Down On Main Street
Driving down North Main Street one is likely to observe some of the following sites:
a church;
a once famous bowling alley;
an empty storefront for Off Track Bedding;
site of the new 24 hour Walgreens;
a massage parlor;
a pawnshop;
a daycare mural;
a tool shop;
the empty Ethan Allen storefront.
SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT THIS! ! !
Posted at 11:06 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Big Bad Budget
The Mayor released his proposed budget for 2008 with the promise to not raise property taxes, but the budget again seems contingent on its reach exceeding its grasp by relying on some sleight of hand accounting and hoped for transfers of state money to the City.
You can read the Mayor's Budget Address at the city Website. However I could not locate the proposed budget itself there.
I have been following the coverage in ProJo, though, and have included most of that coverage in this post starting with the most recent.
Some budget highlights from ProJO:
• Budget would rise 2.6 percent to $625.9 million and not raise taxes.• Schools would receive a 3-percent increase, close to the 3.5 percent they asked for — raising their appropriation from $311.7 million to $320.5 million.
• Does not include money for salary increases for city employees, despite contracts of all four major city unions expiring by June 30.
• Mayor Cicilline counts on the General Assembly granting Providence several new sources of income, including a statewide cable television franchise fee on Cox Communications, an annual state payment for operating the Providence water system and a $500 fee charged on the sale of any residential property
Not everyone agrees with the proposed budget:
Lombardi calls mayor’s budget plan unrealistic
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, May 18, 2007
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Councilman John J. Lombardi is firing out at the mayor’s budget in a letter to the City Council’s Finance Committee, saying
that his budget is unrealistic and instead proposing some grand plans — including selling the city’s water system and eliminating future tax breaks — to fix the city’s finances.
Mayor David N. Cicilline’s $625.9-million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 projects that the state will give Providence $7.5 million in direct state aid on top of the $7-million increase the city is slated to receive under the governor’s budget. It also banks on the General Assembly approving five new programs that would give Providence a total of $10.5 million in new revenue.
Lombardi said that these are “unrealizable expectations” and that the mayor should have known better, while noting that he has tried similar measures in the past.
“To put a budget of this kind together is foolhardy,” Lombardi said.
In the budget for the 2006 fiscal year, for instance, the mayor hoped to receive $11.3 million in additional state aid that was never realized, and, in that same year, the mayor banked on receiving $4.5 million in payments from the state for managing the Providence water system, a proposal that was rejected by the General Assembly. The mayor is again counting on that state payment in his proposed budget.
Lombardi said that when, as predicted, the General Assembly rejects these measures, it will force the council to enact a tax increase. “I can’t see how not. This budget was voodoo economics,” he said.
He says that there are measures the city could take to raise money.
It could minimize or eliminate future tax breaks given to developers. It could sell the Providence Water Supply Board, which would undoubtedly bring in hundreds of millions in cash.
It could modify its benefit structure with city employees, and it could switch to a biweekly payroll schedule, Lombardi said. He also promoted floating a pension obligation bond to pay off the debt to the city’s pension system.
“Everything needs to be put on the table,” he said.
Cicilline’s chief of administration, John Simmons, said that some of these ideas are already in motion — the pension obligation bond, for instance — and others, the city is trying to enact.
On selling the water board, he said that the city has “been in discussion on that for months, if not years. The question is, for what and to whom,” he said.
Any changes to employee benefits are subject to collective bargaining, which is under way, and he said that while switching to a biweekly payroll system wouldn’t hurt, it also wouldn’t save much.
Council Finance Chairman John J. Igliozzi agreed with some of Lombardi’s suggestions, but said that eliminating or publicly minimizing tax breaks is premature, and would rob the city of a valuable economic development tool.
“We shouldn’t shut the door on that economic development tool yet,” he said.
Igliozzi said that after several weeks of reviewing the mayor’s budget, he has found that there are places where the city can save — although it may have to focus on its core services and cut back on some popular but nonessential programs.
“I think the City of Providence… needs to refocus [its] efforts to going back to the basics, and providing all the basic things a city provides. Some of the boutique items in the budget that provide positive public relations for everybody may need to be looked at,” he said.
Some State Reps think it's a bad year to ask for more State aid:
Cicilline told this is a bad year to depend on state aid
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, May 4, 2007
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — To balance his budget for the next fiscal year, Mayor David N. Cicilline counts on the General Assembly’s approving over $18 million in new financing for the city.
