Anthony Galluccio's persistence finally paid off in a big way on Tuesday, Sept. 11, as the Cambridge City Councilor bested three other candidates to win the special Democratic primary election for state Senate in the district that includes Charlestown. According to the unofficial numbers coming out of the candidate's campaign, Galluccio won 48 percent of the total vote in the district. Galluccio did well in each area of the Senate district, soaring to a landslide victory in Everett. Unofficially, Galluccio earned 1,451 votes in Everett compared to 691 for Chelsea City Councilor Paul Nowicki, 507 for Tim Flaherty and 195 for Jeff Ross.
Those numbers don’t include absentee ballot numbers. According to reports, Galluccio had a strong showing across the district, including winning by a 3-1 margin in Revere and taking a surprising 60 percent of the vote in his hometown of Cambridge, where many pundits had predicted that he wouldn’t do well, especially after Flaherty entered the race. With no Republicans, Independents or Green Party candidates in the race, Galluccio's primary victory means he will head to the Statehouse to replace former State Sen. Jarrett Barrios, who vacated that seat earlier this year to pursue a career in the private sector with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
The victory marks the end of a long journey for Galluccio, who first ran for the seat in 2002, when he finished second to Barrios. Galluccio sat out the 2004 election but re-entered the race in 2006 when Barrios appeared to leave the post to run for Middlesex district attorney. Galluccio then dropped out of that race, much to the disappointment of his growing base of supporters in Everett, when Barrios returned.

CREDIT: Courtesy of Conroy Development Co.

CAPTION: An artist’s rendering of the proposed apartment development at 66 Cambridge St.

After a proposed 18-story apartment building in Sullivan Square was met with some skepticism at the June 5 Charlestown Neighborhood Council meeting, the developer has issued a written response to address the potential traffic impact on Rutherford Avenue and other concerns.
The 556,000 square-foot development comes at an estimated cost of $120 million and would be sited at 66 Cambridge St. It would contain 350 apartment units, 168 of which would be two bedrooms and the remainder one bedrooms. Based on the expected occupancy date of sometime in 2010 or 2011, the apartments would rent for between $2,100 and $3,000 a month, with 47 units designated as affordable housing. The top eight stories would be located above Interstate 93, while the bottom four levels of the building would accommodate 335 parking spaces. (An additional 51 surface spaces would be located on the premises). Stoughton-based Conroy Development Company, the group behind the redevelopment of Building 33 in the Navy Yard and the Charlestown Armory, is the developer.
In a document to the Charlestown Neighborhood Council Development Committee that was obtained by the Patriot-Bridge, Conroy Development Company stated a hired traffic consultant determined that approximately half the people visiting the apartment complex wouldn’t drive there, opting instead to bike, walk or take public transportation, including the nearby Sullivan Square MBTA station. The document doesn’t specify how many people in total would visit the site each day but stated “the building’s occupants will overall generate approximately 100 trips during peak-hour morning and evening commutes.”
The developer also maintains that 60 school buses now located on the project site travel in and out of Sullivan Square each day and would need to be relocated, thereby minimizing traffic impacts.
The present design proposes an entrance and exit through the rail corridor near Spice Street. Traffic would typically come off Cambridge Street, and turn onto Spice Street before turning onto the rail corridor, according to the developer’s traffic consultant.
Community mitigation from the project would include a proposal to, in cooperation with Massport, redesign the inactive rail corridor and transform it into a street that would “provide significant traffic relief to Sullivan Square,” the developer stated.
As for the overall impact of the project, the developer described the project “as an opportunity to be a catalyst and a cornerstone for the inevitable revitalization of Sullivan Square, and the area’s overall integration into the Charlestown community.”

