Story by Nick K today in the Telegram. Check out this part:
The public hearings are: March 2, Friendly House, 36 Wall St.; March 4, PNI Club, 290 Millbury St.; March 9, Beaver Brook Park Community House, 36 Mann St.; March 11, St. Peter’s parish gymnasium, 929 Main St.; March 16, Worcester Senior Center, 128 Providence St.; and March 23, Great Brook Valley Multi-Purpose Center, 180 Constitution Ave.
Six public meetings?? Surprised we do not hire a couple more consultants and have a charette. On a serious note why is there no public meeting on the West Side of the City of Worcester, where there are no pools or beaches, have to say?
It would be nice to keep all the nine pools and two beaches open, but is providing swimming a "core" service? Simply put it is not and while we are looking to cut 400 employees and not hire an incoming police class how can we seriously consider keeping all the pools and beaches open?
Where's the leadership? Closing all the pools and focus on the two public beaches. Its just that simple.
Same Time Next Year
-
It’s been nearly a year since I wrote about the problems that come from
having 11 bosses who are not on the same page about anything, as well as
suggestion...
4 months ago
11 comments:
I went through this in Paxton when I sat on the rec board.... The pool had a lot more issues than budget... pool had many violations as well as I am sure some in Worcester do as well. Yes I live out of Worcester but spend all my money in Worcester... The response would be why not on the west side... they have their own pools...Pools are nice, don't get me wrong spent my whole childhhod at beaver brook one... to be quite honest I enjoyed the public beaches better...
Times are tough.. we do not need nor can we afford keeping pools open anymore..They are better off keepings puiblic beaches open.. and have them use WRTA buses shutles or something to get people there..
I would like someone from the city to step forward and show the math on what it costs to keep these open for what six weeks...
We did the math for Paxton for one pool over $60,000.00 plus our pool leaked and a lot of it was the cost of buying water from Worcester.
Six meetings....one for each at large councilor to attend and blow a lot of hot air.
I can see one large municipal swimming facilty....like Holden has?? [g] ......then there's Indian lake & Coes pond & Bell hill pond....right???....and what of Regatta Point.........is that still a swimming facility ??? Did I miss any other natural swimming facilities in Worc....how about Clark steps up to the plate and builds an outdoor swimming facility in conjunction with the new boys club??....Dittos for Holy Cross up on College hill
Swimming pools a core service.......probably knot......but 6 pools definitely KNOT !!!
I mean every facility prob. has to have 2 lifeguards??? .... plus all the upkeep
Signman sorry.............but the city doenst know how to cost out anything........a $500M city budget and how many cost bean counters do they have ...none.......you want to know why??.............b/c they dont want anyone telling them what the real costs are.
Every city service/project s/b a cost center and you have to charge the cost center with pension expenses, and paid sick time & paid vacations & Paid injured on duty .etc...etc.....AS WEll as all the obvious costs like wages , health ins, etc.
When you bid a sign job you have to factor in:
a SS tax
b. Medi care tax
c. Workm comp.
d. Mass unemplooyment
e. fed'l unempl
f. Paid holidays
g. Paid vacations
H. Paid sick time
i. pension/401k expense
j. health ins.
k. paid persoanl days
Now these are just the direct costs...........then therer's all the overhead as well. (Note not all of the above apply to the city b/c they are a gov't entity)
$500M annual city budget and we we're clueless what things really cost........ and BTW neither the city auditor nor the city treasurere nor the city chief fininancail officer (whatever they call him ...it escapes me at the moment) are cost guys.
L. Wages ( forgot the biggest one !)
Jahn shut off the idiot box at 900pm last night which is when i usually turn it on a couple of nights a week.......for a crime drama or 2 or 3
Now i hear bits and pieces of Obama speech on radio this morning and Debama will cut cut fed'l defict by 50% by 2013......and no increase in personal taxes for middle class...RIGHT....!!!!! This guy is in so far over his head.......it's pitiable
How Deval-esque
I got a better idea... lets buy a piece of property... lets say at the corner of Winslow and Pleasant... from a business man.. lets say that the nieghbors don't like...
FOR TOP DOLLAR so we can build another park... because of the amount of kids that are in the area
we need another park because Elm Park, Newton Hill and Beaver Brook are not big enough or close emough.
Never mind the fact that we do not have enough staff to maintain what we have....;
What kills me in this city is a vocal minority, Pools Coalition, will control this issue and none of our elected officials will call it like it is.
...and D'Animal has bailed out of Worcester for his Locobazooka show for West Palm Beach, Fl ... he donated major $$$$ to city pools, no longer the case now...
Harry T
Worcester, MA
too bad we were not spending 300+ thousand on a 5.8 HUD guaranteed loan from our CDBG funds.
Maybe we could have used that for pools.
"Bill Randell said...
What kills me in this city is a vocal minority, Pools Coalition, will control this issue and none of our elected officials will call it like it is."
Bill just replace "pools coalition" with "ROAR" (Residents Against Access Road).....exact same thingie..... .except there are far fewer ROAR types than there are "Pool Coalitioners"......vocal minorties in this city are worshipped..........the only vocal majority that is heeded are city employees as a group............and look what theat will eventually get us...................just as deval cuts the fed'l deficit in 1/2 by 2013 (ya right!) Worcester will behaving a receiver appointed.
The city fiscal model is not sustainable...........wait until YE ended June, 2011...and you'll see what i mean.....we're toasted80% pensions, firemen who sleep all night, cops who rob the payroll blind, trash haulers who work 4.5 hrs a day........the list is endless
Sorry Should say " just as Debama cuts the fed'l deficit"
Post a Comment