But the early word from members of Providence’s own delegation? Don’t count on it, Mayor.
“I commend the mayor for his advocacy, but surely we have told mayors across the state and town managers across the state to be extremely conservative in what they expect to get from the state this year,” said Rep. Steven M. Costantino, a Providence Democrat and chairman of the House Finance Committee.
Cicilline’s $625.9-million budget projects that the state will give Providence $7.5 million in direct state aid on top of the $7-million increase the city is slated to receive under the governor’s budget. It also banks on the Assembly’s approving five new programs that would give Providence a total of $10.5 million in new revenue.
But enabling legislation for several of the new programs that Cicilline is building his budget around has come before the Assembly in the past and met repeated defeat.
Cicilline’s budget, for instance, assumes that the state will pay Providence $5.2 million for owning and operating the Providence water-supply system, which is used by nearly 70 percent of the state.
But legislation to require that payment has been rejected repeatedly in recent years, and Providence Democrat and House Majority Leader Gordon Fox said that it’s always going to be hard to pass because it essentially taxes the rest of the state to find money for Providence.
“The mayor’s office knows what an uphill battle that will be,” Fox said. “The political reality on that one is that it’s very difficult to get people to vote against the interests of their constituents.”
Democratic Rep. David Segal of Providence said he expected that it would be a similarly tough fight this year.
“It will be tough. It will be very difficult,” he said.
Another Cicilline plan would impose a “franchise fee” on the state’s cable provider, Cox Communications, and spread the proceeds out among Rhode Island municipalities. Cicilline built $1.4 million into his budget from the plan. But Costantino said the Assembly had seen proposed bills dealing with that issue before — and never had the desire to require Cox to make the payment.
“That’s an old proposal, been kicking around for years,” he said. “We have not had the willingness — there’s never been a willingness to do it. I don’t know if this bill is different somehow.”
Fox said that the bill would mean a hard fight between two well-entrenched sides.
“They want it, Cox Communications opposes it, we’ll see if they could ever meet in the middle,” Fox said.
A third bill would eliminate the rental charges that cities and towns must pay for the use of fire hydrants, saving Providence $934,000. But Costantino said the Assembly had also seen that before, and rejected it, although its defeat may have been tied to other issues, he said.
Cicilline would also need legislative approval for plans to impose a transfer fee of $500 on the sale of residential property and $1,000 on the sale of commercial property, and for a plan to move the maintenance costs for fire-alarm call boxes from the city to private property owners. Together these bills account for an additional $3 million in revenue in Cicilline’s budget.
Costantino said the delegation has been very frank from the start with the mayor about not counting on much additional money from the Assembly this year. The state is facing its own budgetary problems.
“I think the mayor understands the situation the state is in. I don’t think we’ve been shy about it,” Costantino said.
Fox and Costantino said the delegation respected Cicilline and had an excellent relationship with him, and would fight for his bills and make sure they got full hearings.
But if they prove as tough to pass as expected, then the delegation will be coming to him soon to tell him that he needs to look in another direction, Fox said.
Cicilline, a former House member, said yesterday afternoon that he knew that some of these items would face significant opposition.
“I certainly recognize that this will be a very difficult budget year.
The General Assembly has some very difficult decisions to make,” he said.
But he said that the difference between this year and past years was that most of these bills — the water bill excluded — would bring in revenue for most cities and towns, and not just Providence. Because of that, they should have broader support, he said.
“What I think is different this year is that this is legislation that will actually assist all the cities and towns, and have statewide impact in terms of reducing the reliance on property taxes,” he said.
“It’s my hope that as all cities and towns are struggling with meeting the cost of local government, the assembly will look at this package” as another type of solution, Cicilline said.
Cicilline said that every other state has a cable “franchise fee,” and Rhode Island is lagging.
“That only happens in Rhode Island, and it shouldn’t be that way,” he said.
He also said that the $7.5 million in additional state aid was “not a number we just made up” — the figure comes directly from the governor’s five-year financial plan, he said.
But Cicilline also said he recognized that just because the aid is in the plan does not make it a reality. And if the state-aid numbers do not change, and some of his proposals prove as difficult to pass as his delegation predicts, “we will have to make further reductions in spending or try to generate additional revenue by raising taxes.”
