>>Valley Patriot>>
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While
Blanchette Attacks City Worker for Office Renovations
His Own Office Gets $16K Makeover
Tom Duggan
While other communities are making cuts
in their budgets and forcing some layoffs, Lawrence
continues to spend on unnecessary items. Recently, DPW
spent its time, resources and money to remodel and make
improvements to the City Council chambers and the City
Council office floors at a cost of about $16,000 to the
taxpayers.
The renovations included the following: two air
conditioners at a cost of $6,523.50, City Council chamber
floor at $6,494.81 and the City Council office floor at a
cost of $2,784.91. The Valley Patriot has obtained
a memorandum by DPW Director Frank McCann to Mayor
Michael Sullivan, dated November 16, 2006, detailing the
itemized costs of these renovations.
The funding source for these renovations comes from the
DPW budget as opposed to the City Council budget.
Ironically, Council President Patrick Blanchette had been
attacking former Budget and Finance Director John Griffin
for making renovations in his office, calling those
renovations “plush” and “unneeded at a
time when the people of Lawrence are facing an increase
in taxes or a reduction in city services.”
Blanchette used the renovations as one of his reasons for
calling on Griffin to be fired by the city. After months
of verbal assaults on Griffin at council meetings and in
the Eagle~Tribune, Griffin negotiated a buyout of his
contract and has left the city’s employ.
The City Council budget is more than $200 million.
When District “B” City Councilor Grisel Silva
asked Blanchette who had paid for the cost of renovating
the council office during a City Council meeting,
Blanchette told the council that it was paid for by
“Comcast,” in direct contradiction to the memo
obtained by The Valley Patriot.
City councilors say they were unaware that these
renovations were being paid for out of the DPW budget
while one councilor told The Valley Patriot that the
councilors “never voted on these renovations and
believe that the money should be paid out of the City
Council’s line item in the budget, not DPW.”
“We approved the DPW budget to pay for road repair,
plowing, garbage removal, etc. We did not vote on the DPW
budget to pay for new floors in the City Council
chambers,” Councilor Silva said. Councilor Gonzalez
agreed. “Why does the City Council have a budget if
it is not going to pay for City Council items? We should
pay the DPW back,” Gonzalez continued. Most city
councilors The Valley Patriot asked had no idea where the
money came from to pay for the renovations. They also did
not recall any votes taken with respect to the
improvements. Attempts to speak to the City Council
president, Patrick Blanchette, were unsuccessful.
Patrick Blanchette on John Griffin’s
Office Renovations
In a memo to Mayor Mike
Sullivan in November, Blanchette called renovations to
Budget and Finance Director John Griffin’s office as
“a gross misuse of public funds” and said it is
another reason he “should be fired.”
“While other departments
have faced severe budget cuts and freezes on open
positions, Mr. Griffin spends freely to pad his office
with designer furniture,” Blanchette wrote.
“This is not corporate America, but rather a city
office, which is entrusted upon us by the people of this
city. I’m sorry, but creating ‘Trump Style’
office suites is not in the cards for this city and ought
not to be justified,” Blanchette said.
“His (Griffin’s) budget never had the money to
pay for it, so he illegally paid for it out of the
Personnel Department,” Blanchette said of a bill of
the $10,000 of Griffin’s office improvements.
*Editors Note: at the same time
Blanchette was making these comments publicly about John
Griffin, he was taking advantage of $16,000 in office
renovations in his own City Council office.
See story above.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The January 2007 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 10,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
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Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury, Hampton & Salisbury
Beach, and Lowell.
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