The pudgy, mild mannered Craig Blais before he morphs into “BATMAN BLAIS,” WPL parking lot nemesis!!! (Our apologies to Bat Man! We did not mean to use you for evil!!! – R. Tirella)

By Steven R. Maher

Talk about the arrogance of power.

Worcester Business Development Corporation (WBDC) President and Chief Executive Officer Craig Blais (“Batman Blais”) and his faithful Tonto, Worcester State College Board of Directors Chairman  John Brissette (the “Boy Wonder”), want city residents to be patient while they have plans drawn up to build a skating rink on the Francis J. McGrath Parking Lot next to the Worcester Library.

“We need to fashion a study first and come up with a design and plan,” Brissette said. “At the end of the day, how can someone say they don’t want it when they don’t know what it will look like? It’s putting the cart before the horse. You’ve got to let us finish the process first.”

This all has a familiar ring to it.

In the 1980s Batman Blais was an Auburn Selectman and the Boy Wonder, an elected Auburn Town Meeting Member, where both advocated selling the existing Auburn High School and Auburn Library to developers and building a new high school on land in a residential neighborhood.

The land where it would be built on was farmland acquired by Auburn under a state agricultural law. Blais and his cronies told Auburn voters that some adjacent parcels of the property would be sold off as house lots and the bulk of the remainder would be preserved.

Then, of course, after the voters approved the purchase, Blais’ political faction, including Brissette, brought forth the idea of building a new high school on the land, something no one mentioned until after the election.

The next move by Batman Blais and the Boy Wonder will to tell us about all the money spent on designing the Worcester skating rink and how that will be totally wasted if Worcester doesn’t follow through and build the rink.

I’ll give credit to Brissette for something: He at least has developed some public relations sense. Batman Blais in his customary bull headed way, arrogantly told media: “We are going to address the issues of the library and incorporate their concerns, but at the end of the day we’re going to develop that lot.”

I thought the Worcester City Council and Worcester City Manager Mike O’Brien would make the ultimate decisions, not a WBDC President who lives in Sutton.

Craig Blais wants the library parking lot developed, and if the City Manager and City Council don’t want that to happen, then Batman Blais thinks they should go screw themselves.