“I think the mayor understands the situation the state is in. I don’t think we’ve been shy about it.”
Rep. Steven M. Costantino
“I certainly recognize that this will be a very difficult budget year. The General Assembly has some very difficult decisions to make.”
Mayor David N. Cicilline
But the reviews have been decidedly mixed: at least it looks like they range from "unrealistic" to "Unlikely":
Proposed city budget getting mixed reviews
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, May 3, 2007
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Reaction to Mayor David N. Cicilline’s $635.9-million budget proposal for the next fiscal year was mixed, with some quarters saying they were happy that it did not greatly increase spending, and others worrying about its heavy reliance on state aid and General Assembly approval of new revenues.
“There’s a lot of ‘if’s’ there. But that’s been the case with every budget I’ve been involved with,” City Council President Peter S. Mancini said. “He’s hoping for more state aid, I don’t know how realistic that is.”
Cicilline on Tuesday presented his budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The budget would not raise taxes, and it would increase the city’s budget by only 2.6 percent, but it includes no money for salary increases for the more than 5,000 city employees. Contracts with all city employees will have expired by June 30, and at some point when new deals are reached, the city will need to finance the salary increases.
The budget plan counts on the General Assembly to increase state aid by an additional $7.5 million on top of the $7-million increase already included in the governor’s budget.
It also assumes that the General Assembly will pass a number of bills giving Providence $10.5 million in new revenue — for instance, a franchise fee imposed on the state’s cable-TV provider, and introduction of a flat state payment to Providence for operating the Providence water system.
If that state financing doesn’t come through, Mancini said, it may mean a tax increase, after all.
“If we don’t get the added revenue from either the state or the Assembly fees, maybe a slight increase might be necessary.”
The budget plan also includes savings generated by sweeping changes proposed for the city’s retiree pension plans. But Paul Doughty, president of Local 799 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said that putting those savings in would be putting the cart before the horse — if the city tries to make changes by ordinance, it may end up locked in arbitration.
“To do it by ordinance is a mistake that’s going to end up costing them,” he said. “I don’t think it’s realistic.”
One group was happy with the budget projections — the School Department. The schools asked for a 3.5-percent increase, and Cicilline’s budget gave them 3 percent.
“Given the difficult financial environment that encompasses the entire state, the mayor’s budget clearly demonstrates his firm commitment to Providence schools and Realizing the Dream, our comprehensive plan for accelerating student achievement,” Supt. Donnie Evans said.
“While we have significant needs to support the strategies in Realizing the Dream, we’ll continue to operate in a cost-effective manner to stretch every dollar and reprioritize funds to maximize returns for student achievement. We will also continue to support the mayor in advocating for a fair and equitable funding formula from the state,” Evans said.
But another group did not think the increase it received was nearly enough. Cicilline earmarked $3.3 million for the Providence Public Library, a 10-percent jump over its current allocation.
The libraries released a statement today saying that the city’s allocation would mean layoffs and potentially a reduction in services across the library system, because it would take a $5-million contribution from the city to run the libraries at the current level of service.
“Mayor Cicilline’s $3.3-million allocation for library services in his proposed city budget indicates that he agrees with the library that there is a great value in providing municipal library services in the neighborhoods. It also indicates that the city understands it cannot fully fund the existing system and level of services,” the statement reads.
“We are hopeful the Providence city administration and City Council may ultimately decide to fully fund the current municipal system through a contract with PPL to operate and manage its municipal libraries. PPL had proposed a cost of approximately $5 million to continue to provide level services, including reinstating full services at Washington Park. If the city has less than this, then obviously it has some hard decisions to make regarding the level and scope of services. We already knew it would involve some reduction in staff,” it said.
But the city and the libraries are in the midst of separate negotiations on a permanent contract, so library financing may actually be decided in that forum, instead of during budget discussions.
The city’s Republican Party also weighed in.
City party Chairman David Talan said he liked Cicilline’s statements that when negotiating with the city’s teachers, he intended to push for a teachers contract that puts the children first — unlike, Talan said, the previous contract the administration negotiated.
“If he does that, good for him; if he doesn’t, he’ll be hearing from us,” Talan said.
