chowmeinsammich

2011-02-06T10:00:00.001-05:00

I once again return after a surgery, so please forgive my temporary absence. Things are well and I am feeling just fine. It's just the overwhelming sense of fatigue I feel whenever the topic of "Fall River" arises that deeply concerns me. I have to admit to you all that I am clinically depressed when it comes to all things Fall River!

I thought Bob Correa was the worst thing ever to happen the the city. He was not. It is this new clown-king, Mayor Will "Bag-Boy DEE-luxe" Sylvanagan, aka "Mr. Shock and Awe", and his coterie of hangers-on, handlers and mindless followers. That includes the reprehensible Editor and Publisher of the only daily newspaper (HA!) in the City, the Fall River Herald News (FRHN)

This is a politician who never did anything before coming to the city as Mayor, has done nothing since being here, and will never, ever accomplish much in the future. It simply is in his makeup to be an errand boy and a failure. More is the pity. But you all voted for this fool. You own him Fall River, lock, stock and TWO barrels. Maybe it's time for residents of the city to accept what THEY have done to Fall River and end the fetishistic decrying of all things political in Fall River, as if pointing outward and blaming everyone except the person in the mirror will make your lives whole once again. It is probably the saddest and most telling of all Fall River rituals. In reality it is nothing more than cheap blame assessment and acknowledgement that Fall River has become the essence of ignorance and apathy. Just collectively lay down on the railroad track of life and await your end! Isn't that what you have been doing for the past three decades and longer? Be honest, and admit that in your heart you know I'm right! (Thank you to the late Senator Goldwater)

You see, you can only blame those "dirty, rotten" politicians for so long. At some point the ultimate reality of the situation, that you yourselves keep voting for talentless, unqualified thieves and scoundrels has to hit home, has to be acknowledged and accepted. Your fate will not change until then.

Many want the state to take over. They may well have to, because one thing is crystal clear - the procession of unqualified managers, especially financial managers, this current clown-king has paraded before the citizens of Fall River are a laughable and sad lot. They lack the experience and ability to solve the serious issues laying before you all. So do not look toward your hired hands to do anything to improve Fall River. At this point my dear ones, the city's financial, municipal and education management crises are beyond professional intervention. That is a reality that will become apparent when the state eventually comes in to take over the School System and the City's Finances.

What of salvation from your elected City Council and School Committee? What?! They are the worst collection of public misfits you could actually have elected. They have no real fat in the fire, only a desire to collect more years towards a public pension and health insurance. Each and every one of them is concerned with only that and possibly succeeding Bag Boy DEE-luxe Sylvanagan at some point in the future. Oh yes, and garnering far more than their fair share of "FAVORS" from the institutions of government, like placement of grandchildren in the very few open slots at the most desired programs for children in the Schools. I guess that comes with being a member of the School Committee, an institution that represents the very apex of failure in Fall River, as the state has told us very recently. Don't listen to the spin folks. We are doomed as a School System. MMB has done NOTHING to change this situation. She has been backed completely by YOUR elected School Committee. You see, just like Sylvanagan needing talentless patsies to fire whenever the state tells them the financial operations are emabarrassingly bad, so too will the School Committee. That is the only explanation for MMB still being here after all these bad recent reports from the state. But what have YOU done about it? Have you not voted for many of the same feckless fools for decade after decade, especially those found guilty of infractions of state statutes as listed by the state Attorney General? Yes, in fact YOU HAVE! Therefore, look in the mirror once again my fair Fall Riverites. You , and you alone, are responsible for the condition of your city government, your city finances and your schools. You and you alone. The truth stings a bit, doesn't it!?

The thieving and unscrupulous Redevelopment Authority (RDA) and it's sister group, Fall River Office of Economic Development (FROED) and all of their crooked minions exist with it's current cast of employees and Board members because of WHO you elect. You want change in these institutions, vote for better politicians who will make appointments to critical boards.! It's really that simple. It's really that profound.

So you see, I have little faith in the voters of Fall River to be able to constructively respond to their own dismal fate. As the head of DESE stated in the Boston Globe two weeks ago about Fall River and several other "gateway" communities poor and worsening performance on basic portions of the MCAS, (and I'm paraphrasing here) " the people of these locations are ignorant to the situation they face, of how truly awful their performance has been, of the utter seriousness of the education situation". Ignorance. Now there's a word that Fall River can embrace. Citizen ignorance. That just about describes the situation and is the genesis of my depression whenever the topic "Fall River" pops up. It is the profound and unabiding citizen ignorance that is destroying the City of Fall River, not elected officials or lack funds. Only an educated and motivated citizen-voter can change the direction of the city..

Therefore, you can immediately see why I see little hope for Fall River.

And in your heart you know I'm right.

WHAT, ME WORRY?!!!

2011-01-16T15:34:00.001-05:00

Our Fearless Leader, Mayor Will Sylvanagan

Take a few months off and look what happens!

It appears that "ANTOINE WALKERVILLE" has gone the way of all of Little Willy's promises and projects, we loose a Finance Director and gain a retired "good old boy" type who tried to wrangle a lifetime contract from his last employer , illegally, and are getting ready to place the collective Fall River municipal neck on the DOR guillotine, and much, much more.

Excuse me while I suppress this urge to laugh out loud and screech "I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!"......nope, can't do it...

I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!

Someone better get a grip in this City before REALLY bad stuff starts to happen. How can it get worse, you ask? OK, lets discuss this for a few moments.

First, the "Destination Casino" fiasco.....NO Bio-Park, no billion dollar casino, no jobs, no hope, no way! This is the centerpiece of the Sylvanagan administration. It showcases everything this hideous cast of characters responsible for making the idiot-boy as mayor are truly like. Greed, obnoxious power grabbing, incompetence, disrespect for the average Fall River citizen and a level of recklessness in the face of sworn fiduciary responsibility that , in any other municipality away from the South Coast, would result in being thrown out of office by public opinion, votes and, possibly, legal action.

A naked parade of stupidity and Chutzpah is what we have all witnessed. FROED, the RA, all the associated so-called "kingmakers" in what is quickly becoming a rather rancid and tawdry City all share total responsibility for the systematic failure on this project, of this administration, and this City. They have selected mayoral candidates, they have arranged political fortunes and have become involved in censorship in the only daily newspaper serving Fall River. They have wholly backed Sylvanagan in the hiring of unqualified administrative and financial "professionals" and have had only one thing in mind - maintaining control over City Hall, the City's budget and financial resources, regardless of source, and getting as much of it as possible through related businesses and personal relationships. They should all be ashamed. They have destroyed this City for personal gain. Their final aim is to see their puppet boy mayor gain higher political office. Fortunately, educated individuals and voters outside of the South Coast would laugh this collection of buffoonish morons and obsequious thieves back into their mother's wombs.

As long as the voters of Fall River allow the continuation of this sad charade by electing the candidates favored by the minions of FROED, the RA, and the powers that be things will continue to deteriorate to a point that even eventual state intervention will be too little, too late for most Fall River committed and bound property owners. These thieves are draining Fall River in the same manner the Mafia "busted out" the restaurant in the movie "GOODFELLA'S" This is not any kind of exaggeration. Think your property values and your related net worth are too low now? Just wait until the state steps in and takes over. But hey, you voted for Sylvanagan, not me.........

NEXT....Ah, yes, Mr. Grab. No one in the business knew who this guy was. How he became the City's Finance Director had to be more of an issue of someone desperate for a job than a "nationwide" search for qualified individuals. Trust me, not even in today's job market would a truly qualified professional leave one job willingly to take a pay cut, and never to take a job in a sadly run financial miasma like Fall River. The crapola about a shorter commute is just that, CRAPOLA.

What I suspect is that Mr. Grab, a municipal accountant by trade, must have either been asked to "go along" with some "creative entries" on required state reports to insure a tax rate would be approved by the state's DOR, or he started to become more familiar with the true reasons why Fall River has struggled so mightily to balance it's cash accounts from several past fiscal years , as well as reconcile some grant account activity from previous years at the School Department that are preventing Fall River from finishing past years audits.

So you, the reader, can understand the situation better, the DOR refusing to let Fall River to set a tax rate as a result of non compliance in filing required audit reports is as rare as hen's teeth - it's simply never done. In other words, the state is in the process of taking over the City's finances. In my opinion, one of the reasons the so called 'kingmakers" in Fall River are so desperate to control City Hall is because we all might find that many, many bad and illegal things have been done with City money, your tax dollars, over many previous years and administrations. To maintain control they must maintain control of those audits and the details of what OBJECTIVE auditors might find out about where the money went as opposed to where it was supposed to go. I believe it involves both , as Randy Moss would say, "straight cash, Homey" , as well as grant funds. All the reason you need to think that and probably be right is the one time existence of a video camera over the cash drawer "cash out" area in the Tax Collector's Office, no doubt made necessary by the outright theft of cash by City employees over time. What other conclusion could possibly be reached? Also, it would be a very interesting thing to see if auditors could actually find records detailing who was being paid out of various grant funds over several previous years not currently verified and included in completed audits. Grant requirements detail precisely what functions and positions may be covered by grant funds. One way to make audits impossible is to "misplace" required source documents detailing things like expenditure details and payroll reports. It would also not surprise me one bit to find City-side employees being paid out of School grant funds. Would that surprise YOU? I don't think so. Actually, the very fact that most people could expect such activity is both regrettable and self defining.

Also, Mr. Grab's part time , retired replacement, the ex-fiance director of Dartmouth, is a concern, and emblematic of the type of "go along-get along", malleable individuals this City demands right now. This guy was involved , along with most other finance department heads and the Town Administrator of Dartmouth in arranging an illegal "contract for life" with that town, as has been widely reported. The Town Administrator was fired over the entire affair, and it was widely accepted that there was a conspiracy, of sorts, with other department heads, to arrange these illegal contracts. This is the kind of man the City wishes to place in charge of the City's Treasurer's Office. This will fail gloriously as you would expect. Look for one of the current "puppet" employees within the current Treasure's Office staff, supported by a particular member of the FROED Board of Directors, to be the real controlling person in the office on a day-to-day basis. That's NOT a good thing at all. But, what else would you expect.

And then there was the DOR......

What can you say...no audits, no tax rate. You see, now that Deval Patrick has won his second, and according to him, last term as Governor, and in the face of a required billion dollar cut in the current fiscal years budget levels into FY 12, the state is in no mood to allow any municipality to refuse to comply with base level financial reporting requirements, not when the state funds over 65 cents out of every dollar spent in the Fall River municipal budget. Ain't gonna happen folks. The election year has come and gone and all the so-called "kingmakers" in Fall River have no juice on Beacon Hill when it comes to Fall River's financial officials and it's mayor not being able to count beans. What does this mean?

First, it means lots of expense, unbudgeted expense, to pay for the borrowing costs related to loans required to keep things happening in Fall River's government, like paying employees, plowing roads after snow storms, and keeping fire and police on the job. No tax rate means no tax bills which means yo have to borrow money from banks to pay for things. It is all so unnecessary yet so predictable.

Second, because this mayor made commitments a year ago to DOR to comply with all reporting requirement in a timely fashion, his entire administration no longer had any credibility with DOR and the Governor's administrative managers at Administration and Finance (A&F), the Secretariat which controls DOR. This, as you can imagine, is not a good thing. In fact, not only is locally produced tax revenue generation halted and more expense faced by the City because of it, the Secretary of A&F can also slow down the City's local aid and grant payments, also not such a great thing.

The bottom line in all of this is that Fall River's purposeful inability to complete audit reports for prior years will be the one thing that will cause the state to take over the City's finances. No one involved in making political decisions in this City is willing to lay bare for all the world to see the mistakes and missteps made by previous occupants in the Mayor's Office and at the School Department. It is all so gutless and predictable to the point of making an objective, right thinking person ill.

The schools you might ask, what of the schools? Apparently a graph has been handed out by administrators to teaching staff very recently that indicated that 80% of all the City's third graders failed the "open answer" portion of the MCAS test . "Open answer" means the child had to fill in the blank in a question or statement related to a story they just read, a statement like "When it rains the street becomes (blank)", with the child having to write in the appropriate answer mentioned in the story, like the word "wet", for instance. They failed even though they were allowed to re-read the story to find the correct answer! 80%! YIKES!!! This means , quite simply, that 80% of Fall River students cannot read! This means, quite simply that the Fall River School System has completely failed, even gotten worse, since Meg Mayo Brown has been School Superintendent, and state takeover of this failing school system is more than likely, it is probable at this point. Score another failure for Mayor Sylvanagan and his merry band of puppet string pullers. Total failure all the time.

No jobs, no schools, no money, no hope is what Mayor Sylvanagan has delivered to the voters of Fall River.

What a sad joke!

2011-01-07T17:09:00.000-05:00

I have always held public safety employees a cut above the rest for placing their lives on the line for all of us every single day. When an issue of particular concern to, say, our firefighters, arises, I will gladly open this forum to those making the case or simply trying to better inform us all about the things they have to face on a daily basis. The following short piece is a case in point.

When I received an e-mail from a reader requesting me to post something of importance to the public, and especially fiefighters, I felt happy to oblige. So, Matthew Phillips, tell your family to look now, your article has been included! Thanks!

Fumble around for the snooze button. Can't find it. Sleep through alarm for 10 more minutes. Make coffee. Fall asleep while making coffee. Pour cereal. Read the back of the box for the 12th time. Take a shower. Yawn. Realize it's your day off. Use a substitute swear word. Go back to bed.

A sort of good day.

But with that yawn, you could have changed your life forever. What's wrong with breathing? Nothing at all. It's the air you have to watch out for.
In older buildings and homes, manufacturers used a natural mineral called asbestos. It can still be found in dry wall and in insulation in those homes. Asbestos is fire-resistant and heat-resistant, and was supposed to make a lot of homes safer for a lot of people.

Today, when those homes are disturbed, for example, as a firefighter breaks down the walls of a burning building, or, less dramatically, if insulation is tampered with, asbestos fibers are released into the air. When inhaled, they may cause a deadly cancer to attack the lungs: mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma symptoms can include shortness of breath and chest heaviness. These symptoms subtle and are often confused with other more common, more treatable diseases. Even worse, mesothelioma symptoms are subject to extremely long latency periods, often for nonexistent for up to 50 years. By then, the cancer has metastasized and treatment is either difficult or impossible. The life expectancy of mesothelioma victims is incredibly short.
So what should you do about it? Stop breathing? Of course not. Ask questions. If you think your home may be asbestos-ridden, don't handle the stuff yourself. Call a professional asbestos abatement contractor. They're trained to deal with the deadly mineral.

Keep your eyes and ears open to information and you can live to see a whole pile of sort of good days.

AND MOSES SAID, "Let My People GO!"

2010-10-29T16:57:00.001-04:00

COURT GRANTS INJUNCTION AGAINST
CASINO LAND SALE!

Beacon Hill politicians misstated the potential of a
Tribal Casino, ignoring 2 SCOTUS (ed. note: Supreme Court of the United States)
decisions to suit their purposes and cram through flawed 'casino' legislation,
while Fall River officials have betrayed the residents and
taxpayers of a beautiful City that possesses great potential.

Fall River City Officials have danced around a land sale, ignoring
legal opinion from the IG, failing to ensure additional revenues to
protect citizens against the increased costs and impacts
of predatory gambling.

The land sale essentially hands wealthy developers prime
commercial land for $100,000 per acre.

Instead, the Mayor chose to reward wealthy Malaysian
investors with a tax free, low cost venture for a profitable
Slot Barn deal.

Attached, you will find the injunction issued by Judge Richard
T. Moses, the Ten Taxpayers Complaint, the RDA response
and the Purchase & Sales Memo.

Nowhere is there consideration of monies Fall River will receive
from the Tribe.

At the very least, the City should reasonably expect a percentage
of slots participation, worth at least $20-$30 million per year to cover
additional costs.

Foxwoods has defaulted.

Mohegan Sun is laying off.

Twin Rivers is in bankruptcy.

Casinos around the country are filing bankruptcy.

Tribal Casinos have simply stopped making payments.

How is this sensible economic development for Fall River?
Who is protecting Fall River residents while wealthy foreign
investors are rewarded?

This could be your town.

Thanks for all you do.

Jessie Powell
Middleboro, MA

'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.' Margaret Mead

Middleboro Remembers

"Let My People GO!!!!!!!!!"

The above is a copy of an email I received from Jessie Powell, a leading foe of the casino project in Fall River, otherwise known as ANTOINE WALKERVILLE. The things said in that email are quite true. Jessie Powell has an established track record opposing expanded gaming in Massachusetts. WE all owe a debt of gratitude to Jessie Powell.

Charlton Heston as the biblical character himself couldn't have written the judgement any better than Superior Court Judge Moses did in his opinion. It is an injunction which is merely the culmination of a dark, dreary and cynical process the type of which the citizens of Fall River are all too familiar with these past several decades. Once again it's back to the drawing board for this clown posse of attorneys running Fall River directly into oblivion, all on YOUR dime to boot!

Imagine the taxpayer funded City Attorney crew of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe (Fiola, Torres and, of course, Sylvanagan), along with their "high powered" (HA!) paid legal Hessian's out of Rhode Island getting faced big time in court by the intrepid band of Ten Taxpayers from Fall River and their legal counsel. I don't care who the attorney works for outside of this particular decision, the arguments made were quite obviously persuasive and with a much better legal basis, resulting in a decision by a widely respected member of the Court forcing an injunction to any further action to sell the 300 acres of prime industrial land to the Wamponoags and their Malaysian money men.

Surely, the combined forces of Fall River fools like the RDA, FROED, and Sylvanagan himself will drag the City, and oodles of it's tax dollars, back into court with a favorable judge here in SE Massachusetts to attempt the overturn the current decision. Sylvanagan has NO choice! Without something to show for a full year of behind closed door negotiations without any public input, or without consultation with the City Council, and after continued promises of "JOBS!, JOBS!, JOBS!" while not a single other thing has been accomplished by his tawdry administration Sylvanagan will be run out of office even by his most ardent previous supporters if he fails. And well he should.

Sylvanagan's exploits are ridiculous. Sylvanagan's chief legal counsel is even more ridiculous. After what can only be termed a vulgar performance on a local radio station, is there any doubt left at all that Steve Torres suffers not only from delusions of competence but a rather demented Napoleonic complex as well? He is one angry little man. That's about the best thing that can be said about him. He certainly has failed at every turn since being appointed the City's legal counsel. Has he won a single decision? Has he not cost Fall River thousands of dollars with his steel trap legal mind and opinions? What about the "illegal" rainwater tax Steve-O? What about the "refunds"? Oh, that's right , he has more important things on his plate right now, like acting as legal counsel for one of the OTHER worst run communities in MA, Wareham. But I thought he was only supposed to be working for Fall River? Wasn't that the justification for his high salary? Lies, and promises left unmet. These things seem to be at the heart of the Sylvanagan administration. Funny how they have failed to mention the drastic cut in State Aid that looms ahead for FY11! I wonder how they'll spin this one!

No, our new found Moses raised his legal staff and with his decision let out the cry for all Fall River citizens to "Let My People Go!" Now I wish Sylvanagan and Company would do the same.

Who Will Pay? WE WILL of Course !!!!

2010-10-13T11:10:00.003-04:00

Fall River Fire Department
swears in 48 new members

By Kevin O'Connor
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Oct 12, 2010 @ 10:47 AM
Last update Oct 13, 2010 @ 12:20 AM

FALL RIVER — The fire department is experiencing a major growth spurt.

Department brass is confident they are ready to avoid undue growing pains.

A class of 48 new firefighters was sworn in on Tuesday. Class members will go through a 10-week training program before their assignment to the trucks.

It is the largest recruit class in the department’s history. It will increase the department ranks by almost one third.
The new hires replace firefighters laid off two years ago. Their salaries will be paid for the next two years through a $10 million federal grant.

“This will allow us to have 48 fresh firefighters on duty.” Mayor Will Flanagan said. “It will help us cut down on overtime costs.

“Plus, this should boost morale. The department went through a devastating layoff.

Gear for the new firefighters. A helmet, a rope to practice knots and text books.

With the new influx of recruits coming in, you know, when you go into a burning mill or a three-decker, you have backup behind you.”

Fire Chief Paul Ford told the recruits they will learn more in the training program than how to fight fires.

“Fire service is steeped in tradition,” Ford said. “We have a tradition of honor, number one.

“We have to be honorable to ourselves, our families and our fellow firefighters. Don’t ever forget that.”

Ford and Flanagan addressed the new class Tuesday at the fire headquarters. The 48 new firefighters, all men, faced them. Each new firefighter had a new yellow helmet, a thick textbook and an 8-foot length of 3/8-inch braided rope on the table before him.

“That is for them to practice their knots,” said fire Capt. Kenneth Lima. “They have to keep that rope with them at all times.

“They have a lot of knots to learn.”

In fact, they have a lot to learn about everything, said District Chief William Pappas, head of training for the department.

Pappas and Lima will coordinate the training along with Lt. Peter Raposa and Lt. Paul Machado. They are all state certified fire instructors, as are 15 more members of the department.

The recruits will be working from textbooks for the first few days, but fire instructors will quickly get them out into the training field behind the fire headquarters to connect hoses to hydrants and trucks and learn to rappel from rooftops or crawl through confined spaces.

“We have a tower and we have a burn room, so we can do training with real fire,” Pappas said. “In fact, we will do several live burns.”

By the time the new firefighters climb onto a truck for the first time, they will have ripped cars apart with the Jaws of Life and learned the basics of handling hazardous materials spills and dousing the flames from flammable liquids. They will also know enough life-saving technique to qualify as first responder medical personnel.

The recruits will spend several days at the state fire academy in Stowe, facing flames from burning tanker trucks, boilers and barrels of unknown substances.

Department trainers began planning for the recruit class as soon as the city learned it would get the $10 million federal grant.

The grant restores the fire department to its roster of 232 members, the number in the department before the city began making cuts and layoffs because of budget problems.

Pappas and his staff worked up a curriculum that involves the entire training staff plus the 15 city firefighters who are certified as instructors by the state.

“It will be a lot of work, but we are pretty excited about it,” Pappas said. “We have a dedicated staff.

“There is no question once they are on duty we will be able to serve the city better.”
E-mail Kevin P. O’Connor at koconnor@heraldnews.com

Let me say at the outset that I fully agree with the idea of fully staffing our compliment of public safety officers in Fall River. What I have grave concerns about is the manner in which we fund those positions.

In an ad on the front page of the herald News' website was a listing, by community, of how much likely funding in local aid would be lost if the proposed cut in sales tax takes place as a result of Question 3 passing this fall. Fall River's hit would be in the neighborhood of $15 million, give or take a few grand here or there. At such a loss, it would matter little how a paltry few thousand dollars went over looked. Such passage of Question 3 would literally bankrupt the City's finances. There would be absolutely no additional or extraordinary state assistance to make that loss of revenue whole again, since this would reflect an across the board reduction to EVERY state budget category, including local aid and aid to education.

