In 2002 the City of Worcester had a consultant, RKG, do a Housing Study. Take a moment and read the conclusions. Jahn, even you read it, it is only two pages. At the time, it was released the report was attacked and none of the recommendations were followed.
Instead of hiring another consultant to another study, maybe we should dust off the RKG report and read it again? It is pretty scary how right they have been.
WRRB/Telegram District City Council Forum 10/18
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This forum is for all district council candidates; all candidates are here
today. Format: 14 total questions, 4 questions across districts (for all
candida...
5 months ago
24 comments:
Bill, why do we even bother to hire consultants to perform studies, which study suggestions are 100%, completely ignored AND the city does just the OPPOSITE.
Taking the CDBG money from Washington and building more & more & more low income housing is going to be the crack cocaine of our financial demise. The city will be laying in finacial de-tox, bedridden, incoherent, and incapacitated and looking back years from now and saying to itself that Washington money was our undoing and Havana Jim McGovern will be "re-districted" out of Congress and will be the new Mayor of Havana......living la viva loca!!!!!
Also, years ago we OPCD, then we had an economid dev'ment officer, then we had this, then we had that.............& now we have an entire battalion of people called "urban planners" or something like that.
What exactly do these people do besides oversee the dev'ment of more low income housing?
Jahn:
At times I truly believe you are a little hard on Jim McGovern. I dealt with him one time with the airport and he was good dam good. We asked for help to get a Small Community Air Service Grant from the DOT and he got it, although we failed the two prior years.
Once we got it, we did nothing with the $455,000 grant. In fact we have only spent it on counsultants and still have $200,000 left while Allegiant left?
My point is that the COngressman delivers but we do not spend or invest the monies wisely. I do agree we have way too many urban planners and not enough private investors.
Maybe the City of Worcester should look at RKG report. Maybe we should buy some of these foreclosed properties with CDBG monies, knock the buildings done and create more off street parking?
Bill
Bill, he's been delivering low income housing money from Washington since 1995 or thereabouts and then he shows up for the photo ops when we blow $600,000 to rehab a 3 decker that is then sold to a low income buyer for 170,000.
We dont need anymore low income housing money or housing. PERIOD! The report lays out what I have been screaming about on here for at least a year.
Suggest Bill read the report that he posted here.
We cant say we want this, we dont want that and then when the pols who are the underlying problem are mentioned or show up everyone wants to say....well so and so aint a bad guy............it isnt a question of who's a good guy and who is a bad guy.......it's a question that all these guys want to do is erect structures they cant point to and claim there were part of.....meanwhile the city taxpayers are on the hook for years b/c of others wasteful spending of Washington money.
Dont foget the reason we're so in debt at the airport is b/c mcgovern got Washington money for a new unneeded terminal. Ditto's for union Station too, altho to a lesser extent.
We dont want the money from Washington.........instead lower our fed'l taxes and let us keep teh money in our paychecks and we'll make the airport terminal decision at the local level. Likewise for low income housing.
Now McGovern is leading the city down the Canal District path and this too will come back to haunt us years from now.
If the council wanted to float a bond issue for low income housing or have a Prop 2 1/2 override to biuld a new airport terminal or low income hopusing, it would never see the light of day ......but when Washington starts throwing money at bad ideas like this....we just grab the cash with any forward thinking.
Not a good way to run a 1/2 billion dollar municpal corporation.
Bill;
I gotta agree with Jahn..we keep up the current policies on-going in this city and every other city is going to be forwarding their poor aka pajama babies aka folks with a lack of desire/concern to do it on their own to us ! I am a small level investor and I am quite concerned about some of the financial decisions I have made recently in the City of Worcester..
We need more pols who live in the urban core of the city who have the backbone to say enough is enough..
Our Congressman nor our local leaders are delivering the needed goods to create an environment that is inviting for private investors, returning baby boomers, students attending the local universities and the local native lads and lasses who are seeking a lively urban scene like the urban scenes available within Greater Boston & Providence, R.I...a lively urban scene is not just a couple of new pubs and restaurants..it's clean streets, walkable sidewalks, neighbors who share the same ideas on a quality of life...I still 17 years later have the same problems with the three deckah next to me..and I understand that the reason I can't get the problme fixed is cause I am not the only one with the same problems for 17 years..there is so much of this crap that there is almost no way of getting rid of it without a wholesale removal of 40+% of the current population.
