Animal Control Officers

Let clarify by saying I have no problem again with the City of Worcester tracking that people license their dogs. In fact I applaud their efforts. My only question was an animal control officer being sent to your house to determine whether or not a dog is present or not? Seems like something almost impossible to prove if you are at work and your dog is inside.

Just send a out a ticket saying that the records on file from a vet indicate that you have an unlicensed dog. The ticket, however, will be waived if you license the dog within the next 30 days or you can prove that it is licensed under someone else's name or maybe another town. Maybe there is a reason why they need to legally send out an animal control officer in order to send a ticket?

That said, rumor has it (unconfirmed at this point) that the animal control officers may have gotten pink slips, a casualty of the budget cuts. Can anyone confirm? I hope this is not true.

Richard Chernisky

Quarterly letter to the Telegram Editorial, click here

Tracy O'Connell Novick

Stumbled across her blog and it looks like she is running for School Committee. I really know practically nothing about the Worcester School System. That said it is refreshing to see someone, who is runnning for office to be right up front and not be afraid to say what she thinks about different issues.

Would it not be nice to see our elected officials have their own blog where they could state and explain their positions and accept "moderated" "non-anonymous" comments from people like you and me?

Kudos to Tracy O'Connell Novick.

18% Increase for Food Stamp Recipients

Click here for story.

2.1 million goes to elderly nutrition programs at senior centers and home delivered nutrition programs. This was the main reason for the meeting at the Marble Street apartments yesterday and to me, they both seem like good programs.

Where does the other 297.9 million go. Formerly known as Food Stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will get the rest, which will result in an on average increase of 18% in food stamps, sorry SNAP benefits, to the nearly 600,000 low income individuals and families in Massachusetts who receive benefits.

This is good for the economy since, according to the story, $5 spent in SNAP benefits generates $9.20 in econmic activity. If $5 spent in SNAP benefits is good for the econonmy then wouldn't less taxes and expenses on me be good for the economy too??

Boston Globe Story on a 40B project

Must read, click here.

Very interesting story about the Town of Easton and their battle with a low income housing developer. To be honest it does not seem like a bad project to me. The developer is proposing 28 cottages at two different locations with 7 being sold at a reduced price to low mod income buyers.

What amazes me is how the Town of Easton has battled this. That has been my point recently. Why spend time and money battling in a town like Easton, when you can come to Worcester, where you can not even build under the protection of 40B.

Under 40B, the town has far less leverage. The board of appeals could deny Mirrione's application, but he could then appeal to the state and would likely win. That's because under the law, at least 10 percent of a town's housing units must be permanently set aside for low- to moderate-income residents before it can safely deny a 40B project; Easton's stock of affordable housing barely tops 3 percent.

On the other hand, Worcester is somewhere in the 15-18 ranges, way about the 10 percent. In other words, a developer in Worcester can not go through 40B. It really makes no difference since do not oppose any projects and give them whatever they want.

As more developers run into problems in towns liks Easton or in Springfield, they will flock to Worcester.

I Want A Drink

There was a guy standing on the corner of Main and Chandler Street across from the Hadley apartments holding a sign that said "I Want A Drink". At least he was honest. I wonder if Senator Kerry or Governor Patrick saw him and gave him some economic stimulus money for a drink?

1:00PM Today Marble Street

Rumor has it Governor Patrick, Lt Governor Murray, Senator Kerry amongst others will be at the Marble Street apartments at 1:00PM to announce one of the economic stimulus plans. I have been told it is an increase for food stamp and welfare recipients.

What better place to make the announcement then the No Income District of Worcester.

Dog License Tickets

The other day a customer started telling me about a $75 ticket that he had just received for not getting a license for his dog. I almost stopped him to tell him that he had told me this story already, but then remembered it was someone else who had told me the same story last month.

Here is how it goes:

• both people received $75 tickets in the mail for not having a dog license
• both tickets cited days and times when they both knew their dog was inside since they were at work, how could anyone know if the dog did not have a license?

Both people bring their dogs to the vet who needs to report to the City of Worcester when shots are given. One can only assume the city cross references this listing with the listing of renewed licences to make sure a license is in force. O'kay I am fine with that.

To just send out citations without seeing the dog, but stating you did???

Last Comment on this for a month

I really am sick of talking of this, but today's story prompted these latest blogs. Before I give up on this, I want to make a couple things clear.

Low to mod income housing is not a bad thing. Actually I think there is definate place for these developments. My problem is the concentration of this housing in the urban core of Worcester. In fact this is the only residential housing that we see.

Right now in the City of Worcester there is no balance. Maybe we should start providing incentive for high end residential units???

Most Likely Next Low Income Housing Project

I am taking nominations. Here is my list:

1. Worcester Court House
2. Worcester Aud
3. Lincoln Square Boys Club/Old Trade School
4. The City Owned Building Across the street from Elm Park

I need to relax and take a walk around the Winslow Pocket Park.

Realization-It is going to get worse

The more I think about it, the current market values and credit markets will make it nearly impossible for a developer to make a project like the Chevalier Furniture building work. The only ones in this depressed market are builders of low to mod income housing. In other words every empty big building you see, it could be the next low to mod income housing project.

Correction--No variance

There was no variance for parking since this is no parking required as all in the Blackston Canal Overlay District-- a recent amendment to the Zoning Ordinance.

Low Income Housing For Canal District

Gabe asked and here it is, click here.

The Boston-based developer, I am pretty sure is Winn. The same company being opposed by Springfield Forward and the one that is accused of giving monies to ex State Senator Wilkerson. Here are the key parts this story:

• 32 of the 64 units will be low income rental housing. This does not mean, however, that you can not have more then 32 units
• represented by one of the three powerful law firms in Worcester-Mirick, Fletcher or Bowditch. In this cse Mirick.
• another variance on parking. If Donald Trump wanted to build 64 luxury apartments, I guarantee you that he would not get a variance for parking nd be required to build a garage for the 128 parking spots-2 per unit.
• another historic building lost to low income housing development

Allen Fletcher, president of the Canal District Alliance, spoke in favor of the project as I predicted in a comment earlier this week. Considering the amount of money he is looking for to uncover the Blackstone, he is not going to, excuse the pun, rock the boat. There is no stopping no income housing development in Worcester.

Now tell me this, what makes more sense in the Chevalier Building 1) upscale apartments/condos or 2) low income housing?

$54 Million Neighborhood Stabilization Program

Yup, that is how much is coming to Massachusetts--54,000,000 million. Check out story, click here . Here is how it works:

• Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), a non-profit affordable housing organization will connect banks that own foreclosed properties with local non-profit organizations, which will purchase the properties and upgrade the homes for low-and moderate-income families.

