like to continue and expand Wong's First Thursday initiative, which encouraged residents to visit downtown shops on the first Thursday of each month.

Okay, those are really the current Mayor's plans for improving things. But they are good ideas, and there's nothing wrong with supporting them. They're just not really new.

Indeed, Fuzzy thinks Mayor Wong is doing a pretty good job:

Voisine does not have many criticisms of Wong.

He said "given the hand she's been dealt," she is, "doing as good of a job she can."

Oh no, Fuzzy! You're dangerously close to losing the crazy "I hate Mayor Wong no matter what she does" voters!

Actually, that's fine. There aren't very many of those, they're just disproportionately loud.

I have, however, detected another problem:

Voisine said he's not sure he can do better than Wong in terms of managing the city finances, but he would bring a different "mind frame."

Wha?

Okay, I know that Fuzzy hasn't run for office before, but I'm pretty sure that saying you won't actually do a better job with city finances (by far the single most important issue) than your opponent seems like a way to make sure nobody will bother to vote for you.

At this point I'm having a hard time figuring out just why anyone should vote for Fuzzy. He supports ideas Lisa Wong proposed, and he doesn't know if he could do a better job than her on city finances (which suggests he probably couldn't). Given that, why not just vote for Wong?

Give us something fresh, Fuzzy!

Voisine said he would be a down-to-earth, receptive mayor, and would rely on a group of trusted advisers.

He said during his campaign and if he gets elected, he hopes to surround himself with "the best people I can."

That's not fresh! Tom Donnelly said pretty much the same stuff in the last mayoral election, and now he spends every day shining shoes for nickels down at the bus station ^{[Citation needed]}.

But what's this?

Voisine said he hopes to run a clean and inexpensive campaign.

"Throwing dirt does no good," he said.

He said he may hold fundraisers and looks forward to researching city policies in the coming weeks in preparation for the election.

"Once I get going, if I surround myself with the right people, I think I can make it work," he said. "For my own peace of mind, I need to give it a shot."

Well, that's admirable. Ron Dionne did largely the same thing last election (sans fundraising), and Ron Dionne is awesome! He's not the mayor, obviously, but he's still very likable!

It's much too early to say with any certainty, but I suspect that's what we're going to get with Fuzzy too. A well-meaning guy who figures he might as well give running for mayor a shot. Because why not? I, for one, welcome him!

Unfortunately, so far he comes off as sane, reasonable, and unqualified to run the city. This all adds up to "sorta boring." As such, I have some unsolicited advice for Fuzzy.

Dear Fuzzy,

You seem like an okay enough guy, but from what I've seen so far you're probably not going to win this election. You probably already know this.

So, what to do? I have two options you may wish to explore.

The "Respectable" Option: While you're researching city policies, try to come up with some original policies of your own. They don't have to be great, but they should at least be new and interesting. Armed with these interesting new ideas, you can present them to the public and the current mayor as things to consider. Even if you lose the election, if your ideas are good enough they may get adopted by the winner.

Then you can sleep comfortably, knowing you ran a clean and respectable campaign and through the power of your ideas, you will have made an impact on the city, win or lose.

The "Batshit Insane" Option: Look at the past mayoral campaigns of Ted DeSalvatore and Rachel Rosenfeld, and try to be like them. Say lots of things that make no sense, and back them up with bluster and lies. Get personally offended by broad societal trends, and make bombastic, threatening gestures for no apparent reason. You can easily pull in the crazy asshole vote this way.

This option won't win you the election. It also won't make you look respectable, or even sane. However, it would be entertaining and make for some easy blog posts in which I'd be very mean to you.

Either way, good luck.
Pope Unicow

PS The second option will more easily allow you to start calling yourself "Admiral Ignatius," and is clearly the better choice!

FINI

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.

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.

And then there were one...

Remember a couple of weeks ago when some crazy lady announced she was running for mayor against Lisa Wong? Well, she's not anymore.

Yes, Rachel Rosenfeld is out of the mayoral race, probably because of that evil shadow government that hates free speech or something.

Actually, here's her stated reason:

Rachel Rosenfeld announced Sunday she is dropping out of the mayoral race, saying her health is not good enough to continue.

"I'm not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of dying on the job and letting people down," she said.

