City Council

By Rosalie Tirella

A few years ago we alerted you to the horrific men of Pat’s Towing on Shrewsbury Street. We told you how Pat’s towed my car with my beloved dog Bailey – who was dying of nasal cancer, his sweet, wet nose dripping with the puss/cancer – to their hell-hole holding center. $100 in cash (money off the books, of course) got me my dog and my car back.

A few days later, InCity Times got tons of phone calls and notes/stories about Pat’s and the abuse old and young suffered at the hands of this Worcester “business.” We remember a pal telling us how Pat’s almost gave a 70-year-old guy a heart attack – taunting him after they towed his vehicle. Another person wrote us and told us how they tried to steal her credit card. They were appallingly rude TO EVERYONE.

Now these creeps are in Worcester court – for beating the heck out of people – for almost killing another person!

Why doesn’t the City of Worcester stop doing business with these thugs?

Why doesn’t City Manager Mike O’Brien revoke their contract with the city? Hire another towing company for the area Pat’s “covers” like a bunch of Good Fellas? There are so many start-ups that need a leg up! Why not hire a few, new fledgling towing companies to take the place of Pat’s Towing “Service”? Why have Pat’s Towing continue to abuse the good people of Worcester – with the City of Worcester’s blessing?

Finally: What does this say about our city government and the people who run it and being connected in Worcester? Pat’s being awarded the city contract year after year – even if they are felons – is wrong. Everyone knows it happens because they are “connected.”

No one in town needs to get beaten up by a City of Worcester-sponsored company.

Next Worcester City Council meeting (they are off this school vacation week), the first order of the day should be: REVOKE PAT’S TOWING COMPANY/SERVICE CENTER contract with the City of Worcester.

“Meet the new boss/same as the old boss … ”

- The Who

But seriously (public info)…

The swearing in of our new mayor, city council and school committee

Free!

Come one, come all to the Inaugural Exercises of the City of Worcester!

Mon., Jan. 2, 3 p.m.

North High School – auditorium
140 Harrington Way
Worcester

- R. Tirella

By Lorraine Laurie, Green Island neighborhood activist

As a Green Island Neighborhood activist since 1981, I have seen Worcester City government move from 9 At- Large Councilors to 6 At- Large and 5 District Councilors. This was definitely a change for the better, at the neighborhood level and Citywide. The first District 4 City Councilor elected was Janice Nadeau. I had gotten to know Janice through Worcester Fair Share and her efforts to improve the quality of life in her own South Worcester neighborhood.

Janice brought her dedication and no nonsense way of handling neighborhood issues to her job serving the densely populated district. I remember Janice’s many trips and letters to the License Commission when residents felt that there were just too many bars on Millbury Street.

Then there were the years and years of Rt. 146 meetings and Janice was always there advocating for the area. She wouldn’t let the officials and engineers forget that the flooding issues in Green Island and under the Cambridge Street Bridge had to be addressed. Illness, however, forced Janice Nadeau to decide to retire and not seek re-election. The District 4 seat was now up for grabs.

Barbara Haller’s name had been mentioned as a possible successor to Janice. I had first heard of Barbara in articles about the Beacon/ Brightly Initiative. I then started seeing her at meetings involving crime prevention and neighborhood services and funding. Barbara Haller’s name appeared on the ballot at the next election and she was the successful winner of the District 4 seat. Click to continue »

By Jabián Gutiérrez

In 2004, I came to Worcester on a Peter Pan bus from New York City, thinking I was just stopping by for a four year stint. I was a typical New Yorker, a person with little patience, used to hustle and bustle, underground trains, and a bit of arrogance, especially when comparing the Big Apple to any other city. I came to Worcester expecting to leave immediately after graduation. However in May of 2008 I was celebrating my one year anniversary living on Benefit Street, in the wonderful neighborhood of Main South.

Three years later, here I am writing an article from my Benefit Street apartment, even more excited to be a District 4 resident than I was when I first moved off Mount Saint James. You may be wondering why I chose to stay in Worcester, and why Main South?

Well, the answer is simple; Worcester is the home of my mentor, my friend, my supporter, my cheerleader, my advocate, and most notably my District 4 City Councilor. Barbara G. Haller is either the person to praise or blame for why I am an active Worcesterite. I do not exaggerate when I say that Councilor Haller is the reason why I stayed in Worcester, as she is the person who took a young college kid and helped him grow up to learn what made a city move, how decisions were made, and how everyday people could and needed to be a part of the process.

I spent nearly two years working daily with Councilor Haller. Traveling around the district with her, I learned about Worcester’s inner-city neighborhoods—and found myself working with people who were experiencing the same issues that I had experienced back home. I came to understand that the people and their problems were not very different at all and slowly but surely I began to realize that Worcester was my new home.

