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City Council Agenda: Another year-end ‘Best of 2009′ list, rising water treatment costs, Worcester Common renovations and bright lights in the medium-sized city

worcesteria — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:20:08 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Last week’s City Council meeting was the shortest it’s been since I started liveblogging in November, and Tuesday’s could be fairly quick as well. That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot to talk about though, as some important topics could be debated. Here’s a summary of what’s on the agenda:

1. People who voted for Kola Akindele last year might be happy to know he’ll join city government as a new appointee to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

2. The city has disseminated its “Economic Development: 2009 Year in Review” report.

3. The city has been trying to acquire sections of the city’s street light system from National Grid, especially in the Canal District. They’ll talk about how that’s going.

4. Costs at the Upper Blackstone Pollution Abatement District (a sewage treatment plant serving Worcester and eight other towns) have skyrocketed. Commissioner Moylan blames the EPA.

5. Renovations will continue on the Worcester Common and around City Hall, including waterproofing, getting a chiller for the ice rink, making a bikeway connection, new bus stop shelters and improvements to the front and sides of the building.

All the details coming in tomorrow night’s liveblog.

Two Great Ways to Spend Your Money on Thursday

worcesteria — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:10:04 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Thursday, Feb. 4 is important because there are two awesome events going on, both worthy of your time and money.

From 5:30 to 7:30 at Coral Seafood (225 Shrewsbury Street) there will be a fundraiser and silent auction with proceeds going to the vandalized Belmont Street Community School. The event is free, and donations of any amount will be accepted. It’s being organized by local pols Vincent Pedone, Harriette Chandler, Joe O’Brien, Diana Biancheria and John Monfredo. You can also check the WPS website (www.worcesterschools.org) for a list of specific items the school needs.

Before you go to that though, we here at Worcester Mag are beginning a grand tradition dubbed Worcester Mag on Tap, where the first Thursday of every month we–the writers, editors, graphic designers, sales staff and any other employee under the Worcester Mag banner–will go a pre-determined bar at 5:30 with the sincere hope that our readers/friends/lovers/haters will join us there to hang out, talk about recent news and meet other WoMag readers. Special guests–as in some of the people featured in the latest issue–will be there too.

So, at 5:30 on Thursday come to the first ever Worcester Mag on Tap at the Hotel Vernon, have a $1 draught or two, then pop on over to Coral Seafood for a great cause. It might be the best Thursday of your month.

More Haiti Relief Efforts

worcesteria — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:30:02 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin, sent from Lea Ann Scales of Worcester State College

Worcester State College has set a goal of raising $10,000 for Haiti relief. The college has also established the website www.worcester.edu/haiti to communicate Haiti relief efforts to the college and greater community. The college will be collecting donations for a host of student and athletic events. In addition the Basketball team will donate proceeds from the February 6th game and will also donate proceeds from the game’s 50/50 raffle. All proceeds will benefit the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and Partners in Health.

“The human mind, which is capable of so many remarkable things, is also capable of rationalizing the greatest of evils.”

worcesteria — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:50:03 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

It’s been a tough couple days for literature with both JD Salinger and Howard Zinn’s deaths, but for Zinn there’s a recent local connection.

In 2007, to correspond with Martha Rosler’s “Bringing the War Home” exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum, the WAM invited Howard Zinn to speak at Tuckerman Hall. Thankfully, they recorded it.

It’s an hour and fifteen minutes long–and why shouldn’t it be? With the country’s two wars in full-swing he had plenty to talk about. It’s definitely worth a listen.

Happening now!

worcesteria — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:20:08 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin, on a tip from Brittany Durgin

Gov. Patrick is hosting a live chat at 12:00 on the Boston Globe website (you may have to refresh the page if the chat screen doesn’t load correctly) right now regarding his released FY2011 budget. We’re only three questions in so far and already he’s been asked about public health money and whether or not state troopers will begin patrolling subways. He’s also brought up the proposal to repeal tax exemptions for soda and candy.

It all unfolds in front of your eyes, like eMagic. I’m already jealous, as their software makes our city council liveblogs look like a Model T to their Porsche.

