Camp Sinkhole Fixed!!!
Quick Fix
The city fixed the big sinkhole just before Woodbine,northbound, in the middle of Camp Street, with asphalt fill.
Infamous Camp Street SinkHole
Tremendous response, and I’d bet we have our District 8 boys (and girls) to thank for the quick action. Or whoever, thanks.
I think the DPW will have to return soon enough, though, as the asphalt seems to have already sunk in; it sure shivered me timbers pretty good thisafter when I drove over it: disaster.
John
Posted at 08:10 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
School Bus Ruckus II
Troubling behavior – decisive action
ProJo reported today, Tuesday, details about another bus incident that happened . . . last Thursday —- just a five day lag in reporting the incident.
This time arrests were made after a teacher from Hopkins Middle School, who pulled alongside the bus while it was under attack by rocks thrown by six middle school students who also opened the rear emergency door but were unable to enter the bus, identified the assailants. More arrests are expected. Kudos to that teacher for looking out for the kids on the bus.
New School superintendent Donnie Evans promised further action at last night’s School board meeting. It seems that the Providence School Department is now doing a better job of keeping parents informed of ongoing developments after this, the third or fourth incident.
Linda Borg’s ProJo report below provides full details.
Arrest is made in latest assault on a school bus
School officials are once again confronted with violent behavior by a group of youths at the corner of Branch Avenue and Hawkins Street.
01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Six students attempted to force their way onto a Bishop Middle School bus on Thursday afternoon, the latest of three similar incidents over two weeks.
The incident Thursday occurred one block from Hopkins Middle School, at the intersection of Branch Avenue and Hawkins Street, where the previous incidents had also taken place.
According to a school spokeswoman, six Hopkins students approached the bus as it was taking students home and began pelting it with rocks. A Hopkins Middle School teacher pulled alongside in her car and told the students to go home. She later identified all six students to the police.
Meanwhile, the bus driver called the police. Officers arrested one youth and charged him with disorderly conduct.The police are continuing to investigate the incident; more charges are expected.
School spokeswoman Maria Tocco said the students opened the rear emergency door but were unable to get onto the bus. No one was injured.
Tocco said that one of the six students had been involved in the first bus incident, on Jan. 9. On that day, several students stopped and boarded a bus carrying students from Nathanael Greene Middle School. As the bus drove down Branch Avenue, the youths opened the emergency door, hit a middle school child and fled.
The next day, a large group of teenagers surrounded the same bus, also on Branch Avenue, and began pounding on it as the bus was driving children home to the East Side.
One of the students involved in the bus boarding incident has been expelled and sent to an alternative school, according to Andre Thibeault, director of school operations.
At last night's School Board meeting, School Supt. Donnie Evans described what school officials were doing to curb the violence. Bus monitors have been assigned to both buses and the police have assigned additional patrol officers, including undercover officers, to the neighborhood.
"The School Department is taking this very seriously," Evans said. "We're working hand-in-hand with the police."
Evans said he drove to the intersection last week and waited while buses carried students home from Hopkins Middle School. He also said that he has asked the principal and the assistant principal of Hopkins to be more visible at that corner after school.
"We intend to be proactive," he said, adding that school officials would speak with parents and students at the middle schools in question. He did not specify what school officials have planned for those meetings.
Evans also said that the School Department was looking at other options, including altering bus routes and changing school start and end times.
Meanwhile, the schools are making an effort to keep parents informed. On Friday, the principal of Bishop Middle School sent a phone message to all parents, explaining what had happened and what the School Department was doing about it.
lborg@projo.com / (401) 277-7823
Online at: http://www.projo.com/metro/content/projo_20060124_bus24.dac43d8.html
Posted at 07:47 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
PotHole Party
Name a PotHole
It’s that time of year when gaping wounds open up in Mt. Hope Streets. I hit a bone rattling pothole (a sink-hole really) on Camp Street around the 300 block that could rip the undercarriage off a vehicle and shake the chrome off of a trailer hitch.
I also noticed the pothole I had repaired last year down by the KFC has reopened for business. Remember the Name that Pothole program from last year—get a pothole fixed and acquire naming rights to the repaired pothole?
Here is the DPW phone number to call for pothole repair. Pothole Repair: 467-7950 Have the exact location ready: the street and the street number.
This is also the time of year when tree branches fall and other DPW responsibilities rear their heads. The DPW has improved their webpage on the City’s site and here is the link to their How do I get that done page.
John Twomey
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Submit a blog entry: BlogEntry
Posted at 02:44 PM | | Comments (0)
Mt. Hope Real Estate
How's the market doing?
Some transactions listed in today’s ProJo.
Sold:
129 Abbott Street -- $350,000
102 Pleasant Street -- $375,000
28 Woodbine Street -- $249,000
Posted at 02:43 PM | Community | Comments (0)
RedSox Blogosphere
For the Mt. Hope contigent of RedSox Nation who want the lowdown inside scoop on all and any redsox doings, the blogosphere is the place to be.
The following sites all offer something of interest and have multitudes of links to other redsox and baseball sites.
The Joy of Sox A nice place to start, emphasis on “nice”.
The Tao of Manny, a bit more intense but very informative
The T o M is also at Wall Ball Single, part of a site covering all things baseball.
Surviving Grady, a real good site.
12 Eight, lots of redsox stats run through computers for the cyberstat freak, a la Bill James, redsox stat guhru.
and at 12 Eight.com, check out the transcript of Curt Schilling’s chatroom rant about the CHB and sox management.
Sherriff Sully, a former globe sportswriter; get the lowdown on the CHB and the other egomaniacs writing for the Globe. Look under On the Bus, September 21, 28, 2005 for some fine insights on the Boston Globe Sports Department.
And the prize winning Soxaholic, an ironic, post-modern look at redsox angst in graphic novel form.
The Dan Shaughnessy Watch dedicated to debunking the reviled CHB and his foibles.
Each site contains numerous links to other sox blogs & baseball sites.
Posted at 02:29 PM | Community | Comments (0)
RedSox Nation Rejoices!
A nation turns its lonely eyes to Theo?
Mt. Hope contingent of Red Sox Nation cautiously optimistic.
Epstein, the boy wonder is back! We don’t know in what capacity he will serve in the Red Sox’ front office yet, but you can bet that he will run the day to day baseball operation.
“Boston’s favorite son returns”, read the ProJo headline while the Globe headline read, “2½ months later, Epstein to rejoin Sox”.
As anyone who hasn’t been in hibernation since Halloween knows, Theo left the Sox in a huff, shocking everyone that he could walk so easily away from his dream job.
Today, Sean McAdams, of ProJo, had the best piece I read, succinctly summing up all the factors involved, especially this, “Epstein was reportedly furious that details of his contract negotiations were leaked to media outlets. He was particularly upset at a column published in the Boston Globe the day before he left.”
Now, it is no secret who wrote that column, and that that column was the bad apple that upset the apple cart, spoiled the bunch, and caused Theo to quit: Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, known as CHB, in the blogosphere, where he is widely reviled. Pedro gave him the nickname, which stands for “Curly Haired Boyfriend”; Martinez implying that Shaughnessy was fellow Globe Sportswriter Gordon Eades boyfriend.
It is widely believed that Larry Lucchino leaked details of the Epstein contract negotiations to Shaughnessy that were spun in Lucchino’s favor, that the CHB gleefully printed as if he were a real RedSox insider. Lucchino has a wide ranging reputation for playing down and dirty, and Theo might well have thought, “Oh, you want to play like that, eh Larry: well I got game for you. Buddy.” And he quit.
The media leaking, and savaging players and other personell in the papers, was one aspect of redsox corporate culture that Theo wanted to change.
In doing so, in quitting, Theo showed not only Lucchino, but Shaughnessy as well, for the chumps that they are. Just read Shaughnessy’s mean and bitter column in today’s Boston Globe. The CHB sounds hurt, jilted, frustrated and just about ready to throw a childish tantrum. He writes sarcastically of Theo, “Happy day, happy day. The white knight is riding back to Fenway on his high horse.”
Then he wrote dispargingly of Mr. Henry and sox ownership, “Details of which will be announced next week? That's code for, ‘ We have no idea where he'll rank on our flow chart, but we wanted to make this announcement before anybody wrote that we are being held hostage by Theo and that we are weak and don't know what we are doing.’
Here’s another great quote from the CHB regarding Epstein, “He revealed himself to be every bit the cutthroat politician Lucchino is. He's been at best, immature and at worst, duplicitous.”
Oh, it’s bitter brew that Mr. Shaughnessy drinks. He would fit in very well in these parts.
Welcome back Theo. You got work to do.
Victory!
It’s worth reading Shaughnessy’s column if you enjoy the RedSox Soap Opera, and McAdams ProJo column is copied below.
Boston's favorite son returns: Epstein rejoins Red Sox
More than two months after abruptly leaving, the former general manager will have more control.
01:56 AM EST on Friday, January 20, 2006
BY SEAN McADAM
Journal Sports Writer
BOSTON -- In a move nearly as dramatic as his abrupt departure 10 weeks ago, Theo Epstein last night rejoined the Red Sox and will again assume control of the team's baseball operations department, a post he held for three years before his stunning exit on Halloween.
Epstein, who had continued to serve as an unofficial consultant to the club, is expected to return to his Fenway Park office next week.
No formal agreement detailing his official title, pay or length of contract is yet in place, but it's known that Epstein will have autonomy over the baseball operations department and will earn approximately $1.5 million per season. He made about $600,000 last year.
Also unclear last night was whether Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherrington, named co-general managers last month in the wake of Epstein's resignation, will retain their titles. But Hoyer and Cherrington will assume increased responsibilities and work in tandem with Epstein, particularly with Josh Byrnes, the team's former assistant general manager, having become general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Journal file photo
Theo Epstein at a news conference on Nov. 2 at which he talked about why he was leaving the Boston Red Sox.