So when we plan to hire these needed 43 firefighters on the basis of a non-renewable two year federal grant, I start to worry about the lack of fiscal planning taking place on the 6th floor of City Hall. I have absolutely no faith in the mayor to adequately prepare for life after the grant's end. No where is there evidence of planning for the potential cost of possible unemployment for these new hires if the grants run out and no extraordinary funding source replaces the current two year grant, nor retirement funding, nor health insurance coverage for both retirement and COBRA provisions for laid-off municipal employees. The City would be completely unprotected from such costs with the possible lay-offs as a result of no new grant funding. has anything like this happened in the past few years?

Yes. A few years back a federal program to put more police on the street was devised. The requirements of the grant were that the municipality had to commit to gradually take over the full direct and overhead costs (health insurance, unemployment insurance) for theses new positions, with cost's for the municipalities increasing each year until the full cost was borne by the municipality. In many instances communities throughout the state refused to participate in the grant program, or limited greatly their participation, because Prop 2 1/2 was in effect and the financial commitment to take on even these relatively few needed positions were far too risky given the unpredictable financial outlook during a time of extreme local and state fiscal stress. The prudent thing to do was to look out into the future as concretely as possible and make decisions accordingly. Well run communities, especially those dependant on local aid increases to fund current budgets, were cautious to make future financial commitments to the grant program.

So looking at Fall River's current situation, a community entirely dependent on state aid for all of it's daily operations, and knowing that the MINIMUM estimate of state budget reduction for FY11 from FY10 even if question 3 does not pass, is 18% according to MMA, how then can Fall River agree to a full compliment of new hires without considering the outcome if financial Armageddon occurs and the City is faced with responsibility for unemployment , health insurance, retirement and increased liability insurance premiums, not to mention increased demands on the fire department's everyday operations budget with an increase in manpower by one third (ie, food, uniforms, air packs, other equipment)? I have no earthly idea!

We all know why this decision was made - for political expediency. Sylvanagan & Co. are scrounging for any, and every, bit of happy news to lay on the public's table going into the reelection campaign. They will do so without any thought about the future consequences to you or I or the City as a whole. It's all about making happy news statements and getting his picture on the front page of the Herald News doing something other than looking like a dullard faced vengeful school girl shredding a law suit against him.

Since day one in office all this man and his minions have been about is gaining reelection and saying and doing those things required to LOOK good as opposed to taking the time and the thought to DO good for the City of Fall River. Even his acquiescence to broadcast more committee meetings on "Sylvanagan TV" is merely an attempt to bow to the popular perception that he's all about propaganda, not proper management of City affairs. I find it ironic that both the broadcast of more meetings and this fire department grant decision encapsulate the entirety of what Fall River has gotten from or fearless leader Sylvanagan - anything to look good for his own sake and no thought regarding the actual future impact of his own decisions on others, especially those he has sworn to serve and protect.

I am not against hiring these firemen. I only wish the powers that be truly knew what their own game plan is to handle the possible array of future outcomes if financing goes out the window. Based on the Sylvanagan administration's demonstrated history to this point, I think it's a safe bet that little or no serious consideration has been given to these matters, only to how it will look to the Fall River voting populace. That's the price we all pay for electing leaders who only react to situations and manage completely in an "ad hoc" manner. It's how we came to the place we are at in our city with entrenched unemployment, ineffective and criminally negligent education, rampant gang life among our youth and soaring drug addiction throughout the city.

But hey.....it's what the voters want. After all, he's only giving them what they want. Right?

" ....Slip Slidin' Away.....Slip Slidin' Awayyyyyy.....The Nearer Your Destination The More Your Slip Slidin' Away......"

2010-10-07T17:44:00.000-04:00

Feinstein’s ‘Carcieri fix’ would
‘devastate’ trust land for gaming

By Gale Courey Toensing
Story Published: Oct 5, 2010
(Story Updated: Oct 5, 2010 )

Mashpee Wampanoag Chairman Cedric Cromwell (left) and Shinnecock Indian
Nation Senior Trustee Lance Gumbs, pictured here at the New England Gaming
Summit at Mohegan Sun Sept. 21, are part of a group of tribal nations mobilizing
to oppose reported efforts by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to stop the Interior
Department from putting new land into trust for gaming

Reports that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is planning her own version of a “Carcieri fix” that would eliminate the ability of tribes to take newly-acquired land into trust for gaming are raising concerns in Indian country.

The issue came to light at the New England Gaming Summit at Mohegan Sun during the week of Sept. 20.

Mashpee Wampanoag Chairman Cedric Cromwell said during his presentation at the summit that he had learned Feinstein would propose an amendment to Section 20 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act – the part of the law that deals with putting land into trust for gaming when the land has been acquired after Oct. 17, 1988 – or an amendment to Sen. Byron Dorgan’s “Carcieri fix” – a bill that has stalled since being approved by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs almost a year ago. In either case, Feinstein aims to curtail the Interior secretary’s authority to take newly-acquired land into trust for Indian gaming, Cromwell said.

The Cape Cod island-based Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which was federally acknowledged in 2007, has a pending application for land into trust to build a casino in the Boston area.

Dorgan and other legislators have sought a “Carcieri fix” since February 2009 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Interior secretary had no authority to take land into trust for the Narragansett Indians because they were not “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed.

Dorgan’s bill – S. 1703 – amends the IRA to reaffirm the secretary’s authority to take land into trust for all acknowledged tribes – a practice that has been in place for more than 70 years.

No one knows exactly what Feinstein plans to do because her activities have taken place behind the scene, Cromwell said.

“Since the senator has not consulted with Indian country, and since her draft language has not been the subject of public hearings, we do not know exactly what the language says. Based on her long-held anti-Indian gaming stance, however, we can assume that her proposed language will be devastating for newly recognized and disadvantaged tribes,” Cromwell said.

Cromwell also questioned whether Feinstein’s motives to alter national law and policy were based strictly on her local concerns to stop the expansion of gaming in California.

“Most disturbing, we are concerned that the senator is using her position as an appropriations subcommittee chair to achieve her local end goal: Shutting down forever the possibility of the Indian gaming in the Bay Area. She is willing to hold hostage the nationally-needed Carcieri fix, and willing to throw newly recognized and disadvantaged tribes from all across the United States under the bus, so that she can achieve this one local goal,” Cromwell said.

Cromwell called on the Obama administration “to take a tough stand on behalf of all tribes. … (and) to tell Congress that all tribes must be treated equally” under the laws.

Barry Piatt, Dorgan’s spokesman, said the senator has not heard about the Feinstein amendment.

“It’s possible she may do so, but it hasn’t reached a stage where it’s an amendment that she’s notified the committee about,” Piatt said.

While Dorgan could not comment on an amendment he hasn’t yet seen, Piatt said, he would not favor creating two classes of tribes.

“He feels very strongly that there should not be two classes of tribes – one that can take land into trust and one that can’t. He stands firm that all tribes ought to be equal on this issue.”
Feinstein’s office did not return calls seeking comment.

Consultant Joe Valandra, Rosebud Sioux, said Feinstein’s reported efforts are happening at the same time that the Interior Department is reviewing the IGRA regulations for “off-reservation” trust land for gaming and encouraging the BIA to move forward with pending applications.

With all these elements and potential actions bumping up against each other, the moment is fraught with danger, Valandra said.

“Right now the Interior Department is in a tough spot trying to respond administratively to the Supreme Court’s Carcieri decision. They hope that Congress will get around to passing a Carcieri fix, but I doubt that will happen soon and it may happen during the lame duck session (when Congress returns after the elections and before new elected officials take office), but there’s danger in that,” Valandra said.

The danger is no one knows exactly what the amendment is, said a Washington attorney who deals in Indian affairs and asked not to be named.

“There was supposed to be a mark-up of the appropriations bills and everyone thought they’d see it then, but Feinstein canceled the mark up. Now the understanding is there won’t be any mark up of the appropriations bill and instead when (legislators) come back for the lame duck session they’ll just wrap a whole bunch of these appropriation bills together so they’ll be tens of thousands of pages long and she’ll just insert the language somewhere and we may never find it before it becomes law,” the attorney said.

A coalition of nations has mobilized to fight Feinstein’s efforts, said Lance Gumbs, senior trustee of the Shinnecock Indian Nation and vice president of the National Congress of American Indians northeast region.
“Obviously, this is another attack on our sovereignty,” Gumbs said.

The NCAI, the largest Indian organization in the country, will also throw its weight behind opposing Feinstein’s actions, Gumbs said.

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/Feinsteins-iCarcierii-fix-would-devastate-trust-land-for-gaming--104358264.html

It's starting to look like all those claims that the Wampanoags will be allowed to declare the 300 acres of land they wish to purchase in Fall River for the purpose of gaming as sovereign tribal land may be nothing more than smoke signals on a cloudy day, at least if powerful Senator Dianne Feinstein has anything to say about it.

And in contradiction to the above article, recent reports indicate that the Wampanoags have NOT filed application with the appropriate federal agencies to have their land placed into trust. To do so today would result in being tied up in an approval review process that normally takes 5 - 7 years to positive completion. That would no doubt be a massive problem for the tribe and their local desperate benefactors, FROED , the Redevelopment Authority (RDA) and the biggest potential losers of them all, Bag-Boy Deluxe Sylvanagan, Ken "The Weeper" Fiola and Steve "Hank the Angry Dwarf" Torres! Good luck folks, looks like you're going to need it!

Just when you think it might happen, it seems just out of reach. But that is the illusion the powers that be wish you to see. I think it's all a bit of "blue smoke and mirrors', with no real deal ever having better than a 50-50 chance of happening. Frankly, I think we are past the good 50% as well. What is clear as a new spring day is that there has been no vote to legalize gaming in Massachusetts, the deal between the RDA and the Wampanoags runs out at the end of the calendar year and that all these labor contracts and budgets for FY 11 and FY 12 and beyond have been constructed on a best case scenario basis, that best case being an Antoine Walkerville (destination casino) related cash infusion into the Fall River municipal treasury. I sincerely doubt that will happen. The chances of it happening IF the 300 acres were to be declared sovereign tribal land are pretty much nil, regardless of what statements are being disseminated by the RDA, FROED and Sylvanagan. Has anyone seen the actual agreement? Of course not, it's all very "double secret probation" like and ridiculously "hush-hush". How members of the City Council have not been made party to agreement negotiations if baffling to say the least. It's all very foreboding and is one of the reasons I think all of this is just a way to maintain the perception that Sylvanagan is working hard to improve Fall River, when in reality such an agreement would result only in improving the political future of the Bag-Boy. And that has always been what this mess has always and only ever been about.

The DIRTY DOZEN? YOU DECIDE!

2010-10-04T19:03:00.001-04:00

Ala. senators, casino owner
accused of vote buying

Lobbyists also indicted over allegations
tied to electronic bingo Advertisement
ad info

Dave Martin / AP

VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor is pictured at the casino in Shorter, Ala., on March 5. McGregor, four state senators and several top lobbyists have been indicted on federal charges accusing them of vote buying on a bill to legalize electronic bingo. The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The owner of Alabama's largest casino, four state senators and several lobbyists face federal charges of conspiring to buy and sell votes for millions of dollars to get electronic bingo legalized, according to an indictment released Monday.
One lobbying firm employee has pleaded guilty to offering $2 million for the vote of an indicted senator.

The indictment, which lists 11 defendants, was made public as FBI agents made arrests across the state. It accuses casino owners and lobbyists of making payments and campaign donations, and legislators of soliciting bribes, to affect pro-gambling legislation. One senator was accused of seeking $100,000 for his vote.

The head of the Justice Department's criminal division, Lanny Breuer, said the criminal activity was "astonishing in scope ... a full-scale campaign to bribe legislators and others."

VictoryLand casino owner Milton McGregor was among those indicted. His casino, now shut down, has more than 6,000 electronic bingo machines. His attorney, Joe Espy, said his client is absolutely innocent and looks forward to proving it.
Also indicted was Country Crossing casino developer Ronnie Gilley of Dothan and state Sens. Harri Anne Smith of Slocomb, James Prueitt of Talladega, Larry Means of Gadsden, and Quinton Ross Jr. of Montgomery.

All four senators voted for the unsuccessful legislation designed to keep electronic bingo casinos operating.
Also indicted were lobbyists Tom Coker and Bob Geddie, who represent VictoryLand; lobbyist Jarrod Massey and public relations executive Jay Walker, who represent Country Crossing; and Ray Crosby, an attorney for the Legislature who helped write gambling legislation.
A hearing at the federal courthouse in Montgomery was scheduled for later Monday.

Federal authorities announced Monday that one of Massey's employees, Jennifer Pouncy of Montgomery, pleaded guilty Sept. 28 to conspiracy. She admitted that at Massey's direction, she offered Preuitt $2 million for his vote and that Massey authorized her to offer $100,000 to Means for his vote.

The indictment alleges that Means, who had abstained from an earlier vote on the pro-gambling legislation in 2010, solicited bribes from McGregor, Gilley, Massey and others in return for voting in favor. In one case, the indictment says, he sought $100,000.

The indictment accused Ross of pressuring McGregor for campaign donations before voting for the gambling bill. It accuses Smith of voting for the bill and encouraging other legislators to support it in exchange for promises and payments from Gilley and others of hundreds of thousands in campaign funds. And it says the Preuitt was offered financial support, free polling and concerts by country music artists to help with his campaign.

The probe was announced last spring prior to the final votes on the bill, which died when sponsors could not line up enough for passage.

Backers of the bill, mostly Democrats, accused Republican Gov. Bob Riley's administration of derailing the measure with the announcement. While Riley's state public safety director was involved with the announcement, federal authorities said the Justice Department was handling the investigation.

Of the four state senators indicted, Means and Ross are Democrats, Preuitt is a Republican and Smith is an independent who was a Republican when the bill was in the Legislature. All are seeking re-election except Preuitt, who recently pulled out of his race.

Smith called her arrest "a nakedly political move, coordinated by the prosecutors in cahoots with the governor's office" to influence legislative elections Nov. 2.

The governor's spokesman, Jeff Emerson, said that last spring, Riley had labeled the gambling bill "the most corrupt piece of legislation ever considered by the Senate."

"Today's action by the Justice Department shows he was, sadly, right," Emerson said.
Electronic bingo casinos operated in Alabama for several years until the governor labeled the machines illegal slots and organized a task force to close them down. The unsuccessful legislation was designed to thwart Riley's task force and keep the electronic bingo machines operating.
McGregor's casino, 15 miles east of Montgomery, was the state's largest, but it has been closed since Aug. 9 to prevent a raid by the task force, which managed to close all privately operated electronic bingo casinos during the probe.
Only three casinos operated by the Poarch Creek Indians remain in operation. They are not under state supervision.

My, oh my, this tale of woe could very easily be applied to our own local situation, I'm quite sure. At a minimum it should serve as a true tale of caution for anyone not up to speed on the entire issue of slot parlors, up to now rejected by Gov. Deval Patrick and the current sticking point with the MA House of Representatives proposed legislation to legalize gaming in the state.

What makes our own states Political/Lobbying situation any different from the "great state of Alabama"? NOTHING, that's what! Anyone trying to convince you politics are somehow dirtier south of the Mason-Dixon line are drinking way too much Kool-Aid from the Gaming Industry's pitcher. Gaming means gambling and gambling means ORGANIZED CRIME! There's mucho money to be made from gaming, even if run entirely legally, which it seldom is regardless of what folks from Vegas or Atlantic City tell you. So naturally gaming, and it's legalization and expansion, is going to attract many "colorful" and " hyper-aggressive entrepreneurial" (HA!) types within it's highly questionable arena. Just more for the taxpayers of Fall River and the region to be concerned with as these types of horror stories continue to crop up around the country as states look to expanded gaming as a way to raise revenues to pay for the basics, like schools, police, fire and DPW activities and services. That's what we've become, a society unwilling to pony up more of what we earn to make a better life for our citizens while becoming quite willing to directly involve ourselves in vice like contemplated legalized and expanded gaming, as well as more extreme forms like legalized prostitution and previously illegal narcotics (legalized pot), just to evade the taxman.

The rich like the Board members of FROED, especially someone like "Yoe-Mama's" Corporation's Yo-Yo Magnate and well known crank yanker Alan Amaral, are doing just fine, thank you, and don't need the extra cash and maybe could afford a few more tax dollars taken out of their egregiously high interest earnings than you and I. But that's a different discussion for another day.

Given the latest news out of Las Vegas that the gaming industry in that city is facing the largest number of direct gaming layoffs since the 1940's, one has to wonder if the original estimates of thousands of jobs paying around $35,000 per year (gaming and related jobs, not construction) for Fall Riverites would be closer to the "Dirty Dozen" FROED hack Ken "the weeper" Fiola finally admitted would be created from the Bio-Park. I mean, who CAN you trust?

I have a GREAT idea.......let's all take a guess who would be the "Dirty Dozen" in Fall River and it's immediate environs who would be assured employment at the new and exciting Fall River Destination Casino, to be named Antoine Walkerville, once it opens, er , IF it opens, that is. Let's see:

1. Willy Nilly Boy Sylvanagan
2. Cedric "I bet we can get Sylvanagan to take Wampum" Cromwell
3. Ken "The Weeper" Fiola
4. Steven "Hank the Angry Dwarf" Torres (BaBa-Bouiee)
5. Alan "Yo-Mama" Amaral (aka "Pocketnuts Troy")
6. Ex-State Senator Joan "It only hurts when I smile" Menard
7. Liz "I buy my court clothes from the Hot Spot" Perriera
8. Brian 'Sport Coat the Lesser" Bigelow (aka "Victoria's Not-So-Secret")
9. Pat "HUH?" Casey
10.Mike "Listen to my radio show OR I'LL SMASH YOUR LEG IN A DOOR, BITCH!" Herren.
11.Meg Mayo-Brown (aka "The Backstabber", aka "Roy? Why are you making me hire Roy?")
12.Bealzebub (self explanatory)

Well...those are my dozen...let's see yours...I'll print them all, except, of course, those from "non-believers", and you know who you are...LOL!

The Forest for the Trees!

2010-10-01T13:46:00.002-04:00

THE WILL FLANAGAN COMMITTEE
P.O. BOX 9516
FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS
SENT VIA FIRST CLASS MAIL &
FACSIMILE 508-324-2626
March 31, 2009

Mayor Robert Correia
City Hall
1 Government Center
Fall River, MA 02722

Re: TOWN HALL MEETING ON BUDGET

Dear Mayor Correia:

The current economic state of our city has left me with the impression that your administration has failed to budget properly for fiscal year 2009. During this fiscal year the city has faced layoffs, cuts in programs, and a decrease in services. I am also concerned that your financial team has failed to properly discuss the state of the city’s finances with its citizens. Therefore, I am calling upon you to host a town hall meeting regarding the state of the city’s finances.

The city’s budget should be a transparent document. The citizens of our city deserve to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent and how your administration assembled the current budget. A town hall meeting will give you and your financial team an opportunity to openly review the city’s budget with its citizenry. A town hall meeting will give the citizens of our great city an opportunity to listen to your financial team and ask questions regarding the current state of the city’s finances.

In addition a town hall meeting would serve as an opportunity for you to solicit public input on the projected 2010 budget. Due to the recent uncertainty surrounding our finances, I strongly believe that a town hall meeting regarding our budget will positively serve our city. As a candidate for mayor you ran on a platform of making city hall more open and responsive to the needs of citizens, this is an opportunity to fulfill that promise.

Respectfully,

Will Flanagan

Candidate for Mayor

Well, I'll be damned! "Respectfully" himself said! Imagine that word being used by Sylvanagan towards anyone he disagrees with! He and his coterie of bum kissers and hatchet men and women, grifters all, have no respect for anyone, let alone elected officials they campaign against. Most of all they have absolutely no respect for the citizens of Fall River. They only have respect for the $$$$ they can wriggle out of the taxpayers. That is a fact!

Too bad the sentiments of the letter he gratuitously posted online during the campaign at an auspicious moment have been little reflected by his own administration. Another extreme example of Sylvanagan & Company's hypocrisy on parade. Hey Bag-Boy, it's not really informing the public at little "Town Meetings" across Fall River if the information your present about the current and future budget is P-H-O-N-Y! You and your crew couldn't tell the taxpayers the truth about the financial future of this, their City, because either A), you and your crew have no clue about REAL public finance, B), don't have the guts to tell them the truth for fear of not being reelected, or C), BOTH! I mean, the City of Fall River is a member of MMA. Did you not receive the same information about the FY12 budget I obtained by talking to my "peeps" who attended the special budget presentation? If not, why not? What are you afraid of? What are you trying to hide? What, aside from reelection, are you trying to gain? Is anyone on your staff of crack finance officers, or you, or the latest version of Fall River's "Hank the Angry Dwarf" (God rest his soul!), your very own Steve Torres, ever had to deal with such a looming disaster? I DON"T THINK SO!!!!!!!!!

No, you and your too live crew of fellow FROED associates and staff cretins will rattle and hum on about so-called achievements, like this latest loss of the Bio-Park for the development by UMASS/Dartmouth of a single biomanufaturing enterprise, hopefully to be located in Fall River (and even THAT hasn't been determined yet!), while avoiding like the plague the REALITY of this City's financial future to hide the bad news from the citizens of Fall River. Cadime complete a realistic Revenue and Expenditure Forecast? HA! Now that's a pipe dream, and even bigger one than Fall River being financially solvent within the next decade, or Pellitier's "Internet Cafe" paying out more in sweepstakes winnings than he takes in for himself!

But that's what you and your FROED clowns want the citizens of Fall River to watch...the trees and not the forest. You and your buddies like YO-YO Amaral (aka "Pocketnuts Troy"), who, as an aside, doesn't look very good in a cheerleaders skirt and waving "red ink" pom-poms, cannot tell the truth about what's straight up ahead. That's right , a big dangerous tree of a different sort, a wide, stout tree of operating budget deficits. And it's that one future tree you are willingly overlooking, The Ford you bought from "Your friend in da bizinezz" will crash head on into it. And then you'll all be lost in that forest of red ink.

Maybe instead of the letter above sent by Bag-Boy deluxe during the campaign, we all might consider THIS one instead! A man can dream, can't he?!

THE DON'T RE-ELECT BILL FLANAGAN COMMITTEE
RENTED P.O. BOX SOMEWHERE IN
FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS
SENT VIA LOW CLASS MAIL BECAUSE
GOV'T CTR IS STILL CLOSED ON FRIDAYS
++Please Don't Shred+++++
April Fool's Day 2010
Mayor of FRGTV
City Hall Throne
1 Government Center
Fall River, MA 02722

Re: TOWN HALL MEETING ON BIO PARK AND CASINO
Dear See Through Mayor :
The current state of our city has left me with the impression that your administration has failed to even attempt to fulfill any campaign promises.

