Page 10 THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2023 ~ GUEST COMMENTARY ~ Accusation By Ward 1 Councillor Could Throw Monkey Wrench into Mayor’s Race By Sal Giarratani A s I read this past week’s Revere Advocate, how could I not notice the front-page news story where a ward councillor accused the mayor of bullying her and alleged payback by the mayor of the future of the public arts center at the renovated 517 Broadway (Route 1) Saugus, MA 01906 Those Who Can, For Those in Need, Inc., Invites you to our 10th Anniversary Fundraising Event: “Uplift Yourself with Laughter” Beachmont firehouse. Ward 1 Councillor Joanne Mckenna was quite disturbed upon hearing that the mayor informed the Metropolitan Area Planning Council that work on the arts center must stop completely. The upcoming mayor’s race is already generating lots of political activity with a vacant mayor’s seat on the ballot come the September preliminary race. Already a number of candidates have announced their intention of running to replace the incumbent, who will be resigning later this month and getting appointed to a state post. The candidates to date include three councillors-at-large, Dan Rizzo, Gerry Visconti and Steven Morabito, all giving up their at-large council seats. Another candidate is Ward 4 Councillor and current City Council President Patrick M. Keefe, Jr. He seems to be getting support from the current mayor and many of his supporters. Seemingly, O’Keefe will become the acting Mayor until a SCHOOL | FROM Page 1 Committee member Carol Tye voted in favor of the motion “with great reluctance” and committee member John Kingston apologized. Like other members, Kingston staunchly supported building the school at Wonderland. “I apologize for my vote,” he said. “But I want to get a high school built and this is the only option.” “We have to go through that process to understand what the cost will be,” Kelly told the committee. Kelly said it would take about a year to complete all the site and design work. “But the best thing is to keep the project moving forward,” she said. “Even if that means spending $2 million that could be better spent elsewhere.” Kingston insisted that the city, not the school department, pay for the new design work. “The council rejected Wonderland,” Kingston said. “If the council is rejecting the Wonderland site, why are we paying for the second study. You pay for the second schematic design.” Committee members expressed all the concerns that have been raised about building on the existing site, but as committee member Susan Gravellese said, “The clock is ticking.” The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), new mayor is elected and gets sworn into office. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Public Art Center will become an issue in this campaign as candidates will work Beachmont voters to the max. In a crowded campaign any political edge will be worth fighting for. It will, as some say, make things a bit more complicated for O’Keefe, who is running for mayor. The other candidates are surely going to try and tie O’Keefe to the incumbent mayor. The McKenna accusation just makes things a bit more difficult for O’Keefe but he’s also pretty politically astute, too. All in all, the 2023 mayoral race in Revere could be one for the ages. In the end, all the candidates will be spending the rest of this year with one eye on their council jobs and one eye on the mayor’s race. Soon we all will see the campaign ads up the kazoo. which will be picking up a significant amount of the cost for the new school, needs an answer. “I feel our only choice is to move forward with what was voted by the council,” said Gravellese Kelly said the MSBA would approve the city’s decision to start over with the existing site if the city council, the school committee, and the high school building committee voted in favor of that move. But Kelly stressed Revere needs to go to the MSBA with three clean votes from those three bodies. Committee members did question what would become of the Wonderland site which the city now owns. “It was taken to use to build a school,” said committee member Mayor Brian Arrigo. “It’s still in play for a central middle school. We took it and we heard folks don’t want to see it overdeveloped with residential housing…the city can hold onto it.” Arrigo said the only proposals he has heard for the site were as a parking area for Amazon delivery trucks and as a distribution center for FedEx. The committee acknowledged the city will need to build a new middle school soon and while using the existing high school was part of the school department’s plan, they agreed that Wonderland could be the answer to siting that project. Like us on Facebook advocate newspaper Facebook.com/Advocate.news.ma
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