InCity Times Letter from Lynne

InCity Letter

The 10 worst housing properties in Worcester as of November 22, 2006 are all in District 4. The District that is represented by Councilor Barbara Haller who spends hours giving lip service to closing the PIP shelter but never offering solutions for improving or moving it. She is always shaming and blaming social service agency properties and the people living in their houses for causing problems rather than giving them credit for the positive impact they more often than not have on neighborhoods. She is constantly singing the praises of the Main South CDC as the role model when in reality their next 24 units of housing only represents about $120,000 in new tax revenue. My question is what is the cost to develop and build those 24 units? Thank goodness at last the Main South CDC gets it and is building some environmental friendly housing in District 4.

How much of our tax revenue is spent on the cost of the city services needed to address the issues of the 10 worst properties in District 4? Not to mention the human cost felt by the tenants, who are forced to live in these often dangerous, unsanitary, rodent infested, trash ridden, and unsafe properties. Forced to live there due to a lack of affordable well-maintained rental properties and afraid to report the conditions in fear of retribution from their landlord. Plus think of the negative impact those landlords and their unkempt properties have on the neighbors and the neighborhood overall.

I suggest that Councilor Haller might better use her time not just editorializing about these properties, but rather to step up to the plate and help the Health and Codes Department to more aggressively target absentee landlords. Support the neighbors and the tenants living with these conditions by working with them and helping them to know what they can do as tenants and neighbors to put pressure on absentee landlords. And then at budget time support the Code Department and its inspectors by demanding more money in the budget to hire more staff.

This issue of absentee landlords and blighted dangerous properties in District 4 has to be targeted because it is a major a public safety issue in the District. Plus, it is only right that people living in District 4 have affordable and safe rental properties to live in, especially when the rents they pay are so outrageously high.

Those of us living in District 4 need leadership that will no longer allow these properties to languish. We need a change in direction and focus in District 4 that fosters proactive education for all landlords and tenants and enables the codes division to concentrate on fixing the worst of the worst properties. If a raise for Councilor Haller were dependent on her performance for holding the absentee landlords of the 10 worst properties accountable in District 4 she would not get one.

Submitted by Lynne Simonds
December 18, 2006

Lynne Simonds for District Four

Ten Worst Properties Letter to Worcester Magazine

WOMAG’s “Home Sweet Hell Hole” cover story, November 22, 2006, brings attention to absentee landlordism, a phenomena all too common in Worcester, and one that has a disproportionate impact on Worcester’s District 4. All ten properties highlighted in WOMAG’s cover story are found in District 4, where Barbara Haller resides as District 4 City Councilor. I often wonder what the district would look like if more of her energy was spent on holding accountable neglectful absentee landlords, supporting and advocating for tenants who live in substandard housing close to her home. Picking on the poor and blaming social service agencies and homeless shelters for District 4’s problems is easy. Taking a deeper look and holding absentee landlords accountable for dangerous, rodent infested, unsafe properties is hard. We need leadership in District 4 that takes neglectful absentee landlordism seriously and advocates for more funding for Worcester’s Health and Code Department to havethe resources intact to deal with the severity of this problem. We need leadership in District 4 willing to confront those who own property and are abusing the fundamental rights of residents in order for District 4 to recover dignity long lost to investors looking to make a buck. Jennifer Solin

THE PRACTICAL

Thinking a lot this Christmas day about how important it is to have a councilor in 4 who would stand up for the homeless, and represent them instead of trying to chase them away with a broom of white privelege.

Readers of this blog, ye should know that this is an important campaign, which we lost by only two hundred votes last time.

If you really believe that you are a proponent of social justice, whether for the homeless and poor, as an environmentalist, or for a rebounding vibrant district, this is a campaign you need to step up to. Lynne's agenda is a positive one, that's why so many people vote for her.

WE NEED YOUR ENERGY TO WIN!! so many creative people stepped up last time, it was amazing. We need to focus on the practical, door to door volunteers, cash, cash, and cash. and more cash. and people to make calls, work on agenda items, appear at meetings, hold coffees.