During this fiscal year the city has faced secrecy, arrogance and dictatorship behavior much like the stop bob people rallied against on your behalf and dime. . I am also concerned that your have failed to properly discuss the state of the city with its citizens. Therefore, I am calling upon you to host a town hall meeting regarding the state of the city and it's economic development.

The city should be as transparent as the current mayor vowed it would be upon election.
The citizens of our city deserve to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent and how your administration assembled the current deal with the Wampanoags, Baccarri and any other top secret deals .. ... A town hall meeting will give you and your 'team of ...' an opportunity to openly review the city with its citizenry. A town hall meeting will give the citizens of our great city an opportunity to listen to your rhetoric and ask questions regarding the current state of the city.
In addition a town hall meeting would serve as an opportunity for you to solicit public input on the projected economic development and latest photo -ops . Due to the recent uncertainty surrounding the city we strongly believe that a town hall meeting will positively serve our city. As a candidate for mayor you ran on a platform of making city hall more open and responsive to the needs of citizens, this is an opportunity to fulfill that promise.
Respectfully,

Bill Flanagan
Candidate for re-election

PS.....Hey Yo-Yo Amaral, if you and FROED love Fall River so much and want to save current jobs and develop new ones, why did you move your yo-yo production out of Fall River?

Same Old Song And Dance

2010-09-29T19:05:00.002-04:00

After long search, Fall River selects
and hires new city auditor

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Sep 29, 2010 @ 02:00 PM
Last update Sep 29, 2010 @ 05:05 PM

FALL RIVER — After a lengthy search, the city has hired a Quincy comptroller with a high degree of accounting experience and education as its auditor, Mayor Will Flanagan said Wednesday.

Krishan Gupta of Berkley will start the job Oct. 12 at a top-step salary of $80,292.

For the past three years, he’s worked at Quincy College, an enterprise of that city, as senior director of accounts and finance. He’s handled budgets, payroll, ledger maintenance and preparation of financial statements.

His duties included working with external auditors to finalize annual financial statements and audits. Those are among the key roles of the auditor’s office, which is behind in both its financial and grant audits, according to the state Department of Revenue.

Flanagan called the new auditor “a problem solver.”

He said Gupta met with financial department heads at length last week. He also spoke with the DOR and the city’s auditing firm, Hague & Sahady in Fall River, to learn about the current backlog. “He sat down and he made an assessment. If he didn’t feel he could make a difference for the city, he was not going to take the job,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan said he was seeking an auditor with municipal auditing experience to replace Kevin Almeida who took a comparable financial job in early July with the city school department.

Flanagan also cited Gupta’s extensive education in finance and accounting and college teaching experience.

Educated initially in India where he grew up, Gupta holds a master’s in business administration from the University of West Georgia and master’s in accounting from the Graduate Center City University of New York.

During more than 20 years of teaching accounting in New York and Massachusetts, he taught at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth from 1998 to 2004 and is on the adjunct faculty at Bentley University in Waltham.

Human Resources Director Madeline Coelho said Gupta had been interviewed this summer during a first round of screenings and was a top candidate in a small field.

She noted he was experienced with the city’s MUNIS system and with the Uniform Massachusetts Accounting System.

Gupta accepted the job last week and took a small pay cut from his job in Quincy, Coelho said.

For a year before that he worked as comptroller at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. He was a mid-level manager of the State Bank of India from 1974 to 1985.

“I’m excited about it. I think I can make a difference,” Gupta said in a phone interview.

Informed the DOR is awaiting the late audits, he said, “I’m aware of the challenge and the work that is cut out for me. Challenges are good.”

He expressed optimism he’d receive the cooperation needed to accomplish the tasks as city auditor.

A resident of the SouthCoast and Berkley since 1998, Gupta said the shorter commute will help with his family life. He is remarried with a 2-year-old son, and he and his wife have five college-age and grown children from before they married.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

Let's all hope that our new Auditor has the right stuff for the job ahead. More importantly, let's all hope this guy is a completely honest person capable of not playing "hit the number" for the numerous grant, especially education grants (5-7 years worth in some cases) and general ledger accounts (since FY09) that have been allowed to lay about unaudited and, reportedly, in very bad shape.

I hope he realizes that his staff stinks and that he doesn't have enough warm bodies to provide him with loyal, qualified assistance in this mighty effort. No, we better start calling him "Revis", because he's all alone on that island of his, and in municipal finance, that's most definitely NOT a good place to be.

I have no idea who this man is. I had no idea who the "Finance Director" was when he was hired, and he's been so great he wasn't allowed a voice in the auditor's hiring! It's never a good sign when both men appear to have a similar work-skill background but the supposed underling, the Auditor, has more high level accomplishments than his supervisor, Mr. Grab. (I don't know about you, but a Treasurer named "GRAB" makes me chuckle...a lot...when I hear the name. It's pure Fall River!)

Aside from the obvious connection between these two titans of municipal finance, Grab and Gupta, that being the City of Quincy, there could also be a tie between Gupta and the GREAT CADIME (HA!) through UMASS/Dartmouth. But none of that really matters. You see, in this day and age of unemployment, even amongst professionals, or what pass as professionals, it is rare indeed that TWO of the scant few finance professionals in the City would come from the same City and both be willing to take a pay cut for the privilege of toiling in the GREAT AND WONDERFUL COMMUNITY OF FALL RIVER. HMMMMM. Something's not right about that! NO FOOLING!

But we shall receive answers soon enough. You never know, maybe either Grab or Gupta will be the new Sylvanagan patsy to take the blame for the next set of completed financials for the City, and I'm sure they will tell one sad and sordid tale. Don't forget, it will be the report of the last year of the reign of the GREAT DESTROYER CORREIA. I guess Mr. Almeida, Correia's nephew or godson, or whatever relative of Correia he was, and ex employee of Hague & Sahady just didn't want to be associated with the nasty truth so he split for greener and quieter pastures at the School Department. Wouldn't you?! Let that crap hammer fall on the new guys, right? Don't you just love all the Fall River "Profiles in Courage"!

Let me take this opportunity to inject some terrifying factoids into this discussion:

DOR isn't kidding. The last administration, and the current one, made promises to DOR to complete financial reports in a timely fashion. They better get them on time, or else. I wouldn't want to be Sylvanagan if the reports are not timely filed and then have the State Aid withheld until they are! Say "buh-bye" Sylvanagan!
At a meeting held at MMA this week, some truly hideous FY12 state budget scenarios were laid out. Apparently, because this is an election year, the state FY11 budget was balanced by maxing out revenue forecasts and plying the final budget with scads of one time federal monies and depleting the "rainy day" fund. Everyone is terrified that the ballot proposition to cut the state sales tax to 3%, if passed, will bankrupt the state since the balanced FY 11 budget counts on a full year of receipts at the current sales tax rate, and with rosy receipt figures at that! WITH a cut in sales tax rate if the ballot question passes, one MMA estimate indicates a whopping 30% across the board cut in the state budget for FY 12. 30%! The lowest estimate, given no change in the sales tax rate, is an even still awful cut of up to 18% in the FY12 budget. That's across the board, including LOCAL AID! Chew on that one in an election year Sylvanagan! The new guy Gupta might as well stay right where he is because the City will not be able to afford him, or anyone else , with a 18 - 30 % cut in local aid. I mean, that's a joke and a half! I'm so glad I left the business when I did! Again, say "buh-bye" Sylvanagan!

So, all this is an academic discussion, the new Auditor, the late financial reports, the lack of knowledge of Public Finance of anyone in elective capacity in Fall River. Fall River cannot survive FY12. Impossible. And did not the School Department just use fed monies to hire 130 new people? Maybe they know more than the rest of us, but if the Republicans take control of either the House or Senate in Washington in a month, continued massive ed and local government aid will be cut back severely, if not all together.

Fall River. It's just a disaster waiting to happen!

Target Rich Enviorment

2010-09-29T11:22:00.001-04:00

FROED loans $2M to
15 Fall River businesses in 2010
***************
By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Sep 27, 2010 @ 12:00 AM

FALL RIVER — The Fall River Office of Economic Development has provided low interest loans to 15 local businesses totaling nearly $2 million this year, according to a recent press release from FROED officials.

Those loans are targeted to help retain 350 city jobs and create 62 new positions, reported Kenneth Fiola Jr., FROED executive vice president.

“Typically in a normal lending year we probably loan between $1.3 and $1.8 million,” Fiola said. The first eight months this year are indicative of a small turn in the economy and companies are now looking to reinvest.”

The businesses that received funds through the FROED loan programs include: Amaral’s Central Market, B.G.B.; LLC d/b/a Consolidated Thread Mills; Barcelos Bakery; Bell Garment Co., Inc.; Fall River Ford, Inc.; Famosa Hair Salon; Fitzgerald Insurance & Financial Services; Griffin Manufacturing Company, Inc.; HealthFirst Family Care Center, Inc.; Ledoux & Company, Inc.; Main St. Nat. Title & Closing Services, LLC; Northeast Food and Beverage LLC; Oliveira Construction, Inc.; Raw Seafoods Inc. and Red Velvet Florist Inc.

Mayor Will Flanagan, who chairs the private, nonprofit FROED board of trustees as the mayor, and businessman Alan Amaral, its president, said the impact of the long-standing loan program helps the city in multiple ways.

“Success of business here in the city is a key component to the development and prosperity of the city,” Flanagan said.
FROED’s services “not only benefit the businesses who utilize those but also the city as a whole through job retention and creation,” Flanagan said in a press statement issued by Lynn Creamer, FROED’s economic development coordinator hired earlier this year. Creamer also plays an economic development role to the mayor’s office.

Amaral said FROED continues to follow its mission since being established in 1978. That includes “promoting the prosperity and general welfare of the citizens of Fall River through the stimulation of economic strength and expansion of new and existing businesses.”

He cited financial assistance to local businesses and project management as two resources it provides.

He listed several long-term and ongoing development projects FROED has been involved with, including the Fall River Industrial Park, Commerce Park and eminent domain takings for Meditech and the University of Massachusetts Advanced Technology Manufacturing Center on Martine Street.

The City Council has asked Fiola and the administration to attend a Committee on Finance meeting and update the council on recent economic development projects.

Fiola said the information about the ongoing loan program was coincidental to that recent council request.

He said the addition this year of two staff persons to fill long-vacant positions will include providing quarterly updates on FROED programs.

The agency, housed at Government Center, lists $65 million in loans to more than 600 city businesses since its inception. The listed benefits have been retention and creation of 14,000 jobs over that 32-year period, the press release said.

Applicants for loans are asked to submit an application, financial statement and business plan to the FROED office.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

" TheShadow:

"I wouldn't believe anything that dork Fiola says even if his tongue was notarized." "

My oh my, a voice of reason found on the commenter's section in the Fall River Herald News (HN), otherwise known as the worst fish wrap money can borrow. But let's look at several of the goings on of recent vintage in Fall River shall we?! You must admit, with the advent of fall, Fall River has become a target rich enviornment.

You have to LOVEEEEEEE this story (above). When all is said and done, and all the many propaganda hacks defending FROED stop yacking for a minute, the chirping you hear are the local "crickets of commerce" hiding in the weeds but still very much detectable. It's a vast and unending insult to Fall River citizens that these clowns are able to steal the way they do without being called out and by continuing to raid the FROED, largely publicly funded treasury, with complete brazenness and impunity. Oh Lord, where are the FBI undercover agents when you need them! Just promise Fiola the Weeper more cash and he'll get caught in record time. AMAZING! FROED's operations are really like a revolving fund/Ponzi scheme, a private savings and loan , with your money and your full and faith and credit backing them. You, the Fall River taxpayer swallow the losses. That's the truth. But it's the truth Fiola, Amaral (or as I like to call him on the pages of the HN's commenter's pages "Pocketnuts Troy" - that will get an angry response I'm sure...hey loser, go play with your yo-yo's!) and the rest of the happy band of thieves don't want you to consider.
"So....youze wannah buy a chance to make some dough? Just buy inta dah sweepstakes I'm runnin'....hey, it's not like before, it's LEGAL!"... You have to hand it to Pellitier, he sure knows suckers when he sees them. Internet cafe' my buttocks! All I can say is "what's the administrative fee and payoff schedule there Oh crooked one?! A fool and his money are soon parted....who said that...oh yes, Wampanoag Chief Cromwell. He was soooooo right!
The dirty dozen! It's not the title of a WWII movie we all have seen, it's the number of jobs that REALLY were expected by FROED and Fiola the Weeper from the Bio-Park. The 8,000 jobs would come over a period of 15-20 years, or so he says NOW! Myself, I think he's simply softening the blow for the news that the Bio-Park is going to New Bedford, not in any of these "PRIME" Fall River locations offered to UMASS/Dartmouth or the Baccari (THE PRESUMED BRIBER OF ELECTED OFFICIALS) owned land in Freetown, the alternative "make-up" locations made available AFTER the public started going bat guano crazy about losing BOTH the casino AND the Bio-Park. That's probably the game afoot with FROED. Tell everyone the Bio-Park wasn't so great an idea and trumpet scads of well paying (HA!) jobs - $25 - $35,000/year - jobs available at a casino...if it ever gets built. The City Council drilled the two fools (Fiola the Weeper and "little Napoleon Torres) sent into harms way by Bag-Boy Deluxe Sylvanagan. Oh and just about any and all concrete information about all of FROED's dealings surrounding the Bio-Park and the casino are still on "double secret probation" status. Sounds like Nixon's secret plan to end the Vietnam War to me! Hooey and crapola is what the public is getting from FROED and mayor Sylvanagan.

That's enough for now...so much negativity is bad for a person's health. So with that, I'm signing off for now....but later...I'll discuss MMB and the deplorable situation at the Fall River School Department....MCAS lives!

Growing Rats Nest

2010-09-21T15:54:00.002-04:00

INSIDE TAUNTON: Trash-to-energy consultant switch
under City Council’s watch, not Crowley’s

By TED GAY

GateHouse News Service

Posted Sep 19, 2010 @ 11:42 PM

Taunton —

Charles Crowley makes the point that he wasn’t mayor when the City Council switched in mid-stream consultants for a trash-to-energy plant.

It’s a good point in understanding the collapse of the high tech landfill replacement project. Crowley was responding to an item here last week that raised the question of who should be held responsible for the failure.

In an e-mail, he said there were individuals on the state level who could share the blame, as well as those on the local level.

Crowley noted that the council embraced the project the night councilors unexpectedly switched consultants from Camp, Dresser and McGee to Alternative Resources, Inc. That was about five years ago.

The subcommittee, then chaired by Tom Hoye, followed by Dan Barbour, and A. J. Marsall, heard the recommendation of then City Solicitor Steve Torres for making the change and approved sending it to the full council for endorsement. That vote was unanimous. So was the vote of the full council that night.

It remained that way in the years that followed with the public being kept in the dark.

“The council likes to blame me for everything and yet take credit for everything,” Crowley wrote.

He cited the cost of the fire watch for the Star Theater when the councilors knew only the fire chief could order the watch, as well as the councilors claiming that passage of the local meals tax enabled the city to rehire laid off workers. The tax did not provide enough revenue for that.

(separated at birth)

Another in a long line of great jobs completed by our very own modern day Ratso Rizzo (From Midnight Cowboy), City Corporation Counsel Steve Torres. I don't think this person can do ANYTHING right!

We all know there were some shady goings on with the "trash -to-energy" project in Taunton when he was the City Attorney there with cries of outrage from members of the Taunton City Council after they found out about Mr. Torres' travel to France to check out a facility along with consultants for a specific product. Nice going there Steve, the way you and your partner in "crime" work, your then assistant legal errand boy, our very own Mayor Sylvanagan, being layed out for the honest world to see. You folks NEVER change your modus operandi because you are pretentious attorneys for cripes sake, masters of the universe and more knowledgeable than anyone you meet, right?

You guys went way past Arrogance Street and set up house in an apartment on Hubris Circle. And I thought you loved Fall River so much you would have at least bought a home on Sincere Avenue. Nope, not Fall River loving Mayor Sylvanagan. It just wouldn't fit the profile. Grifters like you two need to stay free of putting down roots. You never know when you'll have to move on quickly. It's one deal at a time for you two, right?

And maybe we found one of the latest deals. Just because you two have been on a continuous losing steak since landing in Fall River doesn't mean you can't soak SOMEONE for a bundle, right?

Well, meet "JOHN DOE #2", as the FBI affidavit against several North Providence City Councilmen calls him, aka (as far as we know) Mr. Baccari. Around these parts Mr. "Doe" (aptly named, I might add) is the gentleman who we think owns the land in Freetown near the Rt. 24 cutoff originally planned as an access way to the 300 acres for the Bio-Park. The land he owns is the very same land on which Messers Sylvanagan , Torres and Fiola want FROED to buy to entice UMASS/Dartmouth to build the Bio-Park. And as we all know, Sylvanagan, Torres Fiola and FROED are trying to soak the Wampanoags and are trying to sell them the same 300 acres intended for the Bio-Park so they can build a destination casino. In either situation, Mr DOE #2's land in Freetown will be much, much more valuable now that he has that nice Rt. 24 access way built right next to his Freetown property. Who is soaking who is really the actual issue, but let the grifters do their thing.

Reading the actual FBI affidavit of MR. DOE #2's handiwork is amazing. You can find it right here:

http://www.projo.com/news/2010/pdf/north_providence_councilmen_affidavit_0506.pdf

It is truly an exercise in the worst aspects of local government graft and corruption, and the open willingness of a monied business interest to spread the wealth to get precisely what they want, and screw John Q Public!

One of my favorite passages is one that talks about the mechanics of the scheme, the actual payoff for Council votes, and the extremely vulgar, yet cliched way the offer was put to the miscreants involved:

CS#1 asked ZAMBARANO if the others involved in the bribery scheme were BURCHFIELD and DOUGLAS. ZAMBARANO said "Yeah." ZAMBARANO continued "They don‟t even want to talk to you about it...in other words... they agreed. Now its gonna be four of us. So... You come tomorrow night... if you go along with the show and go along with everything we‟ll give you $4,000 ... and I‟m gonna tell you it was twenty five divided by three. So we‟re not getting much more than you are. But I mean I negotiated the deal. I mean... and they were in on it from the beginning...so I came up with that figure." CS#1 asked "Twenty five hundred?" to which ZAMBARANO replied "Twenty five thousand." ZAMBARANO stated to CS#1 that JOHN DOE #2 told ZAMBARANO "You deliver four votes and I‟ll give you twenty-five thousand dollars."

Right from an episode of The Sopranos! But it happened right next door in Rhode Island.

Now why bring up Steven Torres and the Taunton Project? Whether a City Corporate Counsel , Fall River Mayor who worked under him, an attorney representing FROED or a monied property developer who will stop at nothing to get things done HIS WAY, we are discussing a collection of arrogant individuals who will not change the way they do business. These leopards will not change their spots. Doing things in the dark, out of every one's eye shot, keeping things secret and quiet, are the hallmark of these folks. It's frightening to see these individuals in on the same deal in any form or fashion. One has a legitimate reason for concern that things are not being done on the up and up, or that some type of valuable considerations are being traded between these particular parties.

I'm not saying there are quid pro quos going on, or that cash is changing hands under the table . No, I'd never do that. But I am saying by their past activity you shall know them. They will never change. Grifters never do.

One last frightening thought to consider. JOHN DOE #2's daughter is married to the son of the would be Governor of Rhode Island. I'm so glad I live in the Bay State.

If 6 was 9

2010-09-20T12:24:00.194-04:00

Fall River Mayor Flanagan:
City working on revised local hiring law

Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan, shown here with Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell, says the city is working on a revised version of the responsible employer ordinance.

(Actually, it's a handshake agreeing to screw the taxpayers of Fall River to ensure their own future's!)

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Sep 19, 2010 @ 08:48 PM
Last update Sep 19, 2010 @ 10:02 PM

FALL RIVER — Mayor Will Flanagan, called out by several city councilors over the controversial Responsible Employee Ordinance, said he supports such a provision and has his law department working on a revised version.

“I would have rather seen the ordinance reworked than repealed,” Flanagan said Thursday, two days after the City Council removed it.

Noting the lawsuit filed in June that followed its initial passage, Flanagan said, “I believe we had time to rewrite the ordinance before we went back into court.”

That was in reference to the suit filed by the Utility Contractors Association of New England Inc., alleging four sections of the enacted ordinance violated federal and state constitutions.

“We’re researching in the law department what’s considered a reasonable approach,” Flanagan said of the REO in general and specifically its controversial apprenticeship hiring standards.

“I think we can get it out by the next court date,” Flanagan said. “We will put it before the council.”

Councilor Eric Poulin and others urged him to do that.

The contractors group claimed the ordinance's residency requirements for hiring were illegal. The organization's lawyer, Richard Wayne of Boston, called apprenticeship requirements that contractors have approved training programs in place for several years in order to bid “pretty onerous.”

As a result, the city’s law department agreed to suspend enforcement of the ordinance until Wayne filed a court request for summary judgment. That was expected sometime in October.

Similar ordinances, adopted by about 18 larger cities and towns in Massachusetts, govern requirements for unionized and open shops that bid on municipal projects.

Flanagan said he supports local hiring laws in general and some conditions in the now-repealed ordinance.

He said any employer knowingly allowing illegal, undocumented workers “should be prohibited from future work. It is illegal. It should be part of the ordinance,” he said.

He cited the city’s 14 percent unemployment rate and union halls with sometimes half its members out of work. He said he indicated in meetings with union and open shop leaders his support for a “local hiring preference.”

The residency requirements, targeted in the lawsuit, are “a gray area,” Flanagan said.

He supports paying prevailing wages — which state laws mandate on public jobs — and providing benefits like health insurance.

While medical benefits can vary widely, especially between union and open shops, Flanagan said he supports how that part of the ordinance was written.

“I support a reasonable apprentice program,” Flanagan said.

His assistant corporation counsel, Elizabeth Pereira, called it “a huge issue that’s been difficult” to resolve. Union and open shops have widely different preferences on graduate training programs, maintaining them and meeting quotas.

Pereira, assigned to the research after the contractors filed suit, said she’s been working with Corporation Counsel Steven Torres “to try to figure out some way to word it so it’s in conformance with case law... “We were hoping to have something by the beginning of September, but it didn’t happen,” she said. “Steve and I began working on it, and it got to a stumbling block when we got to the apprenticeship issue.”

Pereira said they are ready to proceed. The City Council repealed the ordinance rather than referring what had originally been passed to its Committee on Ordinances and Legislation for revision.

