Editorial

By Tom Mulvoy  Read more

Late last fall, word spread through the neighborhood that one of our own, Jerry “Judgie” Leary, had been diagnosed with a terminal disease. The longtime union official and veteran community activist and his wife wife Gayle are the parents of six – Patrick, Kaitlyn, James, Gerald P. III, Devin, and Ryan. Those who knew his capacity for empathy and propensity to help others decided to organize a fundraiser – we Dot people call it “a time” – to rally around their friend and his family. They set tomorrow – Fri., Jan.  Read more

It is the right thing to do today to congratulate our new U.S. Senator-elect, Scott Brown, on his impressive election this week. Senator Brown’s campaign was given little chance last fall in the wake of the death of the 46-year incumbent Democrat, Ted Kennedy. The pundits seemed to agree that this was a “Democratic seat,” but Brown correctly said it’s “the people’s seat” and Massachusetts voters made it clear they had something to say about that.  Read more

The news coming out of Haiti is horrible. The images are heart-breaking. The damages are catastrophic. The suffering seems limitless.  Read more

The tax-filing season has arrived, and while taxpayers are asked to gather up their records from last year to prepare to file the income tax reports for 2009, some local advocacy groups are preparing a campaign to provide free tax return preparation for low- and moderate-income persons in the neighborhoods.  Read more

There was some good news this week on Savin Hill. After long months of negotiations, it was announced yesterday that an innovative, co-educational, college preparatory high school now located in Cambridge will relocate into the Savin Hill Avenue building that once was the home of St. William’s School.  Read more

Outgoing at-large councilman Sam Yoon’s proposal to limit the tenure of any future mayor to two terms set off an interesting debate about governance in Boston. The vote took place yesterday, and the good news is the Council defeated the measure by a vote of 7 to 6. We agree with our neighborhood’s two district city councillors — Maureen Feeney and Charles Yancey — who have made it clear that they oppose Yoon’s measure. Both Councillor Yoon and Councillor Michael Flaherty voted for the limit, but neither man will remain in the Council in the new year.  Read more

UMass-Boston Chancellor J. Keith Motley hosted a community dinner for about 20 civic and political Dorchester leaders last week, and he used the occasion to brief his neighbors on the status of the university community.

At the meeting in the Chancellor’s on-campus meeting room in the Quinn Building, Dr. Motley painted a picture of a growing and involved public university on the shores of Dorchester Bay. Among the statistics:  Read more

Voters next Tuesday will choose candidates to complete the term of Senator Ted Kennedy. While there are primaries in both political parties, most attention is on the four-person contest – three men and one woman – to be the Democrat nominee.  Read more

Last week, as the end of the formal legislative session on Beacon Hill drew to a close, a measure to reform the state’s criminal records law was advanced by the Senate Ways and Means Committee. There have been a number of proposals to revamp the law, but the State House News Service reports that the principal proposal filed by Governor Patrick languishes in the House-dominated Judiciary Committee.  Read more

There was a sad story that emerged from Savin Hill last week. Early last Thursday morning, the news began to pass around that C.F. Donovan’s, the popular Dorchester neighborhood restaurant and bar on Savin Hill Ave., was shuttered and appeared to be out of business.  Read more

Let’s give a big shout-out to those two MBTA employees who worked together to save a life.

The story of the inebriated woman who fell onto the tracks in front of an oncoming Orange Line T train has become national news. Concerned fellow passengers scrambled to flag down the train just as it was arriving, but we can only imagine their sense of dread as they witnessed what seemed to be an impending tragedy.  Read more

The plan to sell the building that once housed St. William’s Elementary School and rehab it into a new home for a Catholic high school appeared to remain stalled this week.

For more than two months, this newspaper has been reporting on the negotiations that would relocate the North Cambridge Catholic High School to the Savin Hill Avenue building. For a while, it looked like the deal was close to being done, but now it appears it may be on the verge of falling apart.  Read more

The city’s municipal election is now history, and with it came some historic triumphs – Mayor Tom Menino won an unprecedented fifth full term, and Dorchester’s own Ayanna Pressley became the first-ever woman of color to win a citywide campaign while also being the first Dorchester resident to win across the city’s neighborhoods in more than a quarter century.

So, Tuesday’s election results are now official, and the electorate will have the chance to catch its collective breath and prepare for – whoops! – another election.  Read more

Politics continue to be at center stage in Boston, and as the culmination of the 2009 city elections approaches, there will be nary a moment for the electorate to catch its breath before being asked to come back to the polls two more times. Once the results are known next Tuesday, attention will be directed to the political scrum now underway to elect someone to replace the late Ted Kennedy for two years in the US Senate.  Read more