The Sox did not hide that Epstein was being called upon to offer advice to Hoyer and Cherrington, and Epstein visited Fenway on a regular basis even after his exit.
Red Sox principal owner John Henry, who appeared shocked at Epstein's Nov. 2 farewell news conference, brokered Epstein's return in a series of conversations with him over the last two months.
Henry and CEO Larry Lucchino were attending Major League Baseball's quarterly owners meetings and were unavailable for comment. Epstein declined comment when reached last night.
A vaguely worded statement issued jointly last night by Henry, Lucchino, chairman Tom Werner and Epstein said:
"As you know, we have spoken frequently during the last 10 weeks. We have engaged in healthy, spirited debates about what it will take over the long-term for the Red Sox to remain a great organization and, in fact, become a more effective organization in philosophy, approaches and ideals. Ironically, Theo's departure has brought us closer together in many respects, and, thanks to these conversations, we now enjoy the bonds of a shared vision for the organization's future that did not exist on October 31. With this vision in place, Theo will return to the Red Sox in a full-time baseball operations capacity, details of which will be announced next week."
Before promoting Hoyer -- who had been an assistant to the general manager -- and Cherrington -- who had overseen the organization's minor league system -- Lucchino had lobbied to hire Jim Beattie as Esptein's permanent replacement, but was consistently rebuffed by ownership.
It was Epstein's sometimes fractious relationship with Lucchino that contributed, in part, to Epstein's departure. Epstein was reportedly furious that details of his contract negotiations were leaked to media outlets. He was particularly upset at a column published in The Boston Globe the day before he left.
In announcing his decision to leave in early November, Epstein was cryptic about his reasons.
"Sometimes," he said, "you have to take a difficult path because it's the right path -- and that's what I did."
A native of Brookline, Mass., Epstein grew up just miles from Fenway Park and realized a dream when, at 28 years and 11 months old, he was named the youngest general manager in the history of the game on Nov. 25, 2002. He quickly began to assemble a team which qualified for the post-season in all three of his seasons at the helm.
He signed free agents Bill Mueller, Kevin Millar and David Ortiz to affordable contracts and engineered the trade for Curt Schilling, whose improbable post-season heroics in October of 2004 led the team to its first championship in 86 years.
In the middle of the 2004 season, with the team's play inconsistent and its defense suspect, he made the bold move of dealing All-Star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra in a four-team trade, remaking the team's infield and chemistry mix, two key components of the Sox' successful playoff run that fall.
He was less successful last season, when the team's pitching staff was hurt by injuries to Schilling and reliever Keith Foulke and some of his more recent personnel moves -- led by free agent Edgar Renteria -- were met with disappointment.
After leaving the Red Sox last fall, Epstein was offered the general manager's job with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but declined.
smcadam@projo.com / (401) 277-7340
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Online at: http://www.projo.com/redsox/content/projo_20060120_theo20.1d23c7a4.html
Posted at 08:20 PM | Community | Comments (0)
The Snow Man
Poem of the Week
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The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
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Wallace Stevens
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One of the great modernist poets, Wallace Stevens spent his entire working life as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut. As much a competitor as a colleague to his renowned contemporaries Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams, rumor has it that he once broke his hand on Ernest Hemingway’s jaw in a fight down in Key West.
Some of his best known poems include Sunday Morning, The Idea of Order in Key West, The Emperor of Ice Cream, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself, but my favorite remains Snowman.
This seemingly simple poem in five, three line stanzas can leave a reader shaking his head after the last stanza;
“nothing himself”, “nothing that is not there”, “the nothing that is”?
But the poem encompasses an entire, accurate philosophy.
Although the poem consists of five stanzas, it also consists of only one sentence. Written in prose it would read thus:
One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow; and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun; and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Anyone who is familiar with existential thought or Buddhist concepts will grasp what Stevens conveys in his poem; but you don’t need to know any of that—simply by reading and contemplating the words of the poem you will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion.
Posted at 05:50 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Lead On?
House rental-prop rally for lead law
At a State House rally State Rep. Joseph A. Trillo claimed that less than 50 children statewide were affected by lead poisoning. According to ProJo’s article by Katherine Gregg, Trillo claimed that misinformation about the actual number of children affected by lead poisoning led to the adoption of the new Lead Hazard Mitigation Law.
Trillo proposes introducing legislation that will limit state intervention to buildings where a child has actually tested positive for lead, instead of mandatory testing for the state’s 145,000 rental units.
Information and statements like Mr. Trillo's lead me to ask, was it panic, hysteria, and hyperbole, along with resume building that led to the passage of the new Lead Hazard Mitigation Law?
Who has the accurate numbers that reflect the extent of the problem in Rhode Island? Is there really an epidemic of lead poisoning in Rhode Island?
Accurate statistics for the actual number of lead poisonings medically treated statewide should be available on a year by year basis to clarify the extent of the problem.
We need accurate numbers not numbers with "spin" on them.
You can read Ms. Gregg’s article in ProJo or below.
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John
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Submit a blog entry: BlogEntry
Landlords protest lead-inspection law
The new requirements will be unnecessarily costly for rental-property owners, say those in attendance at the State House rally.
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
BY KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE -- Close to four dozen rental-property owners -- and their lobbyist -- rallied at the State House yesterday for changes in the state's new mandatory lead-inspection law to relieve scores of "innocent landlords" of what they characterized as an unjustified and unnecessary expense.
"There is no logical reason," said the leader of the rally, state Rep. Joseph A. Trillo. "No other state does this."
Trillo was the Warwick Republican -- and investment property owner -- who filed the court challenge that led Superior Court Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. to declare portions of the state's new Lead Hazard Mitigation Law unconstitutional last week.
More specifially, the judge aimed his ruling at the exemption the law provided two- and three-unit owner-occupied buildings from key requirements, among them: a requirement that landlords take a three-hour lead awareness class and prove their properties meet state health department standards by having them certified as lead-safe at least once every two years, or each time a new tenant moves in.
The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 4, less than a month before the new law was scheduled to take effect.
Trillo yesterday repeated his accusations that the law was adopted based on "misinformation" suggesting there were many more lead-poisoned children in the state than there are.
He said there is "no logical reason to go after" the owners of 145,000 rental units, and exacerbate a "housing crisis," to cure a problem affecting less than 50 children, according to his own research.
Trillo said he will soon introduce legislation that limits intervention and enforcement to pre-1978 properties "where a child has tested positive for lead poisoning . . . in two consecutive tests, at least 30 days apart."
"The requirement of mandatory frequent inspections, potential costly renovations and obtaining a certificate of compliance . . . would not apply to properties where no child had been poisoned."
Trillo yesterday said that he owns eight pieces of property, all commercial except for one 10-unit, single-room-only apartment house in Warwick that was cleansed of any potential hazards when it was gutted and refurbished in 1980.
Also present yesterday was the lobbyist for the landlords' group, Thomas Hanley, a onetime top aide in the House Democratic ranks.
kgregg@projo.com / (401) 277-7078
Online at: http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20060118_thelaw18.12e2c238.html
Posted at 12:32 PM | Politics | Comments (0)
School Bus Ruckus
Two bus incidents & a brawl
Another incident involving our school children occurred last week but was not reported by the Providence Journal until today. The Journal used a similar approach earlier in the year when they belatedly covered the near riot down at Kennedy plaza.
Last week’s incident involved children being bused home to the East Side from the Nathanael Greene School and took placer on Branch Av. Also reported in a related incident was a brawl involving “dozens of students” outside the Brooks Pharmacy at Branch and Charles Streets.
It seems some parents are upset about being left out of the loop without answers from the City and School Department.
For the complete background details read Linda Borg’s ProJo article, below.
Attacks on school bus rattle parents
Bus from Nathanael Greene first boarded, then jostled by group of youths
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Two dozen parents packed the library at Nathanael Greene Middle School last night to find out what school officials are doing in the wake of two assaults last week on a middle school bus.
On Monday last week, at least two students stopped and boarded a bus on its way from Nathanael Greene to the East Side. As the bus was heading down Branch Avenue, the youths opened the emergency door, punched a middle school child, then fled as the bus driver tried to grab them, according to school officials. Some parents had heard that one of the youths tried to commandeer the bus, but school officials couldn't confirm that.
The next day, a group of teenagers surrounded the bus, also on Branch Avenue, and began pounding on it as it was driving children home. The size of the group varies, depending on the witnesses. One child reported seeing 40 teens attack the bus; school officials say the crowd was much smaller.
Adding to the confusion, a brawl involving dozens of teenagers broke out in front of the Brooks drugstore on Branch Avenue last week, and Nathanael Greene students on the same bus witnessed the incident; some thought it was aimed at their bus. Sgt. Kevin Lanni said that two youths have been arrested on charges related to the fight outside of the Brooks drugstore.
As the story of the attacks spread, parents became upset that the school wasn't giving them any answers. (Principal Nick Amaral sent a letter to parents on Friday describing what had happened and what the school was doing to prevent the incidents from occurring again.)
Last night, the leaders of the Parent Teacher Organization invited school officials to explain what steps they were taking to protect the children.
But school officials didn't appear to be on the same page. Amaral said that the bus driver couldn't identify the perpetrators, but Deputy School Supt. Frances Gallo said four youths had been identified.
She said the ringleader is a former Nathanael Greene student who has a grudge against the bus driver because he was allegedly involved in her expulsion from Greene. According to Gallo, the girl planned the incident and persuaded two boys from Hopkins Middle School to board the bus.
The girl is in the custody of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, and is being held at the Rhode Island Training School.
The two middle school boys have been suspended pending a disciplinary hearing. A fourth student has been identified, but he no longer attends public school. He attends a privately run school for students who have been expelled from public school.
Last night, school officials said they were taking all three incidents very seriously. A school bus monitor has been temporarily assigned to Bus 81, and an unmarked police car follows the bus on its way home from school. In addition, the Police Department has beefed up patrols in the North End and assigned undercover officers to monitor the neighborhood.