And here is the report on the Mayor's budget presentation:
Cicilline’s budget holds line on taxes
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, May 2, 2007
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday announces his proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez Ruben W. Perez
PROVIDENCE — Mayor David N. Cicilline presented a $625.9-million city budget for the 2008 fiscal year that does not raise taxes and gives the schools nearly all the money they are asking for, but is built on the assumption that the General Assembly will give Providence more money and will allow the city to levy several new fees.
Cicilline said this budget reflects a new Providence of stability and government held in check.
“Our skyline has certainly changed some in the last four years, but that is nothing compared to our bottom line. From a financial perspective, Providence is a whole new city.”
The budget is only $15 million higher than the current fiscal year’s $610-million budget. But that is largely because Cicilline’s plan does not include financing for salary increases for any city employees next year, a number that could be in the tens of millions when more than 5,000 city and school employees are taken into account.
The contracts of every major city union will expire by July 1, and when new contracts are reached, the city will have to find money to pay for the salary increases that are sure to come with them. But there is no money set aside in the budget, and city officials refused to discuss where this money would come from.
“I would prefer not to answer that,” said John Simmons, the city’s chief of administration, citing a desire not to tip his hand in negotiations with the city’s four major public employee unions.
The budget also banks on the General Assembly approving several new fees, and on additional state aid on top of what the governor’s budget recommends. Almost half of the revenue increases Providence is counting on to balance its budget require Assembly action.
Cicilline presented his plan last night in a budget address that was only partially about the budget itself — much of it attacked state leadership and dealt with state economic policy and education financing formulas.
“As you know, I have tried to ring the alarm bell for several years now that Rhode Island critically under-funds its schools, despite the increased effort of Providence and other cities and towns,” Cicilline said, sounding familiar themes about the need to rethink education financing formulas, and the danger of freezing state taxes and passing the tax burden on to cities and towns.
In his address, Cicilline boasted that the city’s tax rate would actually drop, perhaps giving the impression that residents would be paying less in taxes. That is not the case. Because of the ongoing property revaluation, the tax rate will be reduced to balance out the rise in property values in the three years since the last property revaluation. But the amount that most citizens pay in taxes will remain the same.
This budget relies far less on one-time revenues than does the current budget. In the current fiscal year, the city sold several buildings to generate revenue, ending up with $23 million in one-time income sources. This year, it counts on only $10 million in one-time revenue.
But it does count on the General Assembly approving a number of new revenue sources for Providence, totaling $10.5 million. It also expects that the state will approve aid on top of the $7 million in the governor’s budget, increasing Providence’s share by an additional $7.5 million.
The budget assumes that the legislature will allow Providence to charge a new fee of $500 to anyone who sells residential property, and $1,000 for commercial property. Half of the money would go into an affordable-housing fund, and the other half to help balance the budget — $2.1 million worth.
Cicilline also proposes imposing a franchise fee on Cox Communications, the cable provider serving Rhode Island. The city says that Cox brings in $300 million in receipts from Rhode Island, and that the state should charge a franchise fee that would be split among every Rhode Island city and town. Providence would get $1.4 million.
The city also wants the state to pay Providence $5.1 million for owning and operating the Providence Water system, which is used by 70 percent of the state.
On the schools, the school department asked for a 3.5-percent increase to its $311-million allocation. Cicilline said he will give them 3 percent, which would increase the city’s payment by $9 million.
Cicilline also committed to giving the Providence Public Library $3.3 million, an increase of 10 percent over its current allocation, but less than the $5 million library officials said was needed.
He also noted that the amount of new development in Providence in recent years has brought more than $75 million in new taxable property onto the rolls this year — increasing tax revenue by $2.5 million. The budget also reflects savings from pension reforms Cicilline hopes to enact in the next few months.
The City Council will now spend the next two months reviewing the budget, and normally passes its modified version close to the July 1 start of the fiscal year.
You be the judge.
Posted at 11:04 PM | Politics | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Street Cleaning
Ward 3 Street cleaning is scheduled to begin may 24th, according to the City website.
Posted at 10:51 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Seeing Bumpouts as Assets
I am a Camp Street resident and I happen to be a big fan of the bumpouts in Summit. I run through there all the time and the bumpouts slow speeding traffic down and put pedestrians at more visible locations when waiting to cross. I see this as a great asset to the neighborhood.
Sure I too am frustrated with the drug dealing and all of its ramifications on Camp Street that I have come to see on a daily basis. Why let that ruin a good thing in Summit though?
