Supporting Ed Deveau
Dear Editor:
With one week to go before Election Day, East Boston has seen a unique campaign for State Representative. We’ve heard from five candidates with very different backgrounds and levels of experience, countless mailers and phone calls, and signs buried by snow banks. When I go to cast my vote on March 3rd, it’s going to be for Ed Deveau because he is the candidate with the most experience and he is the only candidate who has articulated a comprehensive plan for East Boston’s future.
Ed has delivered for East Boston for more than a decade. He was Sen. Anthony Petruccelli’s Chief of Staff for 13 years and played a vital role in enhancing our community – from creating Bremen Street Park, to cleaning up Constitution Beach, and co-founding Eastie’s Elves. He will be a bridge between the old and the new, and most importantly, he will be the most effective legislator and advocate for our community. I hope you will join me in casting your ballot for Ed Deveau next Tuesday.
Tom Briand
Byron Street
Supporting Adrian Madaro
Dear Editor:
As others have done, I would like to add my own thoughts and opinions as to the choice of an East Boston Representative to fill Carlo Basile’s vacated seat on Beacon Hill. We have reason to be proud of the five young men who are competing for this position. I have no doubt that each of them has something special to offer our community
My opinions result from a lifelong residency in East Boston, as an informed voter and with a history of activism in community work both paid and unpaid. I have worked for such invaluable institutions as the Boston Public Schools, the East Boston Social Centers, the East Boston YMCA. the Harborside ABL/ESL Program, the East Boston Health Center, and ABCD’s Headstart Program in East Boston. Likewise, I have served as a volunteer on the Boards of NOAH (Neighborhood of Affordable Housing), the EBYMCA, EBECC (East Boston Ecumenical Community Council), and as East Boston Harborside Community Center’s Board Chairperson, among others. With this and all the accumulated experience of 71 years, including motherhood, and being grandmother of five grandchildren who reside in East Boston and attend schools in this city, I believe I have a very good perspective of the people here and the important work going on in this community.
Without reservation I endorse Adrian Madaro as best candidate for the position of State Representative due to his education, experience on the job, natural ability, energy and work ethic. Let me be clear in stating that I am also his aunt. Adrian happens to be the only son of my only sister, Debra Cave Madaro, who spent her own 35-year professional career as a teacher and administrator in the City-operated high school program, known as “City Roots”. Designed for teens who had dropped out of high school and were “slipping through the cracks”, these were young people in danger of never getting a diploma. My sister has been responsible for saving innumerable East Boston teens and those of other neighborhoods in this city from a lifetime of dead-end jobs and poverty. She succeeded where others had failed, in turning drop-outs into high school and even college graduates. Needless to say, she knew something about raising a son.
In addition to participating in East Boston youth sports as a child, and spending much of his teen years at the Salesian Center, Adrian graduated from Boston Latin School where he was awarded a fellowship to work in the area of environmental impact in the City of Boston. He studied, worked and wrote reports on such vital issues as noise, air, and water pollution. In this endeavor he learned invaluable information about their effects upon our neighborhood.
After receiving a BA at Tufts University, he continued on to earn a master’s degree in Public Policy there. Adrian studied how laws and bureaucracies are formed to benefit society in education and other public services such as criminal and civil justice and environmental concerns. In furthering his knowledge of Public Policy, he worked one summer as an intern for a Senator in Washington D.C. This highly sought learning experience gave him valuable skills in how laws are made and administered at the federal level. During this time Adrian was recommended to East Boston’s Representative, Carlo Basile, and was subsequently hired as Carlo’s Chief of Staff responding to constituent services and representing Carlo on the many local community Boards and nonprofits that sought his membership and attention, but which Carlo, due to State House schedules, was not able to attend.
Adrian soon earned a reputation in East Boston as a responsible and responsive constituent advocate for residents who called in need of assistance with such necessities as fuel assistance, housing, elder and veteran services. I may say that over the past four years many such residents who, discovering the family tie, have spontaneously commended me on having such a hardworking and likable nephew. In fact, there was even a woman from Dorchester I met at some event outside East Boston who, on learning I was from East Boston, asked if I knew Carlo Basile.
