Special to the Independent
Ward 1 City Councilor Wayne Matewsky sounded off on two widely diverse matters at the Sept. 23 council meeting.
Matewsky took issue with what he claimed was the “unsightly” exterior look of Dempsey’s, a popular restaurant in Everett Square, just before he complained about the slow delivery of mail by the U.S. Postal Service.
“I have been asking this restaurant in the Square to paint the front of their building, which would only cost a couple of hundred dollars and improve the unsightly look to it,” said Matewsky.
The longtime councilor added that he has also seen several posters affixed to the building.
“I’m saying to myself, ‘this is the heart of Everett Square, this could not go on anywhere else’ – you couldn’t do this in Malden, they’d throw you out,” said Matewsky. “That man has to do the right thing.”
Matewsky said he knows several people who patronize the restaurant and “they say the food is great.”
“This is not personal, this is about a little Everett pride,” concluded Dempsey.
Councilor-at-Large Katy Rogers said that she received a correspondence from the Inspectional Services Department stating that Dempsey’s Restaurant “would be renovating the inside and outside of the restaurant within a three-month period which would bring us to October 18.”
“But I wholeheartedly agree on moving forward with this as I haven’t seen any indicator of progress, so I do think we need to be proactive,” said Rogers.
Matewsky asked that the matter be referred to Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s office and the Inspectional Services Department for action.
Relating to mail service in Everett, Matewsky said he has received phone calls from his constituents, who said their outgoing mail wasn’t being delivered on time to credit card companies, while also noting that some residents are not receiving mail at their homes in timely fashion.
“When you don’t get mail for three or four days, there’s something wrong,” said Matewsky, while “making a disclaimer” that his brother is retired from the Waltham Post Office. “And my father worked a second job at the South Postal Annex.”
Matewsky said his issues with mail delivery extend back to 2013 when he was running for a state representative seat, a race in which he was victorious.
He said that several of his correspondences to prospective voters were returned to him “non-delivered” during that campaign.
“People said to me, ‘You won, anyway,’ but I only won by 62 votes. I would’ve won by at least 300-400 [votes],” Matewsky said.
Matewsky requested that a letter be sent from the City Council to the Boston Postmaster General that “we are unsatisfied” with the delivery of mail in Everett.
City Clerk Sergio Cornelio said he would send the letter and deliver the councilor’s message in person as Cornelio was scheduled to meet with the Postmaster General of Massachusetts and Secretary of State Bill Galvin Oct. 2 to discuss mail-in balloting pertaining to the upcoming election in November.