There you go "low to and moderate income" families. Lets say there is a young professional company who are making $100,000 per year, who like the vibe on Chandler Street and want to live next to Paul and they want to buy one of these properties from the local non-profit. They will not be able buy the property since they are not "low to moderate income".

Trying to get away from the topic, but it keeps coming back. Click here for another story.

NewsMax

Newsmax ran a story yesterday about the Obama COBRA changes and I got lots of print, click here.

Dawson Road

As I mentioned before I can not afford to build in Main South anymore. The deck is stacked to much in favor for the no income developer. Making good progress on Dawson Road, here is the latest picture from yesterday.

Click here for the slideshow

Blog Change

As sick as people may be of reading my rants on low income housing, so am I. Only hope that some of these blogs sink in and people really start to ask questions next time they hear the buzz words:

• "affordable housing"
• "low to mod income housing"

Maybe, just maybe people will not just blindly accept these projects, but I doubt it.

As Gabe commented in an earlier blog this week, "I think once it is low income housing it may be low income housing forever, I don't think there is any going back." Gabe, I fear you could not be more right.

Enough is never enough

From the Boston Herald yesterday, click here. Here is part:

Massachusetts is launching an affordable housing program, giving a grant to a nonprofit that will allow community groups to renovate foreclosed properties.

Gov. Deval Patrick says the Department of Housing and Community Development is giving a $300,000 grant to the nonprofit Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association for the program. Patrick and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., toured some of the properties in New Bedford, where the announcement came on Monday.

Officials say the association will act as a clearinghouse, connecting local community organizations to banks that own foreclosed homes. The organizations can then purchase the homes, upgrade them and make them available to low- and middle-income families


The key word here being "low and middle income families", which as we all know is low income housing.

WHERE"S PAUL'S BLOG!!!!

HELP!!!

Springfield Gets It!

Two Sprigfield City Councilors and a State Rep are opposing a low income development by Winn Management in Springfield. Click here for story.

Final-Worcester No Income Housing District

Sorry this took longer then I thought. To be honest there were even more then I had orginally thought. Just added Kilby Gardner Hammond to the MAP. When is enough enough?

We are already way above the state requirement for "affordable" housing, why do we keep building them? ANSWER---It is a big business and alot of people are making alot of money. I calculate the average price of an affordable unit in the City of Worcester to be approximately 300,000. Taking into account 361 units, the number is 108,300,000 invested in "affordable" housing. On the low side the cost is at least $250,000 per unit that still comes to $90,250,000 invested in "affordable" housing? Big business!!!

In the end this all goes back to the Housing Study by RKG in 2002 that was disregarded. Their main recommendation was that the city should abandon its strategy of building affordable housing in favor of more upscale housing. How do you think the people building these projects felt about this recommendation? Needless to say they won, the RKG report was filed and city keeps pushing for more affordable housing. Our loss.

Take a moment and read their 2 page recommendation. RKG could not have gotten this more right in 2002. Here is a small part:


The City's policy to use the many CDC's to develop more low income housing should be reconsiderd. While their renovation work has help stabilize some of the neighborhoods, especially at a time when the redevelopment was needed, their subsidized development has alientated some local builders/ developers. Another alternative to renovating these three deckers would be to thin out selectively some of these buildings and make the sites ready for single for new single family homes in a townhouse style, and market the sites to private developers for construction. The CDC's in the future should be considered more of a developer of last choice....


Not a chance this will happen and we can expect 361 more units the next 5 years. I say we have a wayfarer sign for this district that shows a person in pajamas.

Wrapping Up

Kind of busy the last couple of days. Let me try to wrap this up:

189 Beacon Street-- 16 rentals







141-143-147 Austin Street. Missed these 9 owner occupied untis.










If I were to assume 93 Grand Street were to be turned into 20 apartments and then the 80 units from Kilby Garnder and Hammond then I come up with a total of 3611 units on my attached map the past 5 years either built or on the drawing board for "affordable" rental or owner occupancy.

361 UNITS THE PAST 5 YEARS.

Wyman Street

6 new owner occupied units for low income housing. The ironic thing about this project is that I can actually remember when the Main South CDC rehabbed this same sight years ago. This is the second time that they have gone through the property

UPDATED MAP

NRSA--Slight Diversion

It is a great program the NRSA.

City took $100,000 from unallocated NRSA funds and instead of giving them to NRSA's that are operating efficiently or to the City of Worcester Facade Program, which is running great, but out of money. It was transferred to the Main South CDC to do studies on 95 Grand Street.

Future Projects Part 4--Cambridge and Hacker

This projects consists of 11 units that cost approximatley 2.3 million. Originally is was suppose to be for owner occupancy but only 3 units have sold. I classifying this is a "future" project since it most likely will be switched to rentals once the state gives them permission.

UPDATED MAP

Future Projects: Part 3--95 Grand Street

Not sure what it will become, but Main South CDC latest project will surely have some component of affordable housing. Most likely rentals.

UPDATED MAP

Future Project; Part 2 Southgate Place

Very similar to Mason Winfield. Started out as owner occupancy but has shifted to 25 low income apartments in a single building that will cost $7,000,000. Like I said below, I believe Mason Winfield will mirror this project and also change into rentals.

Keep in mind I am only tracking projects in recent memory (last 5 years). Looking at the attached map, we are talking 255 units. Updated map.

Future Projects: Part 1---Mason Winfield

This was in the former location of the Royal Linens business, which has been demolished for 21 owner occupied units with a certain number (large) for low-mod income owners.

Currently I know that there is not much state funding for owner-occupied projects and what happened at the City Builders site will most likely happen here. The developer will shift and seek money for rentals, not owner occupancy, with a certain percent (large) for low to mod income.

Updated map.

PGD Flights

3 of the flights for March already sold out!

Future Of Low Income Housing

One would think that after detailing the addition of 209 low income rental units during the past 5 years in such a concentrated area that we would be done? No way!! There are many more projects in the pipeline that I will lay out this week.

I have tried hard to make the neighborhood where we own a family business a better place. After serving on the Board of Directors of the South Worcester Neighborhood Center for 8 years, I had to resign. After protesting the construction 0f 25 more low income rental units at the former site of City Builders, not to mention the failed Cambridge Hacker project, I was branded as being "negative", not part of the team etc. I am going to use this blog to educate people to what this is. BIG BUSINESS!!!

Over $44,000,000 dollars on 4 projects. People are making lots of money on this and the tax-payers of Worcester in the end will be footing the bill. Try and build a low income housing project in one of the towns and the protestors come out. In Worcester we roll out the read carpet, hold ribbon cutting ceremonies, waive water/sewer connections, give out our HOME fund grant money, sell city owned land for pennies on the dollar, do infrastructure improvements for free (sidewalk) repairs and then honor the developers.