Although the parents last night sounded calm, they were concerned that school officials get to the bottom of the violence. One parent wanted to know what Hopkins Middle School was doing to deal with the issue. Another asked whether closed-circuit cameras could be installed on the bus to record any future incidents, and a couple of parents wanted to know why the bus route couldn't be changed.
Gallo said she would ask the director of transportation to meet with middle school parents to discuss the busing issue.
Then, a middle school boy who witnessed the attacks spoke up:
"Every time they attack the bus, there are 40 kids at least," he said. "If there are real cops in the area, wouldn't that make these kids avoid the area?"
Lanni said the department has assigned marked and unmarked cruisers to the neighborhood.
"Why don't we use this as a teachable moment about how to process these emotions, this fear?" said Karina Lutz, whose daughter attends Greene. "I asked my daughter if she wanted me to drive her to school and she said no, because she didn't want them to win."
Gallo cautioned parents to keep these incidents, terrifying as they might seem, in perspective.
"It's not one school against another," she said. "I don't want it to become that. This young lady carries a lot of baggage. It's a shame that one individual could coerce others. We need to work on this as a school, as a family and as a community."
Amaral said he would speak to the children on Bus 81 today to see how they are feeling and answer questions they might have.
"What can we do as parents?" one parent said.
"Talk to your kids," Gallo said. "Tell them to report any rumors."
Posted at 12:24 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
No 3peat for Pats
Downright Unpatriotic!
FUMBLE!!!
The New England Patriots will not win three Super Bowls in a row. In a game in which the Pats outplayed their opponents in most facets of the game, they came up short where it counts most, the final score, because they seemed to forget the cardinal rule every football player learns before they are ten years old: hold on to the football.
Turnovers led to the Broncos scoring almost all their points off of Patriot mistakes.
Every team has an occasional game like this where Murphy’s law seems to rule: too bad it came in the playoffs for the Pats, because Pittsburgh upset the Colts and Carolina whumped the Bears, leaving a seemingly clear path to the Super Bowl for the Pats. But they have only themselves to blame, and oh yeah, one horrendous pass interference call by the refs that led to a Bronco touchdown.
A frustrating end to a frustrating season. Oh, well, spring training begins soon.
Posted at 10:59 PM | | Comments (0)
Pats Go Mile High
Brady Bunch Does Denver
While the disappointed denizens of the Mt. Hope contingent of RedSox Nation rue the loss of Johnny Damon to the hated Yanks and fret away the next 5 weeks until spring training begins, the citizens of Patriot Nation find themselves in the enviable position of having the extreme pleasure of watching their team come together and peak at exactly the right moment: in time for playoff football.
After a frustrating start to the season, fraught with inexperienced players learning their roles and terrible injuries to key personnel, the Pats have overcome these obstacles and are now the team nobody wants to meet in the playoffs.
Troy Brown Globe photo
Are you ready for some football?
Saturday night at 8 the Patriots meet the Denver Broncos in what was once known as Mile High Stadium. A battle of so-called “genius” coaches, Belichick and Shanahan. The Tom Brady led Pats go into the game 3 point underdogs, according to the wise guys in Las Vegas.
This game will be won or lost in the trenches where the guys with the high numbers on their backs toil. The Broncos like to run the ball and grind a defense down till they’re exhausted and frustrated. The Patriots like to establish the run enough to spread the defense to allow Brady to pick apart the secondary through the air. Keys to the game: clock control, time of possession, controlling the line of scrimmage.
Tom Brady NFL photo
The Patriots have too many great players to mention them all but watch for key plays from Vrabel, Brucschi, Seymor, Hobbs, Brown, Dillon, Faulk, Givens, Branch, McGinest, Graham, Colvin, Wilfork, Watson and a couple of guys named Tom Brady and Adam Vinatieri who always seem to come up big in the clutch.
If we get past Denver it’s on to Indianapolis. Wouldn’t it be great if we faced the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl? We could avenge that terrible loss back in the 80’s when it was Chicago with the awesome defense. I suspect the shoe would be on the other foot in a 2006 match up. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s just beat Denver for now.
It’s going to be a fun game to watch. Best of luck, Patriots.
John
Posted at 03:32 PM | Community | Comments (0)
Empowerment Network
Empowerment Network Meeting
On January 5th, I attended the meeting of the Empowerment Network (EN), the Mt. Hope Learning Center hosted. The EN group grew out of CATCH, created last year for the purpose of exploring community needs in the areas of healthcare access, affordable housing, and youth opportunities, and trying to improve community access to available recourses in the areas of housing, education, and healthcare.
The group is a network of representatives of the Department of Health, HUD, Miriam Hospital, Rochembeau Branch of Providence Public Library, and Mt. Hope community organizations, and individual residents.
At the meeting Brenda Clement, executive director of Housing Network of RI, made a powerful presentation about the housing crisis in RI. A discussion of housing concepts and housing development in Mt. Hope followed. The housing advocates and community residents exchanged opinions and ideas regarding affordable housing image and possibilities in Mt. Hope. Also in attendance, Ben Gworek, Communications and Research Director at HousingWorksRI: their publication, Rhode Island’s Affordable Housing Fact Book was handed out. The contents of that Fact Book can also be found at their website www.housingworksri.org
The housing crisis is not a RI phenomenon, it started a while ago in Boston and is spreading all over New England. Fewer and fewer middle class families and single people can afford to buy their first home: limited housing stock and escalating housing prices make homeownership out of reach for first time buyers. Last Sunday Boston Globe published a few articles about the “Housing squeeze” in Massachusetts in the Ideas section. Visit MassInc for the full text of Michael Jonas’ article Priced out featured in the Sunday Globe.
Mt. Hope, like many other New England urban neighborhoods is experiencing a rapid gentrification. Prices of multifamily houses are skyrocketing, consequently dramatically increasing the rents and forcing people who cannot afford the new rents out of the neighborhood. Federal government may be cutting funds for entitlement programs, such as Section 8, which affects subsidized housing opportunities.
If you are interested in learning more about the housing situation and housing opportunities in RI, visit Rochembeau Branch of PPL on Thursday, January 19, between 7:00 and 8:30 P.M. The Library will be introducing the Mt. Hope Housing Resource Center and hosting Providence Housing Information Night. The reception will feature a premier of video Myths of Affordable Housing: The Reality of Rhode Island’s Housing Crises.
Irene Twomey
Posted at 02:08 PM | Community | Comments (0)
A Winter Beauty
In a late grey light
Birches in Winter JMT
Posted at 05:58 PM | | Comments (0)
BusStop BonanZa
It's been easy pickings for car thieves.
An informative Journal article on Wednesday, of interest to Mt. Hope residents, compiled some of what has been going on at the Bonanza bus terminal. Our own District 8 police feature prominently in the story and again illustrate how on top of the game our guys remain in protecting Mt. Hope.
Security improvements are planned in the parking lot to make parking there safer both for riders and for vehicles.
“Through the first eight months of 2005, 30 cars were reported stolen from the lot and 19 more were broken into.”
"These numbers are extremely high for one business location in the city of Providence," said police Lt. David Schiavulli, commander of District 8. "It was crazy."
It’s great to see action being taken to thwart thieves and to make the terminal lot safer; it’s about time bonanza made a move in that direction: we don’t need our District 8 police resources being used as security for the bus company when adequate security measures are the company’s responsibility.
Read the entire article below or at ProJo.com.
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Bus parking lot a bonanza for thieves
"I hate to put it this way, but a lot of it is their own fault because they leave the stuff in the vehicle," says Lt. David Schiavulli.
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 11, 2006
BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Driving to the Bonanza bus terminal and leaving a car in the parking lot has been a gamble for a lot of people.
They just didn't know it.
Through the first eight months of 2005, 30 cars were reported stolen from the lot and 19 more were broken into.
"These numbers are extremely high for one business location in the city of Providence," said police Lt. David Schiavulli, commander of District 8. "It was crazy."
The police and Bonanza Bus Lines officials are now working together to make parking a less dicey proposition. At the urging of the police, Bonanza has erected a fence topped with barbed wire around two-thirds of the lot and has improved the lighting.
Other plans will mean the end of free parking.
The company intends to install electronic gates and to station an attendant around the clock at the lot, and to begin charging for parking to cover its costs.
Until now, the pickings have been easy for car thieves, according to Schiavulli. They could slip into and out of the lot through surrounding woods or merely walk in the main driveway.
"They know that these people are going to be away for a day, or two, or three" and that a theft won't be noticed for a while, Schiavulli said. Aside from the cars themselves, the thieves are mostly interested in stealing stereo systems and radios.
"Those are just the reported ones," he said of the statistics that he developed. "A lot of people don't even report a larceny from the auto because they don't have insurance."
Despite stepped-up police patrols, Schiavulli said last month, the thefts have continued, albeit at a slower rate, since he stopped compiling statistics as of Aug. 28. Marked police cars cruise in and out as a deterrent, and undercover police have been posted in the lot.
"Any cars assigned to that area are being told to make as many passes as they can in their tour of duty," Schiavulli said. "We're giving it as much attention as we can."
Not only has the lot been a magnet for thieves looking to steal a car, he noted, it has been a spot to dump a stolen car, too.
On the weekend of Dec. 11 and Dec. 12, for example, a car was reported stolen and two more were broken into. Another stolen car was recovered.
"People leave laptops in the front seat, pocketbooks in the front seat, leather coats in the back seat," Schiavulli said. "People have to learn to leave their valuables in the trunk, out of sight. I hate to put it this way, but a lot of it is their own fault because they leave the stuff in the vehicle."
Some of the losses occur because a door has been left unlocked, though if the doors are locked, the thieves break a window, he said. The thefts have not been concentrated at any particular time of day.
Bonanza has had a surveillance camera but its picture is not clear enough to identify any culprits and its field of view did not take in the tree line, according to the police. Most of the losses in Schiavulli's compilation involved cars parked near the woods' edge.
