A screen shot of “Activate Haverhill.” (Courtesy photograph.)
Haverhill City Councilor Andy Vargas.
In time for the holidays, Haverhill City Councilor Andy Vargas has unveiled a mobile phone app for finding local offerings.
The “Activate Haverhill” app is now available in the Apple and Android app stores for iPhones and Android phones. Besides finding information about businesses in various categories, the app also helps connect volunteers with non-profit organizations and obtain Haverhill news from feeds supplied by WHAV and the Eagle-Tribune newspaper.
Vargas said Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce and Creative Haverhill are helping to provide content.
Last summer, Vargas piloted a program called “Activate Haverhill,” which notified Haverhill residents of upcoming volunteer opportunities via mobile text messages. The pilot yielded key insights, which led to the creation of the Activate Haverhill mobile app.
According to Vargas, the Activate Haverhill app drives residents to support Small Businesses through a directory of Haverhill businesses, pairs residents with nonprofits and related volunteer opportunities and provides links to Haverhill news.
Most of the money vargas raised for his campaign came frpm out of state illegal citizens
You’re an Internet troll, Jack. Prove to me that they were illegals from out of the state! He ran a very good grassroots campaign and got many local residents to support him. You’re accusations are baselse’s and I can’t take you serious anymore. You come off as a racist idiot who just makes baseless claim after claim because you don’t like the fact that Vargas has different skin color from you, or because he lives and was brought up in an area you don’t like. I wish you would actually man up and meet with him for coffee or for lunch to get to know the man he actually is. I don’t know why I even bother as he has offered before and you obviously haven’t.
I worked on Andy’s campaign and actually a good chunk of money came from outside of Haverhill b/c he didn’t have a the good old boys network of funders/donors locally to fundraise from, so my understanding is that he relied on his family members across the country and alumni of Boston University.
Other than my favorite Haverhill store, shoe city Hardware there aren’t many true local businesses to shop
There are many small businesses on Merrimack street and many great, local restaurants owned by local residents.
What do I think? two words Not much! I’m tired of Councilor Vargas being in bed with business. I know perhaps they probably financed his campaign. That’s how he came from out of nowhere and out poled Councilors Mary Ellen Daly O’Brian and Bill Macek who have been for many years.
First he increases taxes on home owners and renters that they’re subsidizing business now he comes up with APP.
He may know about politics but he doesn’t know anything about business. You don’t help business from the top down. You help them from the bottom up! You help business by cutting taxes on homeowners so they can lower their rents and they have more money to spend. Therefor helping businesses. .
So…Vargas increased taxes on his own?? WOW!! That’s a ton of power for a city councilor. Proof??
Sounds a bit personal. Shopping Local is the way to boost the economy- invest in your city, the city will flourish, and then maybe your property tax will go down after a few years.
Property taxes in Haverhill have not seen a break since the early 1950’s, so while we can’t say it’s impossible, given the financial constraints of this city and state, it’s highly unlikely. Maybe, when the housing price inflation bubble bursts, folks might see a reprieve but not until then.
Alex, the arrival of Vargas on the political scene in Haverhill politics can be directly attributed to several factors. First is that he’s an unapologetic, big government, tax and spend liberal that fits perfectly into the fabric of the city. Secondly, as a political organizer to ethnic groups in the city living their lives looking to government for their very existence, and living the past 8 years under the Community Organizer in Chief who has sold false promises, Vargas was a great choice at the local level for all these Dreamers. Vargas putting on a suit and selling the story he was a college graduate and interned in the office of State Rep Dempsey, even though that never happened, is attractive to uneducated millennials and minorities in the city who believe in the dream of liberalism. Throw in his personal ethnic status and family history and what better candidate is there to minorities seeking representation. As he proved at a recent city council meeting when he assisted a Spanish speaking woman in this country illegally to participate in a public meeting by translating her comments from Spanish to English, he has things to offer people in this city that no other candidate does, even though his agenda is contrary to the rights and interests of the vast majority of citizens in the city.
The threat of Vargas holding political office isn’t his inexperience and lack of knowledge relating to tax issues. The treat of Vargas holding political office with the indoctrinated liberal agenda he holds is that he gives rise to others with the same views who would also seek office. When we experience teenage girls getting raped in city parks, bullets flying during Little League games, drug dealers seeking safe haven in the city because of unspoken sanctuary city polities, and a generation of young people dying from drugs, and the most outspoken elected official of community organizing policies says nothing publicly about the root cause of this issues, you know his agenda is to promote more of the same.
Promoting insane liberal public policy, especially advocating for the rights of criminal trespassers in this city illegally via community organizing initiatives, as Vargas specializes in, is a major economic, societal, and physical threat to the citizens of this city. The city now is a very, very dangerous place. With the election of liberal candidates like Vargas who advocate for illegal ethnic rights and representation it leads the city down a path from which there is no return. Look no further than the history of the City of Lawrence to see where Haverhill is heading under the rule of people like Vargas.