Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
A reader:
Cameras–Being installed as I type at the intersection of highland and park . . . .
The City Council has expressed support for mass surveillance in the City. Didn’t hear anything about it being approved yet. No idea if these cameras are part of it. Anyone know anything more?
From last night’s agenda, submitted with commentary by Anonymous Reader.
8d. Councilor Barbara G. Haller request to install Designated Sticker Parking on the west side of Sever St. along the property of the Worcester Tennis Club, May 1st through November 1st, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., 7 days per week.
ok… so looks like the Worcester Tennis Club crowd doesn’t want to have to walk past too many Becker student cars in their white tennis shorts to get to the Sever St. clay courts.
9b. FROM THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE AND DEVELOPMENT – Request City Manager report to City Council how many artists are estimated to be living within the City of Worcester as part of the artist study being conducted by the Main South CDC.
10a. Request City Manager investigate the possibility of purchasing simultaneous interpreter equipment in an effort to create greater opportunities for communication with the multifarious linguistically challenged populace in Worcester and Municipal government. (Toomey)
10j. Request the City Manager request the Police Chief to consider the benefits of acquiring and installing software currently in use in the state of Oregon and in other countries that pinpoints vehicles as they are tailgating other moving vehicles, issues citations and generates revenue. Said software is being considered for use in Arizona, New Mexico and Tennessee, also. (Toomey)
I think Kate Toomey and Gary Rosen, both of whom I kinda like, run neck and neck as the Councilor most likely to stumble upon something on the internet and turn it into a Council motion. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of equipment is out there to assist our linguistically challenged Municipal government. Wouldn’t our hiring City Hall employees more representative of our City residents and immigrant communities be a different way to go?
17i. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON RULES AND REGULATIONS Upon the Order of Mayor Raymond Mariano and Councilors Paul Clancy, Jr., Steven Patton, Juan Gomez, Joseph Petty, Janice Nadeau, Dennis Irish, Timothy Murray, Stephen Abraham, Konstantina Lukes, and Michael Perotto request the City Council establish goals for appointment to the Library Board of Trustees including district representation and appropriate representation for under represented groups: recommend Order be placed on file.
This item goes back to Jan 2, 2001…..hmmm. Either the Library isn’t a priority or the Comittee on Rules and Regulations only meets occasionally. (i.e. danger of Konnie Lukes becoming Mayor) So let’s see,
ROLL CALL PLEASE ……
Mayor Raymond Mariano—GONE
Councilors Paul Clancy, Jr.—Still here
Steven Patton—GONE
Juan Gomez—GONE
Joseph Petty—Still here
Janice Nadeau—Deceased for several years
Dennis Irish—GONE
Timothy Murray—Leaving
Stephen Abraham—GONE
Konstantina Lukes—Rising Star
Michael Perotto—Not GONE yet
yup ….. good example of City Government at work.
I talked with Corey Dolgon, chair of the sociology department at Worcester State, about the “Mending Fences” report that looked at the impact of social service programs on one Worcester neighborhood. (We have a summary of the report.)
Download the mp3 or see other file formats.
When I get around to transcribing this, I’ll post the transcription here.
From tonight’s city council agenda:
8i. Councilor Paul P. Clancy, Jr. and Mayor Timothy P. Murray request that Central St. to Main St. be renamed MLK, Jr. Boulevard, and, that Front St. from Main St. to Washington Sq. be renamed JFK Boulevard.
Also:
9.17
PUBLIC SAFETY DEPARTMENTS
Police DepartmentA. Informational Communication Relative to the Number of Ambulance, Fire First Responder, and/or Police calls to 72-80 Cambridge Street for 2004, 2005, 2006 Related to Drug Overdoses, Weapons, and/or Physical Violence.
I’m told this is a Salvation Army building. Happy holidays.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for submitting these.
For the past year I’ve been trying to attend a KNIT meeting or get on their mailing list, but they don’t return my calls and e-mails.
So I was happy to see there was a KNIT table at last night’s Doherty siting hearing, and happier that KNIT’s Chris Comeaux was willing to talk to me about the group.
My first question: What is the deal with Protect Our Children?
Continue reading “A chat with KNIT”
[Download the mp3 of “How to get your library to change its lending policy”]
Here’s a podcast of Mike Benedetti & Kevin Ksen talking about how Worcester residents convinced the library to change its policy on lending to the homeless.
Other formats, podcast feed. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. Share and enjoy.
Pictured: Kevin Ksen, and a pumpkin-based microphone placement.
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Continue reading “How to get your library to change its lending policy”
A reader who looks at the weekly agenda sent in these items for your perusal:
Continue reading “From tonight’s City Council agenda”
The Telegram & Gazette’s excellent Jacqueline Reis writes:
Edward F. Behn of Westboro, whose oldest son is a U.S. Marine serving in Iraq, has offered to donate $2,500 to the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust in honor of the Worcester high school senior class with the lowest percentage of students who “opt out†of allowing information about themselves to be provided to recruiters.
Interesting that he’s not a Worcester resident. Not bad, just an interesting twist.
Continue reading ““Don’t opt out” contest announced”
Just got off the phone with the T&G’s Jackie Reis. If I heard correctly, a guy is starting an anti-opt-out contest for Worcester’s schools. He’ll donate $2500 to the Disabled American Veterans in the name of whichever class has the lowest opt-out rate.
This is great!
The only bad thing about this is that it complicates matters. When this year’s opt-out numbers are released, there are too many variables to be able to say if any of these contests had an effect. I was a bit concerned that we announced our contest too late in the year for kids to act on it. The counter-contest, if it happens, will be really late in the school year. Any kid or parent who’s going to opt out has probably done so by now. Is that kid going to turn in another form to un-opt-out in order to get his school’s name on a check to the DAV? Seems unlikely.
(N.B. The title of this post is a play on the title of Clive McFarlane’s confused column about the original contest.)
The T&G ran an editorial cartoon about the project today. (Detail: Kevin Ksen saying “Strange . . . do you feel a draft?”)
Speaking of a draft, yesterday I spoke with many supportive Worcester folks, and one of them told me stories of the people she’d met who grew up poor or were black and who said, “The military gave me a chance when nobody else would!”
When your country is set up so that poor or black people are dying so that rich or white people don’t have to, that’s bullshit.
Some peaceniks say, “If we had a draft, we wouldn’t be in Iraq today,” but I’m not so sure. I do think that a draft would be more fair than the so-called “poverty draft” we have today. (Though the sons of the truly powerful were able to dodge the old draft well enough.)