The police came close to catching one of the thieves on Sept. 4, when a man returned with a Jeep that he had stolen from the lot two days earlier. The owner's husband had taken a bus and nobody knew that the vehicle was gone.
The thief "was probably going to break into some cars, using that vehicle," Schiavulli said.
It was 1:15 a.m., and two officers were watching.
The Jeep circled the lot and the driver got out, they reported later. He tried the door handles on three or four cars, and when the officers approached, he jumped back into the Jeep and hastily drove out of the lot.
They chased him to Evergreen Street, about 12 blocks from the terminal, and the man "bailed" out of the Jeep while it was still in drive, according to the police.
The vehicle rolled down the street and smacked heavily into a utility pole in front of 14 Evergreen, causing several wires to fall.
"Our surveillance did work to a point, but unfortunately the apprehension was not able to be made," Schiavulli said. "I don't think he'll be back."
The lieutenant sent a letter to Bonanza Bus Lines about the crime problem, recommending specific remedies, including the installation of a fence 6 feet to 7 feet high, better lighting, electronic gates and a ticketing system for entry and exit, and a highly visible, roving security guard.
"We have their attention now," Schiavulli said. But even with safeguards, he cautioned, the thefts will not be eliminated.
"The problem was more severe than we knew," said Charles Bradshaw, Bonanza safety manager. Theives "will always take the path of least resistance."
The nearly 16-year-old bus terminal has a lot that can accommodate 250 cars. Customers come from throughout the region to the terminal, off Exit 25A from Route 95 north and Exit 25 from Route 95 south. Bonanza runs a free shuttle downtown to Kennedy Plaza.
In addition to Bonanza and its parent company, Peter Pan Bus Lines, of Springfield, Mass., some tour bus companies use the lot as a staging area.
Given the free parking, people have been in the habit of leaving their cars there for weeks or even months at a time.
A Mercedes-Benz, for example, protected by a canvas cover pulled taut with cords, is in the lot now. Bradshaw said it seems as if the owner intends to leave it there for the winter.
"We get a lot of [stolen car] dropoffs here, too," Bradshaw acknowledged. "So maybe we can put an end to that as well" with the security upgrades.
If a car has the appropriate registration plates on it, or if it has not been reported stolen, there is nothing the police can do even if the auto has been there for two months or more, Schiavulli said.
To bolster security, Bonanza has cut back trees and underbrush by about six feet around the lot, installed a 6-foot-high fence with barbed wire around two-thirds of the lot, added lamps to the poles that carry floodlights, and installed more poles with lights.
Bradshaw would not discuss the surveillance camera and if the company plans to upgrade it.
However, Bonanza has been in negotiation with a company to manage the lot and to have a 24-hour attendant on duty. Bradshaw said yesterday that entry and exit gates and an attendant's booth are expected to be constructed next month.
When the installation is complete, Bonanza will begin offering to escort passengers from their bus to their car at night, although it is only a short distance. Either a minivan or a golf cart would be used, Bradshaw said.
The fees will be less than those to park at the airport in Warwick or the train station in Providence, he said, and will be scaled according to use. There will be one charge for commuter parking, one for overnight, and a discounted charge for people who purchase a bus excursion fare.
"We're hoping for some good changes" regarding service and security, Bradshaw said.
gsmith@projo.com / (401) 277-7334
Posted at 12:32 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
Lead Law Unconstitutional!
A Ruling Favorable for Fairness
The Providence Journal reported Wednesday that Superior Court Judge Stephan J. Fortunato ruled the state’s new Lead Hazard Mitigation Law unconstitutional because the exemption given to owner-occupied two and three family buildings violates landlords' guarantee to equal protection under the state constitution.
Confusingly enough for a layperson unschooled in constitutional law the judge did not restrict the state's right to enforce the law. That sounds to me like the judge left the door open for further court challenge on the constitutionality of enforcing the law. At any rate, expect the law to go back to the legislature for revising.
Get more details below from the article by Brandie Jefferson, Journal Environmental Writer, or in ProJo.com.
Judge rules lead-hazard law violates Constitution
But Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. doesn't strip the state's ability to require that landlords' properties are certified as lead-safe every two years.
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 11, 2006
BY BRANDIE JEFFERSON
Journal Environment Writer
A Superior Court judge has ruled the Lead Hazard Mitigation Law unconstitutional, but did not restrict the state's ability to enforce the law.
Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. said there was "no rational basis" for the exemption of two- and three-unit owner-occupied buildings in the state's new law.
Although the law still stood, Fortunato wrote, "It is the hope of the court that the legislators will promptly revisit" the issue.
The Lead Hazard Mitigation Law, which went into effect in November, requires landlords to take a three-hour lead-hazard awareness class and prove that their properties are up to state Health Department requirements by having them certified as lead-safe every two years, or each time a new tenant moves in.
The law exempts owner-occupied two- and three-unit properties, housing legally restricted to people 62 and older, temporary housing and housing certified as lead-safe or lead-free.
A lawsuit filed by a landlords' association founded by Rep. Joseph A. Trillo, R-Warwick, claims that the two- and three-unit owner-occupied exemption violates landlords' guarantees to equal protection under the state Constitution.
"This is pretty much what we hoped would happen," Trillo said in response to the decision, "that [Fortunato] would rule but wouldn't necessarily try to stop the law."
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 4, less than a month before the law was scheduled to take effect. Although the plaintiffs had asked for an injunction to stop the law from going into effect, Fortunato denied the request and it became law Nov. 1.
Roberta Hazen Aaronson, executive director of the Childhood Lead Action Project, had mixed feelings about the decision.
"The law has been retained for the time being, that's good news," she said, and added "the future is uncertain."
The law was passed in 2002 and initially scheduled to go into effect in June 2004. It was delayed twice while stakeholders such as Hazen Aaronson and Trillo worked toward a compromise.
"We have to figure out what our next step will be," Hazen Aaronson said, speculating that she will likely find herself back in the legislative arena.
Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch's spokesman Michael Healey said Lynch will have to wait to hear from legislators before he takes action. Russell Cole, vice president of RI Lead Technicians Inc. isn't concerned about the decision. Cole is a landlord, teaches the landlord class and does home inspections.
Required lead-safe standards for landlords have been in place since the 1991 Lead Poisoning Prevention Act.
Landlords that are exempt from the new law, he said, "just don't have to prove that they have adhered to prior laws."
Brandie Jefferson has a fellowship with the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting.
bjeffers@projo.com / (401) 277-7133
Posted at 12:27 PM | Politics | Comments (0)
Trickle Down Corruption
Legislative Corruption & the Trickle Down Effect
I remember reading something, somewhere, some years ago, about the results of a study of political corruption: the state ranked number one in PC (political corruption) at that time was Arkansas. Number two? Rhode Island. Well, they produced, Bubba, Bill Clinton: who did we produce: Buddy? No contest! If ya know what I mean.
Now, we have Celona (see article below) on the state level and Delay and Abramoff on the federal level. How does this trickle down to us on the local scene? For one thing it is demoralizing. For another it negates our vote. Politicians selling influence to the highest bidder create tilted playing fields; it’s like fixing a ball game by buying the referees, who are supposed to be fair and impartial. Of course it is always our tax dollars being traded, bought, sold and stolen.
I, by no means, think I have the last word on this; I can barely articulate what I think are the implications of this type of corruption and the effect it has on the populace. I'm sure others could articulate it in more depth, more fully, and in more detail than I ever could.
Like the blues song says,
“It’s a mean ol’ world, child, to try an' live in all by yourself.”Or as the Celts say in Carrickfergus,
“But I’m old, now, and rarely sober, so I’ll sing no more until I get a drink.”Or as good old Robert Zimmerman said, in a line he stole,
“Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings, steal a little and they’ll throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.”And let us not forget that vagabond, Woody Guthrie, who sang,
"As thru this world I travel, I meet lot’s of funny men, some rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen.”
Am I jaded and cynical: you bet.
John Twomey
You can read the ProJo report on Celona’s corruption copied below.
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Submit a blog entry: BlogEntry
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Roger Williams Medical Center indicted in corruption case
Also charged are the hospital's longtime president, its former vice president and the former head of a Providence assisted-living home.
09:25 AM EST on Friday, January 6, 2006
BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Roger Williams Medical Center yesterday became the first nonprofit institution in Rhode Island ever to face federal corruption charges when a grand jury issued a 38-count indictment against the hospital, its president Robert A. Urciuoli and two others.
The institution is charged with conspiracy and mail fraud for allegedly hiring John Celona to use his position as a state senator to champion legislation that benefited Roger Williams, defeat legislation that would harm it, persuade communities to increase ambulance runs to the hospital and pressure health insurers to increase their payments.
The indictment, charging conspiracy and mail fraud, alleges that Roger Williams and its representatives stole the "honest services" of a Rhode Island senator, John A. Celona, by putting him on the payroll to do their bidding at the State House.
Also charged were Peter J. Sangermano Jr., the former president of The Village at Elmhurst assisted-living center; and Frances P. Driscoll, a former Roger Williams vice president.
The indictment alleges that Roger Williams Medical Center and the others hired Celona as a consultant to The Village at Elmhurst, which is partially owned by the hospital, but that Celona's real work was using his public office to influence legislation and perform favors.
The hospital, Urciuoli and Sangermano were each charged with 37 counts -- 1 of conspiracy and 36 of honest services mail fraud. Driscoll was charged with two counts -- one of conspiracy and one of honest services mail fraud.
A conviction for conspiracy carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Mail fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The hospital, if convicted, could be fined up to $500,000 per count and receive five years' probation.
Celona, who pleaded guilty last year to selling his office, is cooperating in the investigation of Roger Williams and his financial dealings with two other companies: the CVS drugstore chain and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.
People familiar with the investigation say the focus will now shift to CVS and Blue Cross.
"This remains an extremely active investigation, one to which my office, along with the FBI and the Rhode Island State Police have devoted very extensive resources," said U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente. "We are continuing to move forward on a number of fronts."