Worcester, Right time, Right place for low income housing developers.

Mass Housing Partnership

Doing my reasearch I ran across the Mass Housing Partnership. They had one section that they referred to as their portfolio, hilighting various projects around the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Central Massachusetts featured 9 projects. One each in Athol, Fitchburg, Leominster and Webster.

Where were the other 5? You guessed it --Worcester. We are number 1!!!! I have updated the map to include these 5 projects, purple marker means project has not been completed yet.

1. 300 pleasant st (eddie's market )-- 6 affordable units
   
2. 133 Chandler St--5 affordable units


3. 98-102 Austin Street- 9 affordable units


4. Oread -Beacon -- 34 affordable units


5. 1-7 Piedmont Street- 12 affordable units

66 more affordable units

I am not sure the total cost of these projects since the Mass Housing Partnership only list monies that they are contributing not the total cost of the project, which would include HOME funds from the City and/or Commonwealth, tax credits and other potential agencies.

Worcester Low Income Housing District

Arts District? Ever see any artists in this area?

To give people a better idea of how close these 4 projects are, I have created a map that can be accessed here. Add these 4 projects together:

• Total cost 44,900,000
• 143 low income apartments
• 313,986 average cost of each apartment

The reason you and I should care about this is that the bulk of the 44,900,000 is our tax money packaged under various names (HOME funds, tax credits, Mass Housing, etc). Bottom line is that these are our tax monies that are being used to build low income housing.

Drive this stretch some day, it will take you maybe 3 minutes and tell me if we got our 44,900,000 million dollars worth?

Part 5 May Street (Organ Factory)

9 May Street


46 "affordable" rental units


16,000,000

Recently there was a story in the newspaper detailing the grand opening, picture of Lt Governor at the grand opening this past week.

Picture from the late 1800's

Part 4 -- Jackson Apartments

767-771 Main Street

The former Standish Hotel was turned into 28 "affordable" rental apartments

4.5 million dollars

More information click here, page 16. Picture at top is current day, while picture at bottom was taken in 1905 of the Hotel Standish.

167 Pleasant Street

Up the street from my office. Been on fire all afternoon and helicopters have been flying around all day. Knew a guy who lived there and it was being run as a boarding room house. Wonder it was being done legally??

Part3: Odd Fellows Lofts

674 Main Street

24 apartments all "affordable"

$4,400,000 total cost

click here for a more detailed article

Congressman McGovern Restores Earmarks

Sorry I missed this in the newspaper the other day. Remember the 5,800,000 HUD loan for the Gardner Hammond Kilby project that the City of Worcester guaranteed, although there was no borrowers, but the City of Worcester was having to pay?

It looks like Congressman McGovern has been able to restore a $475,000 earmark for the City of Worcester to make this year's payment. Once again we are simply rewarding bad behavior. Instead of focusing on why we did this or why we can not keep doing this, it will be forgotten about until the next time we are unable to get an earmark. This is simply put another bail out.

If this is an example how monies from the economic stimulus are to be used, we are in big trouble.

Telegram Story on Sale of ORH

Click here.

It really concern me that the price is determined after the sale is agreed upon? Shouldn't we get the offer up front and maybe there are better offers? Is there not a fiduciary responsibility to the citizens of Worcester to get the best price for this city owned asset?

Also what about the line "compensation price, meanwhile, would be reduced by the actual amount of any past state expenditures, subsidies and payments for operating costs". I read this to mean that any monies MassPort has paid the past ten years towards the operating deficit will be deducted from the purchase price.

In other words if it is determined that MassPort has contributed 15 million dollars the past ten years. This comes right off the purchase price. Now add "other past federal and state grant assistance for airfield improvements." What the hell is that number? It has to be large. Lets says that is another 15 million. We could theoretically agree on a sale price of 40 million, but in this example only get 10 million spread out annual installments.

Still not too late to invite AvPorts, National Express to ORH. If we sold the airport to one of these companies none of the monies being deducted from the purchase price above would be taken off the sale price.

I am all for the selling of ORH and I would be happy to have MassPort be the next owner, but lets make sure we get a fair price? Lastly there will be a local advisory committee. I truly would like to be on that.

Zobach-slight diversion

Long day today for all of us. At the end of the day, I listened to Scott Zobach takeover from Jordan Levy on WTAG. One of the things he mentioned, that jumped out at me, was how city councilors make "verbal" comments to him about his blog. This got me to thinking. Do any of these same people, who make "verbal" comments to Scott, make comments on his blog?

I decided to call him and ask him this question. Scott informed that he believes that Kate Toomey has commented on his blog a couple of times, but that was about it. Over the past 5 years, I have made 1,802 posts, have had over 240,000 page views and have never had one comment from any City Councilor. One of the reasons cited on the radio tonight was that these people might be afraid to put anything in writing?

Are not these the same people who want people to get "involved", but they are afraid to put anyting in writing? I have one question if Paul Colyer, Scott Zobach, Jeff Barnard, Gabe, myself and many others are not afraid to put their thoughts in writing,why would someone who has been elected to represent the people of Worcester, and are paid, be afraid to state their opinions?

Part 2 Hadley Apartments

Every day this week I will try to cover one of the "affordale housing project" in Main South. Today will be the Hadley Apartments at the former location of Burwick Furntiure. Note on this page two important buzz words:

• income restrictions apply: in other words you need to be low income


• some units are also available at market rent: in other words we will have a couple of apartments non low income

657 Main Street
45 units
Cost of project=$20,000,000

Hand-it-over Theatre should give Foothills 200K

Considering the fact Hanover Theatre has received:

• 3,000,000 from the Hanover Insurance
• 200,000 of permitting fees waived by the City of Worcester
• property values locked in at the assessed value pre construction for 8 years
• 14,300,000 from the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation
• 15,850,000 in New Market tax credits
• 1,000,000 from Mass Development

Click here for the story titled "Worcester Performing Arts Center Gets $30,000,000 Million for Theater Rehab" for more details. What is 200,000????

Part 1 Hanover Insurance Has Given $3,000,000

Hanover Insurance has been able to pay $3,000,000 for the Hanover Theatre. Great story in the Boston Herald Today.

Sunday Morning

Tomorrow I will wake up, wake down my driveway pick up the Worcester Telegram and the Boston Globe, which I have no idea why we subscribe to on Sundays and take them back to my house. After reading through them, in about 15 minutes, I will question why the hell we keep paying for these newspapers?

