a Safe & Happy Thanksgiving! Vol.30, No.47 -FREEwww.advocatenews.net Free Every Friday Football Pats seek fourth straight win over Winthrop on Turkey Day 781-286-8500 Wednesday, November 24, 2021 ~ EDITORIAL ~ Atlas Auto Body Victimized by Census Impropriety By James D. Mitchell Publisher O ccasionally and fortunately not often, newspapers Co-Captains, kneeling from left to right: Augusto Goncalves, Elmahdi El Kaouakibi, Max Doucette and Wilmer Mejia Rodriguez with Head Coach Louis Cicatelli (fourth from left) and Asst. Coaches Vin Gregorio, Paul Norton, Scott Wlasuk, Daniel Murphy, Brandon Brito and Daniel DiCristoforo. By Greg Phipps A fter a year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that led to no fall football season in 2020, the old rivals Revere Patriots and Winthrop Vikings are ready to resume their annual Thanksgiving Day battle. The two teams did not play each other during last spring’s abbreviated campaign. The last Turkey Day matchup in 2019 ended with a 46-31 victory in favor of the Patriots, who completed one of their best seasons in school history by going 10-1. The lone defeat came against Melrose in the Div. 4 North title game. After going 3-1 in last spring’s abbreviated season, Revere has had a pretty solid campaign this fall, posting a 7-2 overall record. The Patriots rolled to four straight wins after losing their season opener to Peabody. Then having suff ered a second loss to Div. 1 Everett back on Oct. 15, Revere has since collected three straight wins. This year’s effort wasn’t enough to land the Patriots in the statewide Div. 3 tournament. After eight games, the playoff fi eld of 16 was chosen – part of a new system installed by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association before this season – and Revere was left out, even though several squads that made it had less wins. Patriots Head Coach Lou Cicatelli told the press last week that fi nishing 8-2 would say a lot about the program and would perhaps encourage officials who decide the tournament brackets to reevaluate the process. “I think [fi nishing 8-2] will open some eyes, and I think the playoff system should look at a team that went 8-2 and didn’t get a playoff berth,” he said. Of course, Revere still has to earn victory number eight, and that won’t be easy. The Vikings are better than their 5-5 record might indicate. They made the PATS | SEE Page 13 need to clarify a story because of errors that are committed, even if unintentional. Last week’s Revere Advocate front page story most likely left the mistaken impression to the reader that Atlas Auto Body shop in Revere was at the “center of a controversy” involving the census. It may have inadvertently caused harm to a long standing, reputable, family business. It was certainly not our intention, and for that, we apologize. Atlas Auto Body was as much, if not more of a victim in this “controversy” than anyone else. We don’t know who’s at fault in this saga, the people employed to collect the data, the individuals who fi lled out the forms, the folks in charge of compiling the information or anyone else involved in the bureaucratic chain of command. But what the reader can be sure of is that the owners of the property that houses Atlas Auto Body have no culpability in this fi asco. Just as a census taker or an individual could use Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium as their address on a form, without the knowledge of the owners, Atlas is no more responsible for this situation than the Red Sox or the Patriots would be in such a hypothetical. City officials state census irregularities lie with federal government By Adam Swift S ome city councillors are still not happy with a discrepancy with U.S. Census numbers that count people living in empty blocks or commercial businesses, but seem satisfi ed that the issues lie with the federal government and not city staff . Early last week, Ward 2 Councillor Ira Novoselsky, whose ward takes the heaviest hit in the redistrict mapping process, brought up an issue where census figures seemed to show 67 people living at a commercial business on North Shore Road. Later that week, Reuben Kantor, the city’s Chief Innovation Officer and part of the city’s redistricting team, was back before the City Council to lay out how some of the census numbers could have been skewed by the federal government. “I think I speak for the repreSENIORS: Kneeling, from left to right: Sylis Davis, Angel Ceja, Steven Ticlayauri, “Moe” Hussein, Filipe Cotta, Hamza Ghoul, Iqbal Butt and Ricardo Goncalves. Standing, from left to right: Head Coach Louis Cicatelli, Mohammed Laareg, Thomas Desir, Mark Marchese, Anwar Marbouh, Augusto Goncalves, Wilmer Mejia Rodriguez, Elmahdi El Kaouakibi and Juan Londono-Marin. cincting team that we were not expecting the meeting [last] Monday to go the way it did, so I apologize,” said Kantor. In addition to providing more information on how census data could show people living where it is obvious no one lives, Kantor said he wanted to clear up some issues differentiating between U.S. Census data and city census and election data. “There is no relationship between the U.S. Census data and Revere voter data – no connection whatsoever,” said Kantor. “We did a full check of the voter record, and we also did a check of the city census record, and there is nobody registered at that [1605 Northshore Rd.] address. This is a U.S. Census data issue only.” Kantor said cities and states are not provided with any of the data other than the total population and basic demographic information, and that the U.S. Commerce Department would be the only entity that would be able to audit the census data. Additionally, Kantor said that the Revere Counts staff that operated through the city was an outreach operation only, and that only federal census enuCENSUS | SEE Page 19
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