Working with Councilor Haller, I became impressed with the extent to which I was able to combine our direct work with families with policy work that addresses inequalities in a more systematic way. Under her political tutelage, I learned how to work with constituents and with the city administration to tackle issues affecting low-income neighborhoods. I was also bit by the political campaign bug, and since her re-election campaign in 2007, I have never missed out on actively participating in any campaign, I have been active in both state and municipal elections.

I am actively supporting and voting for Barbara Haller because I have had firsthand experience in witnessing all of the important day to day work that she does to ensure our district continues to progress with the rest of the city.

However, this may not be her biggest strength or asset to her neighborhoods, because in addition to all of the policy work and constituency servicing, she goes out of her way to take on interns, both college and high school students. She serves as a mentor for many young people, and I know there are many others like me who are better for their time with Barbara, and I want you to know that a vote for Barbara Haller is also a vote for the future leaders who she is positively influencing every day.

Thank you Barbara Haller for making sure I didn’t leave our great city after graduating!

-Jabián Gutiérrez

Worcester’s Joe O’Brien has decided not to run for mayor again. On Tuesday, September 20, city voters will still be able to vote for him – as City Counilor at Large.

Here is the letter (citing the reasons for his decision) O’Brien emailed to his supporters.

- R. Tirella

***************

Dear Friends,

I am writing to inform you of my decision to not seek the office of Mayor. Instead I will only run for City Council At-Large.

This has not been an easy decision. I recognize that it will come as a surprise because I have already launched my Mayoral re-election campaign. But over the course of the last month I have come to realize that the pressures of running another campaign and then serving as Mayor for another two years would be too much for myself and my family at this time.

When I ran for Mayor two years ago I promised that I would be a full-time Mayor and I have kept this promise. In doing so, I created significant challenges for my family.

While I have been honored to the Mayor of this great city, I have struggled to balance the life of politician, husband, and new parent. My wife Lisa and I, in our mid forties, became parents for the first time of four year old twins from Ethiopia a couple of months after I took office. As everyone knows, while being a parent is joyful it is also a challenge. Our children need to have two parents who can commit themselves to their development and integration, particularly our son who has had some special challenges adapting. To do the job of Mayor right, the commitment required me to be out for many nights, weekends, and holidays. I don’t believe it is in the best interest of my family to do this for another two years. In addition, earning a part-time salary while serving as a full-time Mayor, in our form of government, has also created financial pressures that are not sustainable for our family at this time.

It has been a honor to serve the people of this great city as Mayor and it has been great to work with so many people to make s difference. Working with the City Manager, the City Council and our School Committee and administration we have accomplished a lot of great things, and undertaken some important initiatives. Today, two years after taking office, long planned construction projects are underway, our economy is growing, our city schools are improving and our neighborhoods are more stable. With extended office hours, neighborhood walks, the new Civic Academy, and almost daily visits to local community groups we have worked hard to engage the people of Worcester and bring a new sense of accountability to local government. The Mayor’s Task Force on Economic Development produced a host of recommendations, most of which have already been implemented. We launched a Mayors Small Business Roundtable, and my office has helped lead a community initiative to improve the academic experience of our Latino students. I am especially proud of the work we have done together with our Immigrant and Refugee Roundtable to help our new Americans become fully engaged in our community. And we spent many hours working to insure that our working people have a voice at the table and that as we have grown our economy we have insured that good jobs were created for the residents of Worcester.  

I am proud of this record and I hope that with your help I can continue to support these efforts as a City Councilor at Large. I plan on working with the new Mayor to insure that many of these efforts continue and I will still be on the front-lines when needed to help advance our shared agenda.

I want everyone to know, as I exit the Mayor’s office, that our city is blessed with outstanding leaders in our City Manager Mike O’Brien and our School Superintendent Dr. Melinda Boone. I have truly enjoyed working with them and I hope I will be able to continue to do so in the City Council.

Most of all I want to thank all of you for your friendship and support. I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful people who have helped with my campaigns and cared for me and my family. I could not have done it without countless people who have stepped forward to lend a hand and I will always be grateful that you helped me have the honor of serving the great people of this city.

I hope that we can continue to find ways to work together to make life better for the people of our city, state and nation. Some among us dislike politics, as if we could have good government without it. We disagree. For us politics is the way we turn citizenship into a verb. I hope we can continue to do our public work together.

Yours in friendship,

Joe

InCity Times candidate endorsement – Virginia W. Ryan – District 1
By Rosalie Tirella

InCity Times asks the voters of Worcester to
make their voices heard and get out
and vote September 20! These trying
times require bright, honest and com-mitted
commuity leaders For this pre-liminary
election, voters must narrow
the City Council at Large, District 1
and District 3 fields.