Maybe it is because I just keep waiting for some great reporting? Don't get me wrong there is some great reporting, but just not enough of it. The thing about the newspaper is that when you do get the great reporting, you love it, come back and hope that you get it again next time.

Let me post a couple questions here.

• Last year Shaun Sutner wrote a great story on the Garage Mahal. How about a follow-up?? How many monthly parkers do we have? What is the total monthly revenue versus the expenses? What about the status of the street level retail spots?
• Can someone, anyone, write a story about Pharmasphere, the winner of the large parcel of land in the South Worcester Industrial Park that still one year later has not taken title to the property after winning the bid with their $1 bid?

No lie I can come up with 100 other stories before the Pools Coalition has another story, but that will never happen.

There are alot of good writers in the various Worcester media publications and there are readers out here, like me, who love it when you dig into stories like these. Thats what makes people come back, not the same old same old stories that you read once per year every year for the last 25 years.

Here is hoping I read some great investigative stories tomorrow. Maybe Robert Z Nemeth will even write about the airport and how the MassPort deal is an example of privatization?

Dawson Road

Making progress, click here. Great view of airport from here.

Cig Tax

You know that last buck a pack tax that was suppose to raise all sorts of monies to pay for the new Commonwealth of Mass Health Program. Officially collections have gone down 3% as sales in the Commonwealth are down 20%.

April 1st, there is a new Federal tax going on cigs that will jack up the cost of cigs by about another 80-90 cents a pack. Will they ever learn?

Arts District? Low Income Housing District

Just drove down Main Street consider this:

• Hadley (Burwick building)
• Odd Fellows Building (next to old Mart)
• Standish Building (diagonally across from the YMCA)
• May Street (old Mattress factory)
• Piedmont Street (empty lots next to old Manoog Plumbing)

At the most that is a half mile and we have invested I bet you this represents 70 million invested in "affordable" housing.

Cheers to the Mayor of Gardner

Another story in the Telegram yesterday. Imagine any of our elected officials ever saying this!!

He also said new low-income apartments would be overkill in Gardner, which has one of the highest affordable housing rates in the state.

Yeah, right not in Worcester--- can you say:

• Hadley Apartments
• May Street apartments
• Mason Winfield
• Southgate Place
• Piedmont Street next the old Manoog

Pay freeze

In the newspaper yesterday, it mentioned the City Manager would forego his pay increase and raise his health insurance deduction to 25%. Lets hope the City Councilors follow suit and propose a wage freeze on their salary, which also would freeze that of the School Committee also.

NRSA Program

NRSA stands for Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area and is a great program. The NRSA is combination of a CDBO (Community Development Business Organization) and an accompanying business grant reinvesting monies into said neighborhood, after they both TOGETHER review applications award monies to those projects that they feel will improve the neighborhood.

Over the past 3 years, we have had 5 NRSA's in the City of Worcester:

1. Chandler Street/Common Ground
2. Grafton Street/East Side CDC
3. Beacon Neighborhood/Main South CDC
4. South Worcester/South Worcester Neighborhood Center
5. Lower Lincoln Street/Oak Hill CDC

Three years ago these 5 areas competed for what was suppose to be 2 NRSA designations. In the end, it was decided to split the monies amongst the 5. At this point I hope the City of Worcester takes a step back and reviews:

1. the results of each NRSA
2. did they meet the goals as laid out in the initial application
3. were there true partnerships between the CDBO and the accompanying business group

In the end the NRSA's that are working should be rewarded, while the others that are failing miserably should be ended.

Skating Rink

Almost done. It would be a perfect spray park?

New Construction Dawson Road

Great house, learn more go to WorcLand.com or check out the slide show. By the way, great builder--me. Can't afford to build in Main South anymore--can' t compete with the CDC's , need to move to the West side.

Seriously this is no exaggeration. A private developer, with his own money, can not compete in a low-income area, that desperately needs investments, against the CDC's. Why?? They are so highly subsidized by our tax dollars.

Consider this. $5,8000,000 of work was down in the Gardner Kilby Hammond project for the Main South CDC and Clark University. Are they making the payments on the loan? No, the City of Worcester, you and me, are paying it back through lost CDBG monies.

Let me make an analogy to try help explain this:

• A bank takes out a 5,800,000 loan to do all the development costs on a parcel of land for you.
• You do not have to make any of the payments on the 5,800,000 loan
• The bank will make them, although they will try to get the local Congressman to get funds to pay the payments for the bank.
• In the meantime bank deeds you parcels for pennies and you are able to develop them and sell them without having to pay back any of the $5,800,000 loan.

I know this sounds crazy, but this is the reality in the the CDC development world. The City of Worcester took out a 5,800,000, guaranteed it, gave out the underlying collateral (parcels) for pennies on the dollar and has stuck the tax-payers of Worcester with the repayments.

How can any private developer compete against an entity that gets the benefits of 5,800,000 of investments without having to pay back one penny? Lets not even get into the other grants, the waived permitting fees and free infrastructure work. The answer is, sadly, they can not. As a result, they need to move on and we wonder why we can not get any private investments in the City's inner core.

Does this make any sense?

Better yet why isn't the vocal Pools Coalition complaining about the $365,000 that will be deducted from our annual HUD CDBG allocation to pay back this $5,800,000 Garnder Kilby Hammond HUD Loan. These monies could have been spent on the pools that they so desperately want?

G'Vanni's

Think I spelt it wrong, but you know on Pearl Street --old GAR Hall. Just walked by, the place is crawling with fire trucks. Definately smell smoke, but I also hear the fire alarm still going off. It looks like the fire department got there before any extension damage.

City Pools

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.

New Favorite Website

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Patrick Admin New Taxes

Must read opinion piece from MetroWest Daily, amazing when you see it listed. Jahn comments should be classic.

Jet America

Founder of Skybus, John Weikle, is going to try it again with Jet America and is looking for a hub in a secondary airport. Can you say DJ Air? They may be worth an invite, however, with MassPort completely on board.

Santelli

Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on Santelli ???

Santelli on Hard ball, click here

how about this one...

Worcester Catchment Area

I saw an article about how the person at Manchester said he was not worried about SouthWest going into Boston and I agree with him. He should, however, be very worried about MassPort taking complete control of ORH.

I fly, my wife fly and my immediately family flies on average about 10-15 times per year. I can say that only 1/3 of the time that we go to Boston and may be on the high side Our first preference is TF Green followed by Bradley and Manchester. Now from other people I talk to, I would say that is pretty much average. Ironcially they are all about one hours drive from Worcester?

If MassPort were to get Virgin/Southwest/JetBlue to fly some direct flights to Florida out of ORH? This would hurt all three of these airports in surrounding states big time. Telling you right now MassPort is goiing to be great.

