“Is the mayor using our personal cell phone numbers we provide for constituency business, to solicit votes and volunteerism for his campaign”?

Well, I find it odd that although I have not signed up to be a volunteer for the mayor’s upcoming campaign, I continue to receive emails and text messages urging me to vote for him and volunteer my time.

How can this be when in fact, I have never volunteered to help with his campaign as mayor or as alderman.

After my discovery of Alderman Sean O’Donovan, (turned big time developer),being a close friend of the mayor, I distanced myself from politics with the exception of a few.

Even back then, the mayor talked a good talk and would tell everyone what they wanted to hear.

Once he started to embrace the neoliberal condo investors, giving free reign to his favored developers, kept raising taxes and water, allowed Tufts to buy up more tax free property, I became further disappointed in the direction he was leading our city.

Here is the text I received at 10:16 a.m., morning:

“Hey Judith! This is Olivia MacLennan with Joe Curtatone for Mayor. We are going to be knocking on doors in Teele Sq tomorrow at at 1:00 PM. Can you help”?

So what’s the reason for sending this text?

Are we to believe that the dutiful campaign manager and staff don’t know who their volunteers are?

Perhaps they are running low on supply?

As a long time resident who supported Representative Ciampa, Congressman Capuano, Alderman Trane, and other local politicians, never during those campaigns had I been expected to do more than what I wanted to provide.

Those I supported were respectful of the time volunteers provided and didn’t intrude upon those who were unwilling to offer their time or vote.

The pols have the stats and information from years past of who are their dedicated supporters.

So, who’s bullshitting who?

During those years, we didn’t have complete saturation of technology as we do today. There were no text messages or cell phones.

Politicians worked much harder to get votes. They actually went door to door and held meetings and constructive fundraisers.

We certainly were not expected to study all incoming emails from city hall and not memorize every ordinance and by-law, or answer text messages on whether we are showing up on a Sunday afternoon to go door knocking in our neighborhoods– when we never signed up as a volunteer!

At least half of my neighbors won’t talk to me if I show up asking them to vote for the mayor, the other half don’t know me– or anyone who lives next door to them and they prefer it that way.

As I recall during every race, volunteers were politely asked for their participation and were not intruded upon.

So if you got one of these unwanted text messages, call city hall and let them know.

I’ll be contacting the water department on Monday to ask them to remove my cell phone number they provided to the campaign manager — as I suspect is the case.

They insisted I provide it in case I got another spike. Well, obviously it must have gone into the main database to be used for other purposes.

The only time I provided my cell number was to complain about my water bill which doubled last quarter, due to the so called spike. Well, that is yet to be determined. I never had a leak or high use in water, so it’s on them.

Just as my so called broken sewer pipe ten years ago which was in fact on the city to repair since it was not on my property but on the street.

They told me for over a week the spotting in my basement pipe was on my dime, yet I proved them wrong by demanding they dig up the street since the drain company’s inspection revealed the break was not on my property.

And I would also like to share that if you are ever told to call the city when the drain company arrives to your home as I was told — don’t.

Whatever is discovered by the drain company or any contractor you hire (preferably with no ties to city), that is between the company and the homeowner– it’s your business.

If you call to complain about a sewer odor or leak in your basement — call the drain company first. Don’t let the city inspect your property because they might be asking you to produce permits as far back as 1940. That’s what they tried to pull with me and they got nowhere. All my permits were pulled for my renovations.

Back in the day, many homeowners did not pull permits. It was not enforced. So if they start pulling that with homeowners– then they should be forced to demand the same from all their friends the slumlords!

Last I checked this was still home of the Free and the Brave. Let’s keep it that way.

Sincerely,

Not Giving City Hall Hacks Any More of My Personal Information