School Committee question change in football team uniforms

By Neil Zolot

EVERETT – School Department Budget and Grants Director Chris Schweitzer is tightening up procedures to reconcile Student Activities Accounts and other items. “It’s more about procedure than finances,” he told the School Committee at their meeting on Monday, November 18. “It’s about having perfect paperwork to reconcile bank statements with the Treasurer’s Office.”

“There are certain procedures you have to follow because they’re public funds,” Superintendent William Hart pointed out. “There was no impropriety. It was just sloppy” – while acknowledging that sloppiness creates an impression of theft.

School Committee Chairperson Jeanne Cristiano said issues raised in annual audits conducted by the Powers & Sullivan accounting firm had not been addressed until Hart came onboard. “He didn’t just snub it,” she said. “He put in steps to address it.”

In other matters, Athletic Director Tammy Turner appeared to discuss the color of school football uniforms in response to an item introduced by Ward 6 member Joseph D’Onofrio about the decision-making process. He wanted to know why the red jerseys, which has been the team color for a century, were suddenly replaced by black ones. “This year, the tradition has been broken,” said D’Onofrio. “A lot of people have talked about it. People who watch football didn’t expect them not to be in red.”

Turner answered that the present red, akin to the NFL team San Francisco 49ers colors, has been in use since only 2001.

D’Onofrio was on the football team as a running back before he graduated in 2014, and played in those colors. Before that it was maroon and gold similar to Boston College, but a new coach wanted red and white, more akin to Boston University, although their football program ended in 1997. Black was instituted in the three-color rotation with red and white, in part because it has become common among professional sports teams, like the Arizona Cardinals and New York Jets in football and Boston Celtics in basketball. The Cardinals have a slightly darker red in their rotation with black and white, and the Jets and Celtics also have green and white in theirs.

“We try to give the students a voice and the majority asked for it,” Turner explained. “We’re moving with the times.”

“I like [that] you’re listening to the students,” member At-Large and Vice Chairperson Samantha Hurley reacted.

D’Onofrio also wanted to know about changes in the helmets, which are also reminiscent of the 49ers, but with a less shiny gold, which D’Onofrio called Vegas Gold, and the E logo. Turner said the helmets are the same as they were except the center stripe has been removed.

No action was taken and the matter was referred back to its sponsor.

The School Committee and the School Department, like the rest of the city, is still waiting for City Council action on appropriating $72 million to renovate the old High School to house 7th and 8th grade classes to relieve overcrowding in neighborhood kindergarten-8th grade schools. Hart gave a presentation to the City Council in June, but the members have been hung up on where current occupants of the building will be relocated, if at all. Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s Chief of Staff, Erin Deveney, recently told The Everett Advocate there is no room for things like the Eliot Family Resource Center and the Broadway Boxing Club in other City of Everett–owned buildings, including the old Pope John High School. D’Onofrio went there during his sophomore and junior years and said the building will need work to be occupied by those entities.

“We’ve delayed this too long and it’s not beneficial to the kids,” Cristiano said. “The problem won’t go away. We need to address it.”

Hart confined his remarks to “almost all the City Councillors want to vote for it, but they’ve gotten caught up in the process.”

“Things like this take time,” D’Onofrio admitted. “It will take a team effort to make it work.”

A Feasibility Study may be on the City Council agenda for Monday, November 25.

Asked for her reaction to a recent Boston Globe article about interest and impatience in the city to investigate the dismissal of former Superintendent Priya Tahiliani about a year ago, Cristiano said, “I look forward to the opportunity for the school system to have its say in a court of law and not be tried in the court of public opinion.”

Tahiliani was put on paid leave in October 2023, just shortly before her contract was set to expire in February 2024. The School Committee at that time voted to remove her earlier rather than just not renew her contract when it expired. During the process, there were allegations of political infighting, favoritism and racism. She is now Interim Superintendent in Brockton. Tahiliani, while Superintendent in Everett, filed lawsuits against the mayor and the City of Everett but never went anywhere. She was rebuked for using high school students on two occasions to protest on her behalf in order to gain attention by the media.

Board of Appeals

The (Zoning) Board of Appeals also met on Monday, November 18. The petition for 10 Woodlawn Ave. to convert a portion of the building occupied by a ground-floor bar and restaurant to residential units and add a story on top of it for additional units was withdrawn. Attorney Anthony Rossi, representing NDC Real Estate owner Nicholas Cristiano – an Everett police officer and son of Jeanne Cristiano – said the Inspections Department and outside Counsel hired by the City agreed with his argument made on Monday, October 21, that the lot is in a Business Zone and work is by right.

“Upon further review, this project doesn’t need ZBA relief,” Building Commissioner David Palumbo confirmed.

The petition for 16 Liberty St. “to raze a two-family dwelling and construct a three story nine-unit residential building with parking on half of the bottom floor” was continued until December. Rossi, who is also representing petitioner Alyssa DeSantis, said meetings with neighbors are scheduled “in the next few weeks.”