Two Great Videos

Coach Calhoun

Rick Santelli

Incredible Shrinking Newspaper

There have been weeks where I have commented on how quickly I was able to read the newspaper. Today was officially the worst. When they said that they were going to come out with a new look, I did not know that they meant the paper would be cut in half?

No lie I spent twice as long reading silly bloggers then I did newspapers. On the left side you will links to Jeff, Paul, Gabe and 4-rilla--my favorites. Sometimes I don't check them for a week or so but today I read them all. Honestly, great stuff.

The Telegram is so predicatable. My favorite is the story on prostitution in Fitchburg. I swear it is annual story that we read each year. Same old same old. If it were not for Nick K or Diane, the paper would be completely empty. Sutner is good too, especially when he investigates stuff like the Garage Mahal, but there is just not enough of it.

Now for my favorite. How could Mr Nemeth write about St Kitts today and not ORH being taken over by MassPort?

Its Done Part 2

Remember three years ago, or has it been four years, when one Robert Z. Nemeth came to my office and told me those infamous words. "Nothing will get done at the airport unless it goes through me", but I digress. In other words, even if it was a great idea for the City of Worcester, he would shoot it down unless he could somehow take credit for it.

After explaining to him what WiFi was, I needed to also explain to him what "privatization" meant. I used the eample of Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, which had been leased out to National Express for 99 years. Robert Z Nemeth, in turn, told me to submit my "silly"idea in writing to the airport commission, which I did. In fact, this was recorded in the minutes of the meeting, but quickly dismissed and never to be talked about again.

• Mr Nemeth, I have a question for you?

• What do you think MassPort taking over Worcester Airport is?

• Answer-privatization!!!!!!!!
  

Although it is not a private sector entity like National Express or Avports, we are witnessing the privatization or ORH as I had explained to him was the best course of action for ORH. Again I think this is a good move and bodes well for the future of ORH, but I think we made a mistake by not soliciting bids from other port authorities, private sector airport management companies and who knows who else. As Harry as mentioned many times, maybe we should have had Sir Richard Branson come to ORH?

I guarantee you that within three years, we will have a strong airport at ORH. Have to ask why, if we were in fact to going privatize ORH did we only talk to one buyer?

Its Done

Finally. MassPort will be taking over ORH. We need to look at this two ways.

First, the commercial side. ORH will become a real airport. I guarantee you three years from now, we will not even recognize ORH. This is a very good thing for the City of Worcester.

Second, the financial side. This is where we need to look at the details. My gut tells me it will be some type of nominal lease for an extended period of time, not an outright sale. Will MassPort pay property taxes? Questions like these need to be answered.

In the end, we need to look at this as a good thing. Not only do we save money right now by not having to pay the annual deficits, but ORH will thrive. I have to say, however, that we should have talked to other potential buyers like Avports. That said I am still excited about this latest development.

Blogger Retreat

How could I resist??? I will open Pandora's box. Where should we have the retreat?

Here are my suggestions:

1. Airport
2. Proposed home of the Blackstone Visitors Center
3. Pharmasphere at the South Worcester Industrial Park
4. UNUM's new site at City Square
5. Southgate Place at former home of City Builders
6. Cambridge and Hacker housing project
7. Winfield Mason Project
8. Wyman Gordon Parcel
9. Gardner Kilby Hammond and we can burn $9 million in monopoly money to stay warm

Can't wait to read these comments

Cape Air

I know we are seeing this as another blow to ORH, but who knows maybe we should look at it as maybe SouthWest is one step closer to ORH?

The one that really bothers me is Cape Air. Remember this blog first started when JetBlue was just starting to invest in the Embrear 190. Our idea at that time was a flight from ORH to JFK on the smaller Embraer, fomr there then connect direct to anywhere. That did not work, although the Embraer makes five round trips per day out of Boston and I still think one of these round trips could be diverted to ORH.

Cape AIR!!!! This one makes no sense. Currently they fly from :

1. P-town


2. Hyannis


3. Martha's Vineyard


4. Nantucket

Best part is that they have a code sharing arrangement with JetBlue so it appears as JetBlue flight but you avoid the long lines at Boston since you go through the smaller airport lines. I believe there are two flights per day from these smaller airports.

Go on the JetBlue website and check out a flight from any of these cities. It makes no sense to me that this has been done for these four cities but not for ORH.

Southwest to Boston

Thats right SouthWest is going to Boston, although they already fly into Manchester and Providence. Story in the Boston Globe.

Allegiant To LAX

Why couldn't we get an airline like this.

Long Beach Airport Privatization

Interesting story from the LA Times.

I know people will say that there was interest because they had 3 million passengers, but check out the deficit---15.7 million!!! ORH is losing about 2 million per year.


Despite this shortfall, "the city received unsolicited inquiries about the sale or lease of Long Beach Airport assets from major banks and Wall Street firms, including Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley."

Allegiant Announcement

Wednesday at 10:30AM

City Council Agenda

No meeting tonight but would it not be nice to see an agenda like this for next Tuesday?

1. single residential/commercial tax rate over 5 or 10 years
2. privatization of city owned assets like the Airport, DCU, Union Station and Green Hill Golf Course
3. 5,800,000 million HUD loan that is cost to cost us $9,345,000 in lost CDBG funds
4. Why was $100,000 of unexpended NRSA funds not transferred to a successful program like the facade program, which has no money for the rest of this fiscal year, versus Main South CDC and 93 Grand Street.
5. City Council take a wage freeze for their pay and stop current and future pay automatic pay raises?
6. Unfunded pension obligation
7. How does the City of Worcester support a $7,000,000 million dollar 25 unit low income apartment building at the former City Builders site, that nobody in the neighborhood suports, when the track history to date has resulted in the mess called Cambridge/Hacker Street?

Avports in Westfield

Read this in the Republican below. Can someone in Worcester please invite John Harden from Worcester to come to ORH and look into the possibility of them taking over ORH?


WESTFIELD - The city's Airport Commission wants to negotiate a two- to three-week extension with AvPORTS, of Teterboro, N.J., to continue managing operations at Barnes Municipal Airport while it considers the appointment of a manager.

The three-member commission sent a formal request to the New Jersey firm on Thursday requesting negotiations for the extension to allow local officials more time in finding a replacement for Christopher J. Willenborg. He resigned as manager last month to become executive director of the state Aeronautical Commission.

AvPORTS has managed the local airport since Jan. 9 under a $3,000 weekly contract that is due to expire at the end of the month.

Allegiant's New Destination -- Los Angelas

It gets announced Tuesday. I personally was thinking Myrtle Beach but based on the 12 cities that will be serviced by this new destination it could not be Myrtle Beach.

