Salem city councilors set a bad precedent Thursday night by agreeing to at-large member Steve Pinto’s request to put the mayor’s appointment of Gayle Sullivan into committee.
The council has traditionally given the mayor broad leeway in making appointments to the various boards and commissions.
It’s not like Pinto or anyone else has problems with Sullivan’s qualifications. [...]
Archive for February, 2009
Beverly Rep. Mary Grant is getting plenty of heat these days for speaking out in defense of a gas-tax hike.
In a column in today’s Salem News she insists that the 19-cent hike proposed by Gov. Patrick would be cheaper for North Shore commuters than a doubling of the harbor and Tobin Bridge tolls or a [...]
Early indications are that President Obama will take a more optimistic tone tonight when he addresses Congress.
Excerpts from the speech were released by the White House. Here’s a sampling:
“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation.”
“Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and [...]
That was the mantra this noontime over at the Sheraton Ferncroft where both Senate President Therese Murray and her majority leader, Peabody’s Fred Berry, promised genuine reform will precede any effort to enact new taxes — gasoline or otherwise.
But today’s vote by the Mass. Turnpike Authority raising tolls at the Boston end of the turnpike [...]
President Obama’s visit was the big story in Arizona this past week. He was at Dobson High School in Mesa to talk about the foreclosure crisis; and the Valley of the Sun is among the area’s of the country hardest hit by homeowner defaults.
Though his plan drew generally good reviews, there was a considerable amount [...]
Busy day on the political scene.
Shortly after 4 today came the startling news that New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg was withdrawing from consideration as Commerce Secretary in the Obama administration. From first reports it sounds like he felt his Republican principles just weren’t a good fit with what he sees coming out of the White [...]
Leave it to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Newton, to add some levity to today’s Capitol Hill hearing on what went wrong with the banking industry.
Shortly after 4 p.m. as yet another witness was about to take the microphone, Frank paused to say how the testimony rendered thus far reminded him of a Washington Irving story about [...]
Those wondering why former Salem planning director Bill Luster was sitting at the Salem State College table at last week’s North Shore Chamber of Commerce breakfast will have their answer tomorrow when he’s announced as the new director of the North Shore Economic Alliance.
Luster, who had a very brief stint as Boston’s parking director after [...]
The Patrick administration seems to have created a firestorm with its suggestion that Massachusetts more than double its gasoline tax.
The Policy Draft obtained by The Associated Press (see Glen Johnson’s story below) suggests that Beacon Hill look at increasing the state tax from its current 27 cents a gallon to 50.5 cents. Tack on the [...]
Seems the Peabody School Department still has some work to do convincing real-estate brokers that the quality of city schools can be an effective selling tool.
Literature for a South Peabody home currently on the market talks about Peabody’s proximity to Salem and the major highways, and has a couple of lines about Brooksby Farm. But [...]
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About
Nelson Benton is editorial page editor of The Salem News. Over the past four decades he has covered all the cities and towns of the North Shore, as well as the Statehouse. His political column appears every Friday on the Opinion page. Categories
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