“It really didn’t make too much of a difference as far as we’re concerned,” she said. “The REO enforcement was suspended. To us, it was if it was off the books.”

Now that it’s repealed, she said Utility Contractors may seek reimbursement for attorney’s fees.

Flanagan said they’d dispute such pursuit of damages because the ordinance was embargoed then repealed.
“I’m not the authority that proposed the ordinance,” Flanagan said of the 8-0 council vote to pass it after Torres finalized the law union leaders gave the council.

“Attorney Torres to this day says he thinks it’s defensible. We haven’t changed our position,” Flanagan said.

Despite claims to the contrary by some councilors, he said he did not directly or indirectly support repeal of the ordinance.

An issue Pereira said needs further clarification is whether the city’s original and more limited REO, enacted in 2000, remains in effect.

“The old ordinance is essentially stricken,” she said, citing the new REO language.

City Clerk Alison Brett and City Council President Joseph Camara said the night of the repeal the old one remained on the books. Pereira said Brett had contacted her saying that was the council’s intent.

She planned to research the council action and give Brett an opinion.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

"Ok, so a guy goes into a bar and sees a turtle, a chicken and a lawyer drinking burbon, and he askes the bartender "Hey, what's going on with those three?" and the bartender says........"

Nothing this crook says or does can possibly be taken at face value. He's not smart enough to bring about real, positive change in Fall River, but he's just devious enough to be dangerous to your financial well being and your standard of living in Fall River. And then there is that ever present nagging question of "What's in this for him?"

You naturally have to extend the beneficiaries of that query to include his pals Torres and Fiola, as well as his biggest campaign contributors and his fellow members of the FROED Board of Directors. You might also want to include the Chamber of Commerce. Oh yes, and anyone publishing a newspaper in the City and those painting newspaper boxes (HA!). Newspaper boxes! HAHAHAHA! PAINT A NEWSPAPER BOX AND CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF FALL RIVER ! I haven't stopped laughing since I first read that happy horse twaddle!

So, from what I gather, the City Council, riding the expected crest of a populace anger wave, set about trying to solve the city's unemployment problem by trying to mandate, quite illegally, that city people be hired , in exorbitantly high numbers, as trade apprentices and employees on construction crews in order for firms to be eligible to be awarded a city contract. And when an attorney, a very expensive and far more qualified attorney than our CRACK , home grown city legal team, representing Utility Contractors Association of New England Inc., filed suit against the city, the City Council reacted by killing the ordinance they had passed, but left the framework of an earlier attempt in place, primarily, I think, to allow them all to say they are tough on construction firms trying to win city contracts by mandating Fall River labor be used. There is more useless posturing going on right now than in an episode of America's Next Top Model.

And then came Sylvanagan. This fool wants it every which way that will make him look good. But the entire discussion, from his vantage point, is entirely devoid of what is right or wrong, what is appropriate to reach a valid social goal, or what actually is allowable under both state and federal constitutions. I guess that's why we must rely on Atty. Richard Wayne representing the Utility Contractor's. I guess that's also why Atty. Wayne's clients want legal fees paid by the City of Fall River in the event the Judge sides with the Utility Contractor's in a possible summary judgement. The way Sylvanagan claims we shouldn't have to pay makes me feel we is doomed. It's an all too frequent feeling whenever he tries to justify how Fall River DIDN'T screw something up!

" Flanagan said they’d dispute such pursuit of damages because the ordinance was embargoed then repealed.

“I’m not the authority that proposed the ordinance,” Flanagan said of the 8-0 council vote to pass it after Torres finalized the law union leaders gave the council.

“Attorney Torres to this day says he thinks it’s defensible. We haven’t changed our position,” Flanagan said. "

But what is really so "Sylvanagan" about the entire mess is this little bon mot:

" Pereira, assigned to the research after the contractors filed suit, said she’s been working with Corporation Counsel Steven Torres “to try to figure out some way to word it so it’s in conformance with case law... “We were hoping to have something by the beginning of September, but it didn’t happen,” she said. “Steve and I began working on it, and it got to a stumbling block when we got to the apprenticeship issue.”

You have to love the thinking here, and the fact that it's discussed openly, like someone waving the stupid flag for all the world to see. "We're trying to jury rig an ordinance around known case law AFTER THE FACT because we were too dumb to do it at the beginning!" I mean, is this what passes for adequate preparation and solid legal reasoning in Fall River? No wonder that Atty. Wayne reportedly called home and told the old wifey to order steak that night after he met with his clients from Utility Contractor's. YOU CAN"T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!

Not smart enough to bring about positive change, but just devious enough to get the entire City of Fall River into financial hock while trying to feather his own nest by any tortured reasoning of his own. Sometimes the most direct way is the best way.

" ...Well buddy, you see the Turtle drinks bourbon because he's a slow walking coward who hides from trouble, and the Chicken drinks bourbon because he's terrified of crossing the street to get to the other side in all that traffic....But the Lawyer drinks bourbon with the other two because he's setting up his new client the Chicken to get hit by a taxi during rush hour while he's still in the crosswalk and wants the turtle to be a witness on the sidewalk before he calls the ambulance"..

More Fall River CHRONIC Coincidences!!!

2010-09-18T19:45:00.001-04:00

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100917/NEWS/9170312/-1/NEWS06

SOUTHCOAST TODAY
By CHARIS ANDERSON
canderson@s-t.com
September 17, 2010 12:00 AM

UMD looks to choose biotech site this month

NEW BEDFORD — The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth could choose a location for a multimillion-dollar biomanufacturing facility by the end of the month, a university official said this week.

New Bedford and Fall River both submitted site proposals for the facility in July after the Fall River Redevelopment Authority agreed in principle earlier in the year to sell the original Fall River site to the Mashpee Wampanoag for development as a resort casino.

In addition to the cities' proposals, the university is considering building the $22 million facility on its Dartmouth campus, according to UMass Dartmouth spokesman John Hoey.

"We're in dialogue with the two cities ... as we continue to just get as much information as we possibly can to make the best decision, the decision that will be in the best interests of both the university and the region," he said.

"We're still planning to make a decision in September — that's our goal."

UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean MacCormack on Wednesday met with Mayor Scott W. Lang at City Hall to discuss the city's proposal, according to Lang.

Also present at the meeting were James Karam, vice chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees; Paul Vigeant, UMass Dartmouth assistant chancellor; Matthew Morrissey, the city's economic development director; and Tom Davis, executive director of the Greater New Bedford Industrial Foundation.

In the city's proposal, it offered the university a 5-acre site of the university's choosing in the New Bedford Business Park, a parcel that would be donated to UMass by the Greater New Bedford Industrial Foundation.

The park has 20 lots covering a total of 310 acres available for development, according to an Aug. 16 memo sent by Lang to the university.

The Standard-Times received the memo and other documents after submitting a public records request to the city for all correspondence related to the project.

In that memo, Lang detailed a number of other components to the city's proposal, including a commitment to provide $3 million in low interest finanacing to the university for the project through the New Bedford Economic Development Council.

Lang also committed to transferring ownership and control of the Naval Reserve Center property to the commonwealth for $1 when the funding for an expansion of SMAST on that site has been secured by the university, the memo stated.

The university's initial request for proposals listed a commitment by New Bedford to transfer ownership of the property as a required condition.

Lang further clarified his position in a Sept. 13 letter sent to the consultant hired by the university to evaluate the site proposals.

"It is our understanding from the University's Request for Proposals that the SMAST expansion is conditioned on the UMass Biomanufacturing being constructed at the New Bedford Business Park," he wrote.

"Therefore, when we receive a commitment for the siting of the Biomanufacturing Center in New Bedford, we will obtain and prepare all necessary documents for the SMAST expansion."

Hoey said the university was thrilled that the mayor had committed to transferring ownership of the Naval Reserve site once the project financing was finalized.

"The university doesn't have the cash on hand to build a $25 million expansion," he said.

But, Hoey continued, "There are a number of different options the university could pursue."

The Fall River proposal locates the UMass facility on a parcel that is part of 300 privately owned acres in Freetown next to the Stop & Shop distribution center, according to Kenneth Fiola.

Richard Baccari II, vice president of development for the site's current owner, has agreed to donate 4 acres to the Greater Fall River Development Corp., which will in turn donate that land to the university to build the biomanufacturing facility, according to Fall River's proposal.

The Fall River Office of Economic Development will also purchase an additional 50 acres of contiguous land, according to Fiola.

Fiola would not disclose how the Fall River Office of Economic Development would fund the purchase other than to state he was not worried about the financing.

The Fall River Herald News recently reported that Fall River Mayor William Flanagan said the city would likely seek the funding for the purchase from the Mashpee Wampanoag.

Fiola would not comment on the mayor's earlier statements; Flanagan did not return a call for comment Thursday

So, the negotiations with the Wampanoags to borrow cash to purchase land in Freetown from Bacarri the "Indicted One", if I'm not mistaken, are the very same "double secret probation" negotiations that Mayor Sylvanagan's folks stated could not be discussed before the City Council. So delicate and secret was this information that SOUTHCOAST TODAY managed to gain access to it!

Why are these facts being denied the City Council and the people of Fall River? Why cannot the Mayor let his own constituents know, directly from his own lying mouth, what he plans to do ? I mean, if he plans to borrow money from the Wampanoags to buy land from someone under indictment in Rhode Island (again, we believe) in a town not Fall River, doesn't that mean the taxpayers of Fall River are liable to repay the loan? Of course it does! And why are the citizens of Fall River purchasing land in another town ? And why from this shady character Baccarri?

Why? I think it's nothing more than some pre-arranged deal made more urgent because of the bad reaction Fall Riverites had when it looked like the Gambling Bill would not pass and that the City had probably lost it's chance to capture the Bio-Park Project from UMass/Dartmouth!

If you will recall, FROED let it be known that it wanted to consider making FROED a more regional organization, not just Fall River, but to include contiguous communities on it's immediate borders. The publicly stated reason for this was regional economic development which would aid in bringing jobs to the area for Fall Riverites. I think it really was done for the purpose of doing business with this man Baccarri, to arrange some sort of land purchase deal for his acreage in Freetown. Surely, it was no coincidence that the Route 24 cut-off improvement benefits Mr. Baccarri as much as it does the 300 acre parcel originally designated for use as the Bio-Park, now the proposed site for a destination casino.

No, this is no accident. At least that's my belief. And you must start to ask yourselves whether you think those working at the behest of FROED , the Board members and executive level employees and this mayoral administration are getting "other" considerations from a man already being investigated for bribing a Rhode Island member of the House of Representatives.

I'm sure it's all just a coincidence. Yeah, a CHRONIC coincidence.

RDA...real or memorex?

2010-09-18T19:19:00.000-04:00

More from our illustrious Redevelopment Authority!!!

FIND THIS COVERAGE AT : http://www.vimeo.com/15060357

" 2 months ago The Fall River Redevelopment Authority met to discuss the following: Route 79, Commerce Park, 300-acre bioreserve land (in executive session), and other matters. All members were present and FROED VP Ken Fiola gave the presentation and answered questions from the board. At the end of the meeting, the board voted to extend the contract without pay to FROED, until such time as they can determine if they can afford FROED, or sell an asset. "

Fall River Redevelopment Authority, September 16, 2010, 2PM from MondoLizzie on Vimeo.

Many thanks to MondoLizzie !

Once again,LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!

2010-09-17T16:13:00.002-04:00

Fired former Correia staffers
file lawsuit against city.

Oh...it's a lovely thing to be led by an childish idiot !!

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Sep 16, 2010 @ 10:42 PM
Last update Sep 17, 2010 @ 07:14 AM

FALL RIVER — Fired eight months ago from well-paying government jobs with three-year contracts given by their longtime boss and outgoing mayor, Jeffrey Santos and Kathleen Edwards struck back this week with a lawsuit against the city.

Their Providence attorney Richard Peirce alleges their constitutional rights were violated because they were terminated “due to their political association with the former mayor” — Robert Correia — and they were fired without due process.

Mayor Will Flanagan, on his first full day in office, fired the two recently appointed Community Development Agency employees.

The 11-page complaint does not list monetary damages.

It seeks, however, reinstatement of Santos’ $85,000-a-year job as Community Development Agency executive director and for Edwards in her $55,000-a-year job of executive secretary/contracts compliance officer.

The suit seeks compensatory damages for the full length of the two contracts and for emotional distress, punitive damages if the city showed willful misconduct, attorney’s fees and other relief the court determines.

They seek a jury trial.

Santos and Edwards are longtime city residents who worked for Correia for the bulk of his 30 years as a state representative and two-year term as mayor.

Correia lost his re-election in the preliminary last September, after which Flanagan was elected in November.

Flanagan, joined by Corporation Counsel Steven Torres in his sixth-floor office, said he “deemed the lawsuit frivolous and without merit” — and worse.

“The lawsuit’s not worth even the paper it’s printed on,” Flanagan said Thursday after obtaining a copy from New Bedford Superior Court. Later, he took pleasure putting the document through a shredder at Government Center.

“I don’t believe they’re entitled to one red cent,” he said, stating that city lawyers would defend the suit and there’d be “no settlement.”

“They were not terminated due to their political affiliations. They were terminated because of contracts against public policy,” Flanagan said.

Torres said, “The contracts had provisions extended by the outgoing mayor that if the new mayor comes in he is responsible for the remainder of the contracts.”

He said the contracts “were written by a mayor that was not re-elected with the purpose of tying the hands of the administration. It’s what case law says it can’t do.”

The language says if the city terminates the agreement “for convenience,” it must pay out the cash value of the contracts, along with accrued time owed.

Torres has called that severance provision “unconscionable.”

The complaint Peirce assembled on behalf of Santos and Edwards included contentions that both were qualified for their jobs. It said Santos had “oversight” of the CDA since July 2008 after Robert Laughlin “resigned his position” as interim director and that neither of the two could be fired under their contracts unless they resigned, retired, died or for “just cause.”

The lawsuit claims no city official explained or justified their terminations or gave them opportunity to be heard prior to the firings. It also points to the three-year contracts for Torres and Assistant Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Sousa Pereira, which extend by about a year beyond Flanagan’s elected term, and by not including termination clauses would give his appointed full-time lawyers their salaries and benefits for the lengths of those contracts.

It would entitle them “to the same type of benefits provided for in the Edwards and Santos agreements,” the suit contends.

Peirce, contacted at his firm of RCF&P, said he was basically asserting a breach of contract and a breach of First Amendment rights.

“There is a contractual obligation to employ them,” Peirce said.

He said their severance under the contracts “should have no bearing on the city’s decision to discharge Edwards and Santos,” both of whom he said have been unemployed.

Peirce also said it made no difference that Correia had lost in the preliminary when he appointed Santos on Nov. 1 — the day before Election Day — and Edwards on Dec. 1, and gave both three-year contracts on Dec. 21, days before his term as mayor expired.

“I haven’t heard any representative of the city say Mayor Correia did not have the authority to enter into their contracts, other that they’re against public policy,” Peirce said.

The day he fired them, Flanagan said, “There was no search, no other candidate was considered, the appointments were open for years and, in the last 30 days (Correia) filled those appointments with key staffers. That would strengthen the case if it went to court.”

Edwards had been Correia’s chief of staff and Santos his longtime administrative assistant.

The lawsuit says Flanagan issued letters to them on Jan. 5 that said their CDA jobs “were not properly filled.”

Peirce had issued a “demand letter” to Torres on Feb. 26 to discuss the terminations, which he said did not result in any productive discussions.

While Peirce said he found it “ironic” that Torres found the contracts unconscionable while his contract term extends beyond Flanagan’s term, the city officials disputed the outcome would be the same on Torres’ extended contract if he were fired.

He agreed Santos’ contract lists the terms and is silent on any termination pay he could be owed. “There’s not a hammer clause,” he said, stating the city would have to pay long term severance.

Flanagan said his staff and legal counsels “are seen as part of the administrat
ion. The CDA is not part of the administration. They’re clouding the issue.

“It’s like Obama coming in and having to keep all of George Bush’s people in his cabinet. It just doesn’t happen,” Flanagan said.

He said what makes the Santos-Edwards provisions “against public policy is it makes the city liable for the full three years. No contracts have that.”

Other city contracts, however, have 60- and 90-day notice or severance, such as the one signed this spring for City Administrator Shawn Cadime, which lists both a 60- and 90-day notice that Flanagan said needs correcting.

Flanagan stated another factor he believes is relevant: that he retained Santos’ son as a member of the Licensing Board and Edwards’ husband, who was Correia’s campaign treasurer, as a member of the Planning Board.

“The sibling and spouse remain on the city’s payroll,” Flanagan said. “That diminishes their case. They have no case.”

“Our position is they’re bound by those contracts,” Peirce said.

Peirce said he planned to serve the suit on the city today. The city would have 20 days to issue its answer.

E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

The worm does turn, doesn't it?! When Mayor Correia signed the "Contracts from Hell" for his primary water carrier Santos and long time secretary Edwards I was enraged like any reasonable Fall Riverite. Even in a political moral backwater like Fall River there is a line that should never be crossed, and Correia clearly did just that with these two contracts. This was simply an unacceptable reaction by an unpopular mayor and politician who clearly had misjudged the public perception of him and his administration. When these contracts were proposed, I had a very strong feeling they were granted, not just to personally reward these two long serving individuals, but to symbolize the giving of a huge middle finger to the City for rejecting Correia. It was an act of retribution by a spoiled child. I call this Act I.

Now comes Act II. From one bad contract outrage to a couple of others. It would appear the City's legal eagles have learned nothing with the change of administrations. While Sylvanagan decried the gifts handed over to Santos and Edwards, he gave a few out of his own, and continues to do so.

By any stretch of the imagination Sylvanagan and Torres have contrived to do exactly the same thing that Correia did. Yet they want the world outside of themselves to accept their tenuous explanation of the why's and how's of their own legal machinations in the manner and award of contracts for their own close and high ranking supporters. I just don't think this is going to end well for Fall River taxpayers, and that usually means carrying the cost for yet another legal screw-up!

This was supposed to be the low-cost legal administration. All we have witnessed since the election of Bag Boy Deluxe Sylvanagan is one legal bad opinion after another, and ALL of them are going to come home to roost on YOUR backs. Amazing.....I honestly never thought this clown would be smart enough to bamboozle the entire Fall River electorate, but, you know how bad I am at predicting politics in this City!

How utterly childish is it to have a photo taken of you putting a copy of the lawsuit filed against you through a paper shredder! Oh yes, I immediately thought of John Kennedy when I saw that picture! (HA!) More like Richard Nixon! And how embarrassed will this City then be if a settlement or judgement is eventually made against Fall River as a result of that lawsuit? Well, not me, actually. I'll just heave a mighty YUK towards City Hall! I'm sure I will not be alone.

Haven't you all had enough of the Titticut Follies this City has become under this selfish, sociopath fool of a mayor? This type of outrage will continue, it's clear and predictable. Opps, there I go again, predicting things...Let's just call it a feeling and leave it at that.

Act III. I wonder what that will be? Probably the next Mayor having to explain away the legal stupidity of Sylvanagan and Torres and the need for a take funds away from the City Budget to pay for a legal settlement. All I can say is "Oh...it's a lovely thing to be led by an childish idiot !!"

No more prognostications!

2010-09-17T15:09:00.001-04:00

First, let me say congratulations to Rep. Mike Rodrigues for winning the Democratic Party's primary election for the State Senate. I did not support you, will not support you, but you are destined to win because there is no real opposition from anyone on the Republican side. They are the only force more dreadful in their ineptitude than mine in picking electoral winners.

I think it's a good time to stop backing candidates for office. Being "0" for "3" tells me all I need to know.....I guess I back candidates with my heart and not enough with my head. So there ends a non- productive activity on my part.

Finally, let me say, "thanks Mike Coogan for running!" I mean that. He's a gentleman and a good, solid guy. He would have been an excellent state senator. I'm proud to have carried your banner for all to see.

Well, that's my political wrap up. Things look very muddled politically right now, locally, in the state,and in the nation. I fear things may not work out for this state come November. We'll have to wait and see.

Yabba Dabba DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.......

2010-09-08T11:57:00.004-04:00

Tax collector puts a stop
to online bank payments

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Sep 07, 2010 @ 08:30 PM

FALL RIVER — The city tax collector’s office has deleted the online bank payment system, effective immediately, citing backlogs caused by researching bills paid by that method.

Those wishing to pay online may only do so using a credit card option that includes a fee schedule based on amounts, City Collector Ida Geraldes said.

“It just takes too much research on what you’re trying to pay,” said Geraldes, a 25-year city employee promoted recently to department head.

Online banking started about seven years ago.
Many residents pay bills through a mailed check or come into the tax collector’s at Government Center to pay in person, she said.

While online banking is seen by many as improving efficiency, Geraldes said the opposite seems true for their office.
“I stopped it when I was processing the mail. The itemized bills just didn’t have enough information — such as the type of bill and quarter being paid — and didn’t allow our system to process them quickly,” Geraldes said.

“Everyone in the office agreed this is ridiculous,” she said. “It just takes too long to process the mail.”

She made the Flanagan administration aware of the change.

While online banking was used primarily for water/sewer bills and excise tax bills, Geraldes said such checks mailed from banks listed a disclaimer that they cannot be used to pay real estate taxes.

" But the system doesn’t have a way to stop you from doing it,” said Geraldes. She said the department had been accepting the limited number of online real estate bills that fell through, but will stop that.

On Aug. 26, the office mailed out roughly 7,500 letters to taxpayers about the change in online banking.

More than 5,000 of those went out with the latest water/sewer bills due next month.

Another 2,500 notices of the new policy went out with demand letters for those behind on the real estate quarterly taxes, she said.

Anyone paying those bills by online banking will have such payments returned, Geraldes said. “Up until today we were accepting them,” she said.

She noted the extra cost fee structure by using the relatively new credit card system with the city’s bank. Up to $100 of taxes is $2.50; $400 to $700 is $17.50; and $3,100 to $4,000 is $100 under the city’s UniPay system by UniBank.
She said the bank and credit card company makes the profit, not the city.

Further information is listed at the city website www.fallriverma.org and clicking “online bill pay.”

Geraldes said online banking did not comprise a large percentage of tax bills paid, but said the research needed contributed to the system falling behind and contributed to a public complaint and firing of the prior collector a few months ago.

There remain times the office is behind on processing collections and, therefore, being able to immediately deposit the funds, she said. She said the office could be a week, or even two, behind at times.

Geraldes said she does not find that acceptable and collections were processed up to date as of Tuesday.
The method to keep payment records straight is to bundle the payments and dates received each day until they can processed and deposited, Geraldes said.

