June 28, 2010

Germain's Review

First off thanks Nicole for pointing out that the Telegram had the hand-written reviews of the City Manager of each City Councilor on-line, click here.

Mike Germain wrote in his review.  "The effort of the CDC's, not only in housing, but also in all sorts of neighborhood initiatives should not be discounted."   Mike, no disrespect, but when you say "all sorts" what neighborhood initiatives are you exactly referring to?

19 comments:

Sprout said...

Kate Toomey mentioned giving them the city's pools to run yesterday as one idea...

Paulie's Point of View said...

Worcester City Councilor Mike Germain is an empty suit..he has no idea Bill..spends almost no substantive time in the urban core of and he publically stated numerous times on Jordan Levy Show and elsewhere that on his second go around politicking for his current position that he was only doing so in voter rich neighborhoods....

Jahn said...

Not that i think the CDC's reach s/b enlarged anymore than what it is, but just look at how the city ran the pools.......right into the ground. Same way they run the school buildings. They do not maintain their property as they should.

You know the more I think about it, does South Worc even need an industrial park? South Worc's "industry" of choice is constr and rental of low income housing. I repeat myself here, but Worc's biggest growth industry may not not be colleges and hospitals, it may in fact be low income housing.

I have a hard time envisioning any good industry or business coming to that area. Road access is awful. (Railroad access is what made the area 150 years ago). There are nicer & better areas in which to locate including the burbs with nice highway access.

Jahn said...

Paulie Hombre' dittos re: Germain

However Cant blame him for courting the areas where people know when election day is and they actually go and vote.

I Took the by pass route over Winslow Gray, Buck Island Rd and Camp St this weekend. No Guinness sitings though :( God that Mill Hill club is looking more & more like a city of Worcester owned property. Clearly the inspectors there do not carry small tape measures :).

Bill Randell said...

I can't blame Mike for looking for voters, where they are versus where they are not either. Also not trying to disparage him here either.

Obviously he has been told about "all sorts" of other neighborhood initiatives. Him, like many others, simply accept this as fact.

I am asking seriously what other "neighborhood initiatives" are we referring to? trust me I wish there were other "neighborhood initiatives".




Bill

Paulie's Point of View said...

well I will disparage when a cat states he has no time for my neighborhood when it comes to looking for votes but has time to make opinions on my neighborhoods destiny which he rarely visits if ever..we need cats getting their hands dirty not enhancing their own personal position in life

Brendan Melican said...

c'mon Bill, you're not even trying now.

Main South CDC Community Programs

Look, I'm no CDC apologist. I much prefer the Neighborhood Council approach which is also hard coded into the current city charter circa '84. But saying they do nothing but low income housing is as absurd as saying they capable of doing everything. The city needs to key in on the strengths of existing CDC's while calling them to task on their weaknesses, including financial transparency where public dollars are concerned. The public v CDC relationship does not need to be zero-sum, it's that belief which is making the free market crowd look as much a bunch of religious fanatics as the public funding crowd. Municipal systems function best when there are options in conjunction with transparency. Maybe the sun is setting on the CDC's value to Worcester, but that value could easily resurface for any number of reasons. In other words, while I tend to like your big stick approach, swing for the knees, not the head.

Bill Randell said...

Brendan:

On paper alot of this looks good. I can tell you, for example, that the NRSA program for Main South pretty was reinvested into properties owned by the Main South CDC.

Things like the first time home buer program are used to buy homes that the MAin South CDC has built.

By the way I am not saying we should not have these "neighborhood inititiatives". We should, but I don't think there are as many as you think.

Why don't you ask Paul about all the Neigborhood initiatives that he has seen from Common Ground in his area?

Thanks

Bill

Bill Randell said...

Brendan

Also read the next post.. The Executive Director is basically saying he has not been able to invest in the neighborhood initiatives.

Brendan Melican said...

No, I know you're not wholesale slamming the CDC's, Bill. I just hope that you and some of your readers who follow the issue closely realize that there's a binding ballot question this fall that will strip 40b from the commonwealth. As I said, I'm in no way an apologist for bad community partners, we need transparency and accountability for all public funds. But we also need to make sure that we have the appropriate partners and tools available for development when necessary. Take Kilby St for example, those us us who remember what it looked like just a decade ago should be able to recognize that it's a win for the city in terms of cleaning up blight; but we also need to have on hand the private developers who take that kind of work as a cue that now it's their turn to come in and finish the job.

All I'm saying, which you know, is that development is not an all or nothing game. In a perfect Worcester we would have seen massive private dev between 1999 and 2007 and then from '07 to today been able to reevaluate the public funded projects as the private sector slowed down. I could be wrong, but as an outsider that would seem to be the way to keep the wheels turning when outside factors force the privates to get conservative. I've only taken a passing glance at the managers proposal, but that seems to be what he's shooting for. A market based approach that keeps as many partners in the loop as possible, and allow the city to tap them where appropriate.

Jahn said...

Any "business " consultant would immediatey tell you MSCDC is too deep in far too many "businesses"

Econ dev, public safety, rehab, and the like are all functions that are best done under separate "roofs". Frankly, I thought the cops and IAFF and EMTS were in the business of public safety in Worcester??? What's next, flagman school courses taught at MSCDC? BTW I same the same opinions about other similar organizatiosn like MLK Empowerment Center. Theses non profit chieftans in most all cases would unemployed and workign for far less money if they had to use what real skills they have ( or do not have) in the real workd

I once heard or read of a CDC giving some kind computer based, business skills training. You wanna be trained in vocational skills try trade school, QCC, Salter, go the library and start studying your chosen endeavor.