Blog Log Digital 1/27/2010

worcesteria — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:20:05 +0000

Posted by Tim O’Keefe

Posted by “Nicole” on nicolecommawoo.wordpress.com

I know I haven’t been posting a lot this week, and part of that is because yesterday I visited the Worcester Public Library and talked with a bunch of the librarians there about the latest and greatest library happenings. Over the next week, I’ll be posting the details of those conversations, but it’s going to take me another day to recover from the awesomeness overload that was my trip to the library. Everyone there was so incredibly kind and helpful and I have never felt like such a celebrity (“Oh, you’re the blogger!”) So, I am even more passionate about the library and even more committed to letting people know about all the great things happen there.

Posted by “Brent S. Abrahamson” on futureperfectprogressive.blogspot.com

Much has been made of the use of the term “Teabaggers” to refer to the so-called grass roots movement that has been so much in the news. While it is true that the term emanated from the protest group itself, they have distanced themselves from it when it was pointed out that “teabagging” is a slang term for a sexual act. Recently I was taken to task for using the term “Teabagger” in a blog post. While I generally have avoided the terminology, I did indeed use it. I should not have because its use takes away from the seriousness of purpose of this group. The Tea Partiers take their name from the American Revolution. So let me set the record straight unequivocally. The Tea Partiers are mad. The Tea Partiers are revolting. I trust this clears things up.

Posted by “ocvictor” on ocvictor.livejournal.com

I’ve been screening “anonymous” comments — meaning comments by people who don’t have LJ accounts — on this blog for a few weeks now, because I was having a problem with bots posting spam to it. As always, I have no intention of censoring anyone, unless it’s libelous or insulting past the point of good taste. (And it’s my blog, so I decide what “the point of good taste” means. Of course, I don’t think I’ve actually deleted any comments. Maybe one or two, but none recently.) The irony of this move is that it comes as more and more people seem to be reading this blog somewhere other than Livejournal — it has RSS feeds to Victorinfante.com, my GoodRead.com author’s account, the WormtownTaxi blogroll and, of course, Facebook. But I’m not prepared to change the posting settings at this juncture, so I beg a bit of patience. I check for new messages fairly regularly. Ah, blogging about blogging. It’s almost as tedious as writing poems about poetry. Almost.

Posted by “Papamoka” on papastraighttalk.blogspot.com

Reports are coming in that as of today 1/24/10 they have buried 150,000 people in Haiti as a result of the earthquake and that the total number of dead may rise to 300,000. For such a small nation this is a disaster without comparison. My heart goes out to all of the children that will be orphaned when all is said and done. God bless them all.

Posted by “SFD” on unfashionablesentiments.blogspot.com

There’s a lot of progressive disbelief and apathy following the first year of the Obama Administration. (The November 2008 version of me is jumping up and down saying ‘I told you so! That’s why didn’t vote for him!’) Despite Obama’s centrist embrace of Cheney Administration policies and appointees there still is a lot of angry yelling from the right that Obama is a socialist and a far left activist. I started thinking about a book I read a few years back called Blood of the Liberals by George Packer. Mr. Packer gives a detailed history of American liberalism through his personal life and family history, and reminds the reader that despite the brand names, the parties aren’t homogeneous and evolve (or in the Democrat’s case, devolve.) I was reading this book one fall afternoon at Coffee Kingdom, and had a college age woman look at the title of the book and her look told me that she thought I was some Rush Limbaugh zombie. I had to explain that the title referred to his family pedigree as liberals, and didn’t advocate spilling the blood of liberals. I don’t think she believed me, which says volumes about how poisonous our country’s political sphere has become.

Going over the heads of many

worcesteria — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:03:11 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

In today’s live chat with the Governor (see post below) “parent” asks:

Maybe a little more suited for an advice column, but it’s nice that they got an answer from the man in charge. That doesn’t happen nearly enough in life.

City Council Liveblog–1/16/10

worcesteria — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:20:05 +0000

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

We’re back after a week off. Tonight will hopefully be as eventful as the agenda promises.

7:09: Here we go. Clancy and Germain aren’t here.

7:10: J. O’Brien begins by thanking people for their time and money spent at Friday’s Haiti fundraiser.