“My biggest concern was processing the mail and doing it effectively and efficiently,” said the new collector. Her current salary is $63,600.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

Tax Collector's Office reconciling receivables

Well, lookey here. The Mayor has fired a slow, incompetent Tax Collector and has hired an utter stone aged moron to replace her. All I'm worried about right now is which member of the FROED Board of Directors has a close personal friend working at Unibank?! I keed, I keed! I've been following Fall River politics for too long!

No, this is one huge step for idiots, one huge leap backwards for mankind and the tax and rate payers of Fall River. Silly me, I always thought the objective of the Tax Collector's primary job was to make sure that all payments should be deposited into the bank as soon as possible so that the City could make some interest earnings on the quarter billion dollars that flows through it's accounts each year. How could I have been so wrong all those years (20) as a Municipal Finance Director? I guess you're never too old to learn new things!

First this idiot lawyer as mayor fires the IT manager. Then he promotes some lifetime slacker yes woman as the Tax Collector, someone who knows absolutely nothing about correct Tax Collector procedures or requirements. This is a typical "Fall River Pride" F-UP, and is the equivalent of going back into the stone age to suit the talents , or lack thereof, of the unqualified people toiling away in the Collector's office.

I just don't get it. This move is so atrocious it is an exhibition of a stupefying level of wrong! And while everyone is agreeing to the great leap backwards in the Sylvanagan regime, I can tell you right now the reconciliations between tax and fee payment receipts to taxes and fee payments committed and owed ledgers will never be known for certain. This means yet another embarrassing request by the City to DOR to certify a tax rate for accounts no one can verify. I mean, I am nearly speechless over the gross incompetence and mismanagement being displayed so proudly by this administration.. It boggles the mind of any thinking, caring person.

Fall River's Tax Collector hard at work!

I'll state it flatly...this woman, who ever she is, must be removed immediately. If there are problems with the payment system, don't stop it, FIX IT! What she is doing, with Mayor Bag Boy Deluxe Sylvanagan's blessing, is like starting a new checking account because you can't balance the current one! To place an unqualified, backwards thinking person in control of the City's cash flow is typical of Sylvanagan's woefully inadequate understanding of how to run a municipality. He's had ZERO prior experience in the day to day running of a municipality in this state. Being assistant legal counsel in Taunton, a City not known for it's public management excellence, does not count, no matter how many property liens he's taken to court. This guy, through his solely reactive firings and hirings is nothing but an administrative and management CLUSTER F*&@. How about some proactive administrative and financial management ideas Mayor Sylvanagan? Oh, and how's that Casino deal coming along? What a useless tool of a politician. He sickens me!

Too many idiotic photo ops, not enough proactive action with this fool as mayor. It's been the hallmark of the Sylvanagan administration from before Day 1 in office. He had no answers during the campaign, only glib statements and lies. It continues to this day. I am sure that's all we'll ever get from this Bag Boy.

But hey...you elected him, not me. What are YOU going to do to fix it? You'll get a chance next year. Better do it right, though, because I hear they are replacing the Tax Collector's office computers with carrier pigeons and an abacus for every desk.

Mike Coogan....The Only Candidate to Consider!

2010-09-07T19:37:00.001-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I detest the kind of almost criminal way people decide to attack reasonable candidates, especially new candidates, just before elections by ginning up contrived controversies. Because that's exactly what we have before us right now.

Let me put it plainly to all of my readers. I know Mike Coogan. I trust Mike Coogan. I support Mike Coogan. Why? Because I had the privilege to get to know him over the course of the last two years as a result of the reign of terror of ex-mayor Bob Correia who was twisting certain budget figures around to his spending advantage, especially Group Health Insurance. I am a strong pro-union man, and Mike and I became friends, trading stories of all things government and all things Fall River. I know him to be intelligent and thoughtful. In short, he's a very capable man and a good man.

Is Mike capable of making mistakes? Of course he is - he's human! Every person ever born throughout the history of mankind has made mistakes. If your ideal candidate is one who is infallible in judgement, let me tell you now, that person is not running for the State Senate. And let me also tell you that of the three Democratic candidates running, Mike Coogan has, by leaps and bounds, made the fewest mistakes.

Has anyone reading this blog ever had work done on their home or office by a contractor who made mistakes? Was everything always done perfectly? Always? Have you ever hired a certain contractor for one thing, and it turned out great, then hired them for something else, and you were less than thrilled with the work product? I know I have! I'm sure most of you have as well. Sometimes , we, as customers, are a pain in the rear as well! Sometimes, we like some or most of the work done, but find fault with one particular room or item. Be honest. It happens everyday. No contractor is perfect. No customer is always reasonable.

I spoke to Mike Coogan about his side of things. Everyone is willing to take a muckraking "investigative reporter's" story as gospel truth. Let me walk into your home on your birthday in the middle of a celebration with a video cam and start peppering YOU with questions about something you did that had NOTHING to do with the festivities at hand, and in front of all your friends and supporters. I'm sure you'd have ready, full explanations for questions like, "Who was that woman you went to lunch with yesterday, does your wife know her as well?, or "Your expense reports show you entered a business trip to New Hampshire on your mileage for the 5th, but you called in sick that day, didn't you?", and see how you do!

The fact is Mike Coogan had a discussion with this attorney he did work for (and who may, in fact, have ties to Rodrigues), and they BOTH talked about the fact that for Coogan to work on his property in Rhode Island (RI) he was not in licensed in RI. Apparently, however, Coogan had previously worked for this attorney and the attorney liked the work completed, hence the request to do further work. There was an understanding that there would be no contract because Coogan was not licensed to work in RI! When the entire project was complete and the attorney was not pleased with the bathroom , Coogan agreed to pay the man the amount represented by the bathroom work and a check was sent.

Then the attorney decided to bring action against Coogan for the entire project amount in what the most casual observer would say was suspicious timing. Then the visit from the "investigative reporter". Curious timing indeed.

What you will not hear from other blog sites is that the results of some polling were floating around the statehouse recently and showed Mike Coogan trailed Rodrigues by only 4 points, with the other candidates trailing very, very far behind. It makes perfect sense to assume, in line with well established Fall River political tradition, for some vicious nonsense to be played out too close to the election without it probably being the work of individuals close to Rodrigues. To stay dancing on the gravy train makes you do BADDDDD THINGSSSS, the kind of things that have been reported and documented about against both John Mitchell and Mike Rodrigues. I mean, a bad home repair issue is peanuts when compared to attempting to essentially buy an election (Mitchell - State AG's annual report for FY 1996) and working as butt boy for a Speaker of the House that racked up 180 plus years in indictments (the nasty Sal DiMasi-Mike Rodrigues connection) , as well as being a total and complete whore for the MA Bio-Tech Industry. One thing I know is that Mike Coogan is his own man, and is owned by no one!

No, I don't like the smear politics that Fall River seems to wallow in without a thought, ever, to refrain from it again. Fall River paints itself as a backwards community at times, and this practice of sliming candidates just prior to election day is a hallowed tradition in Fall River more than any other community I've seen. It's disgusting and the entire City should hang their collective heads in shame for it. And people wonder why people in communities outside of Fall River shake their heads and laugh at the sons and daughters of "Lizzie Borden". Amazing.

The only candidate for State Senate I'd vote for is Mike Coogan. Period!

State Tax Reveues WEAK!!!!!

2010-09-04T15:57:00.000-04:00

Mass. tax revenues in August
below expectations

September 3, 2010
Boston Herald

BOSTON—Massachusetts has collected $89 million more in taxes during August compared with the same month last year, but that still fell $70 Million below the estimate for the month.

Revenue Commissioner Navjeet Bal said preliminary collections for the month totaled about $1.38 billion, up about 6.9 percent from last August.
But that wasn't enough to match the monthly estimate the state needs for its current budget.

Since August is typically not a large month for tax collections, and because the state beat its July estimate by about $78 million, the state is still about $8 million ahead of its estimate for the year.

Bal said sales tax collections for August don't reflect the impact of the sales tax holiday on Aug. 14 and 15. That will be reflected in the September numbers.

The Fall River FY 2011 Revenue Death Watch has officially begun. I say this because Fall River is absolutely dependant upon state aid revenue to fund roughly 70% of it's annual operating budget. Any negative revenue trends will spell absolute devastation to overall budgets for the City.

What I find most ominous is that the September numbers will be far lower than expected because of the sales tax holiday. As we go into the Fall months , if tax revenues continue to fail to reach established revenue targets we could easily see yet another round of mid year reductions in Local Aid, all indications of Massachusetts economic growth to the contrary.

The situation of actual state tax revenues versus established projections will once again become the most important factor to follow when considering the state of Fall River's fiscal condition for FY's 2011 and 2012.

2010-09-04T15:08:00.000-04:00

Fall River Redevelopment Authority, Sept. 1, 2010, 9:15 AM from MondoLizzie on Vimeo.

For your dancing and dining pleasure, please note the last meeting of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority and the award of a bid for management assistance. Two (2) bids were received. Enjoy!

"Your Honor, The Music Made Me Do It !!"

2010-09-01T16:00:00.003-04:00

Bigelow: Pending charges would
not have affected job performance.

Fall River City Councilor Brian Bigelow

-----------------------------------------
By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 31, 2010 @ 08:38 PM

FALL RIVER — City Councilor Brian Bigelow said he “respects” Sheriff Thomas Hodgson’s decision to fire him from his county auditing job “but I really disagree with his finding.”

The Bristol County sheriff said he took that recommendation by the hearing officer Friday because Bigelow’s arrest on a charge of soliciting a prostitute early last month “makes it almost impossible for him to perform his duties.”

Hodgson said Bigelow, an 11-year employee, audited and helped ensure the 560 workers followed department rules and regulations.

“I never told people how to do their jobs. I helped people do their jobs. I feel people respect me. I don’t think there would be a problem,” Bigelow said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Bigelow said he became a policy auditor four or five years ago implementing the department’s strategic accountability management system. Before that he was coordinator of volunteers for six years at the department.

“I really liked what I was doing. You can really work with people,” said Bigelow, who is now searching for new employment.

Bigelow said the sheriff department’s hearing officer, attorney Robert Novak, listened to what he and his lawyer, Michael Sousa, presented at what Hodgson described as a “disciplinary termination hearing.”

“I can’t tell if they had it predetermined. I hope they didn’t,” said Bigelow.

He faces misdemeanor criminal charges from his arrest that will next be heard on Oct. 22.

Both Bigelow and Sousa said they had an opportunity to present their case during a hearing that lasted about a half hour.
Bigelow said he worked with one other auditor in his role and did not have a job with union protection.

Bigelow, who “emphatically” stated his innocence to the single charge, said he had an explanation for what he was doing in the early morning of Aug. 7 when he was arrested about 1:15 a.m. on Morgan Street near South Main Street.

“Ever since I was younger — I’ve played music my whole life — I’ve had trouble sleeping, and that’s when I’d go out and drive around the whole city,” said Bigelow, a drummer.

He said he often “can’t sleep after playing gigs,” and played that Friday night with his pop trio until about 11 p.m. at one of the area country clubs.

“Yes, I was driving around that night,” he said of the night he and 22 others were arrested in a prostitution sting set by Mayor Will Flanagan and police Chief Daniel Racine.

Bigelow, 49, declined to give particulars of what happened that night except to say it would be typical for him to take an hour or so after completing the night’s music to pack up and leave the venue.

Does the lifelong city resident think people will believe that explanation?
“People are going to believe what they’re going to believe,” he said.

“I’m taking it a day at a time. I feel that I’m innocent. I really believe I’m innocent on this,” Bigelow said.

But when asked why, he cited the pending criminal case against him and said, “I really can’t say anything because I can’t jeopardize anything.”

A married father of two young children, 7 and 9, and two stepchildren, one married and the other whom he drove to begin college on Friday, Bigelow said he is “relying on friends and family to guide and help me and my family through all of this.”

Of his wife, he said, “We’re working on things together. We’re talking with each other.” He said the family is “trying to heal.”

He acknowledged the difficulty of addressing the arrest personally because of several political hats he’s worn. In addition to his 1½ years serving on the City Council, he’s an appointed member of the Diman Regional School Committee and a former 10-year member of the city School Committee, including a tenure as its vice chairman.

“Because of being in politics it keeps coming up,” Bigelow said of the publicity.

While Corporation Counsel Steven Torres has not rendered an opinion on whether he believes Flanagan can and should remove him from the appointed Diman board, Bigelow said he believes he should continue in that leadership role.

“I’ve always been in education. I love education,” he said.

Asked about his credibility to serve, he said, “It’s two different things. I didn’t take money from anybody. I didn’t hurt anyone. What is happening to me is family oriented.”

Bigelow, who did not ask one question or render one opinion at his first City Council meeting a few days after the arrest, explained why he stayed mum during the lengthy discussion over the raise for School Committee legal counsel Bruce Assad.

“I just felt at that time this was a school issue. The people who are in charge of giving him that raise are the School Committee,” he said. “I didn’t say anything because that’s the School Committee’s job.”

He did not speak on other topics either.

Bigelow said he has not had any city councilor suggest he should resign from his elected seat. “They’ve been very supportive of my family and myself,” he said, adding, “They might not agree with everything.”
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.Michael

Yet another chapter of the Bigelow as selfish schmuck of the year is being reported by the Herald News (HN). And the villain in this dead story is the perp himself, Brian Bigelow, male gigolo.

Jesus, man, just shut up and slink away, will you! The more this story is presented in the HN, the worse you are making things for yourself. Talk about beating a dead horse! You will NEVER recover your reputation. N-E-V-E-R!. It wasn't all that great to begin with. You were not a particularly smart or talented man, everyone knows this. (Hey, we're talking truth right now....forget the social niceties, this guy has to face reality!) Your role on the City Council was that of supreme "YES-MAN", the original "Vote in my back Pocket" with shoes for the last two Mayors. Leader? Where the hell did THAT expectoration come from?

No, Bri (I hope you don't mind me calling you Bri?), you are not leader material, or a power of example, or even, now it seems, very dependable. You are an over exposed (excuse the pun) bad politician (and please excuse the oxymoron), who had a patronage job with the local county sheriff who has a tough reelection campaign staring him in the face. The very last thing he needs right now is a disposable hack employee who got himself arrested for a sex crime. As soon as your name came up on the police blotter, you were gone, and you knew it. If you didn't, you must have been, and by all I can gather from your statements to the HN, still are, in shock from the events of that post-gig episode.

Now it makes all the sense in the world for Mayor "Bag-Boy Deluxe" Sylvanagan, he of the utter failure everyday in office so far, to pound on your rotting political carcass because It will make him look like he's trying to clean up the City's reputation by bringing about your quick exit from the Diman School Committee. Yes, I know, how unfair! But YOU set yourself up for being a punching bag for the wavering political fortunes of the great hypocrite Sylvanagan. It couldn't possible get any uglier, could it?

But hold on a minute....I think it might!

Wait until you run your mouth in public again about "having a reason" why you are not guilty of soliciting an undercover police officer for SEX! Aside from the fact that you are minimizing what you did more than a serial killer could, I don't think that stress from playing in a gig with your trio is going to get very far with the Bristol County Probation Department. It will go ever less far with the judge who hears your case. Go before a jury of six and I promise you they'll hang you - FAST! Once you tell everyone under oath that you typically drive around these bad areas all the time late at night after your gigs, they'll probably try to ask other prostitutes in the area if they've, ahem, had similar discussions with you as did the undercover officer. Maybe they might try to tie you to unsolved crimes. Whatever the case may be, it's going to do nothing but place an increasingly large BULLS EYE on your backside. You'll have a wonderful time trying to explain to your wife why there's a police cruiser following your car every time it drives through Fall River after dark! Great, really great! Just keep talking to the HN and you'll see where all your stupid statements get you!

Look Bri, it's just the way it's going to be. There is no coming back from this one. You aren't Marion Barry with a history of accomplishment prior to legal entanglements, this isn't Washington D.C with a predominantly Afro-American population, and unless there's a real surprise coming that would rock Fall River and make me go by ambulance to the ER from laughter, you are not an African American! But nothing would surprise me about political goings on in Fall River these days. Nothing!

Just say the music made you do it Bri....blame the power of music. It's about as good an excuse as you can muster at the moment. Just rat-a-tat a bit on your snare, maybe a drum roll or two, or SWAK the tom-toms ala Ginger Baker and claim you had an acid flashback while playing "White Room" that night.

After all, after your family.....what have you got to loose!

Get out of politics and heal yourself and your family....NOW!
-----------------------------------------------

Post Script:

While reading the comments attached to the original article on the pages of the HN, I found this rather curious entry....I say curious because it has the familiar tortured syntax of a certain "legend in his own mind" media "moe-ghoul"....one where you can almost smell the crayons used to write the comments on construction paper before being typed by a young woman wearing two casts on her legs...hmmmmmm.....And if anyone can understand this gibberish on a first read....condolences!

HilltopperCEO 1 hour agoReport Abuse
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----------------------------------------------------------
WELL MOST HERE HAVE NOT RUN A FOWL OF THE LAW AND NO NOT THE LIES AND SCANDALS OF THE CHOSEN ELITE WHEN THEY MAKE A MISTAKE. BE THEM TITLES OF RICHES AND HISTORY OF ELECTED OFFICE.

CERTAINLY MR BIGALOW MAKE A MISTAKE BY TALKING TO THE LADY BUT WHO IN THE FIGHTING CITY OF FALL RIVER MASSACHUSETTS HAVE NEVER DONE THAT?
WE ARE PROUD. WE NEED TWO FOCUS ON THE FUTURE OF NEW JOB CREATION AND ECONOMY SITES THEN THIS STUFF.
CERTAINLY THIS IS TRUE BUT WHO WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE.

ONLY QUESTTON I AM GONNA ASK MR BIGALOW IS WHY IF HE WAS COMING HOME DID HE WHERE LADIES PANTIES? IF HE IS INTO IT OK, CERTAINLY NOT MY PERSUATION BUT NOT A CRIME BUT IT DOES NOT LOOK GOOD.

GIVE HIM A BREAK.
TO THE SHERIF HODGESTON HAS HE EVER GIVEN BIGALOW A POLITICAL FAVOR OF A JOB? CERTAINLY IS A INTERESTING QUESTION IS IT NOT SHERIFF???

There's bad news, and there's bad news!

2010-08-31T19:13:00.000-04:00

From the "nothing but bad budget news " department, here's an early look at just how bad the current fiscal years budget deficit for Massachusetts might be. It also means that, given this is an election year, the information is being low-balled and does not reflect how the actual potential deficit will turn out to be in the end.

This is NOT good news for Fall River. Have a nice day Mayor Sylvanagan! How's that casino thingy workin' out for ya?!

BUDGET GAP ESTIMATES GROW

By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, AUG. 31, 2010…….The Senate’s top budget author has elevated high-end projections for the state’s budget deficit this fiscal year, pointing to executive agency estimates through early August that showed surging demands on already strained finances that could result in a gross $600 million deficit in Medicaid accounts.

Rising welfare and homeless shelter caseloads are further burdening the budget, even as the state has qualified for $250 million in kindergarten-through-high school federal aid and received $450 million, less than initially expected, in federal aid, said Senate Ways and Means chair Steven Panagiotakos.
House Ways and Means chair Charles Murphy agreed, saying, “Suffice it to say, there are deficiencies out there that were unanticipated.”

Lawmakers were reluctant to estimate an overall deficit in the current spending blueprint, less than two months old.

“It’s difficult to say what the total deficiency is,” Murphy said.

With federal reimbursements, the potentially $600 million hole in the roughly $10 billion Medicaid budget could net the state a loss of about $240 million, chewing up much of the $450 million in Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) assistance authorized in Washington earlier this month, Panagiotakos said.

Additionally, the state is looking to balance its books for the fiscal year that ended June 30. Panagiotakos said he hoped to address both fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011 shortfalls in one spending bill by Sept. 19.

“We’re trying to do both in one vehicle,” he said. Murphy agreed and said a second round of fiscal 2011 supplemental spending would likely emerge “in several months.”

New estimates show a $20 million gap in homeless shelter “emergency assistance” accounts and a $5 million shortfall for parks and beaches under the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Without that funding, Panagiotakos said, the state would have to close “iconic parks” and delay opening of pools and beaches next summer.
DCR officials said it was “too early to speculate” whether next summer’s services would be affected by the budget.
“Next’s year’s schedule of openings hasn’t been set yet,” DCR spokeswoman Catherine Williams emailed. “We are in the process now of finalizing our spending plans for the year. DCR is reviewing its existing and projected resources while exploring ways to continue to provide critical programs and services in this challenging fiscal environment.”
With the $250 million in Race to the Top funds the Bay State is slated to receive spread over two years for kindergarten-through-high school, Panagiotakos said the state should transfer other federal aid into higher education spending. The state had earlier allocated $76 million from the federal stimulus into K-12.
“With them getting this extra $250 million and a significant cut in higher ed, I think it’s prudent that we take a good portion of that $76 million and put it back into higher education,” Panagiotakos said.

Wary of a steep drop in recession-era federal help in fiscal 2012, when a $2 billion structural gap looms, budget writers have been publicly hopeful that the influx of aid from Washington over the last month would allow some replenishment of the Rainy Day Fund, once robustly above $2 billion but scheduled to sink to $556 million by the end of fiscal 2011.

Panagiotakos said the escalating demands on the stream of federal money made it unclear how much money could be diverted to savings. Some of the newly authorized cash will backfill spending programs that were cut earlier this year when prospects for the FMAP money appeared dim. Even then, budget writers were banking on close to $700 million, instead of the $450 million ultimately approved.

That pool of cash already faces an array of demands from other corners in state government. For instance, when the additional FMAP hung in doubt, Patrick cancelled parts of a legislative spending blueprint that conditionally used the federal aid to support $56,250 for radiological emergency response, $170,517 for a prison industries and farm program, and $64,600 for a foster care and adopted fee waiver.
“On top of that, we have these other newly projected shortfalls,” Panagiotakos said.

July’s state tax revenues grew 3 percent from the year before, which Patrick administration revenue officials said reflected economic growth. Growth trends in tax receipts could dilute some of the red ink, but will likely not offset the problems incurred by a still-sluggish economy. August tax figures are due by the end of this week.
Analysts said the caseload hikes essentially handcuffed Beacon Hill into choosing whether to make targeted spending restorations or banking the remainder for future shortfalls.

“The spending’s only going to get worse, not better, in terms of the underfunding,” said Michael Widmer, president of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “The caseloads, the pressure’s obviously only growing, not lessening.”

Patrick last week downplayed the problems posed by the mounting pressures on state coffers. He said, "Every year with the programs that depend on caseload - every year - there is uncertainty, and with the economy being what it is, there's been … even more pressure than usual on Medicaid and other services for people who are in need. But we have successfully managed those uncertainties for each of the last four years, and we will continue to do so."