We are asking that you vote for:

District 1: Virginia W. Ryan

The readers of this column know
how pointless I believe incumbant
Joffrey Smith is – from his half heart-ed
attempt at serving his constituents
to his half-assed movie career as an
extra to his half-finished house in the
West Side. Yeah, it was once cool that
he was young and running for office
several election cycles ago, but now
Smith is not so young and has proved
himself to be just like every other
entrenched incumbent: doesn’t return
phone calls, doesn’t act on constitutent
requests, has no real ideas/passions
about anything and (as proven in last
election cycle) wanted to use his city
council seat as a catapault for new,
higher office Well, Smith ran for state
rep a few years ago and lost big time
He took a drubbing – finished way way
behind the two front runners. Which
means: Smith is most likely stuck in
his Worcester City Council District 1
seat and District 1 is stuck with this
totally lackluster character who thinks
because he is cute you should give him
your vote.

Don’t! He’s a cypher!

But at least he’s not a criminal the
way Tony J Economou is – the next
person running for District 1.

Economou, a real estate agent ILLEGALLY
tried to scare poor folks
out of their homes after they had been foreclosed
upon. Why? To get them out ASAP and turn around and sell the propeerty – to make a killing in the real
estate market.

What’s especially sleazy about Economou is when the bank fore-closed
on the home, Economou took it
upon himself to make out fake legal looking
documents and taping them to the
people’s homes – giving them a few
weeks to move out or else.

This is totally illegal! People do not
have to move out immediately when
the bank forecloses! They can spend
months in their home as their case
makes its way through the legal system.

If Tony Economou had had his (illegal) way,
these folkswould be living at the PIP homeless shelter – and
he would be stuffing his pockets with cash – thousands of dollars!

When InCity Times called him on
this and published a story, Economou
bull shitted – told the public that it wasn’t him making
the GET OFF THIS PROP-ERTY
notices – it was Freddie
mac/Fanny Mae, to which these non-profits
said NO WAY, we neverd o
that, we never gave Tony Economou
such forms to paste on doors.

What a lying low-life, Economou is. No upstanding businessman from the community – no matter how hard he tries to pretend. This guy is simply greedy and will do anything for a buck – even if it is lying and breaking the law.

Do the people of Worcester’s District 1 really want a low-life
llike Tony Economou representing
them?

D oes Worcester want this guy to voice the concerns of the people?

NO!

Which brings us to the person we want you to vote for: VIRGINA RYAN

Yeas ago, when I was a student at
Burncoat Senior High School, Virginia
Ryan was a biology teacher there. She
was tough and no-nonsense – and I
was a little afraid of her. The 15-year-old me was glad when I learned I got the sweet and brillliant
Mr. LaBelle as my 10th grade biology
teacher, But my good pal Paula T. had Miss Ryan
- and liked her.

The years have gone by and we (meaning I – Rosalie)
have toughened up. We have
learned to look beyound a person’s
exterior to find, in Miss Ryan’s case at
least, a very good, hardworking,
straigh-shooting person. And we like Ryan’s platform.

This is what District 1 and the Worcester
City Council needs: someone
(Virigina Ryan) who is going to fight
for home owners (Ryan’s for the lowest residential taxr ate), our schools (she was a WPSchool teacher for years and years, our students (she was committed to all her kids learning!). Plus she was a biology teacher – so she will/and has done her homework on the Asian Long-horned beetle and Worcester’s trees.

District 1, if you folks
elect Virginia Ryan, will be getting a person
with a ton of energy! I know she is
retired and I know that retirees’ contributions
and their premiums via City of Worcester was what put Ryan in the limelight, but she has many more interests/goals.

Ryan cares about being fair – and she
is not afraid to speak her mind. She has a ton of energy – has
been going door to door meeting a ton
of District 1 voters!

This is a good
thing!

But why do I like Virginia Ryan? It’s the personal stuff – the small stuff. The kind feelings she has shown me through her letters and even actions these last three years. For instance, over
these past few years Ryan has sent me leeters to the
editor. They have not been about her or the retirees of the City of Worcester. They have been about kids and poor
folks. For instance, one letter she wrote
us detailed how for years and years she
took the Worcester Public Schools students
to all kinds of cities and countries
via the Burncoats/WPS field-trip system.
And I remembered Miss Ryan did do that – every
year taking a bus -oad of Burncoat students
to Washington DC to learn about our Capitol and our government. She did this every year!
Would I, as a sanity-loving adult,
want to do the same? Take a bunch of teenagers to DC? Heck no! Well, Miss Ryan beleived in kids,
in history, in our nation’s history and DID IT!
Put it all together with her yearly
field trips to Washington. She did this for
years. The letters she wrote to me
talked of keeping the field trip system
alive and well in our public schools. Ryan knew that going
to DC or Canada or maybe even France was a
cool thing for kids – was yet another way for
students to learn. Learn other stuff
than what she was teaching them in bio
class.