WE HOPE THAT IF YOU CARE A WHIT ABOUT poor PEOPLE IN THIS DISTRICT, that you will realize this campaign is more than just about Lynne's vision, its a group effort of great people working towards a new vision for people who are traditionally left behind.

Happy Holidays!

Campaign Issue

Should Lynne run on the fact, when elected she will only accept a 5% raise each year based on the existing $15,750?

Year 1 $16,537
Year 2 $17,634

Versus $29,000??

Chapter 58 Section 8

This is a section of the Mass General Laws that allows a city or town to waive back taxes typically under the premise that without the taxes being waived, the project will never get done. In addition there needs to be a time provided for the rehabilitation, while the end product will provide affordable or low income housing.

The April 26, 2005 Assessors Report of the City Council Council Agenda lists recipients of tax breaks from Chapter 58 Section 8 . In 2003, 12 Castle Street, owned by the Castle Street Development Corporation, had $15,496.38 in back taxes waived for the "redevelopment of affordable housing".

Has this building had rehabbed thus providing affordable or low income housing?

InCity Times

Letter from Lynne was printed in this week's edition..

Continued PIP saga

Continued saga of the PIP. While Haller basically wags a finger at absentee landlordism run rampant in the district, a major crisis, perhaps the major crisis in the District, she continues to beat the dead horse issue of the PIP shelter in a recent letter to the Telegram. She wants to close it down, once again, as winter approaches. Why does she always want to close it in the winter, even after our experiencing four dead people directly linked to the cold (Mike Odorski trying to get to PIP freezes (Haller protested that vigil), two die in a trailer flier (Breault blames PIP), and the one death at Washington Square last winter)? But, then again, she doesn't support scattered site, housing first models either (i.e. house the homeless in the their own homes). She made sure she was at the the recent major housing conference in the city, where, ironically, she received applause as elected officials were acknowledged (what is her housing policy anyway?) She was there with other housing malcontents Breault and Comeux, who are known to oppose housing first.

So, if we close the PIP, and we don't create new housing, where do the estimated 100-200 PIP residents go exactly?

ALSO, ISN'T SHE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THESE PEOPLE AS THEY LIVE IN HER DISTRICT???

Just another example of how Haller chooses to represent the elites in the district, and ignore, or malign, the poor. Perhaps we can build snow caves for them this Christmas.

Lynne Simonds for District Four

School Committee Pay Raise

Yesterday's paper, in case you missed it?

WORCESTER— School Committee members, riding the city charter-mandated coattails of city councilors, will nearly double their annual salaries next year, their first raises in nearly 20 years, and from now on can count on inflation-based raises every two years. Article 4, section 4 of the city’s charter calls for School Committee members, other than the mayor who also serves as school board chairman, to be compensated at a rate “equal to fifty percent of the salary established for members of the city council …” The councilors voted themselves an 84 percent raise Tuesday night, increasing their annual salaries from $15,750 to $29,000 beginning Jan. 10. The mayor’s salary was hiked 89 percent, from $18,000 to $34,000. Every two years the salaries will be adjusted to reflect the inflation rate.


The council action means that school board members’ annual salaries next year will jump from $7,875 to $14,500.

City Manager 5 Year Financial Plan

About two months back the City Manager announced a 5 year plan to tighten the fiscal budget. Amongst many things was to cut back out the debt and increase the City's free cash position. Since that time we have increased the City Manager's pay by $50,000, increased the City Council payroll by approximately 180,000, increased the pay of the DPW Chief, waived $190,000 of fees for the Performing Arts Center.

Performing Arts Waiving of City Fees

I meant to post this last week, but I forgot. Before I go on, I look forward to the opening of the Performing Arts Center. Recently the City has moved, and I believed it was approved, to waive $190,000 in fees. Now I know that sounds like alot of money (it is) and sounds unfair, but let me review the fees to build a single family home in the City of Worcester.