It has to be Los Angelas like the Crankly Flier predicts, click here for his post.

Interview with Mr Davis

Worcester Business Journal interview here. Surprisingly he still does not know the passenger loads of the only airline, Direct Air, that flies out of ORH?


So has Direct Air been filling most of their flights?

I don’t have their exact numbers but I know they’ve had some great high-load factors and some low-load factors.

Saginaw Civic Center

I read this history page on their website, maybe some day we will read about a company like AvPorts taking over ORH?:


The Saginaw Civic Center was built in 1972 by the City of Saginaw. The Civic Center was composed of three main parts: Wendler Arena, Heritage Theater, and Unity Hall. Since 1972, the Center has served Saginaw County and the surrounding region as a first-class event venue...

In 2000, the City determined that it could no longer afford to pay the $850,000 annual deficit necessary to operate the Civic Center. If the City could not find additional funding, the City would close the facility on December 31, 2000....

The Authority hired Deloitte & Touche of Chicago to conduct a Feasibility Study on the Saginaw Civic Center. Spicer Engineering of Saginaw conducted an Engineering Study of the entire facility and the cost of repairs and maintenance for updating the facility was estimated. Estimates for repairs on the facility came in at $17 million and included repairs and enhancements to lighting, seating, restroom facilities, sound systems, roofing, and loading docks. They were also asked to present the costs associated with building a similar facility somewhere else within the County. It was estimated that it would take $69 million to build such a facility elsewhere.....

Representatives from the Building Authority and Civic Center Task Force interviewed two private management groups to run the facility. SMG was chosen as the management group to run the newly-dubbed County Event Center.On June 30, 2001, the City of Saginaw closed the Saginaw Civic Center....

The voters of Saginaw County decided on May 8, 2001, to reopen the facility on July 1, 2001, as the Saginaw County Event Center. SMG has managed the facility with the oversight of the Saginaw County Building Authority and an Event Center Advisory Group. The $850,000 subsidy was reduced by almost half in the first three years of operation......

Telegram Advertisement

New and improved Telegram has a great color ad on the bottom of page 4 and page 5 advertising great liquor prices for the New Hampshire liquor store. I resent this on two levels.

First, you can not keep going up on taxes, people will buy their products elsewhere. The cigarette business has already moved out of state, liquor sales may next followed by gas and then soda/water.

Second, I really question the Telegram running this. Here I am selling their newspaper along with many other retail outlets and we are selling a newspaper telling our customers to shop somewhere else? I can only imagine how Yankee Spirits and other liquor stores, who run ads in their newspaper, feel right now.

Guess I just feel that a local newspaper that wants local support should not run an ad that hurts the local economy that they want support from??

The Truth About the GIC

Group buying works in alot of situations and can always save money. Let me give you an example. Assume you have three government entities loooking to buy 1000 pens. Instead of each of them buying 1000, they should buy 3000 together and they will save money.

This does not work with insurance!!!! Why? There is a thing called claims experience. Lets take a look at the same case where you have three municipalities where two of them have high claims experience, while the 3rd one has great claims experience. The two bad groups would love the low claims experience group to join with them to buy health insurance, since their overall bad claims, as an average, would drop and they would get better rates. In this case the group with the good claims experience would be crazy to join this buying group, since their rates would go up.

The other night the City Council asked if they were to join the GIC, could the state legislature pass a bill whereby each member of the GIC would get their own claims experience. Yeah right, this will never happen! Lets for arguements sake there were three municipalities in the GIC and their claims experience were as follows:

• A: Claims were 125% of premiums
• B: Claims were 110% of premiums
• C: Claims were 70% of premiums

If you were company C, what would you do? That's right you would leave the group in a second, get better rates on your own and the remaining upside groups will get killed at renewal. Bottom line if a buying group like the GIC were to release claims experience to each member, it would be the end of the GIC.

If we will never be able to get our claims experience from the GIC, how will ever be able to leave the GIC down the road if we are not happy with the plans or rates? It would nearly be very difficult for a group the size of the City of Worcster to get anyone to give us a rate without having any claims experience.

Lastly the GIC definately has a higher percentage of membership in the Eastern part of the Commonwealth, where medical costs are much higher then the rest of the Commonwealth. Moving to the GIC is a big decision and one if made may almost be impossible to change back.

Allegaint January Traffic

From Forbes


Allegiant Air, which carries passengers to Las Vegas and other resort areas, said Wednesday its January traffic rose 8.7 percent from a year ago, bucking a downward trend affecting most U.S. carriers.

Allegiant said paying passengers flew 303 million miles on its scheduled service in January, compared with 278.7 million revenue passenger miles a year earlier.

Capacity rose 0.6 percent to 340.3 million available seat miles from 338.3 million available seat miles, while occupancy, or load factor, increased to 89 percent from 82.4 percent in January 2008. Most airlines with broader networks reduced capacity

Answer to my question?

There was a meeting on Monday regarding Southgate Place, at the former site of City Builders. I asked if the EPA grant that was given to the South Worcester Neighborhood Improvement Center (SWNIC), that does not have to be paid back since they are a non profit, would it have to be repaid if SWNIC were to sell the property as planned to City Builders LLC, a for profit entity.

Here is the answer I received today in writing from SWNIC, here is a portion of the response:


To respond to your question, the South Worcester Neighborhood Center is the owner of the Site and must hold title to the property during the site cleanup. As a condition of receiving the grant, SWNIC is committed to holding the property until the cleanup is completed. After the cleanup is completed, SWNIC can sell or transfer title to the property.

I hope this answers your questions.


Jahn help me, does this answer my question? Bottom line is that they feel that they can do whatever they want with the property, including selling it, without any ramifications. If this is true then I suggest that every non-profit:

1. Should buy contaminated parcels on the cheap
   
2. Apply for EPA monies
3. Clean up the parcel
4. Sell the parcel

For example they buy a $10,000 parcel and clean it up with a $100,000 grant from the EPA then turn around and sell it for $60,000--they pocket $50,000.

5,800,000 HUD Loan

That loan that will cost the tax-payers of Worcester some 9,345,000 did not come up last night? I wonder if we could have used these CDBG funds for core services like fire and police?

Councilor Rosen Naming Rights?

DCU paid money for the Centrum because people go there. Why do people go there? It is privatized and managed by a company that actually books events.

Don't get me wrong I believe that the naming rights to ORH and Union Station could be worth money but not right now. We need to privatize these assets, long-term lease or outright sale, not discuss naming rights that will bring close to nothing to our bottom line.

