JMac and The Bear — It’s not a television show

Many thanks to Sun Senior Writer Jennifer Myers for fueling today’s Column Blog Former City Council candidate John MacDonald is hitting the airwaves. Friday Feb. 3 at 11 a.m. marks the debut of “JMac and The Bear” an hour-long radio show on WCAP co-hosted by MacDonald and former Lowell Planning Board Chairman George Zaharoolis. “It [...]

Shaw goes for the kill

The lawsuit has been filed. Tuesday morning, Dracut lawyer Roland Milliard filed a lawsuit on behalf of Dracut businessman and former selectman Warren Shaw for libel, defamation, invasion of privacy, the intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious interference with business against Nashua blogger Frank Zabierek, who previously ran the blog Dracut After Dark. The [...]

Local company still interested in key site

This week’s first Column Blog entry was written by Reporter Hiroko Sato. Sato has been following Trinity Financial development efforts in Lowell and at Devens. Thanks, Hiroko. Trinity Financial says it’s working overtime to find tenants for the former Freudenburg Non-Wovens  building, the massive orange-beige structure that dominates the landscape at the entrance to the [...]

Friday musings

• Mike McLaughlin Jr., the son of former Chelsea Housing Authority executive director, has taken legal action against the Dracut School Department, his former employer. Details are sketchy, but it has to do with the school department not renewing his contract as a $64,576-a-year study and organizational skills teacher at the high school. McLaughlin’s contract [...]

Reign of Terror

Warren Shaw, the Dracut businessman and former selectman, has had it with the blog, Dracut After Dark, and blogger Frank Zabierek. Shaw said Thursday he is filing a lawsuit in Middlesex Superior Court Friday, alleging that Zabierek’s statements about his family are libelous. Shaw is being represented by Dracut lawyer Roland Milliard, who seems to [...]

Pins and Needles

Members of the state Legislature are anxiously awaiting to see who will be criminally indicted in the ongoing Probation Department patronage scandal. Word out of Boston is that indictments are close and will hit close to home for the Legislature, as two sitting senators and two sitting representatives could face criminal charges. Plus, one former [...]

“Clear the Air”

A recent email sent by Lowell Police patrolman Brian Kinney to fellow officers is raising interesting questions about what was said — and what wasn’t — during an early December meeting between himself, Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee and Vesna Nuon, then a city-councilor elect, in the Mayor’s Reception Room at City Hall. Nuon released a [...]

Collateral Damage — Reprise

In early December, The Column Blog carried an item under the headline “Collateral Damage.” It focused on a number of local and state politicians whose reputations have been stained, perhaps permanently for some, by their associations with Mike McLaughlin, a Dracut resident and the disgraced former head of the Chelsea Housing Authority. McLaughlin is facing [...]

Meeting with Mayor Murphy

Less than a month into his new job as the city’s youngest-ever mayor, he’s 29, Patrick Murphy stopped by The Sun offices on Dutton Street Monday for a 90-minute, on-the-record chat with Sun staffers. Murphy, in only his second-term as a city councilor, was elected by his peers on Jan. 3 as the city’s 33nd [...]

It’s official. Cathy Richardson running for Dracut state rep.

Dracut Selectman Cathy Richardson made it official Friday, saying she will run for state representative as a Republican against entrenched incumbent Colleen Garry. Richardson’s announcement comes one day after another Dracut Republican, George Boag, said he’s a candidate, too. Besides Dracut, the seat includes Tyngsboro. Garry, first elected in 1995 when she beat Richardson’s mother, [...]