7:14: Commissioner Mikielian, the city’s Director of Inspectional Services, is leaving for Savannah, GA, and the councilors and City Manager are giving him his props. Haller says he’s done wonders for D4, Toomey says it’s important to note there are city employees–including him–who don’t work 9 to 5, and she says that his hard work carried over into nights and weekends. Eddy says that during his campaigning he had an ally in Mikielian. Smith says it seems like they’ve had a retirement like this every week. Petty says he would see him every morning while getting they got their coffee, and that Mikielian has helped address cleaning up neighborhoods during his tenure. Palmieri loved that Mikielian would answer the phone directly when called. Rushton wishes him the best, and hopes he doesn’t have to be like Dr. Morse and come back four or five times.

7:24: Mikielian comes up to address council. He says that coming back here and being commissioner for the city was “the highlight” of his life. He says it was a tough decision to leave, and credits the people working with him for all of their accomplishments.

7:25: 6a-6f goes to Public Works. The rest to traffic and parking.

7:26: Elizabeth Nguyen is appointed to the Elder Affairs Commission. Isidore Nosike and Maureen Schwab are on the Off-Street Parking Board.

7:27: Info on the old courthouse is filed by Rushton. No news probably doesn’t equal good news.

7:29: The Lead Abatement Program comes up. Rushton is wondering about finances, and whether or not the two new positions asked for is worth the money being taken out of the funding. He wants to point out that this isn’t tax payer money, but rather federal grant money. He does want to know, however, if these positions will take city taxpayer money after the three year grant ends.

7:31: Rushton continues to say that the Lead Abatement Program has done wonders for the city, and is relieved to hear that due to new future funding these salaries won’t be charged to city tax money.

7:35: Haller would like a report on the how the program is doing. One child was lead poisoned in Worcester in 2009, which apparently is huge progress.

7:37: The RKG housing strategy study comes up, and Lukes is the first to talk about it. She says it’s amazing that it’s taken 8 years for this study to become such a focus of the city. She says the study does conclude that we need more affordable housing, but really just for the elderly. She calls this report relevant, and that it deserves study from the Economic Development Committee.

7:38: Rushton says that 8 years is a while. He wants a report that shows how many single-family homes were built since 2002.

7:39: Petty would also like updated numbers. He remembers an “uproar” when this report came out. He does say that he thinks it is going down “the right road” in calling for more market-rate housing.

7:41: Toomey says that National Grid shouldn’t be cutting off power to homes at night in winter for construction. She also says that National Grid hasn’t done enough to notify everyone when their power will be out. She’d like a report that addresses how this will be fixed.

7:44: Petty also wants to know if there’s a schedule they could see for upcoming work and subsequent power outages in neighborhoods.

7:45: The city is getting money from the Dept. of Labor (items 7.7a and 7.7b). And ten sets of junior golf clubs.

7:46: The communication for implementing a Citizen Online Police Reporting System is sent to Public Safety. Lukes mentions that it’s not going so well in Boston, and would like to see some info from them before Worcester moves forward.

7:48: Haller talks about Gemme’s abbreviated crime report, saying that “Worcester continues to be a safe city in regards to violent crime.”

7:49: Petty says that the report makes some comments about the Summer Impact Division, and that the summer seems to be the most violent months. Petty’s worried that another summer of budget cuts might continue a rise in crime. Petty would like to find some more funding or grants to keep the operation going.

7:50: Before the TB clinic on Queen street moves to UMass Memorial, Palmieri would like to discuss it in the Public Health Committee.

7:52: Lukes talks about the auditorium. She says we’re just putting money into it. M. O’Brien as 7.35J asks for money to go to the new boiler for the building. M.O’Brien says they’re still looking at options for reuse. He says we still have obligations. She’d like to see a report of buildings that the city owns and the cost of maintaining them. Again, I direct her to this as a starting point.

7:58: The 2011 budget goes to the Finance Committee. No discussion on it again.

8:00: Eddy talks about Abby Kelly Foster and her upcoming 200th birthday. Apparently School Committee member Tracy Novick’s daughter, Aisling, brought it to his attention.

8:02: Petty (and Germain and Rushton) ask that the Thayer building get a new plaque recognizing the School of Nursing there between 1883-1992. He says that most people in Worcester know someone who went to/worked at the school. Haller requests that the entire city council signs on to that one.

