March 30, 2008

UniverCity Partnership Is Shut-down

We can add it to our list of closed businesses. Just read this for the upcoming Council Meeting. Again, I was on a task force led by Jim Leary that came out with a great report (read it!) and recommended the formation of this group.

This had a ton ot potential, but was never realized. I completely disagree with the City Manager's assessment that many of the goals set forth in the task force report. If that was the case, why then would we be dissolving it? The wrong guy was put in charge and nobody in the City of Worcester knew who or what the UniverCity Partnership or Armand Carrier was? If you read the report, hardly any of the recommendations were ever implemented.

Chalk this one up under lost opportunites and what a waste of time the whole task force was. The only good thing is maybe someone will start looking at the effectiveness of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce.

Sorry, this one has me fuming. Do you think any City Councilor will ask "Why are we shutting it down if many of the goals were met?" Better yet why has the ProvPlan, which the InCity Partnership was based on, founded in 1992 is still operating today?

10 comments:

Dave from Worcester said...

I dont know if this was brought up, but Allegiant returned yesterday for a charter.

I knew they missed us

Bill Randell said...

Dave:

Was that the plane that landed about 8:00PM last night.

Bill

Tracy Novick said...

Bill,
You might consider tipping off a city councilor on your question. It's a good one, that ought to be addressed before they move any further on this.

Anonymous said...

Dave

I thought it was a 737 Piedmont Airlines (Pace Aviation)

Anonymous said...

Like I have been saying for a wee bit..Jordan Levy hasn't left the mountain in years-well once to go to the Hanover Theatre and once to go to the DD downtown and he told us he would nevah do again cause of the losers hanging out downtown that scared him:>)

Now he is banging Chicoppee for landing SkyBus..how can you bang Chicoppee when you have as much responsibility for Woostah being what it is today than anyone else

Boy do I miss Jerry Williams, Gene Burns and David Brudnoy..quality radio at it's best


http://www.wtag.com/pages/jordan.html?page=2

Anonymous said...

Boston/Greater Boston laughs about Woostah..Woostah laughs about Chicoppe..Chicoppe laughs about Pittsfield, Pittsfield laughs about Utica, NY..who does Utica laugh at???

Bill Randell said...

Paulie:

Right now I am not laughing at Chicopee. They are doing exactly what we should be doing.

If they can establish themselves with a Skybus then other carriers will come. That is why we not only blew it witrh Allegiant, we blew it with the 2nd and 3rd carrier that never came once Allegiant left.

By the way they are right off the Mass Pike, maybe three miles from Route 91. There is no access problem and free parking.

Seriously I would fly them direct to Florida, but never through Gary.

Bill

Anonymous said...

Gary? I thought they flew through Columbus???

Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA

Bill Randell said...

Harry:

You are right Columbus.

Bill

Dave from Worcester said...

Hey, sorry, couldnt get on yesterday

A 737 and an Allegiant MD 80 came in. And yes, it was (Bill)

I'll post this in another part of the site too.