Our Congressman and many other pols in this city's plus their constituency's idea of social politics is a HUGE reason we have a city like we do...a very poor one that a regular cat does not wish to live with!
Worcester wants to be on the forefront of ending homelessness..Haverhill, Providence, Somerville, Lynn, Roxbury, Dorchester aka Boston...Manchester, Nashua want to be on the forefront of urban paradise:>) I'll take the paradise side:>)
Take away the universities Bill and Worcester is between Springfield & Utica, New York.
My buddy bought a old tough bar back in the 90's in Somerville and he was never able to change the clientele and ended up selling after a few years.he told me afterwards that his biggest mistake was not upping the price of the booze and waiting out the weeding out of the $1 beer drinkahs till the $3-4 beer drinkahs came around...same goes in Worcester..we need to lighten the load of section 8 certs in this city..leave some of these dumps as dumps till a private investor comes in and then watch the city move in a different direction...
John Silber asked the best question and answered it too when he was running for Governor.."why do so many folks from warm weather climates continually move to Massachusetts"? John Silber of course was not speaking about hard working & contributing folks from warm weather climates but of course he was booed cause he had the cajones to call a spade a spade!!
Your buddy should consider himself lucky the bar wasn't controlled by organized crime. No lawyer would have touched that one......or maybe they would
Your buddy should consider himself lucky the bar wasn't controlled by organized crime. No lawyer would have touched that one......or maybe they would
>>>hmmm and yer point is?
I walk around this city alot now and there is absolutely no signs that we have as many universities as we do..the commercial & residential spin-off is non-existent..the brains being developed here are not starting up new companies like they are elsewhere..these continual studies are foolish..it doesn't take a study to report that productive folks do not wish to live or work next to deckah after deckah with porches filled with grown men swilling 40oz'ers all day.
Start developing tough time limits on how long you can be on social housing, medicine, free food & any other benefit bestowed on one from a caring society and we will see results..some early suffering will happen but again this will subside once folks realize that the social net has it's time limits and at some point they will have to be contrubuting to the holding up of the next and not always bouncing into it..
We have but one urban core neighborhood (not including the imediate area around Becker & Clark) that one would consider filled with brains that function - Crown Hill and many there are quite disappointed at how the boundries have remained the same for so long..the gentrification move as been at a standstill for to long
Jah you will like this comment from a next door neighbor this past summer..
After listening to music all day at a decibal level equal to a Rolling Stones concert...a sidewalk cluttered with grown drunk men..I finally approached this neighbor to cut out the hoss sheet..he rushed me with a pen knife..my metal pole around the cornah was biggah:>) In his drunken stupor he told me I was racists and hated PR's..I told him I hated PR's who had no respect for their neighbors but loved those that did:>) He ranted back to me " we left Great Brook Valley cause we were told that this was a nice place to live"..I bellowed back.."yah, it could be if you were willing to contribute cause I had no plans to do it all"
Until they get a grip on how many sexy 8's they will allow in a building we can not clean up these neighborhoods..it is nonsense to be loading up these neighborhoods (what our pols call neighborhoods)..with deckah after deckah of non working folks..it doesn't work in the projects and it doesn't work in the "neighborhoods" that none of our pols live in or would let their kid's live in:>)
I remember attending a Pol debate at Clark 4 years ago..all the Pols bragged about their Main South roots..I asked a basic question that had em' all running:>).."it is great that alll of you are so proud of your Main South roots, so what can you do to assist our District Councilor so that your kid's would want to move to D4"...none had the answer for the crowd that they would have for you in private. I got quite a few winks from those in the crowd.
Let me clarify. Congressmen McGovern brings the monies back to Worcester, but we do not spend them correctly when they get here.
Instead of spending $500,000 to renovate an 80 year old house (check out the three decker on the corner of Mason and Pleasant Street) or build pocket parks that we do not have the monies to maintain, maybe we should do the recommendations as outlined in the RKG Report.
Believe me I disagree with many of Congressman McGovern's foreign relations ideas, but I have to say he brings back money for the District. My point is that we blow it when we get it.
Bill
Let the buyer beware.
You should have bought property in Shewsbury or Holden if you wanted responsible tenants.
