By Barbara Haller
In an inspiring effort to re-claim their neighborhood park, residents, businesses, agencies and city representatives have come together, with the help of the Main South CDC, and formalized the Castle Park Task Force. Castle Park is a 3-acre hidden gem located in Worcester’s Main South neighborhood.
Nestled on the top of a hill and surrounded by trees and dirt roads, this unique park makes you forget you are in the middle of the City (even though its only two blocks from Main Street).This great community asset includes a basketball court, a handball court, a playground, a walking-path, a great climbing rock ledge, and open green space.
Probably the most important accomplishment thus far, the Task Force successfully advocated for police foot patrols in the park. City Manager Michael O’Brien and Police Chief Gary Gemme’s uncompromised support of the Castle Park Task Force is a clear testimony to their belief in Worcester’s neighborhoods as the soul of our City.
The police presence has re-defined the park and provided the sense of safety that encourages families to use the park. It has also positively impacted relationships between police and community members, who are being given the opportunity to get to know each other.
The other transformative gift to the Park comes from the Main South CDC. This neighborhood-based organization committed to funding a half-time Task Force coordinator. This has given us the resource we need to keep the work moving forward.
In addition, the Main South CDCentire staff spent three days renovating the park last month. The staff filled the court cracks with cement, power-washed & painted both sides of the handball wall, removed graffiti, re-built and painted picnic benches, painted basketball court benches, and more.
The Castle Park Task Force is operating under the notion that the best way to weed out negative behavior is to load it with positive activities.An extensive amount of work has been done so far:weekly Family Playground Hour, a handball tournament, Calvin Bradshaw memorial tree planting for a much loved park neighbor, the post-Earth Day Clean-Ups Celebration hosted by the Regional Environmental Council, and a Preservation Worcester presentation on the Park’s rich history.
By Worcester District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller
Last September, neighbors stood shoulder-to-shoulder at a press conference at the corner of Main and Hitchcock streets to acknowledge that prostitution was embedded along Main Street from Madison to Webster Square: “Our children, our spouses, and ourselves are being victimized every day by prostitution.
It is not just seeing the prostitutes ply their trade or the johns stalking in their cars and trucks. It is not only the ugly and physical domination of pimps, the unwanted solicitations to our youth and young women, the frequent foul language, and the painful addiction behaviors.
Nor is it solely the fear of our apartment buildings being invaded by desperate individuals. It is all of this for sure. But the real cry comes from the sense of hopelessness that is descending on us that says ‘This is how it is and this is how will be.’”
The group was made up of myself, members of the Main South Alliance for Public Safety, the Main South CDC, Clark University, each of the six crime watches in Main South, St. Peter’s Parish, and local business owners.
After a particularly bad summer of constant prostitution activity we were calling for resources to truly end this blight on our present and future. At the community meeting that followed, Bill Breault (Main South Alliance for Public Safety), Casey Starr (Main South CDC), and myself committed ourselves to form a Curbing Prostitution Task Force to develop a strategy to be implemented by April 2011. Various community members, staff from the YWCA’s Daybreak Program, Worcester Police Department, District Attorney’s Office, and Probation Department met throughout the fall and winter where we rolled up our collective sleeves and produced a consensus community policing strategy.
The key parts of the strategy:
1. Make curbing prostitution a city public safety priority.
2. Continue monthly task force meeting or the next year to assess success/failure and to make the strategy more robust.
3. Active reporting of prostitution behaviors by the community.
4. Decrease demand (males buying sex for a fee).
5. Decrease supply (females selling sex for a fee).
6. Collect and evaluate data on where prostitution is happening.
I am pleased to report that the strategy is now being implemented. You may have recently read about or seen some police stings. These will continue, with particular emphasis on arresting the johns. Probation and the District Attorney’s Office will increase their work to have both female and male offenders sent to the DAWN and CARD programs as a condition of their sentences.
Daybreak and Probation will drive these education programs and collect data on the number of people attending and track recidivism.
The City Manager and the task force will work to find resources for an outreach worker and resources to help women exit prostitution. The Main South Alliance, the Main South CDC and I will soon distribute information to Main South neighbors on how to effectively report prostitution activity.
How you can help:
· OBSERVE prostitution trolling by females and males, · CALL 508 799 8606 and say, “I am reporting prostitution activity,” · REPORT street locations (corner of …, in front of …), activity (female soliciting, male soliciting, etc.), and descriptions (female with white jacket, male in green sedan, etc.), and · JOIN a neighborhood/business association.
Do not expect the police to show up. I repeat, DO NOT EXPECT THE POLICE TO SHOW UP. While this may happen, the purpose of Observe, Call, Report, and Join is to gather data on where and when prostitution is happening. This data will be used to set up stings, increase public safety and community presence in an area, track where the prostitution traffic is moving, and track increases/decreases in prostitution activity along the corridor.
If you want to join the task force, learn when and where a neighborhood association is meeting, need more info, or have some ideas about how we can make a difference, call/email me.
Stay in touch.
By Virginia Marchant Schnee
Former City Councilor Steve Patton remembers when young trees and brush had overgrown Dodge Park, obscuring its meadow and making the walkways impassable. The baseball fields that existed fifty years ago, when he was young enough to play Little League, were unrecognizable. In the 100 years since Thomas Dodge donated the 13 acres of land in 1889, many improvements had been added to the park, but over time they had deteriorated.
“There was a lot of dumping going on there, with tepees and the remains of beer parties,” Patton said. “Most of the benches and the bridges in the back were broken but the remnants were still there.”
Patton helped organize the first Regional Environmental Council Earth Day cleanups in 1990, and he said that at the time, tons of heavy trash and debris plagued many sites like Dodge Park. After several years of successful Earth Day cleanups, and once volunteers had removed most of the heavy trash from these other areas, he set his sights on Dodge Park.
“How many times do you have a chance to reclaim a park that’s gone fallow?” asked Patton. “It was a great opportunity to do some good.”
With the support of the REC and the assistance of many cleanup participants, including the Indian Lake Association and Boy Scout Troop 54, Dodge Park underwent a transformation. Year by year, they opened up a little more of Dodge Park, and their work drew the attention of then- Parks Commisioner Beth Prokow.
Continue reading Transforming urban spaces! The Regional Environmental Council’s Earth Day Cleanups!
By Sue Moynagh
On Saturday, April 18, 2009, the City Manager’s “Keep Worcester Clean Team,” in a joint effort with Oak Hill CDC, held a clean up of the Vernon Hill neighborhood. Numerous volunteers from area colleges, Worcester Academy and other sections of the city joined area residents in this effort. People began to gather at the Worcester Senior Center on Providence Street by 8:30 A M. and picked up bags, gloves and T- shirts. Teams were formed and sent out into the Union and Vernon Hill streets and sidewalks, collecting approximately 3, 640 pounds of trash by 11:00 A.M. It was great seeing so many people pitching in to help clean up all the trash that has accumulated over the winter and early spring! Unfortunately, some private lots remain litter- filled, but the Department of Public Works compiled a list of “nuisance properties” that will be dealt with in the near future. Continue reading Clean up time!