Rosenfeld, a local blogger known online as "Really Rachel," suffers from a rare neurological form of sarcoidosis that limits her to a wheelchair and affects her breathing.

Rosenfeld's condition has been stable in recent months, but a visit to a doctor in Boston Tuesday revealed her condition could worsen at anytime [Sic], she said.

Oh no! Who could have possibly seen this coming?

Allow me to quote myself...

Now, here's a prediction for you.

At some point before the primary (assuming there is one) Rachel will drop out. It might be because Tran enters the race, and of course Rachel isn't going to run against her special buddy. Or it could be because she's gotten enough ego-stroking out of her little crusade and doesn't want to suffer the humiliating defeat she's bound for. Or it could be because everyone's treating her campaign as a total joke and she discovers she needs to drop out due to "health problems."

Now, I'm not saying her health problems aren't real. But I am saying that pretty much any illness "could worsen at any time" and that it's an awfully convenient excuse to drop out of a poorly-planned publicity stunt of a mayoral run.

So, let's wish Rachel a not-so-fond farewell by quoting one last little bit of insanity before we go right back to ignoring her entirely:

"Things are going to continue to get worse," she said. "Right now we need a leader of people."

The next mayor need to see the residents of the city for who they are and value each life, she said.

"This city is made up of human beings, not dollars and cents," she said.

Yes, Mayor Wong, please stop selling the residents of Fitchburg to be ground up as dog food! What the hell is your problem?

Anyway, Godspeed you crazy ex-mayoral candidate! May a new lunatic take your place soon!

Return of the Living Dead

Hey, guess who's running for City Council!

It's former mayor Dan Mylott! Though you may know him better as "the guy who got us into this mess."

Truth be told, I actually like Dan Mylott. As a person, that is. He's a friendly, pleasant guy. I wouldn't mind having lunch with him or something.

But he shouldn't have been mayor, and he shouldn't be on the City Council.

Neither should other old-guard member Rosemary Reynolds, who's also running.

Look, old people, you already had your chance and you fucked everything up. Now is the time to fade away as gracefully as possible, not to return as flesh-eating political demons, determined to scrape the last few morsels of protein from the bones of the city of Fitchburg.

Fitchburg currently has a very intelligent mayor. We have a city council that, while certainly imperfect, doesn't include anyone suffering from any major mental disorders (though I'm a little concerned about Tran).

These people are working on cleaning up the mess that was made by the old guard (which includes a few of the councilors). It's a huge job, because it was a huge fucking mess. It'll take time to fix.

That job will become vastly more difficult if the people who are responsible for the mess in the first place get involved. Especially if they seem unable to admit they're actually responsible for anything in the first place...

Mylott, who served 14 years as a city councilor and two years as a School Committee member before a six-year term as mayor that ended in 2007, said he wants to "continue the legacy" and said he misses city politics.

Oh yeah, that's a fucking great legacy you've got there, Dan. What part of it should actually be continued?

All of it, I guess:

Mylott said he thinks he did a "great job" as mayor and on the council.

Ack!

Rather than have my head explode, let's just move on...

Here's a really weird quote from Reynolds in the Sentinel article:

Former City Councilor Rosemary Reynolds has already filed nomination papers to run for an at-large seat.

"I hope to be a steady captain of the ship through these difficult morale [Sic] and economic times," Reynolds said.

I'm assuming that the "morale" in that quote is just the typical S&E illiteracy acting up, and the word she actually used was "moral."

But what a weird thing to say. Difficult economic times, sure, but what's so difficult morality-wise about these times?

The answer becomes obvious when you realize that Reynolds is an antiabortion loon and anti-gay bigot, who "can't separate prayer from [her] life". Hell, she was (is?) President of the Massachusetts chapter of "Democrats for Life" (which does not mean "lifelong Democrat").

Oh boy! Religious zealotry and an obsessive focus on trying to outlaw abortion (not to mention euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research) is just what I want in an elected official!

Could we please get a few new candidates who aren't deeply delusional and/or outright crazy, please?

Seriously, I'll take almost anyone. Just don't be crazy, a failed politician from the past, subject to massive delusions about your own competence, or any combination of the above and you're virtually a shoo in. Or maybe somebody out there has a particularly clever pet they'd be willing to run?

Anyone?

Please?