Gas Tax Increase & Menino Wage Cut

From the Boston Globe:

The gas tax in Massachusetts is 23.5 cents per gallon, which has not been substantially increased since 1991. A 29-cent increase would bring the state's tax to 52.5 cents per gallon. New York currently has the nation's highest state gas tax, at 41.3 cents per gallon.

From the Boston Herald:

Swamped by the worst financial crisis in decades, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and 19 of his top advisers - nearly all making $100,000 or more - are taking a 3-percent pay cut, effectively giving back raises the mayor handed out in August.
As a result of the pay cut, Menino’s $175,000 salary will drop to $169,750. In all, the city expects to save $122,000 by cutting and then freezing Menino and his Cabinet chiefs’ salaries until June 30, 2010.

Big Money In Low Income Housing

Make no mistake about it there is big money in this. Consider this:

• underlying municipality typically gives out variances, that nobody else can get, allowing for high density development for the low income housing project
• underlying municipality typically waives or at least credits fees for permits and water/sewer hook-ups
• underlying municipality typically pays for infrastructure improvements like sidewalks, grind and overlay, etc
• a great majority of the cost to develop the project is received in various grants and federal tax credits that the developer does not have to pay back as long as the "affordability" period is complied with

Bottom line if you have a willing, unsuspecting, co-operating municipality a low income housing developer will build on every possible parcel of land available since they themselves can make big money. They will downplay this and say that they make little or no money, but this is simply not true.

Do The Developers Make Money On SouthGate Place?

You better believe they do. Here is how it works:

1. Up front cost of $7,000,000
2. $6,000,000 comes in the forms of various grants and federal tax credits that in this case mandate that all 25 units are rented to low to mod income people for an "affordability" period. Think this one is 20 years.
3. Assuming all the units are in fact rented to low mod income, your only real costs that you need to pay back is the $1,000,000

Bottom line you if you play the low income game, you get 25 units that you can get section 8 money for 1 million. The developers make a ton of money on this project and don't let anyone tell you different.

Community Information Session

One of my tenants received a hand-out today for a meeting at the South Worcester Neighborhood Center. I own a three decker that abuts the former City Builders site and the future home of a single building that will house 25 low -income tenants.

Here is the content of the letter:

To have a discussion about the Southgate Housing Development

Monday February 9th at 5:30PM

What exactly is there to discuss? It is a done deal and no matter what the abutters want makes no difference. In these tough economic times, when we need to cut back, we somehow have $7,000,000 for this project. Jahn, the average cost per unit works out to $280,000.

It should have read:

Final Presentation of Plans for Southgate

25 apartment rentals all for low to mod income housing in one building

No home ownership opportunities as originally promised

No Townhouses as originally promised

No Daycare Center as originally promised

Convenience Store on NH border

Imagine if you owned one on the New Hampshire border. Over the past year, you would have seen your cigarette sales disappear. Now if they add a deposit on soda and water, those sales will disappear. Then low and behold a gas tax, then everyone will not only buy their cigarettes, soda and water, as well as their lottery in New Hampshire but gas soon.

How can a convenience store in the northern part of Massachusetts will be able to survive this new taxes?

Feb--Good Month at ORH

This week I have gotten at least 10 e-mails or calls from people regarding their flights at ORH. The most common question is regarding parking:

• How far away is the lot?
• How is the security?
• Is there a long term Park N'fly lot?

The most common complaint is that nobody answers at the toll free number for Direct Air. Bottom line is that I bet you the loads are very good this month at ORH.

Activity at ORH

Thanks Jim and Tim ;

They both noticed four B737 flights from Miami hours apart today. Does anyone know what these flights were, freight or junkets.

Check FlightAware and enter ORH for airport.

Newburgh NY HUD Loan Problems

Two stories. From the Times Herald Record:

The council's favor for McGrane cooled quickly last month when it heard the results of a scathing audit of a federal loan program by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Over six months last year, HUD investigators combed the city's financial records and uncovered more than $2 million in what they deemed unnecessary loan payments for a deadbeat waterfront developer and fallow industrial park site

Another from the Times Herald Record:

The City of Newburgh loaned Dr. Thomas Glendening and two of his companies $1.5 million for a marina project that was supposed to create 43 full-time jobs. The money came from two sources: $1 million through a Section 108 loan and $500,000 from an Economic Development Initiative grant. Both are federal funds with a goal of helping people who have low and moderate incomes. Glendening was supposed to begin repaying the $1.5 million to Newburgh in January 2003. Glendening paid the city nothing until July 2007, when he sent $27,500.

Meanwhile, the city had to make payments to HUD and used $449,817 from Community Development Block Grants to do so. HUD auditors declared that improper.

Blog Fav Tom Bona

Rockford Register

Direct Air extends RFD-to-Fla. flights

ROCKFORD —
Impressed by strong early sales, Direct Air has extended flights from Chicago Rockford International Airport to the Fort Myers, Fla., area and Myrtle Beach, S.C., into the summer.
Tickets are on sale for flights to Punta Gorda, Fla., 30 minutes northwest of Fort Myers, through Aug. 26. Tickets to Myrtle Beach are available through Sept. 7. Both routes were previously only scheduled through mid-May.

Dorm Room Tax

The worst thing about the Dorm Room Tax idea is that this is something the City of Worcester can not arbitrarily do on their own. The way I understand it that it can only be the State Legislature that can do it, which make sense. Since they are the only ways who could force non-profits to pay a property tax, I would imagine that it would be the State Legislature that could allow Dorm Room Tax.

There is no doubt, however, this will be a topic of conversation at City Council instead of discussing things that they actually have control of:

1. single residential/commercial tax rate
2. privatization of city owned assets like the Airport, DCU, Union Station and Green Hill Golf Course
3. 5,800,000 million HUD loan that is cost to cost us $9,345,000 in lost CDBG funds
4. Why was $100,000 of unexpended NRSA funds not transferred to a successful program like the facade program, which has no money for the rest of this fiscal year, versus Main South CDC and 93 Grand Street.
5. City Council take a wage freeze for their pay?
6. Unfunded pension obligation
7. How does the City of Worcester support a $7,000,000 million dollar 25 unit low income apartment building at the former City Builders site, that nobody in the neighborhood suports, when the track history to date has resulted in the mess called Cambridge/Hacker Street?

Do you think any of these issues will be discussed.

Facade Program

Over the past 7 years I have had alot of experience dealing with the facade plan through the City of Worcester. It was basically a complete disaster and ineffective.

Recently, with some new blood running the program the facade program (targeting downtown and the canal district) and the storefront program (through the 5 NRSA's) have been quite successful and should be an example of how city government and local businesses can work together.