Corrente said that he is aware of other cases where nonprofits have been charged, but none in Rhode Island.
The directors of Roger Williams Medical Center said in a statement that they were "shocked and deeply disturbed" by the hospital's indictment.
"This decision has threatened a respected 128-year-old institution that employs more than 1,400 people and provides millions of dollars of free care annually to Rhode Islanders who can't afford to pay for care," the hospital's statement said. "Hundreds of nurses, doctors and other dedicated caregivers devote themselves to caring for patients on a daily basis at Roger Williams. Their livelihood is now at risk."
Urciuoli's lawyer, Robert G. Flanders Jr., attacked the indictment as "a one-sided baloney sandwich, served up by John Celona. This is a conspiracy of one."
Urciuoli, 58, who has served as president of Roger Williams since 1988, said in a statement: "I have spent my entire career fighting to advance what I know to be one of the best hospitals in the region. Now, to see it put at risk for no apparent reason, really saddens me."
At a glance
Roger Williams Medical Center
Founded in 1878
Located at 825 Chalkstone Ave., Providence
Inpatient and outpatient services, and long-term care at The Village at Elmhurst and Elmhurst Extended Care
Affiliated with Brown University School of Medicine and Boston University School of Medicine
Unique to Rhode Island -- the state's only bone-marrow transplant unit, at The Adele R. Decof Cancer Center, and the only Center for Stem Cell Biology
* 1,396 employees
* 220 licensed beds
* In 2004, the emergency department logged 24,729 patients and 8,556 admissions to the hospital
* Total patient revenue in 2004 was $117.9 million
* Uncompensated care was $10 million in 2004
Source: Hospital Association of Rhode Island 2005 report and Roger Williams Medical Center Web site
The board at Roger Williams placed Urciuoli on paid leave last month. He earned $419,000 in 2002, the most recent year for which figures were available.
Sangermano was "disappointed" by the indictment and "denies engaging in any criminal conduct," said a statement issued by his lawyer, Thomas G. Briody. Sangermano and Roger Williams sold The Village at Elmhurst about a year ago to Benchmark Assisted Living.
Driscoll, who left Roger Williams in 2000, said through her lawyer, Kevin J. Bristow, said that she will assert "her factual innocence to these allegations."
No date has yet been set for the defendants' arraignment.
THE 30-PAGE indictment charges that the defendants conspired to hire Celona as a consultant in 1998, and that the senator was paid more than $260,000 over the next six years "to cause him to use his influence, power and authority as a state senator to benefit the political and financial interests" of Roger Williams.
Corrente said that the theft-of-honest-services law presumes that citizens "have the right to the honest services of their public officials. Everybody should be on a level playing field. Nobody should have a special advantage."
As part of the alleged conspiracy, the indictment says, the hospital disguised the true nature of Celona's work and deceived the state Ethics Commission when it sought an advisory opinion regarding the senator.
The hospital has maintained that Celona, a longtime North Providence politician, was hired to tap his extensive contacts among the elderly to recruit residents to The Village at Elmhurst.
Asked yesterday if Celona did any work for the assisted-living facility, Corrente replied, "Some." Corrente added that "a large part" of Celona's work was for Roger Williams.
According to the indictment, Celona asked Urciuoli for a job in August 1997, after the senator supported the hospital in a heated State House battle over approving a merger with Columbia/HCA.
The indictment chronicles a litany of actions that Celona allegedly performed at the direction of Urciuoli, Sangermano or Driscoll, from seeking to influence legislation to using his political muscle and powers of persuasion.
At Urciuoli's direction, the indictment charges, Celona pressured Blue Cross and UnitedHealthcare to increase their insurance reimbursements to Roger Williams.
After a 2001 meeting with a Blue Cross executive, the indictment says, Celona e-mailed Urciuoli: "I hope I didn't lay it on [the executive] too much yesterday. But it was done in a systematic fashion in order to get them 'in line' for us. Needless to say, I'll keep up the pressure."
Urciuoli allegedly responded that the Blue Cross executive "deserved to get cranked around."
After a 2003 meeting with a UnitedHealthcare representative, Celona wrote Urciuoli that someone from United had called the senator "to up the United figure. Did he contact you and do you want me to keep pressing."
Four days later, Urciuoli reported to the hospital's finance committee that a United executive had called him and agreed to a 25-percent increase for one year.
The indictment alleges that when Roger Williams was seeking a merger with a for-profit corporation, Urciuoli and Driscoll informed Celona that they opposed a Senate bill prohibiting hospital officials from serving on the board of a converted hospital.
Celona subsequently faxed Driscoll a note saying that he was making calls to "kill the bill in committee."
The indictment also accuses Urciuoli and Driscoll of telling Celona to oppose a 1999 bill creating a Rhode Island Cancer Council, to coordinate research and treatment, because it could hurt hospital finances and because they expected it would be led by a former Roger Williams doctor for whom they "felt animosity."
Driscoll subsequently directed Celona to threaten an unidentified state representative, the indictment says, "and advise her that she would suffer negative political ramifications if she supported the Cancer Council."
The legislator "agreed to do nothing to support the bill," Celona later wrote Driscoll. The indictment says that Celona also arranged for himself and Driscoll to have lunch with the lawmaker to lobby against the Cancer Council.
Urciuoli and Driscoll were also accused of directing Celona to attempt to influence municipalities to increase ambulance runs to Roger Williams.
According to the indictment, Urciuoli told Driscoll and others that ambulance runs were a source of revenue, but that the hospital was not getting its "fair share" from certain communities. Urciuoli also allegedly advised that he was "going to have Celona take care of the rescue run problem politically."
Celona met with local officials regarding ambulance runs, the indictment says.
Driscoll was charged with directing Celona to amend legislation to reimburse Roger Williams for a bone-marrow donation program. She was also accused of directing Celona to work to kill a bill to require nonprofit corporations in Providence to make payments in lieu of taxes.
In 2000, the indictment says, Driscoll directed Celona to oppose a proposed merger between Lifespan and Care New England, "because the merger could have an adverse financial impact" on Roger Williams.
In 1998, Driscoll and Sangermano allegedly directed Celona to work against a bill prohibiting health facilities, including The Village at Elmhurst, from offering care for Alzheimer's disease.
Sangermano was also accused of asking Celona to work behind the scenes to extend a moratorium on new nursing-home beds in Rhode Island, to help The Village at Elmhurst's finances.
LAWYERS FOR Roger Williams had negotiated intensively with federal prosecutors to strike a deal that would have avoided the hospital's indictment.
They argued that the hospital made every effort to ensure that Celona's hiring was proper, including seeking an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission. And when a former federal prosecutor in 1998 conducted an internal review of various allegations against Urciuoli, he found "no basis for concluding that the [Celona] contract was illegal or unethical."
The lawyer, F. Dennis Saylor IV, is now a federal judge in Worcester -- and is now a potential defense witness, lawyers for the hospital have said.
In November, prosecutors offered the hospital a deferred prosecution agreement to avoid indictment. Under the agreement, the hospital would have admitted criminal wrongdoing and cooperated with the investigation, paid a fine, and implemented internal reforms.
But talks about a deal that would have averted yesterday's indictment collapsed this week, according to people familiar with the situation.
In 1998 -- the year that Celona was hired -- Urciuoli survived despite an internal review that concluded he had spent thousands in hospital funds on family dinners, golf trips and stays in luxurious hotels.
A Sunday Journal story detailing those expenses, and the board's decision to keep Urciuoli, has provoked outrage and prompted Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty to call for legislation imposing a strict code of ethics on directors of Rhode Island hospitals.
Disclosures about the largess of another health-care executive, former Blue Cross President Ronald A. Battista, surfaced in the months after The Journal first began reporting on Celona's health-care dealings.
Battista, whose former company's dealings with Celona will also come under grand-jury scrutiny this year, resigned under fire in 2004, amid public outrage over his extravagant lifestyle.
Urciuoli has not been seen around Roger Williams Medical Center since the hospital put him on paid leave last month. When the indictment came down yesterday, he was with his family in Florida. Last summer, his wife bought a house on a golf course, the Country Club at Mirasol, in Palm Beach Gardens, for $939,000, according to Florida land records.
The house is just down the street from a $545,000 condo purchased two years ago by the former Rhode Island Blue Cross chief, Ron Battista.
mstanton@projo.com / (401) 277-7724
READ the full text of the federal grand jury's indictment against Roger Williams Medical Center and three others, at:
http://projo.com/rwuindict.pdf
Posted at 11:26 PM | Politics | Comments (0)
Weekly Poetry Feature
Going for the over/under
When I love a thing
I really love with gusto-–
G’bye, guy.
I pour out of a ladle:
the full, rich measure of my large devotion
kills me, ladyfinger.
My dewlap waggles
and tickles your downy hairs.
I entertain you with desperation―-
enter you with a destination in mind.
An hunger for an exit wound.
To fill up the helm with gasoline.
Who resides within our residence
―a home out of all determination―
destroyer of melt, anchor of flame,
expose of sultry ridicule.
You guessed the ultimate frivolity:
jeremiad and querulous for the occasion.
Friends don’t let laughs die without enemies.
A song in a paper bag next to a bottle―-reaching
out with quash to catch rain in your mouth,
you lent out the luck you could no longer afford.
A boiler takes kerosene to the ultimate.
G’bye, guy―
I really love with gusto
when I love a thing.
Sparse and Redeye blink washes
of ambulance
giving off disdain to interns
riddled with guilt,
the guilt of defeated nations,
who furtively chew their cheeks and spit blood.
I’ve already moved on to histrionics―paginate my immense soul.
Too much of these good things leave us asking for more.
But I’ve revealed too much already, I’m afraid.
Posted at 10:01 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Pet Lover's Alert!!!!
Contaminated Dog & Cat food sold in Rhode Island
Be aware that contaminated pet food was sold and recalled. The food causes serious liver damage and the animal deaths are expected to rise into the hundreds.