There will always be crime issues that are more important than things that seem silly like bumpouts, but that doesn't mean we should discourage them. In an urban neighborhood, even the smallest things have a trickle effect. How many people have been injured in the drug trade over the past few years versus how many pedestrians have been nailed by cars in that same period? I don't know the answer but I could bet that in most urban areas it would even out.
Adam
Posted at 07:16 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Searching' thru April
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Posted at 07:12 PM | Website | Comments (0)
I'll Tell you Why . . . and then some . . .
Alan, there was no vitriol intended nor nothing personal towards you. Instead of vitriol I would characterize it as cynical, ironic, and tongue-in-cheek, with a pinch of dry humour on the side. Remember, we’re in the blogesphere here, I did not submit the piece for publication in the ESM or ProJo.
What struck me and spurred me to write about the Summit’s response was the way you responded to Mr. Methot’s letter while leaving out his name. Mr. Methot had no problem signing his name to his letter criticizing the Summit methods, and I doubt if he would have been offended if you had addressed your rebuttal directly to him.
Your claim to not wanting to flame a neighbor seems incongruous. Flaming takes place in cyberspace, and offering a letter of rebuttal to a published letter hardly qualifies as flaming. I would call it discourse, not flaming. Flaming suggests rude insults and mockery. You could have proffered a point by point rebuttal without insulting or mocking Mr. Methot.
Your responses to my piece and Mr. Methot’s lack detail in addressing the points we raised. It is one thing to state a disagreement, another to specifically address the why and wherefore of the disagreement.
Thus, your response, which sounded like a community effort (in which you drew short straw), seemed weak and ineffectual.
But thank you for asking the question and opening the door for discussion with your comment about my post We Were Dismayed!
I was wrong about at least one thing; someone in the Summit has the cojones to enter into discourse. I hope it's not just a hit and run.
I'm grateful that you opened with a question as that gives me the opportunity to also ask questions.
Don't forget, we're in the Blogesphere! NOT for the faint of heart.
Why the vitriol? The easy answer is, to quote the poet Stephan Crane, "Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart." The quoted poem can be found on the Poem of the Week Entry of August 22, 2005.
If a hint of vitriol is detected it is because I am bitter and disillusioned. Even listening to Willie Neslon and Sinead O’Conner’s duet of Don’t Give Up, by Peter Gabriel fails to inspire me. And it is politics on the local level that most makes my eyes jaundiced and glassy. Especially the politics of neighborhood associations.
You said,
I don't know you, you don't know me. If I recall correctly, you weren't at any of the discussions about the library sign
and you are right, but I was commenting on the published letters in the ESM by you and Methot. That is all I have to go on. And as you said, I have that right.
You said,
I didn't flame Mr. Methot in the ESM because he is a neighbor. I might not agree with his point of view, but he's welcome to it.
Well, I wasn't suggesting that you should have "Flamed" Methot. That would not be appropriate at all. What I was implying is that it was insulting to Mr. Methot to not mention him by name when you responded to his letter, as if it were written by "anonymous". Mr. Methot signed his name to his letter, and I interpreted the Summit’s response as insulting and demeaning to not refer to him by name in the Summit's response.
In your defense, I also believe that "the letter" was written by Summit committee and not solely by yourself: it was parsed and agonized over ad infinitum. Tell me if I'm wrong on this.
But I would think that most readers would agree that your letter came off as weak and ineffectual compared to Mr. Methot's.
You said,
. . . his retelling and recollection of the events, causalities, and outcomes were inaccurate. It wouldn't have served any purpose to pick his presentation of the issue apart, point-by-point, except to make me feel better.
I find this sentence disingenuous. If Methot's letter contained inaccuracies, it would be your duty to point them out. The purpose being to set the record straight, as you see it, and if that makes you you feel better . . .
You said,
Calling the letter "hyperbole" and "self-deception" sounds a little, well, hyperbolic.
But what I said referred to your statement when you said:
“. . . SNA’s goal is to sustain the residential fabric of the neighborhood that gives Summit its unique and vibrant character.”
And I said,
Don't you just detest that type of hyperbole, or is it self-deception?
There, I was referring to your characterization of Summit as a "unique and vibrant community". Summit is a very. very nice neighborhood, a bedroom community, but unique and vibrant? That characterization of Summit is in my opinion hyperbole. Unique & vibrant could well be applied to Mt. Hope, College Hill, Fox Point, and to the million dollar properties in Blackstone. To Summit. I believe that is hyperbole.