Aides said the administration planned to file a supplemental budget soon
The fiscal 2011 budget is balanced $100 million in state Rainy Day Fund withdrawals, and $95 million in a suspended statutory carryover of General Fund cash. Prior to the authorization of the $450 million, the budget relied in $809 million in federal stimulus money.

--END--

08/31/2010

Serving the working press since 1910

http://www.statehousenews.com/

BREAKING NEWS - Additional Reporting

2010-08-31T18:58:00.000-04:00

The following is the Boston Globe's more extensive coverage of the charges filed against an employee of the Winn Companies, developer of the Wampanoag Mills Low Income Apartment development, for funneling illegal campaign contributions to various elected officials.

File this under "If it happened there, it's probably happening here as well"
----------------------------------------------------

Feds charge Boston real estate executive
with illegal campaign contributions

August 31, 2010 05:25 PM
By Jonathan Saltzman and Casey Ross, Globe Staff
A top executive of the developer behind the failed $800 million Columbus Center project in Boston was charged today in federal court with orchestrating a scheme to funnel $12,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Massachusetts candidates running for Congress.

Martin Raffol, 54, executive vice president of the residential arm of WinnCompanies, also allegedly funneled more than $30,000 in illegal campaign contributions to candidates running for state and local offices to advance the business interests of the company, although he was not charged with a crime with those donations, according to US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.

In a statement, Ortiz alleged that Winn executives sought campaign contributions from others "primarily to advance the business interests of the company, including to obtain support for public financing of a large-scale, mixed-used development project within the city of Boston.''
The allegations were contained in a charging document called an information. Prosecutors typically use that document when a plea agreement has been reached.
Raffol's attorney, Douglas S. Brooks, said in an e-mail, "As an employee, Marty was directed to raise large amounts of money for politicians. The pressure was intense and in his attempts to satisfy these directives, some of the contributions violated federal campaign laws and regulations. Marty never personally benefited from these efforts."

The charge is an outgrowth of the federal corruption case against former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson who has pleaded guilty to attempted extortion charges stemming from $23,500 in bribes that she took, according to prosecutors. She awaits sentencing.
WinnCompanies, a nationally known developer of affordable housing whose headquarters is in Faneuil Hall, issued a statement today saying it placed Raffol on administrative leave when it learned about a federal investigation late last year and fired him today.

The company did not address the government's assertion that Raffol was acting at the direction of his bosses. WinnCompanies said that ``immediately after learning of the allegations, the company took steps to ensure that our internal controls were strengthened and such behavior will not occur in the future.''

Former WinnCompanies chief executive Arthur Winn previously acknowledged to the Globe that he gave Wilkerson $10,000 in 2004 when he was trying to advance the Columbus Center development. He said the contribution was not meant to influence Wilkerson's public support of the project but was a gift to help a ``close friend'' with outstanding tax debts.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com

Here is the text of the statement from the U.S. Department of Justice:

A Boston based real estate executive was charged today in federal court with engaging in a scheme to conceal illegal campaign contributions made to federal campaign committees. He is also charged with witness tampering.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Boston Field Office, announced today that MARTIN RAFFOL, 54, of Natick, was charged with one count of engaging in a scheme to conceal material information from the Federal Election Commission.

RAFFOL served as Executive Vice-President for a Boston company that provided management services to a portfolio of real estate holdings, including several publically subsidized housing communities in Dorchester and Roxbury. The Information alleges that as part of its business, executives from the company actively solicited campaign contributions from individuals for elected candidates for federal, state and local office throughout the years. These executives did so primarily to advance the business interests of the company, including to obtain support for public financing of a large-scale, mixed-use development project within the City of Boston. The Federal Election Campaign Act limits the amounts individuals can contribute to election campaigns and political campaign committees, prohibits corporations from making direct contributions to federal candidates, and requires the true identity of each contributor to be disclosed.
It is alleged that, as part of an effort to increase the amount of campaign contributions to candidates who supported the company’s projects or who might support these projects in the future, executives and senior management directed RAFFOL to solicit campaign contributions from vendors who regularly did work for the company.

RAFFOL in turn allegedly engaged in an ongoing scheme whereby he reimbursed the vendors for thousands of dollars of campaign contributions he solicited from them. This included vendors who provided general contracting services, energy services, and security services. According to the Information, as a result of RAFFOL’s scheme, the true source of these vendor’s campaign contributions were disguised from the FEC, similar state authorities, campaign committees and ultimately, the public.

U.S. Attorney Ortiz said, “Transparency is the cornerstone of federal campaign financing.

The public has a right to know the true source of financial support for its elected officials.”

In total, RAFFOL allegedly caused over $12,000 in illegal campaign contributions to candidates running for federal office, specifically candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. It is further alleged that he also caused over $30,000 in illegal contributions to candidates running for state and local office, including candidates for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Senate, House of Representatives, District Attorney, Mayor of the City of Boston and Boston City Council. This scheme caused numerous reports, which falsely indicated the source of these contributions to be unwittingly filed by the relevant political committees with the FEC and similar authorities. There is no evidence that the federal campaign committees listed in the Information had knowledge of RAFFOL’s reimbursement scheme.

The Information further alleges that RAFFOL engaged in witness tampering to conceal the illegal campaign contribution scheme and to prevent law enforcement from learning of the scheme. In particular, RAFFOL instructed a cooperating witness to lie to authorities if authorities questioned him about the campaign contribution scheme.

If convicted on these charges, RAFFOL faces up to five years imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for the false statement charge, and 20 years imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for the witness tampering charge.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James Dowden of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit and Senior Litigation Counsel William M. Welch II of the Criminal Division.

The details contained in the Information are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

And here is the statement from WinnCompanies:
Late last year, WinnCompanies was informed that Martin Raffol, Executive Vice President of WinnResidential, was the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston. Immediately upon learning this, Mr. Raffol was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. Based on today’s court filing, which charges Mr. Raffol with violations of federal law, we have terminated his employment. We appreciate Mr. Raffol’s many years of service to our clients and the residents of our properties. In addition, immediately after learning of the allegations, the company took steps to ensure that our internal controls were strengthened and such behavior will not occur in the future.

Over its forty year history, WinnCompanies and its 2,500 employees have provided affordable, safe and quality housing in over 300 communities across the country. At Winn we understand that the relationships we have with our clients and residents are the core of our business, and that it is our obligation to maintain the highest standards so that we can continue to make positive contributions to the communities we serve.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!! Winn Official in Federal Indictment!

2010-08-31T18:23:00.000-04:00

Feds charge real estate exec with paying off pols

Boston Herald
By Jerry Kronenberg
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - Updated 5 minutes ago

A federal investigation originally targeting former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson expanded today, with authorities charging businessman Martin Raffol with illegally steering campaign contributions to a who’s who of Massachusetts politicians.
The U.S. Justice Department charged Raffol, an executive with the Winn Companies, with leaning on business associates to donate to candidates - and then secretly and illegally reimbursing the donors.

Authorities claim the scheme aimed to get around campaign-finance laws that limit how much an individual can give a particular candidate.

Politicians who received money from the alleged scheme include U.S. Reps. Stephen Lynch, Barney Frank, Michael Capuano and others, as well as candidates for Massachusetts governor and Boston mayor.

Why might this be critical to Fall River? Because the Winn Companies are the primary developers of the low income housing project being built at the old Wamponoag Mills complex. The involvement of the Winn Companies in this project has been pointed out for over a year on this very blog to have the potential to implicate various elected officials and decision makers giving support to this low income housing project in just such a scheme. One has to wonder just how deep any such connection might be!

This is not the first time that Winn has been suspected of payoffs to local officials where the firm wanted to do business. In fact, the entire Winn empire has been built (no pun intended) on a well oiled machine that encompasses heavy lobbying and a pipeline of federal housing subsidy monies, property construction and renovation and property management departments in an powerful example of business vertical and horizontal integration. It's a veritable "one stop shop" for low and mixed income property development, and takes maximum advantage of leveraging federal funds for private profit.

Also interesting is Mayor Sylvanagan's stance against the "Y" project, with it's paltry few proposed low income apartments , while strongly backing the Wampanoag Mills low income apartment development! I guess the "Y" doesn't make as many campaign contributions as the friends and family of the Winn Companies.

Things that make you go " MMMMMMMMMMMMM?"

We'll be watching future developments on this story VERY carefully to see if illegalities reach the virgin souls of Fall River politicians.

ANNOUNCEMENT

2010-08-31T17:35:00.000-04:00

Sorry this is a bit late folks!

Citizens for the Common Good meeting to be held in Fall River

FALL RIVER — The next Citizens for the Common Good meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 30, at Calvary Temple, 4321 N. Main St.
The meeting will be a forum to discuss the impacts of casinos on the local business community.

THANK YOU!

Time to Surf the Beach

2010-08-30T11:24:00.005-04:00

Mayor urges Interior Dept. to take proposed casino
land into Indian trust

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 29, 2010 @ 09:40 PM
Last update Aug 30, 2010 @ 12:24 AM

FALL RIVER — Mayor Will Flanagan is stepping up efforts to support the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s application for federal land sovereignty for the 300-acre tract the city agreed to sell the tribe if the state legalized gambling this year.
He’s calling the Mashpee’s proposed destination casino the city’s “No. 1 development priority” and one that warrants taking bold steps.

“This is not a bridge to nowhere or a folly. This is a $500 million project,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan is taking this tact while the City Council has called for reviewing the use of the undeveloped 300 acres in the northern sector off a new Route 24 interchange after the Legislature and Gov. Deval Patrick failed to agree upon legalized gambling during its 2010 session that ended a month ago.

With legalization not appearing imminent, Flanagan formalized the alternative route he’s backing for what he says is the best chance to add thousands of jobs and boost the local economy.

“I ask that you expeditiously and favorably review the tribe’s land in trust application,” Flanagan wrote U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

He noted the Mashpee tribe amended its 2007 land trust application to include Fall River. The tribe did that in mid-July.

“Development of that land that the tribe is seeking to have placed in trust will provide the good jobs that are so desperately needed in this area. In addition, revenue that will be provided to the city through an intergovernmental agreement will allow us to fund the public safety, education and infrastructure projects that are so important to the health of this city and the surrounding region,” reads the letter Flanagan wrote Aug. 17 and shared last week.

The issue eliciting the most questioning has been Flanagan’s continued prioritization of the 300-acre site for gambling instead of as a biotechnology and life sciences park with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth building an anchor test facility with state-approved funding.

Instead of using that state forest land sold to the RDA for industry — after compromises with environmental groups — the administration has negotiated with the university for an alternative bio-park site.

UMass officials said they plan in early September to decide on a location between the Flanagan administration’s alternative Riverfront Business Park in Freetown and a second SouthCoast proposal at the New Bedford Business Park in that city.

Each plan provides 4 acres and a $3 million loan for the anchor facility, with another 50 acres for biomanufacturing expansion.

FROED would purchase and take title to the nearby Freetown acreage, Flanagan said.
According to RDA Chairman William Kenney, his authority received a legal recommendation that it cannot buy land outside the city, such as the adjacent Freetown acreage.

“Once UMass makes their announcement to locate in Greater Fall River,” Flanagan said, “it may prompt the RDA to amend their vote, which would allow for the infusion of $6 million to purchase the land in Freetown.”

That 325-acre undeveloped property is owned by controversial Rhode Island land developer Churchill & Banks, headed by Richard Baccari.

The RDA voted 3-2 on July 22 to sell the 300 acres of the former biopark to the Mashpees for $21 million pending legalization of gambling in Massachusetts this year and other conditions.

In order for FROED to purchase the acreage in the Freetown park, Flanagan said, “We would seek $6 million from a separate entity, more than likely the Mashpee Wampanoags. The $6 million is very critical to complete this transaction,” he said.

“Lurking in the background is what’s UMass going to do?” said Kenney, who has been contacted by concerned city councilors after voting against the RDA sale in July.

“If they say, ‘We’d like to go to New Bedford,’ what does the mayor do then?

He says they’re both going to happen,” Kenney said of Flanagan’s continued pronouncement the Mashpees will build a casino in Fall River and the university will build in Freetown through a multiparty transaction.

Flanagan and FROED’s director, Kenneth Fiola Jr., said the city would not lose significant tax revenue by shifting the biopark to Freetown because the university does not pay taxes and the level of companies agreeing to locate to such a park would require longterm tax breaks.

Also, Fall River would supply the water and sewer to the riverfront park, they said.

While the City Council has requested that Kenney, Fiola and the Flanagan administration update the status of the casino and land sale to the tribe at its next meeting Sept. 14, councilors recently considered issuing a resolution to change courses.

“It may be time to reshuffle again,” said council Vice President Linda Pereira. She called on Flanagan, whom she’s often at odds with, “to put all the cards on the table.”

The resolution proposed by Councilor Eric Poulin was signed onto by four councilors but never filed. It “encouraged the Fall River Redevelopment

Authority to convene a meeting as soon as possible and that they consider voting to offer the 300 acres (off Route 24) back to UMass before the university reaches its final decision.”

“My fear is to lose both,” Poulin said. Councilors Brad Kilby, Leo Pelletier and Pereira agreed, but Poulin fell short obtaining the unanimous council support he sought.

Poulin said when Flanagan in May announced the tentative casino agreement with the tribe, it was with the prospect the state would legalize gambling by the end of July.

That put the prior plan of developing a prestigious and state-backed biopark on the back burner.

The objective, Poulin said, was to find needed short-term casino jobs with city unemployment in the mid-teens, and the longer-term jobs coming from biotechnology. “Now we could be chasing after a casino for three years or more,” Poulin said.

He said Flanagan has not identified how casino construction could start quickly. “I have some questions and concerns about developing the site with sovereign nation status.”

That’s what prompted Kenney to vote against the RDA sale. It’s yet to be signed because the state has not legalized casino gaming.

Flanagan, through talks with tribal leaders and the Department of Interior, said final documents to designate the RDA-owned park as sovereign land could take “a few months.”

But according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs web site, there are more than 1,900 land trust applications, of which “over 95 percent are for non-gaming purposes.”

Salazar said this summer he’s prioritized restoring tribal lands for non-gaming applications, such as to provide housing, health care and education to improve tribal members’ self-sufficiency.

“He’s put a lot of eggs into this basket,” Poulin said of Flanagan’s secondary option for the tribe to build a casino.

“That’s a heck of risk the mayor took,” Pereira said. “I don’t buy that the pay-off is what he says it’s going to be.”
From materials Flanagan circulates from the Mashpees, he estimates the phased project would include: 1,000 to 1,200 construction jobs building the casino and first hotel and 3,500 to 5,000 permanent jobs; they’d pay $30,000 to $45,000 with tips; and would spur 5,000 to 6,000 “indirect jobs,” he said.

With funding by the Malaysian group that financed Foxwoods, the project would include two more hotels, a golf course, spa and retail/entertainment complex, the tribe stated.

Poulin said timing was a prime reason he did not file the council resolution. He said he tried unsuccessfully to have a special meeting before their regular session on Sept. 14. “At that point UMass would probably have made a decision,” he said.

Councilor Michael Lund, however, is among council members that believe the Flanagan administration should be given more time to bring a casino.

“I think Flanagan is looking at the casino as a way to bridge the gap for jobs for people in the 30-50-year-old age group who could be retrained. And I think there’s merit to that,” Lund said.

He said by the Legislature apparently not passing gaming this year, “We’re not under the gun. Let’s take our time and get this right … I think Flanagan is trying to do the right thing, and I think we have a unique opportunity.”

Lund said he also believes the city needs to be careful if the RDA property goes into sovereign land trust with the tribe. “What happens if the casino doesn’t come and the Indians own it and there’s no reverter clause (back to city ownership)?” he asked.

Flanagan said the tribe’s financial backers would invest to build a casino. Also, having the park in land trust would not lift the prohibition against using it for a landfill, Flanagan said. “It would never happen,” he said, stating the city and state would sue the tribe for such a use that would be tied up for years.

“If I believed this project had no life in it, I would never pursue it,” Flanagan said. He’s convinced Massachusetts soon will legalize gambling. “There’s been too much of an investment for this not to occur.”
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

Yes, it IS the silly season in Fall River, which means not only are representatives in our Great and General Court facing primaries and final elections in the upcoming next few months, but Mayor Sylvanagan has started reelection drum beating quite early after his monumentally poor performance, and all of it enough to drown ANY mayor, even though he is but 8 months through his first term. What an utter disaster this Prince of Putz has been! I fear it's the only taste of royalty Bag Boy Deluxe will ever know.

Ah yes, just call me "Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore". I can see it all know, the skies filled with Huey's bringing "Death from Above", the sound of the Ride of the Valkyries screaming loudly during the carnage and the turmoil and then the lull in the battle, as Lt. Col. Kilgore decides he wants to surf on the roiling waters of the mighty Quequechan River.

"Let's surf, private, that's an order!" yells Kilgore "But it's dangerous in Fall River's politics, sir...shouldn't we wait until the casino is built?" asks the electorate, hiding in a hastily dug fox hole in the shore sands.
"This is Bag Boy Deluxe's beach...Do you want to wait here like this until the election next year?!"
" NO SIR!"
"So let's SURF, GOD DAMMIT!"
Then , after the refusal of the Interior Department to declare the sacred "300 acres" sovereign Indian land, and finding out Bag Boys' crack legal team is, well , basically "crack-ish" in it's legal opinions and the City has no right to purchase land in another town from Bacarri the (alleged) Indicted One, a heavy campaign contributor to BB Deluxe and other elected officials in Fall River, an eerie silence comes over the beach.

Then Lt. Col.Kilgore says: "Smell that son......that's the smell of weak and incompetent politicans scrambling for cover like the sociopaths they are....I love it....it's the smell of....VICTORY....."

And that's exactly what this letter from Mayor Sylvanagan to the Interior Department is...PANIC. Pure and unadulterated panic. His political fortunes, and the livelihoods of his pilot fish followers, will rest entirely on the ability of he and his too live crew of morons, psychopaths and mental defectives working for him in his legal offices, at FROED and in his campaign to get that casino open, or at least have everything sign , sealed and delivered, well before the next election. I just don't see it happening.

Hubris. In the dictionary next to the word hubris should be a picture of Mayor Sylvanagan. It has destroyed the political careers of men and women who were far better leaders, statement, administrators and politicians than Bag Boy Deluxe. And he is still blind to these realities, both that it is what he suffers from the most, and that it will lead to his utter failure. The only trouble is, it will lead to all of our downfalls as well. To this he is also either blind, or in true politician sociopathy, doesn't care!

He must know what one of the commenters to this story on the pages of the Herald News wrote:

Skoorey:

So we give the land to the Mashpees as trust land, no taxes paid, no laws of the Commonwealth or the USA have to be followed, and then we supply the water and sewer to UMass. Wow! A huge biotech deal gets whittled down to water and poop. Perfect. Thanks Mayor! Just what Fall River always wanted! Crap squared.

AND LATER:

FACTS THE MAYOR HAS IGNORED:
1. Land into Trust applications cannot be amended, they must be resubmitted
2. Mashpees say different things, that they have a) amended their application, and b) submitted a new application that is for Fall River land (so which is it???)
3. The Mashpees have not submitted a new application. Source: Federal Register
4. The Mashpees DO NOT OWN THE LAND YET as the contract has not been signed, pending legislature passing gaming bill and signed by governor
5. It takes a minimum of 5-7 YEARS for an application to process
6. Mashpees have NO ancestral ties to Fall River, thus their future application will be denied

This is what happens when you are advised by a corporate council who does not have IGRA experience. Due diligence Mr. Fiola? Due diligence Mr. Torres? Due diligence Mr. Flanagan?

I think not.
SHIP OF FOOLS!

He simply cannot be that stupid or blind, even though he IS an attorney! No, this letter is as much about the next election as it is actually trying to bring jobs, any kind of jobs, home to Fall River.

With everything that he's been caught up in lately, unseemly things and exercises in power politics that appear to benefit ONLY members of the FROED Board of Directors and campaign contributors personally, any seasoned watcher of politics in the United States can read how desperate this man is right now. And that's not a good place for Fall River to be. Not good or safe at all.

Nope. Time to surf Bag Boy's beach now, early and often. I smell fear, raw and palpable fear, as real as the drops of sweat falling off of Mayor Sylvanagan's increasingly meaty brow and cheeks. Soon he'll look like Louis Armstrong, always with a handkerchief in hand, not for wiping off spittle after playing a mean jazz trumpet, but from nervous perspiration. Or maybe like the character Big Daddy from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". He'll take to telling how much work he's done by himself, what he's built, what a legacy he'll leave Fall River when in reality he's the last one to know his political career is moribund without that casino. Dead.

Tales from the Mendacious Toads

2010-08-29T20:00:00.002-04:00

FROED loan to one of its directors
deemed to be above board.
(WITH chowmeinsammich EDITORIAL COMMENTS)

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 27, 2010 @ 11:12 AM

FALL RIVER — Office of Economic Development officials said the $250,000 loan made this spring to one of its directors, Fall River Ford owner Fernando Garcia, has limited precedent but is well secured and consistent with its mission to advance businesses.

[ED. NOTE: Especially as long as the business in question is owned by a member of the FROED Board of Directors (B of D)]

“It’s a fair question,” FROED Executive Vice President Kenneth Fiola Jr. said when asked about the large loan to one of the 32 members of the board of directors.

He listed three or four working capital loans to directors for companies they owned or managed compared with over 600 gap loans the non-profit agency has issued since formed in 1978.

[ ED. NOTE: So, in other words, you only violated IRS regulations with regard to non-profits three or four times! What was it Mr. Executive Vice President, three or four? Please speak directly into the microphone!]

They included $450,000 from five loans to Engineered Yarn Assoc. and Gerry Mauretti from 1991 to 2005; two loans totaling $100,000 to Winter Rock and the late David Westgate in 2002; and by far the largest amount, about $9 million to Lightolier in a series of loans from the mid-1980s until 1992.

Loretta George was Lightolier’s vice president, and has served as a director since FROED's founding.

“Everything was done above board,” Fiola said of the Fall River Ford loan. “Everyone felt very comfortable issuing the loan.”

[ ED. NOTE: “Everything was done above board,” Fiola said - According to who, Mr. Executive Vice President, YOU?! Not quite who I'd call an impartial third party, more like a potential unindicted co-conspirator. Can repeated violations of IRS non-profit regulations and financial activities be covered under RICO statutes? I wonder?]

He said the Finance Committee, chaired by Anthony Riccitelli, recommended the loan and it was unanimously approved by the full board, with Garcia abstaining on the vote.

[ED. NOTE: "Our "FRIEND" in duh bizinezz" Garcia was at least smart enough to abstain from the vote...LOL!]

He noted the quasi-government agency includes the mayor as chairman and representation by the heads or representatives of the school department, local community college and university, Redevelopment Authority, Fall Area Chamber of Commerce and others.