Understand your dilema Paulie. You should sell your properties while there's still some value left
Meant to say responsible neighbors instead of tenants. I'm sure Paulie screens his tenants well
Paulie you aint seen nuttin' yet.
You know how many overly dense, low income housing projects are breaking ground and how many more are awaiting McGovern Money from Washington?
You must live near Park Ave at Chandler....take a walk down Mason St 200 yards and see the behometh that Worc Common Ground is now excavating for to build more low income condo's. Worc Common Ground is a socialist, non profit housing corporation that is run by a former city councillor who was allegedly unemployed at the time, so they made him CEO of building and property management corporation. Care to guess how much experience & expertise he had in this field prior to landing this hack job. NONE! But he and guys like him are the good guys and private landlords are looked at as pond scum and Mc Govern keeps giving him Washington money.
Worc Common Ground has another project proposed at Main & Piedmont Sts and another near Main & May St's. This one will place 44 units of more low income condo's into an old factory building which s/b demo'ed ad replaces witha few townhouse units. Instead we get more McGovern Washington Money to develpo a site with more low income housing that we do not need.
We also have the Old Crompton Knowles factory building that will be converted to God knows how many more low income condo's.
you are most likely right Anon..I bought here 17 years ago and with wonderful ideas way before the rah,rah started...I dug in my heels and held on..this is the beauty of youth and idealistic thoughts (also a testament to someone who gets up and goes to work everyday)..I always thought that with so many universities and the new Living Earth Health Food Store just next next door that I would be the next element in a changing hood..my madre and uncle who own quite a bit of R.E...stated way back.."the path of progress always ends just before your front door in this business-stay out of Worcester"..and 17 years later this still rings in my ear cause the path of progress ended at Living Earth and it has not moved forward unless you count me and then it has not extended past me:>)
I am less idealistic at 45:>) and the rah rahers have less of my ear and I have less of their attention being one more rah raher who is about to give in:>)
Bill, we got Mcgovern Washington Money for Union Station and for the airport terminal....and just look at the results...........the City has it's hands tied behind its back with both of these projects..........although i do see some hope for Union Station..........but the airport is a lost cause and we're hamstrung up there b/c we took Washington money to biuld a terminal that was not needed and a control tower that didn't meet meet FAA standards.
If you give block grants to blockheads, you can expect disastrous results.
Paulie, tell us about your road Race in Hyannis this past weekend or was it cancelled due to the snow?
3000 runners..no cancelation..the Friday night fun was smaller than usual cause it was raining down here..Frank Shorter's flight got canceled (he won the 72 Olympic Marathon Gold in the 72 Olympics in Munich-maybe the Greatest American runner evah"..Bill Rodgers was in-house to pick up the special guest slack-Bill won 4 Bostons and 4 New York marathons..about 1000 rooms rented in Hyannis and West Yarmouth..a Worcester gal won the marathon on the women's side..she broke a 20 year record..great weekend capped off with a post bash at Harry's Blues Bar...place was jammed until 12:30AM (I know cause I was the last to leave:>)..on the Cape now and heading to Worcester with the pooch....life goes on:>)Have another biggie in Somerville on 3/16/08.. 6th annual Ras na hEireann USA 5KM...5000 expected between runners & walkers and their mates...local hotels sold out..and I have athletes from ireland flying in..gonna be a good one.
I would love to do more in Worcester but the cost of doing business in Worcester is to high and there is not enough support from the Pols to change the current structure that makes it so.
Sitting at the table with no food aint my cup of tea..if I am gonna sit at the table there has to be food on it:>) One can sit at the table along time before the waitress shows up!"
I always wondered how Steve Patton got his job..he seems to be quite bright but I do not agree that all of these historic buildings should be turned into low income housing..almost the same as knocking them down..I would add that they did a nice job with the ole bldg at the corner of Piedmont & Chandler..but there never seems to be any life there..it would be nice to see couples coming out each day going to work...walking across the street to support the nice Spanish restaurant on the other corner..or walking down to Suney's and Living Earth to shop..
Paulie, I assume you know that Fallon Clinic used to sponsor a road race every mothers day in May.........that was focuseda round Elm Park.
I guess it fizzled out quite a few years ago......not sure why though.
I'd love to know if police details were the reason.
I still have never had a Suneys Fish & Chips..........but some day before I buy the farm I'll have to get there and try them out.
