Rochelle Agneta, a first-time candidate for mayor, is a small business owner and community volunteer who grew up in Peabody, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Massachusetts First Citizens for Truth recently interviewed Peabody Mayoral Candidate Rochell Agneta about her background, why she is running for mayor, and her plans to improve the city if elected on November 7th.
This interview will be published as a series of articles, each featuring one question and answer.
Question:
Ted Bettencourt is seeking his sixth term as mayor and has run unopposed for over ten years. With his leadership spanning over a decade, what decisions led you to determine that running for mayor would be a good change for Peabody?
Agneta:
We can start with the $7.2 million he (Bettencourt) spent on the 80 acres of open land. Bettencourt told us that he bought it to stop development and traffic and water usage, and then six months down the road, he plops in another apartment over at Walnut Street. And he’s buying acres of land we can’t even develop.
Beyond the $7.2 million, you have O’Shea Mansion, which the city took through eminent domain. We ended up spending close to $2 million on it. Then, the property sat for six years, and we didn’t even mow the grass. Then (Bettencourt) turns around and sells that $2 million piece of property for $700,000. They gave the builder a $3 million city loan so that Ted could look awesome when they finally revamped that $2 million piece of property he purchased. It was a big loss to the taxpayers. Now, he’s calling for the revitalization of Peabody Square.
And then, there’s the Children’s Museum. Why would the city build its own business on Main Street that costs us $512,000 annually and caters to four-year-olds? It’s basically a preschool. It’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.
We need a business liaison because Bettencourt gave his buddy, the chief of staff, a 25% raise last year to take on the job of helping businesses, which he does not do. I could go on and on with why, but they wasted that money.
I’ve spent the last three weeks talking to parents of special education students. It sickens me, honestly. Parents need help, and we’re told we hired a second assistant superintendent for our schools. We just hired a head of safety that sits at City Hall in case there’s a shooting. $90,000 with the pension plan that we just hired. He (Bettencourt) puts in all this administration and makes up jobs. Parents are crying for help, and we don’t have the money or the resources to put in a reading program? We don’t have the resources to pay teachers more and hire more paraprofessionals? Of course we have the resources! It’s just that the money is utilized in a way that it should not be utilized.
They take children with dyslexia, and Peabody categorizes them into what they call emotionally troubled children because we don’t have the resources for dyslexia. It costs too much money to send these kids out of the district. So, these kids are not getting the help they need, and we’re not putting the money where we need to in Peabody. And I’m going to tell you, after the last three weeks talking to these parents, I am just really, it’s just very upsetting.
Teachers reach out to me, and people reach out to me behind the scenes. It was just brought up at the CPAC meeting that the word retaliation comes up a lot when I speak with people, and I don’t understand that either. Why are we so fearful of our mayor? People shouldn’t be afraid of their mayor. He should be the person you go to when you need help, and he’s supposed to help you. But he has his own agenda. It is what it is. All of these are the reasons that I came out.
Rochelle Agneta’s platform can be found on her campaign page, Agneta for Change in Peabody.
Look for our next article in this series coming soon.
VOTE NOVEMBER 7TH!
By Citizens for Truth
Massachusetts First 
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