Saturday night--we all know what that means

Will fromWonderland sends out messages pretending that they are from me.. 

MBTA proposes selling naming rights

That's righ naming rights to station. click here .   They even mention JetBlue Airport Station as an example, JetBlue Airport starting to look better.

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Unfunded Pension Liability

I was thnking today how I read the actuary for the City of Worcester calculates the funding based on a 8% return. The S & P return the past ten years, I read recently was something like 3%. Bottom line 8% expected return used by the actuary seems overly aggressive especially when we read this week that we had a negative return this past year.

Aspen Riverwalk

A tine stream that goes in a circle down the middle of a walkway.  In the middle grass, tables and trees.    Why spend millions to uncover the Blackstone when something like this would suffice? By the way the areas was packed all the time...     

Lauren and Joan Greenhalgh

w/ Tom Brady after Welker wedding in Aspen

Go Local NY Times Agrees to pay clean-up?

Title of story, click here .     No way can this be true, let me explain.    Everyone knew that there was contamination there and if you own a building that has 21 E problems you own them forever, you can not walk away from them.    As result owners usually have to perfrom remediation before they are able to sell. Or it they do sell they come to agreement as to how much the seller will pay for future remediation. 

Here is how the NY Times and WBDC sale probably went down:

• They agree to very low sale price of 300,000 because of contamination
• WBDC not too worried since they think that they will
• WBDC agrees not to hold the NY Times repsonsible for any clean-up costs and maybe there agreed to a number.  Think I read that somewhere.   Lets say they agreed to reimburse back 200,000?

My guess is that if there was any vote by the New York Times, it was to pay the agree reimbursment at the time of sale.   No way is the NewYork Times pay all the clean-up costs, since if they were they would have never sold the building for 300,000.   

Twitter Account for ORH

@flyorh

click here

Sutner on Worc State Signs

Good story today. The part I found most interesting was I was on task force about a Pilot Program about ten years which led to the creation of the UniverCity Partnership chaired by Armand Carriere. Great idea but a complete waste of time, for reasons that I would rather not get into. The driving point was to get the colleges to buy local. In this story please note Worcester State dropped their local ad firm for a Boston based firms and non of the signs were bought from a Worcester company.

Island Destination

How about some good news? I have been talking with an airline who is looking at ORH for direct flights to an island destination in the fall-winter. They are the real deal, stay tuned. Between JetBlue and this ORH may be a busy place this winter.

No JetBlue Announcement Monday

Dave Barger sent me a tweet. Nothing Monday but stay tuned.

Airport announcement Monday

Three people have now asked. I got nothing. That said an announcement for direct service to a Florida destinations does make a lot of sense timing wise. Don't want to get my hopes up, but I like the chances. If I get more will post.

Worcester Telegram Building and New York Times

The more I read this, the more frustrated I get. Why are tax-payers even mentioned. The WBDC bought the building and it looks like they agreed to 300k back from the New York Times. They have gotten 200,000 already of tax-payer monies and now they want more? This has nothing to do with the New York Times or tax-payers, this is their problem. Again I have no doubt they will get all the free tax payer monies they need. The message we send is just buy the building, don't worry about any expenses the tax payers will bail you out.