If you build a three bedroom single family, you incur $4,000 in water and sewer fees. Now you add building permit fees from all the various departments (Electrical, Plumbing, etc), you are looking at another $2,000. In other words a single family house runs approximately $6,000 in fees.

The Performing Arts Center is a $28,000,000 dollar endeavor and can not afford to pay $190,000 in fees. To top it off,it will be a non-profit and will only pay taxes for the first 7, or 8 years, that it is open. On the other hand a builder, who wants to build a single family in District 4 will have to pay approximately $6,000 in fees. Does it seem fair that one develop, who actually will generate taxes forever unless bought by a non-profit, will have to pay fee while someone else does not???

Lets take another example--the Greek Church at Elm Park in District 4. They have a $12,000,000 project in the works should they pay the fees?? Bottom line is that once you start waiving fees, you are starting down a slippery slope where do you stop?? People with the appropriate political influence can get their fees waived and those who do not pay?

I hope if Lynne is elected that she does not give anyone preferential treatment, unless it is of course something that is District wide not on a spot basis.

City Council Pay Raise

Official Vote to approve 9-3. Voting against Lukes, Rosen andPalmieri. Watching the meeting tonight District Councilor Haller mentioned that she had spoken to people throughout to the Distict and received "overwhelming" support in favor of the pay raise.

DAVEpage

DAVEpage

City Council Pay Raises

Today' s paper contained District 4 Councilor's response to the projected pay raise:


District 4 Councilor Barbara G. Haller, a retired electrical engineer, said she supports Mr. Murray’s proposal, because she believes higher pay would allow more people without independent means to serve on the council. She said the current pay does not make up for the long hours, many night meetings and work in the community that being a councilor entails.

“We’re talking about fairly low dollars compared to the overall budget,” she said. “For getting people to run for office, especially in District 4, $15,000 doesn’t cut it.” The extra pay would be “a more adequate representation of the time and energy it takes to do council work,” Ms. Haller said.

Airport

I have another blog that I maintain all about the airport. Do not ask me I have gotten into this, but I do find the airport/airline business fascinating:

http://www.worcesterma.blogspot.com

I am convinced after watching activities up there for two years that we need to put the airport up for sale. I know at first that sounds crazy, but it is a huge parcel of land with great facilities. The problem is that the people running it can never turn it into the asset that it should, instead it is basically a laibility to the City of Worcester.

I only bring this up, since although Lynne will obviously concentrate on District 4 issues, there are other issues outside the District 4. Finding a buyer for the airport would alleviate us of the annual drain caused by keeping the airport open, input a one time capital contribution, create property tax revenues and hopefully a successful airport will create even more economic spin-off that we simply do not realize right now.

Bottom line, I say we can consider the selling of the airport as an issue. That it from me tonight.

Issues

Good Meeting tonight. Economic development, or should I say the lack thereof, within District 6 has been a rather large problem. On a small scale our district includes 3 areas (there are only 5 such designations in the City of Worcester) that have been designated as a NRSA (Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area):

1. Main South through the Main South CDC
2. South Worcester through the South Worcester CDC
3. Chandler Street through Common Ground

The NRSA has a component to help small businesses including facade improvements, business promotion and employee training. To date I know of no business in any of these threee designated NRSA areas, who have benefited from these efforts.

On a larger scale, District 4 has two large commerical parcels ripe for development:

1. South Worcester Industrial Park (SWIP)
2. Wyman Gordon parcel

Can you imagine how much different the District would be if these areas contained businesses that provided jbs. I must admit that Paul Morano and Heather Kamczyk have done a great job the past 6 months on SWIP cleaning up some parcels and for the first time in a long time, there is some hope. At the same time I have heard about the South Worcester Industrial Park for literally 20 years and to date it has not provided one job, while something like Gateway Park (started much later) appears to be flourishing.

