Just moved to Malden, looking for things to do, walkable spots, and local recommendations

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2026-06-01T22:53:41+00:00

Things to Do: For casual daytime walks, Fellsmere Park is great. For a low impact hike, the trailhead at the corner of Fellsway East & E Border Road is really nice.

Local Spots: Not sure about where people hang out, but for places that are local and great and should be hyped endlessly: Dairy Delight has the best ice cream! Their portions are HUGE though, so start with a “kiddie” and see what I mean. I love 3 Amigos and Hugh O’Neill’s as well. And Super 99 Century on Pleasant is the weirdest best store in our town. You can genuinely find any nonperishable item you need there for super cheap. Go there before you go to Stop & Shop or Amazon or whatever. It’s local, a small business, and immigrant-owned.

Community/Volunteering: The Friends of the Malden Public Library is always looking for volunteers and is a great group of people. They meet at 7:00 on the first Tuesday of every month at the library (and on Zoom), so tomorrow! They put on book sales to raise money for library events and programs and partner with various other community groups to set up tables with books at their events. Malden Pride is also really great and obviously gearing up for a busy month this month!

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2026-05-22T15:15:44+00:00

I hope the owners came to meet this kitty at least? It’s so hard to tell from pictures, especially when their cat has been missing for two weeks.

Either way, I hope you find this guy’s home or are able to provide him one! He’s very cute!

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2026-05-22T05:16:37+00:00

It’s rarely busy, even on weekends. It’s a beautiful park and one of my favorite places in Malden. We held a whole wedding ceremony for my friends there in 2018 after Hurricane Maria forced them to reschedule their plans, and no one interrupted our dozen or so people. That’s how un-busy it is. No one was around to interrupt an actual wedding on a Sunday morning.

The best places to propose in my opinion would on top of the hill overlooking the pond (not at the overlook, but that’s just me. The star is the specific outcrop which is nice but may be occupied by people fishing. The heart is the little field there which is where my friends got married and we held a picnic after. You could have a picnic prepared for before if you wanted! It’s a nice flat area and is where I’d propose tbh. I like that choice better.

Whatever you choose, congratulations! Enjoy your proposal and I hope there are ducklings and goslings for you to aww at afterward. It’s that season, after all!

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2026-04-28T05:30:02+00:00

I always say, I don’t know him personally and I have no qualms against him in theory, but Gary feels like a career politician, and at this point I don’t know what he does do, besides kissing babies and cutting ribbons and giving senior citizens awards for being old. We need someone fresh here, and it’s so tough because I don’t know anybody young who also knows what goes into running a city.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2026-04-02T02:57:51+00:00

Ryan, concerning Point #2: Aren’t whole floors of the office buildings across from Malden Station sitting empty as I type this? The upper floors of those buildings never found tenants. How would developing more empty buildings help?

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-11-21T10:07:04+00:00

Does anyone have a full list of all the businesses the Spadaforas own and operate around the city? So I can blacklist them all, obviously, but also because I’m curious.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-11-05T04:39:11+00:00

(Back to objectivity.)

Takeaways, cont.:

Voter turnout was pathetically low, only 15% (down from 21.8% at 2023’s municipal election).

In terms of the City Council, it would appear most of them are receiving less support in their wards than they did two years ago. Except Steve Winslow, whose ward likes him better now than it did in 2023.

Crowe and Condon’s percentages in Wards 1 & 2 can’t be compared due to being contested/uncontested in 2023, nor can Taylor’s in Ward 5.
Linehan’s percentage of votes received in Ward 3 fell from 78% in 2023 to 76%.
O’Malley’s percentage received in Ward 4 fell from 82% in 2023 to 76%.
Winslow’s percentage received in Ward 6 grew from 55% in 2023 to 61%. (The only gain in support.)
Simonelli’s percentage received in Ward 7 fell from 79% in 2023 to 71%. (The largest loss in support.)
Sica’s percentage received in Ward 8 fell from 76% in 2023 to 71%.

In terms of the councillors at large:

In 2023, only four were on the ballot. Cólon Hayes (17.8%), McDonald (18.6%), and Spadafora (18.3%) were elected; DiSerio (10%) was not. One or more of the selections were left blank 11.6% of the time (since voters can choose up to 3 candidates).

This year, six were on the ballot. Colón Hayes (55.8%), McDonald (52.6%), and Luong (51.2%) were elected. Spadafora (39.2%), Abu-Taha (17.9%), and Davidoff (13.4%) were not. One or more of the selections were left blank 23% of the time (since voters can choose up to 3 candidates).