Too much duplication of effort and too much duplication of CDC organizations in Worcesrter.

Breandan, what line of work and/or employmant are you in?

Brendan Melican said...

Apparently I'm in the unintended business of ruffling feathers, Jahn. ;)

I've bounced from EMS, transplant medicine, marketing, advertising, writing, TV, radio and most recently full time fatherhood and part-time 'whole buch of stuff'. Still trying to nail down 'my thing', I guess. No public sector gigs if that's what you were reaching for.

I agree with you on the overlapping services in the city, for what it's worth. However some of the of the community orgs, not just CDC's, are/were the only access to tech training around. If I didn't have parents who saw the value in buying me my first Apple IIe while in grade school, I'd be as computer illiterate as most Worcesterites. And yes, this town is a technology backwater. The WPS are just barely scratching the surface when it comes to tech literacy and that's today. Back when we had TRS-80's in the schools we were essentially teaching ourselves and peers based on what we learned at home.

This of course brings us back to the 'roll of government' conversation, which unfortunately today is a all one size fits all approach from the federal/state level.

Bill Randell said...

Brendan:

I remember very well what Kilby Street looked like 10 years ago. Is it better today. Of course, but I would say that (as you pointed out) that these lots would have been snatched up and developed during the last real estate cycle.

Also how much did we spend? If you ever added up the cost of the lots that were given away by the City of Worcester for pennies on the dollar then added in all the monies to construct? Not so sure we got a good deal.

This whole post was not about housing, however, but about "other neighborhood initiatives". Just because something is posted on a website does not mean it is true.

Brendan, the CDC's have become one thing and one thing only. Developer of affordable housing. I wish we could get back to "other neighborhood initiatives".


Bill

Paulie's Point of View said...

last year there was minimal youth employment in Main South..the Chandler kid's worked Main South and Castle Hill..word is the cat they had organizing quit because the kids were unruly, late and many times no shows-the program disbanded in weeks..Main South was a shite hole last year and we are well into June and I see little work being done..where is the hood initiatives when it comes to just plain ole streetscape...

I see none of this hood inituatives from Worcester Common Ground and I have my ear on the ground Brendan...if it is happening it should be PR'd more so we F'N know but try getting something out of Steve Patton..

I was in more than one meeting where very involved business men and citizens (cats who actually have private investments in a hood that Steve thinks he owns) asked for simple financial reports on the NRSA program that we all were partners in and we were told by him that he did not have to supply them to us!

I made the suggestion that perhaps it is time to combine the three in District Four...not eliminate completely but combine them-we do not need three CDC executives in D4 pulling down each 100K in salaries and benefits - more money for actual projects..it is time!

Brendan Melican said...

Bill, Paulie and to a degree Jahn,

I apologize if I'm not being clear enough here, but we're saying the same thing. I'm merely suggesting that openness and transparency needs to be at the forefront of any development plans for the city or changes to existing policy. Until we have that, none of us know what if anything nefarious is and will continue to take place behind closed doors with public funds. I don't care if we're talking tax credits to private developers or straight up 40b, books need to be on the table for public comment. Until we have that any conversation is just a bunch of dudes (myself included) blowing hot air on the internet.

Worcester needs less playing of ideological football and more actual compromise based on honesty and integrity. Bill, I first encountered you via ch13 when you were talking sunshine week with Mauro, I also know your a David Simon fan, so I'll offer up the obligatory Wire reference in closing '...you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you. '

Jahn said...

Brendan, Brendan, Brendan, my fine feathered, feather ruffling amigo......fear knot, my feathers are not ruffled.

My point was going to be this. Lettuce hypothetically say that a local CDC started up an EMS service or a radio station and as a result either your were rendered unemployed and/or the radio station or EMS provider you were working for folded up b/c they could not compete with a CDC that has no bottomline to meet and almost unfettered access to copious amts of Elmer Fudd provided, Obama printed, gub'mint dineros.

Now honestly, you'd be PO'ed, right? So you have to walk in others shoes who have had their line of work hi-jacked by gov't funded CDC's before you can allege something short of a wholesale slaughter of CDC's is being perpetrated here (vs. a retail slaughter??). Fact is these types of organizations despise anyone questioning their motis operandi and their facade of a 44 Front St style of bookkeeping.

So how did new facades work out on Chandler near #224 for Paulies Goodyears? Not too good? Gotta clean up the human debris first.

How about the 25% dev'ment fee that CDC's pull in be put out to the lowest/best bidder rather than CDC's having a monopoly on them.

This entire CDC process is as Bill has poined out indirectly, but not said directly, a complete end run around the spending of gov't money w/o the requisite bidding processes.


And Bill, sure Kilby st looks alot nicer than 10 years ago, but the bad ass dudes still haunt the area. Witness a recent murder that I think you almsot did actaully witness? Seems the kilby St Posse' is still alive and well after MSCDC being the Main South "safety business" for the last 20 years. Dittos for the so calles Main SOuth Safety allinace...........headed by none other than Mr Bill B. whose sidewalk on Hathaway St has never been shoveled anytime I have driven by it.. So much for public safety

Paulie's Point of View said...

I would have to agree with Bill..just because some statements are on a website does not mean these inituatives are being done..

I have a friend who lives and owns on Wyman in Main South who wants to move..same shite year after year plagues her family's street..no good change for any period of time..CC Haller asked her not to move....

sure Main South is a wee bit cleaner..some properties renovated but is the quality of life much better..I am not so sure Brendan

Bill Randell said...

Great wire reference!!!


Even better


"play in the dirt and you are going to get dirty!"

Paulie's Point of View said...

once the election is ovah they are coming after us Wild Will..be ready:>)