[ED. NOTE: If the public, or taxpayer and grant funds, are co-mingled, does that mean Mr. Riccitelli is admitting the use of public , taxpayer funds for personal, private gain? There are strict rules on the reasons for which Massachusetts municipalities can do financial business...Loaning monies to buddies is not one of them...too much risk!]

Garcia received in May a five-year loan at a 6 percent interest rate, which falls within the 5-6 percent range several other loans FROED made this year of comparable amounts, Fiola said.

[ED. NOTE: And he was precluded from going to banks and other private sector debt markets because....? Was his business such a bad risk that his buddies on the FROED B of D who run banks refused to grant him working capital financing loans? Something is not right here!]

“This is a job retention loan,” said Fiola, which Garcia explained in an interview.

[ ED. NOTE: No doubt! For both Garcia, personally, and Fiola, personally. You won't keep your job as Executive Vice President of FROED, especially given the hideously poor job you've done, if you refuse to grant extremely questionable and risky loans to members of the FROED B of D, will you Mr. Fiola?]

“It’s no secret the automotive industry has been severely impacted,” Fiola said, stating that Garcia’s long-term ownership of the auto dealership and being “a strong community leader” were important factors making the loan.

He said the funds were to provide Fall River Ford with “working capital” aimed at job retention. Garcia’s business serves as collateral on the loan, he said.

[ED. NOTE : Sales must really be awful for him to have to come to FROED for a loan as opposed to private sector sources, LIKE BANKS!....The only way a local bank would refuse a loan at market rates to a business as long established as Garcia's is if the risk of default was very great, PERIOD! And isn't Ford doing well? I don't get this at all! Don't banks hold the notes on the new vehicles in stock? Something isn't right here, or we aren't being told the truth!]

The key reason FROED made the loan rather than the owner seeking a standard commercial lender, Fiola said, “It’s a better interest rate, and we were able to turn it around quickly, within 30 days.”

Garcia explained what he called “really a bridge loan” for the dealership he’s owned for the past 12 years because of his long-time lender’s financial problems and inability to lend funds. He said Millennium Bank “was not functioning.”

[ED. NOTE: I've never heard such nonsense in my life! And the purpose of FROED is not to act as bank to firms managed and owned by it's B of D members! FROED is not here to make cheap money loans on favorable terms to Fernando Garcia or any other board member. It's public money for God's sake! I demand to see where the articles of incoporation as a non -profit organization are that specifically state such loans can be made to it's board members! That would violate the spirit and letter of the law of non-profits, and all such loan activity would have to have been submitted in audit reports made to the IRS. I doubt these reports and audits containing such activity exist!]

“There really is no rule against a board member borrowing. In this particular case, I’m trying to create jobs and retain jobs,” Garcia said.With the economy failing, his full-service dealership has cut 125 employees it had in peak years 2006-07 in half, Garcia said.

"Without it," he said, “I probably would have had more layoffs.”

Garcia said he increased business from $10 million when he took over to $65 million several years ago, but sales have dropped to “the mid-$20 million” range.

He now has slightly more than 50 employees and is trying to retain them while expanding business offerings.

In particular, while they’ve added “quick line” services to compete with other automotive services. Garcia said he needed to borrow the $250,000 quickly to maintain his inventory and for redoing his service area.

[ED. NOTE: So the taxpayers will be forced to pay for your lack of business acumen and inability to compete, as well as a total lack of proactive planning, by granting you access to a credit source when the private sector realizes you are running your business into the ground and are a serious credit risk? Ever hear about bankruptcy and reorganization? Ever hear about the free enterprise system? FORD won't loan you money to tide things over? They are doing quite well right now! You only do business with Millenium Bank? If so, why? Are they going under too? Won't the local banks help you out, you know, the ones owned by fellow FROED B of D members? Is your riskiness that bad? Why should taxpayers bail you out, because it sounds like it's YOU personally that will be bailed out, Fernando? This is a joke!]

“Staying above board is what my intentions were, where they remain and where they always will remain,” he said. He's served for five years.

[ED. NOTE: This sounds way too much like Richard M. Nixon's "I am NOT a crook" statement!]

Mayor Will Flanagan, who chairs FROED in his capacity, said he did not vote on the loan but supported it.

“Mr. Garcia is a New Bedford resident who made a decision to open his business in Fall River and employ Fall River residents. He is a philanthropist and a leader in the Portuguese community.”

Flanagan said FROED’s role is to loan funds to help with job creation and retention, and Garcia borrowed like other funds like other business leaders would do.

“If he or other businesses apply and keep businesses operating and growing, I think that’s the purpose of the agency,” Flanagan said.

[ED. NOTE: There it is, the REAL reason for the loan...Mayor Sylvanagan is courting the Portuguese vote for the next election...we all should have known...LOL...he's such a toad!]

In contrast, he said, “If there are allegations of impropriety, that’s a whole other news story.” He was told none had been raised, only questions about a possible conflict of interest.

Flanagan said his key concern is the borrower’s ability to repay the funds. “The question is are they going to default on the loan?” he said.

Fiola said FROED receives public and private funds to operate an annual budget of about $1.2 million and over $8 million available in outstanding loans, a portion of which rolls over and is re-loaned each year.

They are receiving $335,000 in Community Development Agency funding.

Since January, FROED issued 17 loans totaling $1,934,000, well above their typical amount. “This is a good year for us,” Fiola said.

He said the loans come from “private funding sources,” mostly commercial lending companies.

[ED. NOTE: I do not believe a single word that comes from the mouths of Mayor Sylvangan, Fiola or any member of the FROED B of D, PERIOD! If any group of public officials needed a Pinocchio Vaccine it is them!]

Three other large working capital/expansion loans Fiola cited this year included: Amaral’s Central Market, $350,000; Griffin Manufacturing, $300,000, and Ross Seafoods, $300,000.

While the agency has a strong record of loan repayment, one particularly sensitive default happened last year, Fiola said.

He said George Sousa, a board of director member who was president of the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce last year, defaulted $31,000 of his loan.

Fiola said Sousa borrowed $50,000 for seven years in 2005 for expansion of Livery Specialists, a limousine company. He declared bankruptcy.

He was not on the board of directors when he received the loan but was when he defaulted, Fiola said, and FROED wrote off the loss.

[ED. NOTE: Oh, was that "public" money that was written off? Or was it proceeds of private funding that was written off? There is no way this can be legal, no way! Citizens of Fall River, if you let this collection of (ALLEGED) professional GRIFTERS, known as the FROED Board of Directors, to "steal" from you this way you deserve every headache and broken dream you get!]
Flanagan said he does not like to see the leaders that volunteer to serve on non-paying boards like FROED being penalized for a loan or other opportunity.

“I hope they don’t do so for special interests or what can I do for you or quid quo pro, and do so because they want a better Fall River,” Flanagan said. “If someone volunteered for me and said, ‘You owe me a job, you owe me a loan,’ I’d be highly offended.”

[ED. NOTE: Sylvanagan, you are a sociopath politician and a lawyer...you cannot, by definition, be offended!]
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

FROED Board of Directors' Mascot:

The Lying Toad

Yes, I said it before and I'm saying it now. The entire Board of Directors of FROED are a bunch of LYING TOADS! That is as a group or as individuals, especially the Toad Master General, Mayor Warts Sylvanagan.

Do not let this politician kiss your baby or shake your hand without some extra strength Wart-Off handy !

I tried kicking him as he walked by and when I went home that night, this is what my foot looked like!

After about $200 worth of Wart-Off I was able to exorcise the evil wart off of my foot. But I was one of the lucky ones. You see, I did not vote for this vile scum that rules the City of Fall River, this lying fool, this asinine, mendacious amphibian. No, my better wits about me, I avoided the scourge of the Toad and stand (sit, actually) before you today giving thanks above for my salvation from THE MENDACIOUS TOAD SYLVANAGAN.

I can offer Fall River no more on this subject than this....Wart-Off is available at your local CVS and Walgreen's. Your vote is available only to YOU!

Election Year Siren's Song

2010-08-28T20:02:00.002-04:00

OUR VIEW: Momentum on the water.

By The Herald News
Posted Aug 27, 2010 @ 12:00 AM

Fall River’s waterfront has long been a glaring example of unfulfilled potential. Despite being blessed with such enviable geography, city and state leaders have consistently squandered the opportunities waterfront land provides, beginning decades ago with the short-sighted decision to build a double-decker highway on what should be highly valuable property.

Political candidates have made multiple pledges of waterfront revitalization over the years, but, somehow, their promises never seem to pan out, leaving residents to wonder whether their community will ever boast the type of attractive coastal development that has led other cities to prosperity.

They may finally have the answer they’ve been looking for. At long last, disappointment may be turning to excitement. At the very least, strong momentum is being built as city and state leaders have teamed up with private sector developers and are putting in the consistent effort needed to spur real action. Some concrete plans are in place, raising hopes other businesses will follow and leaders will find the political will to do what’s necessary to turn the waterfront into the economic engine it always should have been.

Gov. Deval Patrick was in Fall River Wednesday to announce the latest waterfront development — a deal to bring a turbine blade manufacturer to the area. TPI Composites Inc. plans to convert a 69,000-square-foot masonry building on Water Street into a research, development and manufacturing facility, where it will create the 10-ton, 50-meter blades needed to generate clean electricity. The company will initially create about 30 engineering, technical and manufacturing jobs, with the hope that planned expansion will eventually increase that number ten-fold.

Patrick touted the facility’s location, noting the easy water access opens such companies to broad markets. “We believe if we get this right the whole world can be our customer,” he said.

The TPI deal is the latest in a string of announcements on waterfront revitalization in recent months. Local developer Anthony Cordeiro bought Commonwealth Landing, the former Quaker Mill headquarters on Davol Street, and plans to convert it into 40,000 square feet of commercial space. He is negotiating with two restaurants and bars, one of which may be Jerry Remy’s sports bar and grill, the original of which is directly across the street from Fenway Park in Boston. “We’re very close,” he said.

In May, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray traveled to Fall River to announce $2.2 million in state and federal funds dedicated to cleaning up the polluted city pier, where plans are in the works for a marina and office space. The marina would join another point of water access introduced Wednesday. Just south of Commonwealth Landing at Bicentennial Park, the $334,000 boat ramp provides easy access for boaters, helping draw more people to the waterfront.\

The building momentum has certainly caught the attention of state leaders, who have made frequent visits to the Spindle City in the past couple years. Having the commonwealth on board and convincing state leaders that redevelopment efforts are legitimate could help grease the wheels on the largest piece of waterfront development — the demolition of Route 79 in favor of a scenic waterfront boulevard that would open acres of developable land.

Combine the proposed projects with the ongoing improvements to the Braga Bridge and established attractions like Battleship Cove and Heritage State Park, and Fall River could soon have a vibrant, profitable waterfront that attracts businesses and visitors, finally taking advantage of its potential.

I have been in and around Fall River since the early 1980"s. I'm sure that makes me somewhere between a Boston area carpet bagger and a relative newcomer to most Fall River citizens, who approach anyone who grew up outside of Fall River with a sense of dread and bewilderment, not to mention a complete lack of trust. But I think 30 years allows me the right to comment on the odd , ooccasional truth about Fall River. And one of the most stable and undeniable truths I can think of is that once the election silly season starts in earnest, and trust me, even the campaign for the Mayoral election next year has already started for Mayor Sylvanagan, the siren's song of "The Treasure that can be Fall River's Waterfront" will be heard early and often.

Wasn't it just last year when the idea of opening up the Quequechan River was, excuse the expression, FLOATED by a group of local elected officials and businessmen, headed by Mayor Correia? Tear up Route 79 and let the holy waters of the Quequechan run wild and free and make that waterfall dance for scads of tourists and travelers to Fall River, as well as the soccer moms going into and out of Work Out World? (I can see it now - being able to walk from one bank of the Quequechan to the other without getting your feet wet by stepping on tossed away green 2 liter Mountain Dew bottles floating on the river!) Less than 12 short months ago that was the latest in a long line of promises to fix up the waterfront and make it relevant for tourism, restaurants (food carts , anyone?) and other commercial and industrial development. So excuse me if I am not moved by this call by the editorial staff of the HN (LISA STRATTAN, whose husband was on Mayor Sylvanagan's transition team) to open our eyes and see all the wonders and colors of the waterfront rainbow! All I see when I look down there are wasted potential and a genuine lack of caring by the powers that be that have run this City for the full 30 years I've been around. And for all you Sylvanagan droids out there, if that sounds too negative for you to accept, too bad, because here we deal with what has been and what IS, not " pie in the sky by and by when we all die". Mayor Sylvanagan is just another in a long and inglorious line of municipal pseudo Reverend Ike's to curse the City with their presence. And the HN is just his lapdog propaganda machine, all recent editorials calling him out to the contrary.

And please, let's not act like obtaining a grant to clean up eco-disastrous filth on the pier is something to bay at the moon over. It's expensive because for generations someone at City Hall was asleep at the wheel, probably under the guise of "supporting business growth in Fall River", the results of a "jobs and economy" Mayor from some earlier time, no doubt. Let's all wait and see how fast someone is willing to invest on that particular parcel. PCB's for breakfast, anyone? I thought this City had already cornered the market on mutagenic industrial waste caused club footed citizens? Why would we want to produce generations more by developing any business on that , for lack of a better term, "land"? Maybe the members of the FROED Board of Directors would be brave souls and make a joint purchase of the newly cleaned up pier and lead by example, put their personal money where their mouths are and develop a socko business there. And maybe wild monkees will fly out of my butt , too!

(Sylvanagan, Fiola and Torres Fly Out of My Butt! - actual scale)

I DO like and applaud the two local entrepreneurs that went ahead ON THEIR OWN to start what I hope could be both a viable manufacturing business ( TPI Composites Inc. ) and hub for commercial and restaurant properties (Anthony Cordeiro's Commonwealth Landing, the former Quaker Mill headquarters on Davol Street). Notice that FROED and Sylvanagan were no where to be found. That's no doubt why both ventures actually started and will most likely succeed!

One thing that would make further business development on the waterfront much more viable would have been the development of "short shipping" facilities of the type recently started in New Bedford. Once again, FROED asleep at the wheel. New Bedford gets needed transportation facilities for commercial and industrial development, Fall River gets to sign a sales agreement with the Wampanoag Indians for 300 acres of prime land previously set aside for the Bio-Park, to be used for gaming facilities, once the legislature gets around to legalizing gambling in Massachusetts. Oh yes, and there is no guarantee that will happen, or that if it does, that the state will award one of the casino licenses to Fall River and the Wampanoags, or that the federal government will recognize the Wampanoags claim to make that land sovereign Indian land. Nice, really nice job there FROED and Sylvanagan.

So, get ready to hear the siren's song of the waterfront yet again this election season. You'll hear about more glorious proposals presented at specially called news conferences given by a who's who of statewide elected officials, all to help out the powers that be in their election campaigns. And because there is a sucker born every minute, old timers in Fall River will remember the good old days and will vote for the slickest of the Reverend Ike's to offer them good times down on the waterfront.

Don't forget what happened to the sailors in mythology who listened to the siren's song....they ended up crashed on the rocks!

This Tide Is Going WAYYYYY Out!

2010-08-22T19:59:00.000-04:00

Home values down, but tax bills rise

Struggling homeowners feel the pinch as Mass. communities try to make ends meet

By Matt Carroll and Stephanie S. Daly
Globe Staff
Globe Correspondent / August 22, 2010

Despite dropping home values, Massachusetts property tax bills continued to rise last year.

Revenue-hungry cities and towns, looking for money to pay for new buildings and to maintain services, have continued to push up local taxes, often asking voters to approve property tax overrides even as real estate values drop further.

The double whammy of lower home values and higher taxes — a phenomenon that has hit Massachusetts homeowners for several years — frustrates taxpayers as they endure the rocky economy.

“There’s absolutely no way you can sell a house in Dedham for what it’s assessed at,’’ said Janet Gorman, who has lived in the town with her husband for about 30 years.

The couple, who own two single-family homes and rental property in town, sought a tax abatement on one of the rentals and got about $900 knocked off their tax bill.

“And is Dedham any different than any other town? Probably not,’’ Gorman said.

The average tax bill on a single-family home in fiscal 2010 increased about $140, a 3.3 percent increase, according to figures released this month by the state Department of Revenue. The average tax bill for a single-family home was $4,390.

The statewide home values, which have more than doubled since 2000, peaked in 2007 but dropped about 4.6 percent last year to an average of $373,702.

Taking a longer view, both taxes and home values have risen over the last decade. Since 2000, average property taxes on single-family homes in Massachusetts have increased about 64 percent.

State and local officials defend the tax increases, and lower values.

“Not only is the 3.3 increase the lowest in 20 years, but it also marks the first time in at least 20 years that the annual percentage increase has gone down for four consecutive years,’’ said Bob Bliss, spokesman for the Department of Revenue.

Local officials also point out that property assessments are a snapshot of values from a year or two ago.

Rick Henderson, the assistant director of assessing in Dedham, pointed out that assessed values for fiscal 2010 are based on a home’s worth on Jan. 1, 2009, which was determined by home sales in 2008 in that community. A home’s actual value — different from its assessed value — might have changed significantly over the last two years, he said.

“The taxes are high and I think everybody’s taxes are high,’’ said Jeanette Geller of Needham, who has filed for abatements at least three times in the 50 years she has lived in her split-level home. She recently won an abatement of nearly $400. Overall, property values dropped in 281 communities for the fiscal year that ended June 30. Hardest hit were Brockton, Revere,, Lynn, and Rockland, where values were clipped at least 14 percent.

“We still have a large number of foreclosures in the city, which impacts the values of homes,’’ when they sell at lower prices by lenders eager to get out of the real estate business, said Mayor Linda M. Balzotti of Brockton. This is the second cycle of foreclosures the city has endured, she said. The first was caused by sub-prime mortgages. This cycle largely stems from homeowners who have lost their jobs or are underemployed.

“We still haven’t quite leveled out yet, but I’m hopeful we will shortly,’’ she said.

“In Revere, things have really slowed down over the last three years,’’ said John Verrengia, an assessor. “Generally speaking the overall market has been tough.’’

Home values in 56 communities — mostly small towns in Central and Western Massachusetts — increased. Topping the list were the towns of Washington, New Ashford, and Granville, where values climbed at least 6 percent.

Values climbed more sharply in Eastern Massachusetts during the boom years of the last decade, but have tended to fall more sharply as well.

Arlington was of the few towns in Greater Boston where values increased, by 2.4 percent.

“Arlington has something for everyone, from cradle to grave,’’ said Robert Greeley, director of assessing, who pointing to the town’s location and its access to Boston, as well as a strong school system, recreational facilities, and senior center.

Greeley estimated seven out of 10 people buying are from outside of town — when homes come up for sale, which isn’t often. Individual homes go on the market every 28 years on average, he said.

The downturn has hit the rich as well. The number of towns where the average home value topped $1 million stood at 10, the same as a year ago. . But values dropped in seven of those towns. Chilmark, a small summer community on Martha’s Vineyard, had the state’s highest average value, at more than $1.8 million, down 1 percent from a year earlier.

In Weston, values slipped a fraction, but the community still had the second-highest average assessments, at $1.4 million. One home is assessed at $23.7 million, according to town records. Weston did top the list in one notable category — highest average taxes on a single-family home, at more than $15,000.

“The values here have been very stable,’’ said principal assessor Eric Josephson. Still, more than 40 people filed for property tax abatements, he said. “With the state of the economy, everyone is concerned where their money is going.’’

The town of Hancock had the state’s lowest average tax bill, at $824.

In Boston, the average assessment was $372,138, down 4.3 percent, according to the city. The average tax bill was $2,935, up 6.2 percent. However, Boston’s numbers were not included in the state data because it, along with 13 other communities, calculates data differently.

Nine towns, all west of Boston, had average taxes of more than $10,000. Not surprisingly, these towns, such as Dover and Lincoln, are among those with the highest values as well.

And nine communities had taxes jump at least 10 percent, with tax overrides or debt exclusions a major factor in most, noted the state.

Rockland was in the unenviable position of ending up among those communities with the greatest drop in valuations (14.3 percent) and highest percent increases in taxes (15.2 percent).

The tax hike was largely due to a $2.8 million override, said town administrator Allan R. Chiocca, who noted the town had the sixth-lowest average tax bills in Plymouth County, even after the override.

Overall, the town is doing well, he said. “Rockland offers a bargain to taxpayers with our low tax rate,’’ he said, pointing to major improvements in renovations and building on the high school and middle school.

Joseph Modugno, a 52-year-old English professor at North Shore Community College, fought for an abatement on his Milton two-family. He likes that the community does not have many businesses, which means more “open space and unclogged streets.’’ But he understands that a small commercial base means the tax burden falls more heavily on homeowners.

“What can I say? Who wants to pay taxes?’’ he said about filing for the abatement.
Matt Carroll can be reached at mcarroll@globe.com and followed on Twitter @GlobeMattC.

Above is an extremely interesting article in today's Boston Sunday Globe that brings up a critical issues which have been impacting Fall River's financial picture over the last few years and will likely spell dire trouble in the very near future without a vast increase in tax base and employment to the City and the region, neither of which seems likely at all. Those issues are the lowering of property values and the resulting increase in property taxes to keep vital municipal services operating.

The full article and related excellent graphics showing the changes over ten years time in property values and tax rates for every City and Town in MA can be found here:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/22/mass_home_values_down_but_tax_bills_rise/?p1=Local_Links

The data boils down to what we can see happening in Fall River, especially after people's outrage over the FY2010 valuations placed by City Assessors of their residential properties. Assessed valuations lag behind actual current market valuation by almost 2 complete years (as the law dictates) and bear little resemblance to current market values of the properties within the overwhelming majority of cities and towns in Massachusetts. That means as property value increases have been weak over the last decade, or actual decreases over the last year or so, tax rates have had to be kept at Property 2 1/2 maximums, or more , with overrides and debt exclusions, to maintain the same or lesser level of public services.

What does that mean in Fall River? Property values have actually been impacted negatively here more than most municipalities in Massachusetts because of a number of critical reasons, the main one's being high unemployment, lack of growth of Commercial/Industrial tax base for tax shifting from residential to commercial/industrial properties, and a very week regional economy while the state's economy grows at twice the national average. The state's economy is recovering but Fall River's and it's surrounding region is not!

This will make the growing disparity between property values and the tax revenues raised from those properties even worse as time goes on, as long as the Fall River/regional economy stays moribund. By "economy", I mean those industries that are net exporters of goods and services out of the City /region. These type of industries produce employment and wages which in turn most often reliably creates sustainable new households and carries with them the consumption of locally and regionally produced goods and services typically required by those new households. What has to be excluded from this picture are wholly low paying, low skilled service sector jobs, those that do not typically create new households nor, in this case in particular, pay property taxes.