8:04: Lukes wants to know about Choose Worcester and their budget. She wants more info on all of Worcester’s marketing facets and their goals/techniques. She wants to use Choose Worcester’s results (or lack of results) as a reference for how and what other city marketing teams, like Destination Worcester for example, are doing.

8:07: Lukes wants to know about security in city owned parking lots and garages. She says there’s been complaints about robberies and break-ins.

8:09: Lukes wants more info the Gateway Cities bill passing around the state house.

8:11: Lukes brings up the plastic bag ban. She says that this can be compared to the smoking ban–it started on the local level before it went to the state level. She says there’s no reason Worcester can’t pioneer a plastic bag ban in the state. She wants it to go to committee for discussion once the ordinance is drafted.

8:13: Toomey says there’s already been an agreement with the Dept. of Environmental Protection and the private sector that would cut down on plastic bag use and plastic bag recycling. She says that there are concerns of cross-contamination in grocery stores where there’s a bag ban in effect. It also brings up questions about using plastic bags for newspapers and dry cleaning.

8:17: Rushton says that it should be amended as not a total ban (like Toomey was worried about) but that it should say reduce. He says people should get into the idea of reusing, even for when going to CVS or for takeout.

8:18: Lukes says she’ll accept a change that says “ban or reduce.” The council chuckles at the “good compromise,” as J. O’Brien calls it.

8:19: Worcester gets a street named “WalMart Way.”

8:21: Palmieri brings up the situation at Belmont Street Community School. Palmieri texted M. O’Brien about raising money for the school. He says the custodians have done “a remarkable job” in fixing up the school. He’d also like to raise money for the reward to whoever provides info that leads to the arrest and prosecution of those who damaged the building.

8:25: Toomey says the entire community is “shocked and appalled” both at what happened and the amount of the destruction. She says that it’s great that everyone wants to help, but the campaign needs to be coordinated. She also says that teachers spend a ton of their own money to augment schools’ resources, and that at Belmont teachers lost a lot of what they’ve purchased on their own.

8:28: Petty calls it “shameful.” He’d like a report on the damages and the cost, and when insurance kicks in.

8:32: Eddy talks about a bomb threat at Doherty, and concerns that there was a variance on the protocol. Students were outside for over an hour and a half in the winter, but the rules say that after 30 mins students should be taken to a pre-determined building site so they can be inside. He’d like to get people together to go over protocols for this kind of thing.

8:34: Haller wants the city to review its policies about graffiti on private property. She says in one case they caught a perpetrator, but the punishment didn’t involve removing the graffiti or paying for its removal. Another case was of an abandoned property that was graffiti, but whose owner didn’t hear about the fines for not removing it until he was summoned to court. In both cases she says the building owners felt re-victimized by the city for being bad citizens.

8:39: Rushton moves to adjourn. J. O’Brien says that there will be a fundraiser next Thursday (Feb. 4) at Coral Seafood put on by Vincent Pedone and Harriette Chandler.

Robbery on Park Ave.

worcesteria — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:40:06 +0000

Word is that TD Bank on Park Avenue was robbed just a little while ago. No details, other than the suspect did get away with some money. Nothing yet about whether he had a weapon.

Free vegan donuts

worcesteria — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:40:03 +0000

Members of VegWorcester.com and Compassion Over Killing will gather outside of Dunkin’ Donuts at 421 Main St. on Jan. 27 at 9 a.m. to hand out free samples of vegan baked goods — including vegan donuts — and to urge Dunkin’ Donuts to offer vegan options. The press release says, in part:

In August 2009, a COK investigator worked inside an egg factory farm owned by Michael Foods, one of the nation’s largest egg producers that also supplies egg products to Dunkin’ Donuts. COK documented horrific abuses including:
• Hens immobilized in the wires of their cages,
• Decomposing corpses left in cages with live birds,
• Hens suffering from overcrowding,
• And severe feather loss, untreated injuries, and other abuses.
“No responsible company should support this animal cruelty,” said COK’s executive director Erica Meier. “Dunkin’ Donuts can — and should — make the right decision by removing eggs from its donuts and offering more humane vegan menu items.”
For more information, visit DunkinCruelty.com. Video-quality footage of the Michael Foods investigation available upon request.