I’ve been following the case for a week and I just now found the names of the products and verified that they are sold in Rhode Island.
Below is the list of contaminated products and a link to the MSNBC story on which I found the information.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10774579/
PRODUCT RECALL Contaminated pet food
Diamond Pet Foods has recalled 19 brands of dog and cat food for being contaminated with aflatoxin, a naturally occurring toxic chemical by-product from the growth of the fungus Aspergillus flavus, on corn and other crops.
• How to contact Diamond Pet Foods
• Recalled products
• States where contaminated food was sold
• Diamond Pet Food products *NOT* recalled
Diamond Low Fat Dog Food
Diamond Hi-Energy Dog Food
Diamond Maintenance Dog Food
Diamond Performance Dog Food
Diamond Premium Adult Dog Food
Diamond Puppy Food
Diamond Maintenance Cat Food
Diamond Professional Cat Food
Country Value Puppy
Country Value Adult Dog
Country Value High Energy Dog
Country Value Adult Cat Food
Professional Chicken & Rice Senior Dog Food
Professional Reduced Fat Chicken & Rice Dog Food
Professional Adult Dog Food
Professional Large-Breed Puppy Food
Professional Puppy Food
Professional Reduced Fat Cat Food
Professional Adult Cat Food
See the story for exact dates of contaminated food and the phone of the manufacturer.
Consult your vet immediately if you susupect your pet ingested the contaminated food.
JT
Posted at 06:03 PM | Community | Comments (0)
Tax Education
Mayor sends Letter to Gov!
Mayor David N. Cicilline again addressed the relationship between education costs and property taxes to Governor Carceri, the Providence Journal reported.
The Journal quoted a letter Mayor Cicilline wrote to the Governor: "I am asking that, in your budget recommendations, you put an immediate halt to the recent trend of shifting a greater percentage of school costs to local property taxpayers
A newly released study from Education Week gave our state a D in funding public schools. RI was ranked 5th from the bottom.
Interestingly enough RI ranks among the tops for spending per pupil, a fact that the Governor’s response team was quick to jump on: “"spends with the best but often performs with the worst," is what Jeff Neal said, according to the article. Seems that our state greatly underperforms on the nationwide test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
This debate has been ongoing for some time with both sides making compelling arguments for their point of view. Providence does get a large chunk of state spending for schools and our schools do perform poorly statewide.
The ProJo article below, Mayor to governor: Property taxes cannot support schools mentions more of the ideas being tossed around.
JT
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Mayor to governor: Property taxes cannot support schools
Mayor David N. Cicilline urges "an immediate halt to the recent trend of shifting a greater percentage of school costs to local property taxpayers."
01:00 AM EST on Friday, January 6, 2006
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday urged Governor Carcieri to stop what he called the recent trend of relying on property taxes to pay for public education.
Cicilline cited the latest study from Education Week, which gave Rhode Island a D for failing to adequately pay for its public schools. Only four states -- Vermont, Montana, Idaho and North Dakota -- received grades lower than Rhode Island's in Ed Week's annual report, Quality Counts. New Hampshire also received a D.
Although Rhode Island ranks among the highest in per-pupil spending, at $10,349 per student in 2003, Ed Week gives it poor marks for resource equity because it has no statewide financing formula for education.
"I am asking that, in your budget recommendations, you put an immediate halt to the recent trend of shifting a greater percentage of school costs to local property taxpayers," Cicilline wrote in a letter to Carcieri yesterday.
The mayor quoted state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, who said that "the city is kicking in an increasing share each year through raising property taxes, and the kids are needier every year."
Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal countered Cicilline's comments by saying that Rhode Island "spends with the best but often performs with the worst," referring to the state's typically lackluster performance on a nationwide test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
"Our per-pupil spending is among the highest in the country, and Providence gets a heavy share of the state school funding," Neal said.
This year, he said, the city will benefit from the sale of the Dunkin' Donuts Center, which will provide about $28 million that the city could spend on education.
Cicilline also asked that Carcieri help bring about a far and equitable formula to finance public education. In March 2004, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, a public policy group, announced a plan to create a state property tax to pay for public education. RIPEC's proposal also called for establishing a minimum per-pupil spending level, which would even out financing disparities between rich and poor districts.
Although the legislature created a joint committee to study the issue in the spring 2004, the idea languished until recently. Now, the committee is preparing to seek bids to hire an expert to determine what an adequate education might cost.
ProJo.com
Posted at 08:38 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
Winter Wonderland!
The Beauty of Winter
Snow on Branches with Colors
JT
Posted at 08:16 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Pulling for Bad News!
When the Good are Bad and the Bad are Good
When I was just a wee little boy and crazy over college basketball and NBA stars, Marvin Barnes was one of my favorites because his nickname was so cool: Bad News Barnes. Little did I know, (not in fact till the last few years, as I followed his story) that the nickname had a double meaning; he was bad news for his opponents, but he was also bad news for himself, his family, and his teammates. Many consider his talent so great that he should have been one of the 50 Best Players in NBA history. But the "Thug Life" got in Mr. Barnes way. His is a cautionary tale of a fall from grace and repeated, valiant attempts at redemption: it is a very human story.
Mr. Barnes grew up in South Providence and starred at Providence College, leading his team to the Final Four. As a pro he played in the nascent ABA and then the NBA. His career was tumultuous due to drug use. He used and sold drugs, went to prison and at one low point ended up homeless on the streets of San Diego.
He lives back in South Providence now and runs the Rebound organization and Men to Men, organizations trying to reach out to Providence youth in an attempt to steer them from the “thug life” so many find attractive. Mr. Barnes knows the syndrome from the inside out. Good for him. I’m pulling for him to conquer his demons and continue his good work.
I referenced material from the Boston Globe’s excellent article, Good news, Bad news, by the estimable Stan Grossfeld, which you can read below in its entirety. You’ll find it a fascinating story and a good read but not an easy read.
Good news, bad news
Barnes in ongoing struggle to overcome checkered past
By Stan Grossfeld, Globe Staff | January 6, 2006
PROVIDENCE -- By the time Marvin ''Bad News" Barnes, the flashy two-time All-American at Providence College and former American Basketball Association All-Star, made it to the Celtics in 1978, he was seeing red. Not Auerbach.
Blood.
''I remember this one game, I was sitting at the end of the bench," he recalled. ''I had a towel over my head and I was snorting coke and my nose was bleeding. Don Chaney and Nate Archibald moved all the way up to the front and I had four or five seats between me and the next player. I was snorting coke and it was tearing my membranes up. Snorting it and blowing my nose. It was like my brains were coming out in the towel and I couldn't stop snorting it anyway. It was terrible, man. I was addicted."
Archibald, the former star point guard, does not remember the incident, but says the flamboyant Barnes was once a ''great player. He had all the talent and ability in the world, then he got caught up in the hype."
Barnes bounced around the NBA, playing on four teams from 1976-80, averaging just 9.2 points. His life was spiraling out of control because of drugs, alcohol, and all-night partying. He went from nothing but net to simply nothing at age 28, when he was out of the NBA forever.
''I have never seen a player lose so much talent so fast," Rod Thorn, president of the New Jersey Nets, said at the time.
''My body just deteriorated," said Barnes. After an unsuccessful comeback attempt in Italy and the Continental Basketball Association, things got worse. Much worse.
Barnes moved in and out of prison for seven years (three stints) and was homeless in San Diego for five years, doing drugs, drinking, pimping, and robbing to pay for his habit. Barnes makes no excuses. ''The talent I wasted," he confessed. ''Drugs destroyed my life."
But three years ago, ''Bad News" got some good news.
After treatment in 19 rehab programs and a religious reawakening, he started reaching out to troubled youth in the Providence neighborhood where he grew up. As founder and president of The Rebound Foundation -- a nonprofit, community-centered organization that provides youth substance abuse and education talks, legal assistance, and mentoring -- he's been spreading the light of hope into the shadows of trouble.
Barnes, 53, has done that by buying sneakers for kids, setting up basketball camps, and trying to help stop violence in Rhode Island.
''I want to make a difference," he said.
Kevin Stacom, a former Providence College teammate and ex-Celtic, is on the board of directors of The Rebound Foundation. ''Marvin is brutally honest, he's a great speaker, and the kids pick up that," Stacom said.
But Barnes's past still seems to haunt him. On the afternoon of Dec. 22, police arrested Barnes at his Warwick address for domestic disorderly conduct. Last Friday, Barnes pleaded not guilty in Kent County District Court in West Warwick.
According to Warwick police, officers responded to a report of a home invasion and found Barnes naked on the balcony. Police observed Barnes dragging a woman, who, police said, was mouthing, ''Please help me," back into the residence. Police said Barnes admitted he had been drinking that day and arguing with the woman, whom he identified as a friend. Barnes said the incident was ''a misunderstanding."
Police said they found no intruders, no drugs, and no outward signs of violence. In a telephone interview, the woman said Barnes is not a batterer. ''He's not like that at all."
A hearing was set for Jan. 16 on the disorderly charge, which is a misdemeanor and carries no jail time.
Police said Barnes has not been arrested since 1982. But Warwick police officer Stephen A. Lombardi wrote in his report that Barnes admitted that he used cocaine ''a few days ago."
Barnes said, ''That didn't happen. I think that cop got everything misinterpreted. I've been clean 2-3 years."
Barnes said he will wait until his name is ''squeaky clean" before working with kids again. He said he is currently attending a 12-step program.
''I'm putting everything off until this is all resolved," he said. ''I never claimed to be perfect. I'm human. People make mistakes. The demons are still out there in all shapes and forms.
''Things get off-track and you just regroup. This is nothing. I just want to help kids. It's not about Marvin Barnes, it's about helping kids."