God I havent even had Pickle Barrel Fish & Chips in 10 years.
Paulie what goes on over that MLK Empowerment Center anyway?
I just noticed on the "official" ORH website that they show a picture of the old control tower as if it's something to be proud of. Did Jacobson take that picture or did O'Brien?
Went on the city of Worcester website.
Only saw picture of the terminal.
Is that where the old tower used to be ?
Refresh your browser a few times. They have several pictures.
perhaps you may recall the Worcester Magazine story about police details and the issues around them for many of the festivals in the city back in September..an event I was part of was highlighted-I decided not to be part of the story but the event I was part of was a big portion of it.
Yes police detail cost is part of it..but not the entire part of it..the way I was treated by the detail office was pretty harsh..especially in front of important folks in the city at a meeting downtown..the process is pretty much "this is how you are going to do it and that is that"
Here is an example: Canal Diggers 5Km in Worcester - police details over 3.1 miles and maybe two hours = $6700
Ras na hEireann U.S.A. 5Km in Somerville - police details over 3.1 miles and maybe two hours = $1000-2000
Hyannis Marathon in Hyannis - police details over 26.2 miles and 6 hours = $7,2000-$7,500
I dare say that police detail issues in this city is a huge reason why event directors/promoters are not flocking here..couple this with a population that supports very little in the urban core of the city and no one has to wonder why folks go elsewhere for their entertainment/athletic/social endeavors..especially when there are so many communities out there wanting and encouraging event directors and promoters..
Worcester Police do not allow the use of a present auxiliary police department to be used in conjunction with them..Boston, Somerville & Cambridge do..so does Providence..these communities understand the value of events and what they bring to the table in the way of economic returns, civic pride, social benefits and so many other like kind values.
I am a successful events promoter and I know the need for safety and the incredible benefit of the police all over..this city needs a new permit procedure for event promoters and the final say on permits needs to come from the City Council/City Manager/City Clerk and not the police department where the biggest expense comes from..you pay their fee or you do not get a permit and that is the bottom line.
There are so few events downtown because the city is making it to damn difficult for event promoters to be able to do so...
FCHP sponsored the Canal Diggers 5Km that I was part of in 2007 and they will be again in 2008..a good group of folks to be involved with..the prior event they sponsored used to take place down around Quinnsigamond the Fallon Five..the past road race you mention that took place around Elm Park was the ole Charlie's Surplus 10 Miler..I ran it back in the early 90's twice...
The Worcester event I am part of now is done pro bono by my company..it benefits the AOH club down on Temple Street (Canal Diggers 5Km) ..an organization I am quite fond of..other than this I have decided not to do anyhting else locallly as there is just to many other opportunities out there in communities more welcoming..and when I say welcoming I mean they cut out the nonsense and just get the permits and safety issues done with right away..no nonsense like I have gone thru, the Latino Festival goes thru each year and some of the other things that quite a few festival directors in this city privately complain about.
Right now I am working on a Belfast, Northern Ireland event...and maybe bringing back an event in Manchester Center, Vermont as well as chatting with folks in Harwich..
What I do is part of a vibrant social/health scene and it is to bad that Worcester is so hard a town to crack..what I do as well as so many other similiar events is what keeps college kids in town, makes folks want to live in a community..brings in money and they are just plain fun....
I'd also add that the Ras na hEireann USA 5Km in two weeks will have 5000+ folks on the scene and the Hyannis Marathon last week the same..both communities with vibrant activity..Canal Diggers 5Km had 550 and it took place in a downtown desperate for folks
Paulie, thats been my exp. with police details as well. It's basically STFU, you're going to do it the way we say and thats it. These cops hiding under the veil of so called public safety is a load of bull and is extortion by any other name and not a POL anywhere in Mass will touch it. I see huge paving crews on I 90 in up state NY........not a cop anywhere in site !!!
Kinda reminds you of police misconduct review baord. The police basically police their own alleged misconduct.
I still want to know if the story in last weeks paper about a 100K settelment of a police alleged misconduct situation will result in any heads rolling?
I have seen simple assualt cases in a private workplace setting result in which one or both parties were fired and there weren't even any civil or criminal charges involved.
I wuill give the cops their due........in that often they are dealing with the underbelly of society and this does take its toll....but all jobs have adownside.
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