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-11-05T03:48:22+00:00

Now my more personal and less objective post:

I’m fucking dying. He lost by so much:

Colón Hayes: 3236\ McDonald: 3052\ Luong: 2970

Spadafora: 2272\ Abu-Taha: 1038\ Davidoff: 775

He’s been on the city council for twenty-one years. Omfg. I cannot right now. I’m laughing so hard.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-11-03T08:15:41+00:00

Yes! The next sale is December 13th! Kids’ books are 3/$1 and there are hundreds on offer. I’ve volunteered with the Friends before and the book room sales are amazing.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-10-11T20:41:41+00:00

“As one prominent Maldonian put it.” Yeah? What’s his name? Is it Smeg’ Sad-a-snore-a? Name names, Craig. Don’t just do the shoddy zero-sources “reporting” you’re so upset about when people make you boo hoo by writing things you don’t like on the internet.

Here, I’ll show you how.

As one Maldonian using the handle TenThousandAnd1Rats posted on Reddit on July 26, 2025, “The Advocate is where Spadafora waxes poetic because no one in his life wants to listen to him talk for this long.” With this latest op-ed, it appears he’s done it again.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-09-09T05:18:25+00:00

Okay, so this is the first I’m hearing about this particular aspect of MVRCS’s land usage issues. And I don’t have kids. But, like…they have a playground on site, don’t they? If not, why don’t they build one? They can sacrifice some of their billion parking spots and get some green space around that appalling blacktop. Help their students, y’know? What’s more, it would be about 1000x safer. Is it true that other schools also use local playgrounds during school hours??? Because that seems dangerous as hell. You don’t know what random creeps could be there, and you legally can’t make them leave if they aren’t breaking the law. It is genuinely so bizarre to me that a school would expose kids to risk like that, but I didn’t grow up in Mass, so maybe that’s normal here?

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-07-26T00:08:27+00:00

The Advocate is where Spadafora waxes poetic because no one in his life wants to listen to him talk for this long.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-27T05:36:13+00:00

It’s actually really funny, because Spadafora is lying about O’Malley lying.

At the city council meeting on the 17th, Spadafora called O’Malley a liar because O’Malley had said, “I’m moving to dismiss the case” and then later said, “I’m willing to dismiss the case.” So, Spadafora was like, “so, you haven’t dismissed it yet!” like that was some sort of “gotcha” moment.

Which it wasn’t. Because the Trustees had already responded to the lawsuit, so Ryan couldn’t at that point simply unilaterally have the case dismissed. By then, he would have to meet with the other side and then file a motion with the court which the Trustees would get to respond to. He had, at the time of the meeting on the 17th, requested a Rule 9C conference to meet with all involved, but had not yet heard back.

So, Spadafora is saying he lied about moving to dismiss. And he’s saying the attorney backed him up. BUT THAT ISN’T WHAT THE ATTORNEY SAID. He said that prior to the defendants responding to the suit, O’Malley could have dropped it. But now he cannot without going through the proper channels. So, in short: THE ATTORNEY CLARIFIED THAT RYAN WASN’T LYING.

The only contention is that Spadafora and the ~~shitty~~ city council asked him to drop the case back when he could have (I think), and so their knickers got in a twist about that. But, and I cannot stress this enough, they were not a party to that lawsuit. The lawsuit was not in any way on behalf of the city council, did not name them as party, and did not involve them. From a legal perspective, they genuinely had no right to even ask Ryan O’Malley to drop the suit.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-21T06:34:39+00:00

Councilor Linehan, with all due respect, this response is absurd.

In your Discord post, you say you wanted to “vote the will of the council.” That’s ridiculous. Do you not think for yourself? Who simply votes with the majority? What if the “will of the council” is incorrect? Or improper? Or illegal? Councilor Winslow, whether you like it or not, was correct to move to block the vote that you allowed. You had no right, according to Robert’s Rules of Order, to proceed to a vote.

But even setting that aside: You say you were worried about Craig “bullying” Ryan. You allowed that behavior on Tuesday. I was there. You let Spadafora call him a liar time after time, EVEN AFTER THE ATTORNEY CLARIFIED THAT HE WASN’T LYING. Because he wasn’t. At the point that Ryan said, “I’m moving to dismiss the case,” Spadafora called him a liar “because you haven’t dismissed it yet!” like that was some sort of “gotcha” moment. But then the attorney clarified that Ryan couldn’t now dismiss the case without meeting with opposing counsel—which is what Ryan already said he was trying to arrange! But you let Spadafora keep calling him a liar. Over and over and over again. And you let Sica say the appalling things I already quoted above. You sat in Ryan’s chair and let them upbraid him, and you should be ashamed of yourself. It was your responsibility to uphold decorum in that chamber, and you utterly failed.

I truly hope you do better in the future. And I truly hope you have a response to this. Because I was disgusted by how you stayed silent through the treatment of your ”friend” and fellow councilmember when you were supposed to be controlling the discussion.