Message to deliver
Barnes, a grandfather, is in remarkably good shape for his age, having survived liver problems associated with alcoholism. He works out regularly at the local YMCA, but never plays basketball. At 6 feet 9 inches, the bald man with the flashy smile is impossible to miss in the neighborhood. He patrols the city in an SUV, his old ABA Spirits of St. Louis jersey with just ''Marvin" on it in the back seat. He shows it to kids and uses it in fund-raising pitches. Following him around for two days in November, it seems as if he is running for mayor.
Gang members wave at him as he drives by. Cops stop him to shake his hand. Chefs come out of kitchens, their smiles as big as their hats. Girls who stand barely above his belt buckle reach up to hug him and thank him for helping their brothers. One teenage girl says he paid for a plane ticket so her brother could get a baseball tryout.
Surrounded by the early darkness, when South Providence looks gray and raw, Barnes bumps into Josh Beeman on the street. Beeman, 24, is a boxer who served time for armed robbery. He credits Barnes for helping him fight his way out of trouble.
''He's a great man," said Beeman, a bandage on the bridge of his nose. ''His foundation helped me out when I needed money. He's a great motivator. When I needed someone, he was there. I respect him because I know all the troubles he's been through and he overcame that. Everything he does is pure from the heart."
At his ''Men to Men" program held after high school at the innovative Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in South Providence, a dozen teenage students, some wearing hooded sweat shirts, others wearing attitude, are silent as Barnes tells them not to repeat his mistakes.
''I've been to prison three times," said Barnes, citing his incarcerations for drug trafficking, theft, and the parole violation for carrying a handgun.
Then Barnes shows them a documentary of a black man being stabbed 67 times by a white inmate. It is a gruesome scene, but Barnes rewinds the tape and shows it again. The boys want to go home.
Barnes, like a preacher nearing the end of his sermon, raises his voice.
''Life is no dress rehearsal," he says. ''You get one shot and it's over. You can make a silly decision in five seconds and throw your life away."
Trouble on horizon
Marvin Barnes always believed he would die young in a hail of bullets.
''My father was an alcoholic," he recalled. ''He beat my mother, he beat me. When I was 16, I got my 22-[caliber gun] out and said, 'You ain't gonna beat me no more. You got your gun, I got mine. Draw.' "
Barnes's mother jumped in the middle to keep the peace. When he first signed his ABA contract in 1974, he bought her a house in the neighborhood. She still lives there.
Jim Adams, Barnes's coach at Central High School, remembers Barnes as ''a natural athlete. He didn't know how to play, but he was easy to coach."
Central went undefeated and won back-to-back state championships in 1968 and '69 with Barnes at center.
''He wasn't afraid to work," said Adams, who now helps Barnes mentor kids.
At Providence, Barnes led the Friars to the Final Four in 1973, and led the nation in rebounding the following season (18.7 per game). He still holds team records for points (52), rebounds (34), and blocks (12) in a game.
But his troubles often haunted him.
In 1972, he was charged with assault after allegedly hitting teammate Larry Ketvirtis with a tire iron. Barnes said he punched Ketvirtis, a backup center, after he was elbowed in the mouth during a scrimmage. Barnes said that when Ketvirtis appeared unhurt, he left the court and returned with the tire iron in case there was further ''discussion."
''I never used the tire iron," he said.
But in a bizarre turn in court in 1974, Barnes pleaded guilty, but proclaimed his innocence in a statement. He says he only agreed to a plea bargain because that would guarantee he would be placed on probation (he received a suspended one-year prison sentence and three years' probation). It also cleared the way for a lucrative bidding war for his services between the Philadelphia 76ers and the fledgling American Basketball Association.
Barnes, who had been selected by the 76ers with the No. 2 pick in the April NBA Draft behind Bill Walton, opted to shun the NBA and sign with St. Louis for a reported $2.2 million.
Away from home for the first time, he became a big-time drug trafficker and user, despite having tremendous success on the court. Barnes was named rookie of the year in 1975, beating out Moses Malone. He averaged 24.1 points in his first two seasons and was a rare combination of power forward, shot blocker, and rebounder. The Spirits tolerated his strange behavior; on one occasion in 1974, he had expressed dissatisfaction with his contract by suddenly leaving the team -- he surfaced a few days later at a pool tournament in Dayton, Ohio.
When the ABA folded in 1976, Barnes seemed to fold with it. He carried loaded pistols into NBA locker rooms, routinely missed practices and planes, and was arrested in 1977 for carrying a gun in his luggage, a parole violation from his earlier assault conviction. Former Spirits and then-Detroit Pistons teammate M.L. Carr bailed him out. Barnes went from the Pistons to prison in Rhode Island and served five months of a year's sentence.
Upon release, he left in a Rolls-Royce.
'I ruined my own life'
Barnes estimates he spent ''millions up my nose," noting he was using cocaine before games, even at halftime. ''What I spent, and what I could've earned, you can't even estimate," he lamented. ''It was my attitude and thinking. I was a gangster, a hustler, a pimp. I dealt with drug dealers and traffickers and I never really mingled with the other players. I was selfish, I wanted to be a thug. I ruined my own life; the league never put penalties on me. I did it to myself."
Stacom, who replaced Barnes on the Celtics in 1979, remembers what could have been. ''He had strength and timing," Stacom said. ''He was not selfish. He could beat anybody with his speed and quickness. He was the quintessential power forward. There's nobody like him now in the NBA. The closest to him was Karl Malone. You couldn't help but like him."
But Barnes was hiding something behind that effervescent personality. ''You could tell something was wrong," remembered Stacom, who says he was clueless back then about drug use. ''Guys were doing coke but I wasn't aware of it for a long time. I thought they were sniffling and had the longest colds in history."
Today, Barnes sees the NBA as troubled.
''Ron Artest wants to be the bad guy, the tough guy, the guy who didn't conform to the white establishment," Barnes contended. ''It's not worth it, but you've got to have somebody who went through it go back and tell these guys that. Not somebody who never challenged the establishment. You can't have a Dr. J [Julius Erving] talk to a Ron Artest. What's the point? You're an apple pie-and-ice cream guy talking to a thug. He ain't gonna listen to you. It ain't gonna register.
''You've got a lot of players that are selfish in the NBA, that forgot their roots and don't know how to deal with their success. When I got successful, I would sabotage myself."
In the NBA, Barnes played for Detroit, Buffalo, Boston, and San Diego.
''When I got to the Celtics, I was a shell of myself," he admitted. ''I was doing drugs all night long. I was running the streets. I wasn't the real Marvin Barnes. When I was playing with the Celtics, I was at my high point in using. I was like a drug addict."
And not even the championship banners and the retired numbers of Celtics greats in the rafters of the Garden could inspire Barnes to prevent self-destructing.
''Growing up, I dreamed of playing for the Boston Celtics," he acknowledged. ''But a drug addict don't give a damn about Celtic Pride, Bill Russell, or Red Auerbach. I was trying to get high. Period. I didn't care about looking up into the rafters. It didn't mean nothing to me. There was no cocaine in those rafters. Drugs warp your thinking. I wanted to be a thug, I wanted to be the bad guy, and that's what happens when you want to be the bad guy."
Barnes finished his NBA career as a clipped Clipper after 20 games in 1980.
He went from expensive threads to retreads out on the West Coast. He wound up homeless.
''I lived on the streets of San Diego, in cars and abandoned buildings," he said. ''It was warm. I robbed, I stole."
Barnes said he used to rob cash registers and tell the merchant his name and where he was headed. ''I wanted to get caught," he admitted.
Now he wants to put to rest the notion that his life was cool.
''I should be one of the 50 greatest players in the NBA, no doubt," he said. ''I should be worth $100 million-$200 million, easy. I don't glamorize how dumb and stupid and ridiculous it was. It made no sense at all. It'll haunt me the rest of my life.
''I'll never know how good I could've been."
http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/mens_basketball/articles/2006/01/06/good_news_bad_news/
Posted at 03:02 PM | Community | Comments (0)
Section 8 v Market Rate
Housing Crunch — Who’s getting crunched?
An interesting conflict of interest is in the process of arising in South Providence, as reported in the Providence Journal in their article by Ms. Davis, Tenants want to maintain homes under Section 8.
The conflict has arisen because the developer wishes to exercise her right to terminate her HUD contract when the 20 year time limit is up. Under these contracts developers were guaranteed favorable financing and they in turn were obligated to provide subsidized housing for 20 years.
The tenants would all be eligible for Section 8 vouchers if the units were converted.
But now that the obligatory 20 years are up the tenants and subsidized housing advocates wish to force the owner to maintain the units as subsidized housing instead of letting her exercise her rights to convert the units to market rates.
Someone even suggested taking the units by Eminent Domain—doesn’t that just make you shudder.
What good is a contract if both parties aren’t obligated to honor said contract?
It reinforces my philosophy of not ever doing business with the government, because it seems that if you do, you forfeit quite a few rights.
The article quoted one tenant, who has lived there for 13 years, who had to use an interpreter to speak to the ProJo reporter, who said that with what Section 8 paid she should live in a penthouse. That’s puzzling to me.
We do have a housing crunch and we do need a solution. But the government also needs to honor its contracts. If the government's side of a contract can be negated, leaving the developer having fulfilled their obligations but without rights, what developer in their right mind would enter into a future, similar program to provide subsidized housing?
I’ve heard people in Mt. Hope express the fervent wish that the units between Doyle and Pleasant Streets would go to market rates since they were probably built under similar circumstances. Their management’s inability to control the crime emanating from there has given the units a bad name. Rest assured there will be a battle royale there if and when that developer wishes to exercise their contract.
The cost of housing versus income in Rhode Island is alarming and growing worse, and still taxes rise, driving up housing costs even more.
John Twomey
Read the Projo article, Tenants want to maintain homes under Section 8,
below.
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Tenants want to maintain homes under Section 8
01:00 AM EST on Friday, January 6, 2006
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- After living for 17 years in the federally subsidized Barbara Jordan I apartment development, Sonia N. Rodriguez is afraid that she will have to leave if the landlord opts out of the affordable-housing program and leases the apartments at market rates.