You want unique & vibrant: drive down Camp Street and witness the debris outside the Ministries, the small coteries of drug dealers on various corners, the people walking down the street shedding a soft drink cup from McDonalds here, a BigMac wrapper there, a crack pipe on the next corner. A Councilman who insists there is no drug dealing in Mt. Hope. That is unique. And vibrant. And no end in sight. Priceless!
But to get back to neighborhood associations, I do sympathize with you. It is only a few volunteers who make anything happen.
But how much money does the West Broadway Neighborhood Association get from the City Council each year? Many thousands in grants, something exceeding $35,000 if I remember even semi-accurately, because they are well represented by their councilman. They hold great balls and auctions. $50 bucks just to get in the door. I don’t know about the grants given to other N.A’s.
But do you know the history of the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association and how much money they have received year after year? Do you know what is going on in Mt. Hope? Do you know why, if over a million dollars has flowed into the coffers of the MHNA in the last ten years, and the same City Councilman has represented Mt. Hope for the same length of time, why we still have drug dealers operating with impunity on Camp Street corners, and why Mt. Hope still exports crime to other East Side neighborhoods?
Do you think we pay less property tax in Mt. Hope than in Summit?
Mt. Hope is considered a less desirable place to live than Summit. Why is that? Mt. Hope is in a better location than Summit. Mt. Hope is a few minutes to downtown, seconds to College Hill, seconds to Thayer Street, seconds to Rt. 95.
Yet our Ward Councilman gets a half million dollars plus for curb bump outs in Summit but for Mt. Hope he installs illegal grills in Billy Taylor Park. Open fires are illegal in public parks in Providence, by ordinance, but in Billy Taylor Park, locus of drug dealing on the East Side, our Councilman overrides the ordinance and installs grills that drug dealers use as a cover. I guess votes are cheaper in Mt. Hope. Everything is. Except the property tax. He signs off and obtains permits in BTPark for every disruptive rap music event, drawing drug dealers and buyers from every part of Providence and from as far away as Massachusetts, leaving the neighborhood in shambles.
Does the Ward Councilman discourage the police from enforcing the law in Summit? Because he sure does in Mt. Hope. He accuses the police of harassing drug dealing Mt. Hope residents, one of the reasons the police are lax in enforcing the law in Mt. Hope. What future does a policeman have who goes against City Hall? For years good cops did not want a post in Mt. Hope because they knew they would be hamstrung by politicians. The police make arrests, and the drug dealers and their families run to the Councilman and claim racial harassment. The drug culture is deeply embedded in a small demographic in Mt. Hope, yet that small demographic of embedded drug culture wields inordinate power due to the Councilman as enabler and dominates the neighborhood.
How would the Summit like to live with this situation? Well, you do!
There are no reasons why drug dealing and its associated crime can not be eliminated from Mt. Hope. It would never be tolerated in any other East Side neighborhood.
Bump-out your curbs all you want, fight library signage, push for an aesthetically pleasing North Main Street, but please, please don’t pretend that you have the general good at heart, or especially the interests of Mt. Hope, as long as you turn a blind eye to the political corruption that allows Mt. Hope to run an open air drug market and export crime to all other East Side neighborhoods.
And be aware that it is your Councilman who enables the drug dealing in Mt. Hope.
Yes, it’s deep, and it predates you and me.
Posted at 06:30 PM | Issues | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Why all the vitriol?
Alan Tear, (SNA) responds to the We were Dismayed! post of April 29th.
John,
Why all the vitriol? I don't know you, you don't know me. If I recall correctly, you weren't at any of the discussions about the library sign. You're free to say what you like, but it seems like you're capable of a higher level of discourse from the other examples of your blog.
I didn't flame Mr. Methot in the ESM because he is a neighbor. I might not agree with his point of view, but he's welcome to it. Putting that aside for a moment, his retelling and recollection of the events, causalities, and outcomes were inaccurate. It wouldn't have served any purpose to pick his presentation of the issue apart, point-by-point, except to make me feel better. I chose to present the actual event timeline from someone who had participated in them. Calling the letter "hyperbole" and "self-deception" sounds a little, well, hyperbolic.