Worcester Telegram Building and New York Times

GoLocalWorcester has a good story on this. Before I go into this let's take an example of my friend Tim McDonald and lets assume as owner of Worcester Fitness he decided to buy the Telegram building to open a fitness club. After her buys it, he finds outs that there is 1,200,000 need to clean up hazardous materials. Would anyone be writting a story that the New York Times needs to give Tim money back for the clean up? Of course not! When you buy anything the buyer has to do their homework and once they own the building, they own the problem the problles that go with it. Actually 21E is a little different and it looks like the Telegram may have agreed to reimburse up to 300,000. Now to the fact the WBDC did not realize the extent of the work? Is that the New York Times fault? Maybe you should not buy the building until you know the full extent? At the same time it sure and hell should not fall on the backs of the tax-payers, but we have been doing this for years in Worcester, why wasn't anyone mad before? Look at Mason Street it was deeded for nominal monies from a for profit entity top Common Ground just so they could get 400,000 in grant monies from the EPA, that don't have to be paid back. then when the work is done deeded back to the for profit. Main South CDC and South Worcester Neighborhood Center have all done the same thing. The WBDC bought this building on them cheap because of these environmental problems and now they own them. The problem is they have only gotten 200,000 of tax-payer monies that they don't have to pay back. Now they want the rest. This is how development has gone on for years with the CDC's, getting hand outs, now the WBDC and people like the new owner of the Ionic Boys Club, who buys a building one day for 250,000 then gets 350,000 the next month from the City of Worcester. Oh yeah, he also deeded the property to RCAP for a nominal amount and applied for EPA clean up monies. The sad part is in the end the WBDC will sit on this property until they get all the grant monies from us the tax-payers before they proceed. They will get them

Business friendly

Next time a City Councilor says the word "business friendly"...     Just walk away

City Clerk Office

I have you heard the saying "the lights are on but nobody is home".    City Clerk Rushford's office would be "the lights are off but they are home."

In his continuing effort to save the City money he has turned the lights off.   Next we heard he has set up a tread mill in his office to power his AC.

JetBlue new on line game show

Check out

Game show website click here

JetBlue has gotten rid of Cape Air to Nantucket, they are doing it themselves.  

Sign up and get on the game show

Massport pumped cash into failing Direct Air

That is title of today's story in the Telegram, click here for link.   Do I have a problem with Massport trying to help Direct Air, of course not, but I do find many things troubling.

1) Massport: Interim chief David Mackey was aware of their shaky financial conditions to the extent he says in an -email "there is no question it is operating on shoe string".     If you believe this should you not.

• Ask for an accounting of the tickets sales monies that are suppose to be safe in their escrow account
• Not allow them to sell vouchers or memberships, which did not go in the escrow account but directly into their general operating account.   

Bottom line is Massport was aware that Direct Air was in trouble, but did nothing to look out for the public spending money on Direct Air.


2)  Airport Direct Andy Davis knew about the company financial problems:

• the company handling the ground operations had not been paid. 
• in fact he sent an e-mail to Ed Warneck on February 22nd mentioning  overdue bills and an extremely large volume of complaints.

Does Andy Davis ask for accounting to make sure the monies from ticket sales are safe?  Does he tell Direct Air that he will not allow them to sell vouchers or memberships, which went straight into the General fund and avoided the escrow account?  No. 

In facts he tells one person in an e-mail dated February 12th "Direct Air's service has been extremely successful out of Worcester and continue to grow".    One month later, Direct Air closes their doors.   Makes you ownder if that person in fact bought tickets after this e-mail response from Andy Davis.


3) No inkling of impending implosion.      I seen this coming?  Predicted their demise last fall by Ground Hog's Day and warned people not do business with them.  Not being a Monday morning quarter back either, read my blog.      These guys seen it coming too, who are they kidding, as evidenced by their own e-mails.

They need to say that they are shocked since they (MassPort and our Airport Director) did nothing to look out for our monies.    They should have forced Direct Air not to sell and memberships or vouchers and demand an outside audit of their escrow account.  If they did not, stop giving them money and cut ties with them.

Instead they did nothing and actually encouraged people to keep doing business with Direct Air.

E-mail from me that I just received?

Just got an e-mail that I , Bill Randell, just sent myself an e-mail to read a post from Wil from Wonderland?? 

Funny, the same guy , who accuses people of harassment and accuses other people of taking his identity does this all the time.  Am I mad at Will from Wonderland?  No, I truly feel bad for him and his wife... I truly only hope you are able to sell your home and are happy some day....


Imagine your whole life wasting time do things like this??? 

Gateway Park versus SWIP

Drive by each and compare them.    Keep in mind SWIP has been around longer then Gateway....  Maybe the City of Worcester should consider someone else other then the South Worcester Neighborhood Center leading the way on this? 

Gateway park

SWIP

City Hospital

Drive by check it out.. Looks like old Saint Vincent's.