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Accountability, Billerica, Billerica Blog, Board of Selectmen, Bob Accomando, budget, Candidate, Dave Gagliardi, Paul Marasco, Politics, School Committee, taxes
If you go to Dave Gagliardi’s website and look for events, you will find that he is planning a “Meet the Candidate” event, Friday, February 4, 2011, between the hours of 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM. The event will be held at the Billerica Lodge of Elks, 14 Webb Brook Road, Billerica, MA 01821. You can contact Mr. Gagliardi at contact@davegagliardi.com or by calling the Committee to Elect Dave Gagliardi at 978-667-5392.
Mr. Gagliardi invites you to meet with him and to discuss your concerns and the important issues facing the town. As I stated in my posting about Selectman Appointee Paul Marasco’s “Meet the Candidate” event, it is never too soon to get to know your candidates and to begin the process of analyzing their knowledge of the issues, their plans for addressing them and their possible solutions for resolving them.
I urge you to attend this evening with Mr. Gagliardi, to ask questions, to listen carefully to answers given, and, if you like what you hear, to give time, money and/or energy to his campaign as you see fit to encourage him to work hard and earn your vote. The point of these meet and greets is to raise awareness of the candidate, their qualifications to serve, and to simultaneously raise funds to continue bringing a candidate’s message to the front. I would suggest you focus on the qualifications and begin by asking tough questions about spending, in particular, auditing, forensically, both the School Committee/School Department and the corporate town.
Let’s do what we can to help all the candidates get their voices and their opinions heard. Let’s do what we can by asking each candidate the tough questions and demanding direct answers in exchange for your commitment or vote. By doing so with each candidate, you will be encouraging all of them to rise to the top and distinguish themselves as the crème de la crème. The only way for Billerica to become the best of the best when it comes to our surrounding towns is for citizens to challenge our politicians and their support people to function at their best.
Unlike kid’s sports where everyone gets a trophy and a pat on the back for trying; in the real world, no one achieves success by finishing second. Runner-ups are rarely remembered. Billerica may be a little engine when it comes to powerhouse towns, but it deserves a chance to become the little engine that could struggle through revitalization and succeed on the strength of sound, knowledgeable, skilled and visionary leadership. I urge you to settle for nothing less.
Info said:
Will you post any info you receive from the meet and greet? I have heard that Dave is pro-union and pro-building and have heard he doesn’t do pro/con research needed for decisions (friends versus true financials) – can you confirm this accurate (or not) when you attend? Can you also confirm, if any, relationships to the unions?
--Rick MacDonald said:
I will post all comments that are free of profanity, and insofar as I can determine, those devoid of deliberate slander against another individual; even anonymous, uninformed postings such as yours. As to your question regarding Mr. Gagliardi’s union association, if you go to his website (which I provided in the original posting), you will see that he lists being a “Shop Steward” for 14 years and an employee of Stop and Shop for 35 years as part of his life experience history. He is hiding nothing in that regard.
As to your hearsay statements regarding his being pro-building (as opposed to what…pro destruction?) and that he serves friends over “true financials”, I can tell you that you are on the border of slander and need to be careful choosing your words. Your name and email address may be hidden, but your IP address does register with each comment you make.
As to his work at weighing the pros VS. cons on issues or statements; he can’t be any worse than you were when you posted this “comment”. Finding out how well he does weigh one against the other is easily discovered by asking questions of him directly (and if you wish, in front of others at events like “meet and greets”) that require him to list both the pros and the cons that led him to his current position. So, to answer that question, plan on attending his event with a Q&A sheet.
At this point, you can do the proper thing and contact his campaign, or Dave, at the email addresses/telephone numbers listed on his site and ask any specific questions you may have. If you are relying on me to feed you sufficient information from which you can rationally conclude who to vote for or against, you may as well arrange for a séance to contact Elvis Presley for music lessons.
I will make my choice and rationale for getting there known sometime in April. In fairness to Mr. Gagliardi, I will tell you this; representing a shop in matters that are part of a contract between labor and management is, in my mind, an admirable activity. Shop Stewards are not part of the problem; they are the front line locus of communication between management and labor that keeps businesses running and workers able to put food on their family tables. Shop Stewards are the product of labor contracts; not their creators
The problem with unions rests with their thuggish leaders. They espouse the long outdated view that those who create jobs should sacrifice their wealth, reputations and personal property (profits) equally with those who took jobs they could not create on their own. They do so despite the fact that these workers (and labor leaders) lacked the foresight, the creativity, and the willingness to take the risks to their reputations, personal wealth, and private property that the businesspersons they now extort took; these labor leaders work continuously to share fully and equally in corporate/stockholder profits. Aside from the immorality of such a position, how does this view help us compete globally and keep jobs and an enhanced lifestyle here, rather than abroad?
I get and agree with the view that in order to get town budgets under control, towns must get negotiated labor contracts under control. I do not believe that because a candidate for office has a role in voicing the viewpoint of labor that that person is incapable of working with other town leaders to reign in abuses. All voices and perspectives should be welcome to a rational discussion and for now, Dave Gagliardi, in my view, is as good a Selectman candidate as is any other.
If you wish to know more about Dave, I’d recommend that you go to his meet and greet (I give you the same advice regarding Paul Marasco and Bob Accomando) and ask the hard questions. These people are candidates for Selectmen; they are not divinity and there is no reason for you to fear asking for answers in a face to face setting as opposed to anonymous questions posted on a blog such as mine.