Latest News

Town clerk has worked on bill for 16 years

September 1, 2010 - Old Colony Memorial - By Kathryn Koch

PLYMOUTH —Town Clerk Laurence Pizer has been waiting 16 years for the day a governor of Massachusetts would be this close to signing new legislation making it easier for residents to get their vital records in order.

Two years after becoming town clerk in 1992, Pizer joined the effort by the Massachusetts Town Clerks’ Association to pass legislation that allows for electronic registration of birth and death certificates and marriage licenses. After years of frustration, the legislation has now passed both the House and Senate and is awaiting Gov. Deval Patrick’s signature....

Pizer said one of the sponsors, Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth, who is the ranking minority leader on the House Ways and Means Committee, deserves credit for acting on behalf of Pizer and other local town clerks by seeing that the vital records legislation was one of approximately 165 that has passed out of the almost 7,000 proposed each year.

“Vinny was relentless,” he said. “His work was critical for the bill’s passage.”

DeMacedo said he supported the legislation because it will benefit the public by simplifying record keeping for people seeking death certificates.

“It’s simply working through the process and trying to make a case to the Legislature that this is important,” he said.

Port-au-Prince reduced to rubble

May 19, 2010 - Old Colony Memorial - By Emily Wilcox

A yellow umbrella hangs over a table covered with pots and pans, a carton of eggs and recycled soda bottles. A sheet draped over a rope tied to a concrete wall provides a makeshift roof for this woman and her child, whose lives and home have been reduced to rubble, a day-to-day existence few can comprehend.

The epicenter of the magnitude 7 earthquake that hit Leogane Jan. 12 radiated out to Port-au-Prince and points beyond, leveling concrete buildings and killing more than 230,000 Haitians.

Haiti is still counting the dead.

A total of 300,000 lost limbs and suffered other life-altering injuries, 1 million were made homeless and thousands of children were orphaned.

State Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth, visited Haiti last week with a delegation of his fellow state representatives and his friend, Marie St. Fleur of the Haitian state legislature.

May 7, 2010

BOSTON – Today Representative Vinny deMacedo announced plans to travel to Haiti next week and join his fellow Massachusetts Legislators in surveying the earthquake damage that occurred last January.  Representative deMacedo and other Legislators are anxious to learn how Massachusetts can best offer assistance to this struggling country.

The delegation will visit various sites throughout their six day trip including touring devastated areas and meeting with government officials from both Haiti and the United States on the status of current relief efforts.  This developing country has endured tragedy, and faces insurmountable challenges.  As an immigrant of the Cape Verdean Islands himself, Representative deMacedo felt he and the citizens of Massachusetts must do what they can to help the people of Haiti.

Controversial language struck from Municipal Relief Bill

April 26, 2010

BOSTON— Calling it a bipartisan victory, Representative deMacedo today praised his colleagues in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for adopting a Republican-offered amendment to protect taxpayers from yet another tax increase.

As you may recall, the House Ways and Means Committee proposed allowing municipalities to raise property taxes outside of the constraints of the so-called “proposition 2½ limits” without a local vote.

Representative deMacedo along with his Republican colleagues, supported an amendment offered by House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones, Jr., to the so-called Municipal Relief Bill striking out the language permitting the increase of property taxes absent an override vote.

Says Taxpayers Can’t Afford to Pay Any More

April 22, 2010

PLYMOUTH - Expressing strong support for a Republican Amendment filed to the Municipal Relief Bill, Representative Vinny deMacedo today said he would not support any proposal that would allow cities and towns to unilaterally raise property taxes.

On Monday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives will take up a Municipal Relief Bill, which contains a proposal that would allow municipalities to raise property taxes outside of the constraints of the so-called “proposition 2½ limits” without a local vote.

Representative Brad Jones, the House Minority Leader, has already filed an amendment that would strike out the language permitting the increase of property taxes absent an override vote, and Representative deMacedo intends to support that effort.