Vacant

Telegram Today

Main South video finds hope in the ’hoodScreening opens dialogue


WORCESTER— Pregnant drug addicts, prostitutes, violent criminals, homeless alcoholics, poverty, mice and mosquitoes are all part of life in the city neighborhood with probably the highest concentration of vacant and abandoned buildings. Residents of Main South describe these problems in “Vacant,” a new multimedia production filmed and photographed by the Main South Oral History Project, made up of a Clark University graduate student working with a 56-year-old neighborhood man and three local teenagers.

The 40-minute work — a combination of still photos and video footage narrated in English and Spanish with subtitles in both languages — was screened yesterday afternoon for the first time at the Boys & Girls Club on Tainter Street. Its creators say they want the video to spur activism and redevelopment and help put abandoned buildings back to use by getting them renovated, a trend they depict as already happening in the neighborhood. Describing the old Sears & Roebuck building at 661 Main St., one of several narrators says the display window of the vacant and dilapidated edifice, most recently owned by Caravan Coffee, is “dirty and disgusting.”

“I always wonder when my building is going to fall over,” says Deb Sinha, who lives in a run-down apartment building on Castle Street next to several abandoned buildings he says are frequented by homeless people, rodents and raccoons. “But rent is cheap. I guess that’s the reason I stay there.”

The city councilor who represents the neighborhood, District 4 Councilor Barbara G. Haller, makes several appearances, talking about a once-dilapidated abandoned building she eventually moved into at 34 Castle St., and expressing cautious optimism that the neighborhood is slowly turning around.

One woman calls her building at 5 May St. “one of the biggest crackhead areas in town.” Another resident tells interviewers that prostitutes, pimps and gang members with guns are everywhere on the street. “It’s not safe here,” a woman says of her block. Dennis Hourihan, 56, one of the filmmakers, says part of the problem is “there is no work in Worcester.” “There used to be shoe shops, piano shops,” he said. “It’s all gone.”

But “Vacant” is also a vehicle for hope. The filmmakers included shots of the handsome new Boys & Girls Club and views of colorfully and artfully restored affordable three-deckers on Hollis Street that are part of the massive Kilby-Gardner-Hammond urban reclamation project. “Main South has changed a lot,” Eliut Martinez, a Hollis Street man who moved here from Springfield 20 years ago, says in Spanish.

After the screening, some in the audience of about 50 split up into small discussion groups and wrote down their responses to the video and how they would like to improve the neighborhood. Erin Anderson, a 23-year-old student in Clark’s graduate program in community development and planning, was the project’s coordinator. The video, produced in six months with $3,500 in grants and support from nonprofit groups, is a call to action, Ms. Anderson said. She said she plans to burn the footage onto DVDs and distribute them to community groups and city councilors.

“The idea is to get people thinking and working on issues surrounding vacant buildings in their neighborhoods,” the Seattle native said. One person in the audience, Stephen D. Patton, a former city councilor who is now executive director of Worcester Common Ground, a nonprofit community development corporation that turns dilapidated buildings into affordable dwellings, was impressed by the video’s melding of criticism and optimism. “It’s always good to get it right from the street,” he said. “I did largely sense some hope. I’m not sure that five years ago you’d be able to say that.” The other members of the project are Linette Serrano, 18, and Betsy Jovel and Meiry Salinas, both 16.

Support was provided by Clark University, Family Health Center of Worcester, the Regional Environmental Council, Worcester Youth Center, Greater Worcester Community Foundation and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

PIP Shelter

The past week there have been new calls to close the PIP. I have to admit that I do not have a very good understanding of this issue, but my question is that when people demand closure of the PIP should there not be an alternative plan expressed? Maybe one was stated, but I missed it.

As far as people living at the PIP being involved in murders, I know many people who do not live at the PIP but use 701 Main Street as their address. In reality although they may sleep there at various times, I would not necessarily call the PIP their home. In other words, if the PIP was closed the people involved in these crimes would disappear from the district.