The monies, however, allocated for the facade program this fiscal year (thru June, 2009) are all spent, somewhere in the area of 100,000. Too bad we could not have diverted unexpended CDBG allowances into the facade program, versus making the payments on the $5,800,000 HUD loan for Gardner Kilby Hammond.

Here is another question. Why did we divert $100,000 recently from unexpened NRSA funds to Main South CDC to help them with 93 Grand Street? That $100,000 should have gone to the facade program, not to entity that put us in the situation that we are in now with the $5,800,000 HUD Loan.

California Furlough

All we keep hearing from the State and Local levels are ways to collect more revenues and not enough ideas on how to cut expenses.

Starting February 200,000 state workers will have to take off two unpaid days per month. This works out to be a 9% cut and save the state some 1.4 billion through 2010.

We need more ideas like this in Massachusetts..

Allegiant on MSNBC

Maury Gallager, CEO of Allegiant, was on MSNBC today saying how great they were doing and all the analysts were complimenting him. Why couldn't we get an airline like that.

Gardner Kilby Hammond Math

Total Project 32,000,000

1. Boys Club 8,000,000
2. Track 2,500,000
3. Remaining cost 21,500,000

Lets just call it an even $20,000,000 for the 3rd part of the project, low to mod income housing. To date 42 housing units, which breaks down to

$476,190 per unit.

Garnder Kilby Hammond

From this on the HUD website, to date I know there have been jobs added at the Boys Club but can they be considered new jobs and 300?


Worcester will receive $1 million of BEDI funds and $2.45 million in Section 108 loan funds to assist in the redevelopment of a brownfield site on the 30 acre Gardner-Kilby-Hammond Street Neighborhood Revitalization Project. The project includes the construction of a new Worcester Boy's and Girl's Club facility, the Clark University athletic complex and 80 units of affordable rental and homeownership housing. The Gardner-Kilby-Hammond project is expected to create 300 new jobs for the community. The City will use the BEDI grant and the Section 108 loan for site preparation and environmental remediation. The City expects this project to generate an additional $3 million in other private investment. Total project costs are estimated at $32 million.

City Council Meeting

Tonight I watched, for the first time in a while, to see if anyone brought up the $5,800,000 that the City of Worcester guaranteed, that had no borrower, that will cost us $9,345,000 in CDBG dollars over the next 16 years. Nobody brought it up???

In fact nobody on the City Council asked, while discussing a wage freezes, if the City Manager would freeze his pay to set an example for the rest of departments. Nobody asked ??

What, however, was the most bizarre moment of the City Council Meeting was Councilor Germain suggesting that we should impose a motel/hotel tax on every dorm room in the City of Worcester??? If it is illegal to impose a property tax on non-profit real estate holdings, do you think we can really institute a motel/hotel tax on dorm rooms. Why stop there lets impose a motel/hotel tax on rectories too.

More importantly as one who was on a task force (for the 101st time) that eventually ended in the formation of the UniverCity Partnership, which should have been a success, but was an utter failure. The Colleges have saved the City of Worcester from becoming the next Springfield. Not saying that we can not do a better job tapping into the assets of the colleges, which was the job of the UniverCity Partnership, but lets focus on ideas that have a chance.

I digress. It amazes me that losing $9,345,000 in CDBG funds over the next 16 years did not even make it into any discussions.

Four Tiered System for Health Insurance

What are the four tiers?

1. employee
2. employee & spouse
3. employee & child
4. family

Here are some questions.

1) Will it cost the City of Worcester any more money to switch to the 4 tiers? Not it will not.

2) Will the people who go from family to one of the middle tiers save money? Yes they will

If the it will cost the City of Worcester no additional monies and people who switch to the middle tiers save money, who makes up the difference? FAMILIES!!!!!

Gardner Kilby Hammond Plans

Plans:

1. 80 units of housing for first time home buyers
   
2. New Boys Club
   
3. State of the art athletic fields for Clark

Where do we stand:

1. Boys Club is finished


2. Clark Field not done yet, although I am confident that it will get done


3. 38 units to date

• Kilby (2 new duplexes)=4 units
  
• Hollis (3 new duplexes)=6 units


• Hollis (4 moved and rehabbed 3 deckers)= 12 units


• Beacon (8 new duplexes)= 16 units

We have 42 units of housing that still need to be built.

Good Story

Click Here-- this line could ring very true in Worcester soon....


Some have started to rent them to unlikely candidates: low-income and formerly homeless tenants who receive subsidized housing vouchers from the New York City Housing Authority.
"By guiding them to this community, they're creating de facto housing projects," Gaska says. "These houses were built two or three years ago and already look like they're 15 years old. Many of the residents don't have jobs. It's destabilizing the neighborhoods."
Some residents are calling on the city government to act.

9,345,000 in CDBG Funds to be Lost

Unexpended CDBG Balances 365,000 already spent
2009 -2024 365,000 times 16 = 5,840,000
2018 balloon payment = 1,870,000
2014 ballon payment = 1,270,000

If we do not get federal earmarks, the City of Worcester stands to lose

$9,345,000

in CDBG funds from now thrus August 2004. These monies could have been invested in our community.

Nick K Strikes Again

Not just saying it because he not only quoted me ,and did not call me a silly blogger, but these are the types of things we need to take a closer look at and not just blindly approve under the auspices of it is good since it is for low to mod income housing. The City is a business and it needs to be run like one. Click here for the Telegram story.

Let me clarify one thing and lets call it Loan 101. There are always two parties to a loan:

1) Lender
2) Borrower

Sometimes there is a 3rd party

3) Guarantor

Calling this 5,800,000 loan a Section 108 Hud Guarantee always gave me the impression that the City of Worcester was in the third position and was guaranteeing the loan for the borrower, Gardner Kilby Hammond. In actuality, Garnder Kilby Hammond is not a party to loan and there are only two parties--HUD and City of Worcester. In actuality the City of Worcester is not the Guarantor, but the actual borrower.

In dollars and cents, as Nick points out, now the the enexpended CDBG balances are gone, which could have gone other items like sidewalks, we are going to lose 365,000 per from our current CDBG allocation not to mention two large balloon payments in 2018 (1.87 million) and 2024 (1.27 million). This is awful.

Let me digress for a second. I do not blame the City Manager for this since this was done before he was here, but I do not think him blaming George Bush made sense. He should have said that we should not have done this then and under his administration things like this will not happen.

Case in point the Skybridge. This could have easily become the same thing when the Special District Zone did not generate enough additional net revenue to pay that loan. At least Skybridge loan had some potential revenue source, however, to unlike this 5.8 million dollar loan which hoped for federal earmarks the next 20 years.

This week I will get some of the press releases on this project and what was suppose to be done and what has actually been accomplished.