Author: Mike

City Council agenda (late)

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.

Our Lady of the Road opens

The South Bend Catholic Worker celebrated the beginning of Advent today with the grand opening of their new daytime drop-in center at 744 South Main Street, Our Lady of the Road.

The event began with a mass celebrated by Father Paul Kollman, CSC. Well over 100 people were there.

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Before

Photos: Grand opening, history of the building since mid-August.

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After

(I’ve been sifting through the 800 hobo names for Our Lady of the Road, or Boxcar Mary, but no luck so far.)

DSCN8428.JPG DSCN8444.JPG Brenna & Mike

From the program book:

Our Lady of the Road is a day-time drop-in center for folks who find themselves on the street. We will offer coffee, snacks, use of the restrooms, showers, and washers and dryers to do clothes. Most of all, however, we will offer a place for people to sit and talk–a place to belong.

We could greatly use your help! To volunteer your time, please contact us at [574] 235-0623 or [574] 287-7734.

Also, the following helpful items are needed: laundry soap, coffee and filters, toilet paper, bath towels, soap, shampoo, razors and shaving cream, women’s hygene products, and other toiletry items.

Most importantly, we ask for your prayers and your presence. We have a lot to celebrate, lots of friends and supporters to thank.

Corey Dolgon on “Mending Fences”

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.

Corey Dolgon

When I get around to transcribing this, I’ll post the transcription here.

I’ll trade you a JFK for an MLK

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 Department

A. 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.

Items

We had a fair amount of site traffic on Thanksgiving, with lots of folks looking for Wal-Mart’s Thanksgiving hours and ending up at Mark Dixon’s Wal-Mart article. So I added a note at the top of the article about Buy Nothing Day.

Worcester: Dave McMahon has a blog.

Breaking news: Local man likes Jasmine Guy.

Snow Ghost: Bruce’s latest studio tracks are available for download. Note that he was last month’s Employee of the Month at Happy Birthday Mike Leslie.
Bruce

Naming a Worcester street after MLK: Efforts are moving forward.
Continue reading “Items”

Catholic Workers and institutions

This review of Kristen E. Heyer’s Prophetic and Public starts by recalling a visit to the South Bend Catholic Worker community and a presentation by Margie Pfeil. It continues by referencing the academic work of SBCW member Mike Baxter.

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Margie Pfeil and Mike Benedetti, Mike Baxter with an axe

I have a couple comments on the review; if I can get my hands on the book, I’ll comment on that, too.
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Longest Night, Worcester

There will be a memorial event for those who have died homeless the evening of December 21. The event will begin at Union Station and end at St. John’s Church.

(announcement follows:)

The Longest Night: Worcester Homelessness Memorial Day rally and memorial service will take place on Thursday, December 21, 2006, the first day of winter and the longest night of the year.

This memorial observance is part of the National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day that since 1990 has called attention to the tragedy of homelessness and those who have paid the ultimate price for our nation’s failure to end homelessness.

On December 21st, Worcester Homelessness Memorial Day, a coalition of concerned Worcester residents and organizations will gather at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall Plaza (behind City Hall), where we will hold a rally and vigil to remember our homeless neighbors who died in 2006. We will then walk to St. John’s Rectory (44 Temple Street) for a 7:15 p.m. memorial service.

The rally behind City Hall will include a call to action as well as a reading and remembrance of the names of homeless individuals in Worcester who died in 2006.

At the memorial service at St. John’s Rectory, religious leaders from a variety of faiths will each say a few words about the loss of homeless members of our community.

Together these memorial events will honor those who have died and call our community to recommit to the task of ending homelessness.

Please join us on December 21st – The Longest Night. Together we can make our communities safer and healthier for all.

Items

Funeral: The Telegram & Gazette reported yesterday on the funeral of Michael A. Cerrone in Worcester. Cerrone was killed by a car bomb in Iraq.

Godzilla: The Worcester Public Library will be screening “Godzilla, King of Monsters” Saturday at 2pm.

Oaxaca: Infamous Worcesterite ChaCha Connor is in Oaxaca. Indymedia has an interview with her about the situation there. MP3 (original post)


powered by ODEO

KNIMBY: The West Side’s anonymous author writes:

Now I know that most of the politically correct crowd is going to say that it is naive to believe that drug and/or alcohol abuse does not occur in our neighborhood. That may be so. However it would also be ridiculous to say that our area is riddled with substance abuse on par with other parts of the community.

(According to Technorati, we’re the first blog to link to The West Side. And we’re darn proud of it.)

Winslow Street Park:
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schematic

Bad buildings: WoMag profiles the ten worst propeties in the city.
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