Rodriguez and other members of the Barbara Jordan I Tenants Association are working with a tenants-rights advocacy group to prevent the 193-unit Section 8 apartments from losing the federal subsidies.
At a news conference yesterday, members of the Rhode Island HUD Tenant Project explained that they fear that the Barbara Jordan I Apartments -- which consists of one-, two- and three-family scattered-site housing in South Providence -- could be converted into market-rate housing, said Alex Moore, project coordinator.
If the conversion took place, residents would be eligible to receive Section 8 vouchers, which would enable them to to shop for affordable, private housing. But tenants say that vouchers are not the solution, given the state's housing crisis.
The Barbara Jordan I project was one of many developments nationwide that used mainly public financing to pay for affordable housing in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. Under 20-year contracts signed by private developers and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the developers were obligated to keep the units as Section 8 housing, which requires qualified tenants to pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent.
After the contract expires, however, the developer is allowed to decide whether to remain in the subsidized program or opt out.
The contract for the Barbara Jordan I Apartments expires in August, Moore said, and tenants have reason to believe that principal owner Katrina Griffin, of SCHS Associates, plans to opt out of the program. She is expected to decide in April.
Griffin -- the daughter of the late Lloyd Griffin, developer of the project -- sent a letter to tenants in August giving them a one-year notice of her intent to terminate her contract with HUD, as is required under federal law.
However, advocates note, Griffin did not the tenants or Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Financing Corporation a two-year notice of contract termination, which state law requires.
Moore said the state should enforce its law on the two-year notice and consider taking the property by eminent domain or amend the law to require private owners to offer to sell the property to the tenants, Rhode Island Housing or a nonprofit organization.
Tenants and advocates want to lobby politicians and state and federal housing officials to ensure that the development does not abandon its mission to provide affordable housing.
"What I want is . . . for the landlord to sign the contract [with HUD], have a nonprofit buy it and give us the maintenance that we have not had for many years," said Mayra Carrasco, who has lived in the development for more than 13 years. Carrasco spoke to the audience with help from a Spanish interpreter. "We don't want vouchers. . . . With the way things are going, one day [President Bush] is going to take the vouchers away, and we'll be living on the street."
As a mother who raised her children in the development, Carrasco said she has pledged to fight on behalf of other single mothers who need affordable housing.
Furthermore, Carrasco said, "We are living there and the houses are not being taken care of. For the high rent that Section 8 has been paying, we should be living in a penthouse."
City Councilwoman Balbina Young said the Barbara Jordan I Apartments "have been problematic since its inception."
Young was joined behind the podium by Representatives Joseph Almeida and Grace Diaz, both Providence Democrats, and Noreen Shawcross, director of the state Office of Housing and Community Development.
Almeida vowed that legislators would do what they could to ensure that the development remained affordable to low-income residents.
"We've got enough problems on the South Side. . . . Don't take away our homes," he said.
Moore said his group and Almeida planned to meet with officials from the Rhode Island Housing next week.
Chris Barnett, spokesman for Rhode Island Housing, said the development could be saved from going market rate.
He said his agency has been "rescuing apartments like Barbara Jordan."
Under a program called Preservation, the agency has offered favorable financing to owners in exchange for a commitment that the property would be used only for affordable housing for the next 40 years.
"We are confident that the residents will not lose their homes," Barnett said, noting that thousands of units have been rescued statewide in the last few years. Among them are 294 units at Rumford Towers in East Providence.
http://www.projo.com/metro/content/projo_20060106_pjord6.1d2065e7.html
Posted at 03:01 PM | Issues | Comments (3)
Mugging for New Year's!
Catching up on the Local
Lot's of interesting news lately that has or will impact us locally here in Mt. Hope: housing, corruption, City Council action, education & taxes, crime.
One item of interest is the Pro Jo article a few days ago about the City's spate of violence over the New years weekend. Why it was only reported days after the fact, you'll have to ask Pro Jo.
Of local interest is the person who was attacked from behind by two armed assailants, just off of Camp Street, around 11 pm last Thursday and ended up in Miriam Hospital with serious head wounds.
The article can be read below.
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New Year's weekend brings violence
Four stabbings and a shooting occurred Thursday through Saturday.
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- One man was shot and four others were stabbed in separate incidents as part of a violent outburst in the city over the long holiday weekend.
The incidents were less serious than three others that have been widely reported, including what the police said were two homicides early Thursday morning and Friday night and a stabbing late Friday night that left a man in critical condition.
The outburst began Thursday with the shooting death of Tonea "Nutt" Sims, who died at about 1:30 a.m. after he was shot repeatedly while sitting in the kitchen of a house in South Providence.
At about 11 p.m. Thursday, the police went to Miriam Hospital, where Santana Vicente, 24, of 61 Wendell St., in the West End, was being treated for what a doctor described as serious but non-life-threatening head wounds.
Vicente told the police that he was attacked from behind as he walked on a side street in Mount Hope, near Camp Street. The attacker hit him on the head with a metallic object and a second assailant stabbed him in the head with a metallic object, he said.
The victim managed to get away after wrestling with his attackers and called his brother, who drove him to the hospital. Vicente suffered five or six deep scalp cuts, according to the police.
The victim said his attackers said nothing and took nothing from him.
The next morning, shortly before 5 a.m. Friday, Robert Ruotolo, 51, whose home address was not disclosed, met the police at Branch Avenue and Charles Street. He said someone had stabbed him with a screwdriver as he was lying on a couch.
Ruotolo, whose head was bloody and who had puncture marks on his arms, was treated at Rhode Island Hospital, according to the police.
At about 5:30 a.m. Friday, the police went to 58 Dora St., Silver Lake, for a report of a shooting. Wendell Gwinn, 39, of that address, said that as he was walking on Whitehall Street near his house, a car drove by, he heard some popping noises and he suffered a leg wound. He was treated at Rhode Island Hospital.
Later Friday, at about 10:15 p.m., Johnny Jiminez, 32, of 17 Burnett St., Elmwood, was found shot to death on Cornwall Street in the North End. Detectives consider it the city's 22nd homicide of 2005.
About 45 minutes later, Pedro Natareno, 20, of 78 Lawn St., Mt. Pleasant, fell to the street at Sears and Rangeley avenues, Mount Pleasant, stabbed in the chest.
The police said yesterday that Natareno remains in critical condition after surgery, and that he very nearly became Providence's 23rd homicide of the year.
At the scene, the police quickly arrested David Contreras, 20, of 46 Sears Ave., who was standing nearby wearing a blood-stained white hooded sweatshirt, and charged him with assault with a dangerous weapon.
Contreras was arraigned yesterday in District Court and he entered no plea on the felony charge. Chief Judge Albert E. DeRobbio set cash bail at $50,000. Contreras also was arraigned on a charge of violating a suspended sentence in a previous District Court drug case, and DeRobbio ordered him held without bail on that count pending a hearing Jan. 17.
Shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday, Donald W. Turmel, 47, of 162 Broad St., at Crossroads Rhode Island, told the police that two men had accosted him and demanded money as he stood in front of the Crossroads building. One of the men stabbed him in his left side with a pair of scissors, he said.
When officers arrived, the scissors were still embedded in Turmel. He was treated at Rhode Island Hospital.
In another stabbing that morning, the police said Antonio Gomes, 44, of 396 Pawtucket Ave., Pawtucket, complained that his girlfriend stuck him in the chest with a steak knife at her apartment in Washington Park after he refused to have sex with her.
Dionne Smith, 38, of 145 Babcock St., was charged with felony domestic assault and was arraigned in District Court yesterday. An assistant public defender representing Smith said she claims self-defense.
Officers were dispatched to her apartment at about 7:30 a.m., where they learned that an argument began in the bedroom and moved into the kitchen, where Smith allegedly knifed Gomes.
In another violent incident, which was neither a shooting nor a stabbing, Christopher Dyment, a 26-year-old professional hockey player for the Providence Bruins, suffered a serious eye injury in a fight on the East Side early New Year's Day.
gsmith@projo.com / 401-277-7334
http://www.projo.com/
Posted at 12:40 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
And the Winners are . . . !
The 2005 Mt. Hope Middle Finger Awards
Thanks for the giggles from your humorous votes and funny contributions and absurdist jokes. I got some laughs. And that is what it's all about.
Of course it's just for laughs, abusrdist humour, a joke, a farce. There is no such award, no nominees, no receipients, no statuette.
But it's an interesting idea, the Middle Finger Award. I'd be proud to accept one. Can't you just picture the statuette and it's being held proudly aloft by a jubilant receipient.
But wait, isn't that award the most given and most received award in the country, given and recieved countless times daily. This could be fine grist for the comdey mill: it's near Seinfeldian in nature; I can almost hear that music rising . . ..
Posted at 11:01 AM | Community | Comments (0)
Mt. Hope Snow Poll
Again the City reacted to a snow situation. Were you impressed or underwhelmed?
On my street the plows came early and often, which I see as an improvement, though there was little snow to remove.
On Camp Street, I shoveled a sidewalk early, there was only an inch and a half of accumulation, but then the snow plows came at high velocity and threw up on the sidewalk about 5 inches of heavy, wet snow, garbage and leaves, which I then had to remove a 2nd time.
Why can't the plowers use common sense and a modicum of skill to remove street snow without making the sidewalks worse. Is it neccessary to plow at high speed, thus sending all the street snow onto the sidewalk, instead of proceeding with care and finess and not sending the snow flying to cover the sidewalks worse than the snow falling from the sky"
I ask, how was it in your neck of the woods?
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POLL
The most recent poll on the City's performance in Snow Removal showed improvement, in a definite upward trend. Let's hope that trend continues and is not just an anomaly due to the benign nature of the recent snow fall. Not one respondent thought that the City's response was "Hopelessly Inept", and that is kind of a backhanded vote of confidence.
Let's hope they can keep up the improvement.
Posted at 11:24 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
