By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Search results: "Essex Regional retirement board"

A North Shore reporter’s untimely death

Talk about a bittersweet moment. On Wednesday, the Salem News reported that longtime staff writer Steve Landwehr had died after a brief, intense battle with cancer. Today, the News informs us that the paper has won a major-investigative reporting award recognizing Landwehr’s work. Landwehr was best-known for a Monday feature called “Lives,” extended obituaries about […]

A social compact on the verge of breakdown

Public employees are our friends, our neighbors and our family members. Police officers, firefighters and teachers are a necessary part of a well-ordered civil society. But in Massachusetts, the social compact is on the verge of breaking down because of paychecks and benefits for public employees that are grotesquely out of whack with what folks […]

Connecting the public-pension dots

Chris Cassidy reports in the Salem News that the state has appointed a replacement for Essex Regional Retirement Board chairman Timothy Bassett, whose reign of error may finally be drawing to a close — although Bassett, naturally, is fighting it in court. (Here’s just a small taste from the archives.) Andrea Estes reports in the […]

Lawyering up to suppress public records

The ongoing outrage that is the Essex Regional Retirement Board continues. According to Salem News reporter Chris Cassidy, the board plans to increase its spending on legal fees by $150,000 in 2010. Why? To fight media requests for public records. Blaming the press for the spending increase, chief operating officer Lilli Gilligan is quoted as […]

Timothy Bassett, triple-dipper

Media Nation would like to apologize to Timothy Bassett, chairman of the Essex Regional Retirement Board, for calling him “a notorious double-dipper.” The old Lily Tomlin line comes to mind, because the Boston Globe’s Sean Murphy today reports that Bassett is actually a triple-dipper. It seems that, in addition to drawing a $41,000-a-year state pension […]

Another public pension outrage (III)

Salem News reporter Chris Cassidy is back with another sordid tale about the Essex Regional Retirement Board. This time, the board is looking to lower the retirement age for public-works employees from 65 to 55. You can’t make this stuff up. Unlike the board’s recent move to lower the age for 911 dispatchers from 65 […]

Another public pension outrage (II)

As Amused notes, Timothy Bassett and his wife, Linda Bassett, have both been caught up in their own public-pension controversies. Bassett chairs the Essex Regional Retirement Board, which is responsible for a decision to lower the retirement age from 65 to 60 for police and fire dispatchers in four North Shore towns. Sean Murphy reports […]

Another public pension outrage

In the midst of the worst fiscal crisis we’ve seen in many years, an obscure North Shore agency has voted to lower the retirement age for police and fire dispatchers from 65 to 60. The Salem News’ Chris Cassidy reports: Thanks to a subtle change in job title, some North Shore emergency dispatchers will be […]

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