Finally, one of Virginia
Ryan’s last letters to the editor to me detailed this incident: Virginia was shopping at Wal Mart in
West Boylston – it was wintertime and
she was appalled, just appalled, that the
cashiers of Wal Mart had no real barriier
between their cashier stations and the cold/cold wind
- that is the cashiers were working
right in front of the automatic exit
door. She wrote the wind was cold and was
whipping in every time a customer paid the cashier and walked out of Wal Mart. And they didn’t even
have coats on! What a crumby way to
work for five or so hours! Where,
Virginia Ryan wanted to know, was
the barrier that protected these workers
from the elements? Why didn’t
Wal Mart errect some kind of partition?
Do the right thing? I think she even
complained to Wal Mart.

This impressed me the most! This made me
think: Virgina Ryan is sensitive and moral – she cares about
folks most people don’t think twice
about.

So, based on my adult dealings
with Virgina Ryan, I say she is a biologist,
a champion of kids and public school education. She is someone who will always do
the right thing!

She is not a politician like Smith and, God forbid, the creep-meister Tony Ecomou – kicking folks like the Wal Mart cashiers Ryan defended out of their homes!

Please! No sleaze ball Tony Economou for District 1.

Vote for Virgina Ryan – District 1 City Councilor

By William S. Coleman III

The nomination papers for City Council and School Committee are available for any registered voter in the city of Worcester to pick up. All you have to do is go to the second floor of City Hall, go to the Election Commission Office and request nomination papers for City Councilor at Large or District City Councilor in one of five City Council districts.

If you’re not sure of your district, the Director of Elections will help you find your home district. Or you can pick up nomination papers for School Committee. Don’t just stand there and complain to everyone you know about how government doesn’t work. Get involved and help government work better as an elected official. Click to continue »

editor’s note: This letter (below), signed by the Worcester City Council, will most likely be discussed tonight at Worcester’s City Council meeting (7 p.m., Channel 12 on your TV, if you don’t want to make the trek to City Hall). It was mailed to Father McFarland, president of Holy Cross college, November 15, 2010.

Hooray!!!

The Letter:

Rev. Michael McFarland
President, College of the Holy Cross
One College Street
Worcester, MA 01610

Dear Father McFarland:

We, the members of the Worcester City Council, are frustrated and disappointed by the repeated examples of poor behavior by some students who attend the College of the Holy Cross. We write this letter to you to reinforce our support for City Manager O’Brien’s efforts to engage you personally and ask for your leadership to change the long-standing culture of disrespecting the neighborhoods of Mount Saint James. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

We talk about keeping Worcester jobs local and strengthening our local economy. I have written about our DPW’s toxic nepotism problem.

It seems that when the City of Worcester isn’t giving municpal jobs to the same 200 or so connected families, they don’t care WHERE the city’s subcontractors come from. I saw these disconcerting sights last week:

At the Crompton Park pool in Green Island, with all the rebuilding etc, going on, a truck with a Connecticut license plate! Doing work at a Worcester job site! Then:Driving down Dewey Street – where the potholes are mini-craters (of course they are -they are in one of our poorest neighborhoods) – I see a LUDLOW (Mass.) company doing all the street repaving/repair work. LUDLOW! Next: Outside an Institute Road house, I see a Maine truck doing the asphalt repair.

All City of Worcester jobs that Mike O’Brien and DPW BobMoylan could have outsourced to Worcester companies! Believe me – they need the dough!!

Connecticut, Maine, Ludlow … . Why all these out of town companies doing good blue collar work for the City of Worcester? The City of Worcester must stop giving lip service to supporting local small companies and actually start using them!

Even if it means paying a teensy bit more money!

To City Manager Mike O’Brien and DPW and Parks head honcho Robert Moylan: START HIRING WORCESTER BUSINESSESS!

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2. Nepostism and hiring problems in the WPS system

The WPSchools Stacey Dubois Luster, head of human resources for our public schools and an African American woman, must start hiring people of color as teachers in the Worcester Public Schools. Let’s send down recruiters to Spellman College, Howard College and Temple and all those great African American colleges.Let’s have our recruiters talk to young, bright, gifted and Black young men and women about teaching in our public schools. Several years ago the City of Worcester created a little part-time job – $15,000 a year – for a WPS teacher recruiter to help hire more minorities in our schools. After only a year (or less) the WorcesterCity Council, claiming poverty, killed the position. Then, several months later, the city council voted to double their paychecks. Now all these folks (except for MikeGermain, hwo has refused the raise – good job, Mike!) make almost $30,000 a year (each city councilor!).

Pathetic.

This is why folks don’t bother voting any more.