When I told her he was my neighbor and that my nephew was his chief aide, she told me the sad tale of how, repeatedly, she had been turned away in seeking care for her very elderly, ill, veteran father; told of long waiting lists with no space for him in local veterans’ homes and hospitals. A friend suggested she call Representative Basile’s office because of his excellent work for vets. She did so, thinking of it as a last and improbable option since neither she nor her dad were Carlo’s constituents. She was effusive in her praise of the person she appealed to that day, and was even more thrilled when just a day or two later, she received a call from a VA facility stating they had found an opening for her dad. This story made a great impression upon me, knowing that she had received this help through Carlo’s auspices and Adrian’s work. It was representative of the quick, compassionate response to human dire need regardless of its source, that I had heard about from East Boston constituents.
There remains one more area I must mention which makes me sure of Adrian’s perfect suitability for the position of East Boston Representative. That is the several Board memberships he has held in in Carlo’s stead at community institutions over the past four years.
Voters should know that when Adrian undertakes such obligations, he becomes a real working part of a team in serving its Board’s mission, whether it be housing, teen programs, fund raising, education, or senior services. He doesn’t just “sit” on the board passively. He takes on actual leadership roles such as President of the Harborside Council, Vice President of the YMCA and The Noah Boards.This means that in addition to attending and voting at meetings, he is also instrumental in the planning, letter-writing, and other advocacy work that requires time, tact, and energy in getting to know the needs of these agencies and a knowledge of their staff, resources, and populations served.
Having worked and served on some of these same boards in the past myself, I know that each one requires considerable time and effort.
While many well-meaning folks join Boards and attend meetings to do good, there are sadly, those who join Boards to enhance their own standing for their own purposes. Believe me, few people undertake Board membership with the energy and fortitude to dedicate precious personal time to writing letters, doing research, making calls, and the multitude of other tasks that are entailed in addition to attending meetings. Adrian is one of those few dedicated people who will enthusiastically work for causes and institutions he believes in. He knows this community thoroughly, he loves it and is willing to devote his considerable energies for its benefit. Unlike many young people, he does not intend to move and raise a family in the suburbs. Last year he bought a house next door to his parents and, like his parents and ourselves, has chosen to stay in East Boston; this embattled community of working class, middle class, immigrants, poor, and young professional people, to fight the good fight and to see it become a better, greener, fairer and more pleasant place in which to live. He does not have the benefit of any political machine. He needs only your vote. Please go to the polls on March 3rd and cast your vote for hard work, integrity, and a thorough love and knowledge of this community by voting for Adrian Madaro.
Roberta Cave Marchi
Eastie hockey coach thanks community
To all the Parents, Teachers, Fans, coaches and players of the East Boston High School hockey team:
I would first like to express my singer appreciating to the parents for allowing your Son, Daughter to attend East Boston High School and for playing on our Championship Hockey team. To the Fans for your support it is not overlooked that we as a team are playing for all of you. This year was a season that we dedicated to Anthony Albano, we had 4 goals at the beginning of the Sean’s and we achieved each one. 1. Win the City league title, 2. Win 10 games (we won 13) 3. advance into the State Tourney and 4. Win the City of Boston Championship. I can’t express to you how proud I am to be a coach for the East Boston Jets Hockey team. We have developed a Family environment on our Hockey team, where each player looks out for other. Their is no I in team on this team and we could not have achieved it without the hard work that each of you gave day in and day out. Our team finished off the year undefeated in 10 games, going into the State Tournament. I want to take this time to thank our parents that have given us the foundation to work with and carry on the Class, Pride and tradition of East Boston High School. From our opening face off against a team from New York to our annual Cancer Event these players have stepped up and made me proud to be just a small part of their team. Now onto the state tourney and we are hoping to make some noise. Again thank you for making East Boston High School your school and The Jets Hockey Team your family hockey program.
Stay safe
Bob Anthony (75)
Head Coach
East Boston High School Jets Hockey