In his role as the new principal of the Clarence R. Edwards School, Jeff Riley hopes to build on the strength of his faculty and the after-school curriculum introduced last year to make the school one of the city’s best.
“The previous principal (Michael Sabin) did a great job getting the Expanded Learning Time program here,” Riley said. “And I think he did a great job focusing on instruction. There are some really talented teachers in this building.”
Born in Stoughton in 1971, Riley was the son of a Marine and spent much of his early childhood moving from one place to another, including stops in New York, Virginia, Florida and California. Riley’s family eventually moved in with his grandparents in Belmont when he was in middle school — a decision that Riley said helped him become more grounded academically.
“It was a good experience for me because it made me think I wanted to go to college,’ Riley said. “Before that, I don’t know if I would have gone.”
After graduating from Belmont High School in 1989, Riley pursued a degree in philosophy at Pomona College, a small liberal arts school outside of Los Angeles, and had no intention of entering the education field. “In my mind, I was probably going to be a doctor or lawyer or something,” he said.
That changed soon after Riley graduated in 1993 and joined Teach for America, a non-profit that places recent college graduates as teachers in understaffed areas. Riley found a position as a special education instructor at the Booker T. Washington Middle School in Baltimore. While Riley flourished in the inner-city environment, some of his peers didn’t adapt so easily: Of 14 who entered the program with Riley, only three followed through with the two-year commitment, he said.
In fact, Riley even stayed on for an additional year at Booker T. Washington, while he earned his Master’s degree in counseling and school guidance from nearby Johns Hopkins University.
“It was hard to leave,” he said. “I’d grown to love the school at that time.”
Riley returned to Boston in 1996 and took a position as an adjustment counselor for Brockton High School’s Phoenix Program, an alternative education curriculum for troubled teens. He stayed in the position for two years before entering the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
As part of his Harvard practicum, Riley came to the Edwards School in 1998 as a principal intern, which allowed him the chance to shadow the school’s headmaster at the time, Chuck McAfee.
“[McAfee] taught me how to have relationships with the kids and have structure and order, as well as how to focus on the teachers in the building,” Riley said.
While McAfee left at the end of Riley’s second year at the Edwards to become principal of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Boston, Riley stayed on as the Edwards’ director of education.
In 2001, Riley was named the first principal of Tyngsboro Middle School in suburban Massachusetts. The town previously had a grammar school for grades one through six and a high school that included seventh through 12th grades, so Riley, at age 29, was faced with the daunting task of combining the schools’ faculties to create the new middle school.
“The teachers managed to build a really nice school,” Riley said. “We had some of the best scores in the region, on par with or besting some of the so-called ‘elite’ schools. We had a comprehensive athletic and extracurricular program.”
After four years in Tyngsboro, Riley accepted an offer from McAfee to join him at Madison Park as the academy director of the High Tech Academy, one of the school’s four campuses which focuses on trades including computers, television production, graphic design and printing.
“One of the reasons I came back was to work with Mr. McAfee,” Riley said. “Another reason was that my heart has always been in urban education.”
Now, two years after reuniting with McAfee at Madison Park, Riley has returned to the Edwards School, but he admits that it is far different place than he left it seven years ago.
“The building is a lot different in terms of enrollment,” he said. “Before he had 580 students. Now, we have 350.”
But if anything, Riley said the drop of enrollment has actually benefited the students by allowing them more face-to-face time with their teachers.
“The results aren’t official, but preliminary indications suggest that test scores are going to be very strong this year,” he said.
And in Riley’s eyes, things can only get better from here.
‘I want to make this a comprehensive school where kids can excel at the highest level,” Riley said. “I would like to make this one of the top middle schools in the city, and I think a lot of the data indicates we’re almost there.”

On an unseasonably warn September day, the Ninth Annual Art in the Park came to City Square Park Saturday. The juried art festival, presented by the Artists Group of Charlestown in cooperation with the Friends of City Square Park, drew over 65 artists and artisans.

CAPTION 1: Quinlan O'Brien, age 5, getting her portrait done by artist Lois Moore.

CAPTION 2: Jean-Claude Sainte is pictured with his painting of Miles Davis.

CAPTION 3: Aimee Empey is seen with her piece “The Castle.”

CREDIT: Paul Maher

CAPTION: Thomas Graves, former commander of the USS Constitution.

The disgraced former commander of the USS Constitution stood trial during a two-day Naval hearing last week on charges that included an alleged assault on a fellow sailor. If convicted on all counts, he could face a court-martial and be sentenced to more then 11 years in prison, according to published reports.
Cmdr. Thomas Graves, 43, of Marblehead was relieved of his duties as commander of the USS Constitution in May after several sailors complained to their superiors that Graves had mistreated them. The dismissal came just two months prior to Graves finishing his two-year term as commander of the floating vessel that began in July 2005.
At the hearing, which was the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation, Chief Petty Officer Robert Santiago took the stand and testified that Graves assaulted him on May 2 by shoving a report in Santiago’s chest. The incident reportedly came after Santiago failed to report a shipmate for tardiness.
Graves’ attorney, Charles Gittens, countered this claim, saying that Graves accidentally struck Santiago in the chest and further characterized Santiago as “a serial screw up.” (Gittens also maintains that Santiago was reassigned eight years ago due to poor performance).
Graves took the stand in his own defense and said that he had no idea that Santiago was behind him at the time of the alleged assault.
The most serious charge facing Graves is that he tried to cover up the incident with Santiago, which carries a maximum five-year sentence.
Kenneth Staples, a chief culinary witness, testified that several days after the alleged assault on Santiago took place, Graves instructed him to tell investigators that he was present at the time the incident occurred and to say “nothing had happened and Santiago was out to get him.” Staples said that he was not present at the time of the incident.
Seaman Katherine Wood also testified that Graves had used vulgarity in reference to her when she was on her knees to reorganize files in Graves’ office. Wood, however, said that she didn’t believe she was the victim of sexual harassment.
Prior to this scandal, Graves enjoyed an illustrious career with the Navy. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, he served as the engineering officer on the USS Underwood and the USS Philippine Sea. Graves as promoted to commander in 2003 and received several awards, including two Navy Achievement Medals and the Navy Meritorious Service Medal.
The investigating officer in the case, Capt. Frank G. Usseglio, is expected to take two weeks before recommending whether Graves should face a court-martial.

The 14th annual Bryan J. McGonagle Street Hockey Tournament took place last weekend at the Bryan J. McGonagle Street Hockey Rink at Ryan Playground. Besides featuring hockey for three divisions (ages 3-5, 8-9 and 10-12), the event also includes hot dogs, hamburgers, face painting and a disc jockey — all free of charge.
Pictured are some highlights from the tournament.