Look, I agree with what I perceive you are saying, that the library sign is a non-issue, a triviality in a sea of more worthy and pressing neighborhood and cross-neighborhood concerns. I don't buy the rest of your storyline, the whole elites, and solidarity thing. That sounds like it comes from something deep, predating my time and place in this neighborhood.
As a bunch of volunteers, we've got enough bandwidth to focus on a couple of things a year. This year its North Main redevelopment, where we again share common interests and concerns with Mount Hope. That opportunity focuses the conversation about crime, affordable housing, and creating a neighborhood that is inclusive. Those meetings are open to all, and the planner that we've hired has a specific requirement to integrate Mount Hope into the conversation and visioning.
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Posted at 11:16 PM | Issues | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Rhode Island Real Estate
I hear the term "sub-prime crisis" a lot lately in the media and this so-called crises, brought on by the manipulation of lenders, affects all home-owners and potential home owners. Rhode Island holds the third largest exposure to sub-prime loans in the country, behind New York and California. Compare the populations of New York and California with Rhode Island's and you have an idea of the impact of this data. They say "third largest" not "3rd largest percentage" which in statistics means a great deal. If the smallest state has the 3rd largest exposure, by number, not percentage, that is incredible.
In the sub-prime market speculative lenders offered mortgages to borrowers with less than good credit ratings, often at high interest rates, variable rates, and no money down programs. They then sold the loans packaged as securities to Wall Street. Some sub-prime lenders have filed for bankruptcy while their principals have walked away with billions of dollars.
Some borrowers, those who bought more expensive homes than they could really afford, or who took variable rate loans hoping to re-finance to a fixed rate when their home appreciated, got caught in the squeeze when the housing market hit a slump, housing prices stagnated and then dropped making a pronounced dent in available equity. People who hoped to use equity in their homes and found out they had none, or those who drew too much equity out of their property found themselves in a bind. Across the country foreclosures are way up and they are way up in Rhode Island as well.
ProJo features an article on the impact of the sup-prime crisis in Rhode Island in Sunday's paper. Click the link below to access the article.
When a link to an article in ProJo or the Globe or the Times appears you may have to register and provide a user-name and a password: the sign up process takes only a minute and is well worth the small effort to access the articles.
A related article in ProJo's Real Estate Section
Do sellers need to rein in expectations
deals with the slump in the housing market and offers stats about sales and median house prices. The article posits that home owners wishing to sell their homes still think of their homes as having the same value as they had in 2004 and 2005 when the Real Estate market was peaking.
Truth is the market fluctuates neighborhood by neighborhood. The high end East Side market has taken the biggest hit as far as falling home values as registered by percentage, in my opinion, while in Mt. Hope, the biggest losers are those investors who bought at the very top of the market expecting more appreciation and high rents. They have been the victims of both falling resale value and a more competitive rental market that left overpriced rental units empty.
A number of foreclosures have taken place in Mt. Hope including houses on Camp Street, Peach Street, and Pleasant Street. There must be more that I am not aware of, and I'm sure there are more to come.
John Twomey
Posted at 10:48 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Blossoms Blooming Everywhere!
It's spring and All . . .
First the Forsythias . . .
Then the Apricot blossoms . . .
Then the Ornamental Cherry Blossoms . . .
And I know Spring is Here!
Posted at 08:36 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Poem of the Week
Roll Off
Roll off the side of the ship, and hook up the IV to the dead millionaire councilman down in dry dock whose mentally ill sister is stranded in a Des Moines state facility. I can’t accept your charity or your chance encounter with luck, besides, we bear no relation, one to the other or the ur-other. Why bother, brother, if all we can hope to achieve is the ambivalence of the obvious connection. To all of this, I say, the Sunoco sign just exploded, but we were out of gas anyway. Mom & Pop soda jerks and the old soft shoe left over by the arcade remain pure nostalgia for the general audience. All of this left over stuff----does the most relevant matter or not, and if not, why, and if so, why not, and when and if you decide, let me know. The most important thing is that you mutter. Can’t hear a thing? Join the crowd that left just after the last seventh inning stretch for the next to last mission. Impossible? Just say no to that so that we can or cannot understand. Know what I, it means? The last thing we ever wanted was for you to be confused about our intentions, which were for your own good, as if we could ever hope for anything else, being who we are and who you are and whom we all hope to become.
Posted at 11:46 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