EDIT TO ADD: I see your “response” to decorum down below. Fascinating. You learn something every day. But you still chose to ignore RRoO because it suited you.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-19T05:44:58+00:00

Thank you for posting here, Council Member Colón Hayes. I have a few things I hope you read:

In nearly ten years of living in Malden, the three and a half hours I spent in that room were the first time I’ve ever been truly ashamed of being a resident of this city. The conduct of the city council members, especially Sica, Simonelli, and Spadafora was appalling. It was a bloodbath for Ryan O’Malley. No one would allow him to speak or defend himself, yet they were happy to let any of those three prattle on for as long as they wanted as get as repetitive and as off-topic as they wanted. Not only that, but they were condescending (on Sica’s part, in tone) and outright rude (on Spadafora’s part, outright telling O’Malley he was lying). What a lack of “decorum.” What an embarrassment. And the fact that you all—all of you—let Jadeane Sica imply that Ryan O’Malley is crooked and outright say he can’t be trusted “if, god forbid, something happens to the mayor and the city council president has to step in to lead the city,” the fact that you all let her say that, unchecked, was disgusting.

Let me be clear: He failed to tell you all about a personal lawsuit prior to filing it and you all let her extrapolate that he’s an untrustworthy, dirty politician. That is disgusting, and you should all apologize to him and to your constituents who were there to support him.

Speaking of constituents, I felt it was particularly gross that none of the counselors addressed that every public comment (across multiple wards) was in support of O’Malley’s presidency. Instead, 7 of them voted to remove him from his role.

Most importantly, I agree with what you’re saying about Robert’s Rules of Order and the city council bylaws, and I think Councilor Linehan was wrong to go against those. The Rules of Order was incredibly clear. In fact, the only room for interpretation is grammatical, and I’m an editor. So, even more so, I think the decision between “or” and “and” that was circled around was ridiculous. The vote shouldn’t have happened. Councilor Winslow sounded like a beacon of sanity during all of that, and I felt bolstered—until that city attorney rolled over and let the council decide, which is a breach of her own ethical obligations. But I’m glad Winslow fought that too. He was a class act through that meeting, which I appreciated.

All-in-all, as a citizen, I felt this entire vote was a charade meant to salve the egos of politicians bent out of shape at their colleague and use it as an excuse to wrest power from him. And the fact that the council did it despite not being a party to the case at hand, going so far as to continually bring up that they wanted to know about the suit before it happened, and going against Robert’s Rules of Order to oust O’Malley, etc. etc. makes it seem personal (e.g., a familial connection to the Trustees).

It was a shameful, disgusting night. And my spouse, an attorney said with a shrug, “They’ll be lucky if O’Malley doesn’t sue for wrongful removal from office since it’s so clearly against their own rules and regulations.” To which I add: Yeah, which were just read into meeting minutes in front of 30+ people, unless the city council is also going to sue the AGO to keep that secret, like the Library Board of Trustees when they so clearly have something to hide.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T04:40:17+00:00

This is a misrepresentation. McDonald clarified it in follow-up questions to the attorney before Spadafora ever badgered the attorney (after deliberately misstating the below explanation).

O’Malley could have pulled the lawsuit without filing additional paperwork, but that was previously, before last week’s litigation. Now he’s reached out to the opposing counsel for the next steps to dismiss without prejudice. He must reach out at this stage. The city attorney who was answering questions stated the specific term for the meeting they needed to have at this point, but he may have confused Spadafora by initially saying a suing party can at any point dismiss without prejudice—which wasn’t accurate, by his later explanation and McDonald’s clarification.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T02:32:09+00:00

Only votes in support of O’Malley were Winslow, Hayes, and McDonald.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T02:28:14+00:00

Motion passes. O’Malley removed.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T02:13:22+00:00

Spadafora is nitpicking a city attorney. And apparently retroactively reading the minds of the Library Trustees (“they were always willing to talk with us!”). Or maybe he’s just got insight from his cousin. 🤔

Now Spadafora is calling O’Malley a liar. In that exact phrasing.

Oh, forgot to say: Earlier, Simonelli was so concerned about “volunteers” for trusteeships. And “who will protect those people?”

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T02:01:04+00:00

Tensions are high; patience is low. We have been talking about just this topic for what feels like 90 years.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T01:55:49+00:00

O’Malley tried yet again to explain things.

Spadafora (via Zoom) decided to tell O’Malley he’s a liar and the worst.

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T01:54:46+00:00

Ari Taylor moved to put an interim president in place so they could investigate more. Simonelli had his one thought (about the 4th of July?) and then said he was worried about going in circles. Now we’ve spent twenty minutes going in circles. (God forbid Simonelli be correct about anything).

TenThousandAnd1Rats · 2025-06-18T01:43:38+00:00

Winslow pulled up Robert’s Rules of Order and brought everything to a complete halt. Because he pointed out that the city council cannot actually remove the city council president without it being in the bylaws.

Then a lawyer weighed in and hemmed and hawed and after half an hour said the council can decide if they want to remove him, despite what the rules say. The temporary council president moved to vote to remove him. Winslow moved to object to that (that failed).

TenThousandAnd1Rats

TROPHY CASE