Current Editorials

“All politics is local,” the late U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill was famous for saying. One can only imagine how the former congressman might have amended that statement had he lived to see  a Virginia-based nonprofit organization use its website to stoke hysteria about what is happening in classrooms in Marblehead and across the country. To review, Parents Defending Education shined a spotlight on the $10,000 that the Marblehead Public Schools had paid Henry Turner, the principal of Newton North High School and a Marblehead…

Presuming the articles on this year’s Town Meeting warrant are taken in order, the final proposal to be taken up, Article 54, would require the town to create “standard operating procedures manuals” for four elected boards and commissions — the Select Board, Board of Health, Harbors & Waters Board and Recreation & Parks Commission. On paper, the subject may sound dry. But we would encourage voters to resist the urge to flee for the exits. Article 54 is a revised version of a proposal that…

By mid-April, Marblehead Finance Committee members are expected to have reviewed and analyzed all the 2023 warrant articles with financial implications and devised their recommendations for Town Meeting. But there will be little mystery with Article 40, which requests an override of Proposition 2 1/2 to restore the Franklin Street fire station, which needs $2.3 million in exterior and restoration work, according to a conditions assessment funded through a Massachusetts Historic Preservation Grant and published in February. The article’s main proponent, Marblehead Fire Chief Jason…