Page 8 THE EVERETT ADVOCATE – FRiDAy, NOVEmbER 22, 2024 UNIFORMS | FROM PAGE 2 to house 7th and 8th grade classes to relieve overcrowding in neighborhood kindergarten-8th grade schools. Hart gave a presentation to the City Council in June, but the members have been hung up on where current occupants of the building will be relocated, if at all. Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s Chief of Staff, Erin Deveney, recently told The Everett Advocate there is no room for things like the Eliot Family Resource Center and the Broadway Boxing Club in other City of Everett–owned buildings, including the old Pope John High School. D’Onofrio went there during his sophomore and junior years and said the building will need work to be occupied by those entities. “We’ve delayed this too long and it’s not beneficial to the kids,” Cristiano said. “The problem won’t go away. We need to address it.” Hart confined his remarks to “almost all the City Councillors want to vote for it, but they’ve gotten caught up in the process.” “Things like this take time,” D’Onofrio admitted. “It will take a team effort to make it work.” A Feasibility Study may be on the City Council agenda for Monday, November 25. Asked for her reaction to a recent Boston Globe article about interest and impatience in the city to investigate the dismissal of former Superintendent Priya Tahiliani about a year ago, Cristiano said, “I look forward to the opportunity for the school system to have its say in a court of law and not be tried in the court of public opinion.” Tahiliani was put on paid leave in October 2023, just shortly before her contract was set to expire in February 2024. The School Committee at that time voted to remove her earlier rather than just not renew her contract when it expired. During the process, there were allegations of political infighting, favoritism and racism. She is now Interim Superintendent in Brockton. Tahiliani, while Superintendent in Everett, filed lawsuits against the mayor and the City of Everett but never went anywhere. She was rebuked for using high school students on two occasions to protest on her behalf in order to gain attention by the media. Board of Appeals The (Zoning) Board of Appeals also met on Monday, November 18. The petition for 10 Woodlawn Ave. to convert a portion of the building occupied by a ground-floor bar and restaurant to residential units and add a story on top of it for additional units was withdrawn. Attorney Anthony Rossi, representing NDC Real Estate owner Nicholas Cristiano – an Everett police officer and son of Jeanne Cristiano – said the Inspections Department and outside Counsel hired by the City agreed with his argument made on Monday, October 21, that the lot is in a Business Zone and work is by right. “Upon further review, this project doesn’t need ZBA relief,” Building Commissioner David Palumbo confirmed. The petition for 16 Liberty St. “to raze a two-family dwelling and construct a three story nine-unit residential building with parking on half of the bottom floor” was continued until December. Rossi, who is also representing petitioner Alyssa DeSantis, said meetings with neighbors are scheduled “in the next few weeks.”
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