Fall River is already in extreme fiscal distress. This is primarily a function of the existence of a structural gap between current property tax revenues (not including other fees, such as Water and Sewer Enterprise Funds, or other Enterprise Funds) and the basic, contractual and legally obligated costs of providing needed municipal services to residents of Fall River. As long as the City's tax base witnesses very little major new growth, especially in Commercial/Industrial property, this problem will grow almost exponentially. Without such extreme levels of property tax valuation increases, which are clearly NOT about to occur due to a poor Fall River /regional economic outlook, and because municipal labor contracts have promised millions in salary increases to most Fall River municipal employees in future years as a bargaining tool to offset current salary rollbacks, the full extent of the crisis is not yet visible, as dire as things seem to be year after year!

The economy of the region is stagnant at best, regardless of official statements otherwise. All you need to see this is true is to talk to your neighbors who have been out of work for long periods of time, or whose buying power has been butchered by increasing prices and static salaries. The family wallet and pocket book do not lie. As families/homeowners witness flat incomes and lessening purchasing power, in Fall River they are seeing the value of their largest single possessions, their homes, fade faster over time than elsewhere. Their net worth is eroding in Fall River faster than almost any other City and Town in Massachusetts. Hence, Fall River's ability to raise new tax revenues to meet expenses for the same level of services is virtually nill! This will place further pressure to increase fees and charges related to Water, Sewer and Ambulance Enterprise Funds to insulate fully the General Fund operating budgets from deficts in those enterprise funds! This at a time when cost increases to taxpayers is most painful due to stagnant income growth.

The kicker to this entire situation is that valuations STILL lag behind the actual current market by almost two full years. So, even if things were to turn around tomorrow, the tax base will reflect low or no growth while municpal expenses will continue to rise, especially those expenses related to negotiated union contracts with large built in cost increases and associated health and retirement benefits.

While federal grant funds have been available at the last minute for the last two fiscal years, and will provide a level of "tide you over" funds for FY 2011 and some into FY 2012 for fire and police salaries, the expenses related to those grants will not dry up as the grants do. Therefor, at some point, Fall River will have to find a way to cover those grant fund increased base expenditures, or there will be a drastic reduction in basic safety and other municipal services in the very near future. This is not good news as Republicans look as if they might take over either the US House of Representatives or Senate in the upcoming Fall elections. If that happens, the grant spiggot will immediately be turned off.

Clearly, without any other issues impacting Fall River's municipal finances, things look very bleak, like the tide is going out, not in. When you add into this equation a hyper political atmosphere which cripples the City's ability to move nimbly, and with emergent purpose, to solve these potentially terminal problems, and the incompetent and muddled day to day management ability of current finance managers for Fall River, you can quickly see that the tide is going way out...wayyyy out....for Fall River.

Hope everyone can doggy paddle!

Long Live Ka$hman

2010-08-21T18:35:00.001-04:00

Well, just when you think it's safe to ridicule Soul Patch Bigelow, Ka$hman checks in and blows everyone out of the water.... Dude has MAD skills!. I think I'm going to spend some time on YouTube and hunt down his other masterpieces and host a Ka$hman video festival right here on chomeinsammich!. I just wish he'd do one about Sylvanagan and the Wampanoags!

Ka$shman, anytime you want something posted on this blog site, MI CASA ES SU CASA Dude! You are a legitimate Fall River natural resource and a true maven of political satire!

ENJOY ALL!!!

Blatant Thievery! (alleged, that is)

2010-08-19T17:51:00.001-04:00

CDA asks feds for "conflict of interest" waiver

.By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 18, 2010 @ 09:44 PM

FALL RIVER — For the first time in five years, the Community Development Agency issued a legal ad and sought a waiver from federal officials under the “conflict of interest” statute to provide HOME funding loans, Executive Director Michael Dion said.
He provided a copy of a waiver request he wrote Monday to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in order to give $10,000 loans to three city employees as first-time homebuyers and a much larger loan to a member of the Redevelopment Authority.
The homebuyer loans were for two school department employees, Rakhi Shatri and Chou Siv Tang, and a third for Keith Hussey of the department of public works.
Hussey’s been out of work on workmen’s compensation after losing both of his legs last year when a vehicle crushed him on the back of a refuse truck.
The $10,000 first-time homebuyer loans are forgiven under the HOME program if the owner remains living in the residence for at least five years, Dion said.

The fourth loan, for $180,000, is for Thomas Martin Sr., who owns TM Construction and Remodeling Inc. in Fall River.

He’s seeking the HOME funds to rehabilitate three units at 178 Franklin St.

Mayor Will Flanagan nominated Martin to the Redevelopment Authority to replace longtime member David Raymondo, who resigned. The City Council unanimously ratified Martin on June 24.
A month later, Martin, at his first Redevelopment Authority meeting, voted in favor of a $21 million casino land sale agreement to the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. That critical vote was 3-2, dependent upon the state legalizing casino gambling this year and other conditions.

Before Martin joined the Redevelopment Authority, he was approved for $220,540 in CDA HOME funds to rehabilitate six rental units at 2589 S. Main St.

On the recent $180,000 low-interest loan request, up to $22,500 could be forgiven under a lead abatement grant program, Dion said.

Dion, in a June 24 letter to the law department, wrote that HUD could consider a waiver for the city employees and board member if there was a public disclosure stating the nature of the conflict of interest, along with the legal counsel’s opinion the loans do not violate state or local laws.

“It is my understanding that Mr. Martin is not employed by the Community Development Agency, which is issuing the HUD-sponsored loans … will not participate in any way in his loan and will make full disclosure of his municipal employee status (as a board member),” wrote Assistant Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Pereira.

“Therefore, it is my opinion there is no violation of state law,” she wrote. She made the same points for the three city employees.

The HUD regulation applies to “any person who is an employee, agent, consultant, officer or elected or appointed official of the recipient,” Dion wrote HUD, identifying the four individuals.
In the conflict of interest public notice by the CDA, no names were issued, only general information about their work/service and the CDA program. “I’ve never named an individual in the newspaper,” Dion said. “We don’t usually get a lot of these.”

He read from the last legal ad they placed for a conflict of interest notice. It was from Aug. 4, 2005.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

This is only the latest example of the blatant trashing of the public funds by the Sylvanagan administration. How much more clear of a classic quid pro quo can you get than this:

"The fourth loan, for $180,000, is for Thomas Martin Sr., who owns TM Construction and Remodeling Inc. in Fall River."

It's actually easy to follow, as long as you are not a Sylvanagan kool-aid drinker and bum kisser.

The City faces a debt of gratitude , and maybe a Workman's Comp lawsuit, for injuries to one of several individuals who were injured on the job, and in one case, lost both legs in the service of Fall River. They also have two other School Department employees they wish to help create new households. Up to this point, I actually have no problem whatever. However, I'm also oh so sure none of these people could in any way be used for political purposes down the road, oh not at all!

You have a situation where Bag-Boy Deluxe Sylvanagan, he of the indolent brother recently hired by the School Department, is taking a vicious public relations beating for his asinine policy leading to the withdrawal of CD funding from the Y which was requested and awarded by the City's CD Office to help rehabilitate it's building for the apartments on upper floors typically used by qualified low to moderate income individuals and families.

So, me thinks a light bulb went on over the BB Deluxe's teeny weeny head, and he figured out a way to kill two birds with one, er, request for allowing a waiver of "conflict of interest" requirements called for in use of federal CD funds. This way, he gets to funnel $180,000 worth of reconstruction work to his good close personal friend, "Thomas Martin Sr., who owns TM Construction and Remodeling Inc. in Fall River", who will rehab the units to be purchased with the loans for the three employees in question. Only problem is, it's the very same "Thomas Martin Sr., who owns TM Construction and Remodeling Inc. in Fall River", appointed by BB Deluxe Sylvanagan to the Redevelopment Authority to be the deciding vote , in a 3-2 vote, in the sale of the land originally designated for the Bio-Park to the Wampanoag Indians as a site for the currently dead Destination Casino!

Let' s see, it'a all just an unfortunate coincidence, right? This one particular Construction and Remodeling firm owner, and probable Sylvanagan campaign contributor, happens to be the deciding vote in a $21 million dollar land sale, of which the residents will get NOTHING because it's going to the Redevlopment Authority, and then, lo and behold, gets a $180,000 home rehab building award from the Fall River CD office which is controlled lock , stock and barrel by that very same Mayor BB Deluxe Sylvanagan. I'm sure it's just a dizzying confluence of coincidence, in true, crooked politician Fall River style. Yep, it may not be a quid pro quo, but it sure seems "quid pro quo"ish to me. But hey, I'm just a negative old man, right, a hater . Yep, that's me all the way.

Lately, the smell from squalid politicians in Fall River is nauseating. YOU let this happen, not me. I didn't vote for the talentless idiot who is surrounded by a vicious cadre of sickening henchman and women who make the Brown Shirts look tame in comparison.

Watch out Fall River...things haven't even gotten ugly yet!

Cascade of Blunders

2010-08-17T13:34:00.001-04:00

City having trouble finding a new auditor.

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 16, 2010 @ 10:21 PM
Last update Aug 17, 2010 @ 12:40 AM

FALL RIVER — The city continues to struggle to find a new auditor to replace Kevin Almeida.

City Administrator Shawn Cadime said the administration is working with a consulting firm to hire a part-time auditor while the search continues. They reopened the application process a couple of weeks ago after one person declined the job and no other candidates brought municipal auditing experience, Cadime said.

Efforts to reach out to those in the job directly at municipal governments and through the Massachusetts Municipal Association have not brought any candidates, Cadime and Human Resources Director Madeline Coelho said Monday.

They, along with Mayor Will Flanagan and Almeida conducted a handful of auditing interviews, Cadime said.
Almeida on July 7 began an $85,000 job as school department finance manager after 2 ½ years as city auditor. It was a slight pay increase, but about $8,500 more when the 8 percent pay cut most municipal officials were required to take was factored in.

He said school auditing has been his goal.

Cadime said Almeida continues to work a couple of hours a week to keep the most recent audit report on task.
Since shortly before Almeida left, the city promoted Stacey Medeiros to the position of assistant auditor, Cadime and Coelho said.

She had handled those duties since Dec. 1, 2008 as the head administrator clerk, Coelho said. Under the union contract, her clerk’s salary of $34,431 was increased to $48,981, the second step on the assistant auditor’s rate, she said.

Her salary since being promoted June 23 was put at the fourth step, or $54,167 before the 8 percent pay cut, Coelho said.

The city had been prepared to hire an assistant auditor in early 2008, but did not follow through after the state began reducing local aid, officials said.

The auditor’s position is one of three in the finance sectors the administration has been trying to fill after Flanagan fired the tax collector and assessor two months ago.

He promoted Ida Geraldes, a 25-year city employee who worked as employee benefits administrator as tax collector. Geraldes began her job a week ago.

A week earlier, Richard Gonsalves, a city resident with nearly 30 years of experience in the assessing field, 18 in Seekonk, became the new administrator of assessing.

In a related matter, Cadime said that David Grab, treasurer and director of administrative services that oversees the auditing, assessing and tax collections departments, had not participated in the interviewing or hiring of the new department heads under his domain.

“Right now everything’s staying the same. It might be revisited down the road,” Cadime said. “Right now David Grab is director of financial services.”

Flanagan hired Grab in March after firing the previous treasurer/director of administrative services shortly after taking office.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

Well, this is wonderful news. The Titticut Follies that Fall River's financial administration has become is actually keeping qualified people from coming here at a time when the economy is still digging out of a huge hole and many professionals in the field are looking for employment.

This was predictable. Why, you might ask? Because for years the City has had just about the worst possible reputation at DOR and Municipal Finance professional groups in Massachusetts. Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, most true public finance professionals are honest people who have an appreciation for doing things correctly, efficiently, and most importantly, HONESTLY and LEGALLY. They , by state law, must take sworn oaths of office, and adhere to a professional code of ethics no less important that any other profession, and I might add, better than attorneys. Given what goes on in Fall River, you would not think this to be the case. But it is the way the rest of Massachusetts' municipal financial officials work.

The Sylvanagan administration does not plan ahead. They knew many changes in their professional financial and administrative people had to be made well prior to taking office., The "GREAT LIE" cabal involved in hiding the sewer deficit made that clear. But what has happened since?

This mayor has fired those who have publicly screwed up well after their transgressions were known, almost as a political public molification reaction. The firings of the previous finance director, tax collector and assessor were done in reactionary fashion with little apparent thought to the optimum timing and long term impact of those decisions. There is virtually NO HOPE that the tax rate will be ready any time before late December, 2010. The movement of the auditor makes closing Fall River's financials as close to impossible as it can be. What qualified auditor or municipal accounting professional wants to walk into the auditing mess and morass of financial reports and incomplete auditing records from some other accounting agent? It will take close to a year to be brought into a clear picture, and that's with a very qualified accountant with adequate staff, neither of which will be the case! This is a monumental disaster.

WE have hired a chief assessor from a town which has a similar management reputation to Fall River. Everyone in Fall River feels better about themselves when compared to Seekonk. It is an administrative and financial armpit of a community! It's reputation for political skulduggery is worse than Fall River;'s, if that is possible. Yet a man comes here to replace an assessor fired under duress, and takes a home town discount to do so, to watch over the tax assessment administration of a community with vastly greater number of parcels than the community he just left? Folks, NO ONE EVER takes a cut in pay to work for an administrative back water like Fall River! NEVER! For qualified financial professionals, a low paying, badly staffed, financially stressed and hyper political community like Fall River usually requires a pay PREMIUM to come here! That, plus a guaranteed contract. Even then, you'd have virtually NO TAKERS.

So then we come to Mr. Grab. Hey, Mr. Grab, have you figured out who the spy is in your office? You know, the one running to a certain member of the FROED Board of Directors, the member who worked so tirelessly for Sylvanagan's election? Can you be that dumb that you havent' figured it out yet? How do you think people commenting on the pages of the HN knew of you sitting around all the time in your office playing solitaire on your computer? And whats' this crud about you not having a hand in hiring the people on YOUR Finance "TEAM"? A man of talent and pride would have walked away over less. Don't even have me try to swallow that jive about you being available to come here with a cut in pay because of a shorter commute! But then again, you had little knowledge of the situation in your own tax collector's office with money laying around for months on a clerks desk. You didn't have internal reports or a schedule of tax commitment due dates to start asking questions when funds weren't being deposited? That alone proves you haven't a clue and are typical of the people in whose hands this sad City now places it's financial and administrative future . This is one sad tale my friends.

And it's been predictable since Sylvanagan gave those asinine responses about the CSO Fee being an illegal tax. Talk about nonsense and purposeful jive! He and Torres concocted sham legal opinions to make the argument when in truth they had absolutely no working knowledge of any section of public finance what-so-ever! Just because you've worked as a municipal attorney doesn't mean you have a scintilla of a clue about the day-to-day financial operations of a municipality. They just don't, and that's a fact. And the arrogance to think they do, when combined with the level of political hubris they are now exhibiting, places Fall River in the very precarious financial position the City is in currently. But don't expect a word from Sylananagan &Company. They have no clue because they don't know a thing about municipal finance.

All you can expect from the current administration is more hiring of unqualified, politically connected fools willing to bend the laws and rules to Sylvanagan's purposes and the firing of scapegoats for the coming financial failures that are heading unfettered right down the City's throat. The cascade of blunders will continue unabated. Sylvanagan's utter lack of insight into the City's financial condition is completely frightening and will be his final undoing. One year or two year commitments of grant funds to plug revenue holes will only serve to inflate expenses without providing matching revenues in future years. It's all about avoiding the tough problems today for political gain with this politician sociopath and his buddies at FROED. Just what Fall River likes, just what it's used to.

Nature Abhors a Vacumn

2010-08-14T17:47:00.000-04:00

City Councilors press mayor to rethink YMCA funding

A rep for the YMCA shows photos to show what the property would look like after rehab.

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 11, 2010 @ 10:50 PM
Last update Aug 11, 2010 @ 11:54 PM

FALL RIVER — Six of nine city councilors sent a message to Mayor Will Flanagan Tuesday night they thought his decision to pull funds from the $10 million to $11 million YMCA renovation and affordable housing project was dead wrong.

They also want Flanagan to find a way to resurrect the prior commitment of $1.5 million in Community Development funds after Director Frank Duffy said it remains their best option to make the century-old downtown building viable.

YMCA SouthCoast proposed 42 single-room occupancy rental units on the top two floors, of which 11 would be Section 8 subsidized units designated to this site.

Flanagan pulled the funds five months ago, saying low-income housing was detrimental to downtown revitalization.

“The only thing stopping this project is a few units that have Section 8. That is sad,” council Vice President Linda Pereira said. “I think the mayor is absolutely wrong in pulling that funding.”

“You should hold true to the previous administration to give the YMCA the funds. We do not want the administration to pull the funding,” echoed President Joseph Camara, who, liked Pereira, has often disagreed with Flanagan.

“I don’t think it falls into the category of new low-income housing. I think this is a different animal,” said Councilor Eric Poulin, who’s often backed Flanagan’s proposals, including the recent budget that passed 5-4.

“It would put people to work. I think we should do it,” Councilor Leo Pelletier said of the 130 jobs YMCA officials said the project would have created.

Five years in the planning after receiving the CDA commitment in 2008, Duffy said, “We were literally shovel-ready Sept. 1.”

Led by Pereira and Councilor Brad Kilby, who called Flanagan’s actions “unconscionable,” council members on a voice vote said they’d send a letter to Flanagan to reconsider his stance and tell others being given over $1 million in HOME funds to wait on their projects.

Councilor Michael Lund, a staunch low-income housing opponent, joined the majority saying the city’s recreational needs and YMCA building improvements tipped his vote. Councilors Pat Casey and Raymond Mitchell indicated they felt differently, while Councilor Brian Bigelow registered no opinion three days after being arrested for allegedly soliciting a prostitute in a sting operation.

Flanagan showed no intentions of changing his mind.

“I am standing on my principles and truly believe it’s in the best interests of the city not to increase low-income housing,” he said. “I’m not going to bow to political pressure, and not going to waiver under political pressure.”

As Duffy and CDA Executive Director Michael Dion answered council questions on the project, building needs, some $7 million in expected government funding and income guidelines, Camara and Pereira clashed with City Administrator Shawn Cadime on the rationale to halt it.

Camara said low-income housing is not increasing because 13 homeless families allowed 48 people to live at the YMCA recently.

“There’s not 42 SRO units,” Cadime said.

When Camara pressed his point, Cadime shot back, “Are you suggesting we should increase the Section 8 housing?”

Camara loudly asked the former School Committee member if he wanted to switch positions and run again for elected office.

Earlier in the lengthy debate, Pereira said the project enabled the YMCA to bolster safety where the upper floors lacked sprinklers and other code updates.

Pereira said the YMCA had hired architects on good faith. Included in its $550,000 in pre-construction expenses was $33,000 for a building permit just before Flanagan and the CDA removed the funds.

“Are you supporting extra low-income housing?” Cadime asked Pereira.

“That’s not what it is. It is for more than that,” she said.

Pereira said a housing subsidy and income was needed to provide future revenue.

At one point, Dion told the council the 31 units outside the 11 Section 8 rooms would fall into the 50-60 percent of medium income eligibility, $25,250 to $30,300.

Duffy said Wednesday the lack of sprinklers in the upper floors with housing “had never been an issue” with the building “grandfathered” from current codes. It was last used for SRO units in 1986.

Meanwhile, Cadime confirmed Tuesday night and Flanagan wrote the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to say the city would forgive a $250,000 loan to the YMCA and reduce its HOME entitlement grant.

The city has the option to foreclose on the loan. “However, the city does not want to pursue this action due to the severe hardship it would cause the YMCA,” Flanagan wrote HUD.

Cadime said the YMCA on its own could raise the $10 million to $11 million, a figure called impractical in this city, noting difficulties of the Boys & Girls Club raising $1 million.

“As of now, the project is really at a standstill,” Duffy said. “We’re looking at other options, but our number one priority is really to go through with this project and renovate the building.”
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

Every bad decision eventually comes back to haunt you. That is especially true in the public sector.

When a commitment is given by one administration to send grant funds to a worthy cause, especially for a construction project like the one at the Y, it is simply NEVER the case that a following administration does a 180 degree change in decision and pulls that funding back. Not when a commitment has been made and plans have been put into place to proceed. Not when major costs have been engendered as a result of that earlier commitment of funds. And NOT EVER when it deals with a valuable community resource like the YMCA in Fall River.

Sure, you'll have Mayor Sylvanagan and his messenger boy, Cadime, scurrying about using ridiculous terms like "my principles" and making bold, political statements that, in the course of a City Council Meeting, are way out of place and blatantly political. That's what happens when backs are against the wall despite the opportunity given the administration of Bag-Boy Sylvanagan to change their grievously wrong decision and still maintain their sainted "principles".

This crew of Executive Office incompetents cannot see the clear option that they have been given to change a bad decision . They are such rookies, the lot of them, that their total inexperience in administration AND politics is clearly showing . That's also what happens when winning the next election is the only thing you can see, when you have chronic reelection tunnelvision.

By agreeing to retract the decision to pull funds from the Y project, Sylvanagan & Company could simply state that they agree with the objectives and widespread support of the Y project, yet still maintain the stance in opposition to increased low income housing in the Fall River in general, but the central business district (cbd) in particular. (One must note Sylvanagan & Company's mute acceptance of the Wampanoag Mills development which will bring many, many more new REAL low income and Sec. 8 units to Fall River. Could it be because THAT developer in known for granting thousands of $$$$$$$ in campaign contributions to local elected officials in the communities in which he builds and manages housing?) Sylvanagan & Company defined every unit in the Y project to be low income, when in fact, that is far from factual. But they maintained their hard line and refused to budge They backed themselves into the corner they now inhabit. They are wrong, politically, on this issue and have misread popular sentiment. The overwhelming majority of Fall River voters support both the Y's mission and this project. But the rookies find it hard to admit an error even though in the long run it will be to their benefit, both community improvement wise and politically. The shriek of youthful inexperience and lack of foresight , both politically and in administering Fall River, is loud and clear.

Mayor Sylvanagan is on a losing streak of incredible proportions right now. While the Gaming Bill will most likely pass in the future, there are absolutely ZERO guarantees that one will be placed on Wampanoag lands, the 300 acres formerly set aside for the Bio-Park. There is also little chance of that land being declared sovereign tribal land, especially while the Aquinnah Wampanoags are studying plans for a casino on lands already identified as sovereign tribal land on Martha's Vineyard. One has to doubt the feds moving heaven and earth in record time to review the Mashpee Wampanoags request for the land in Fall River to receive tribal designation. Most experts place that period to be 5 to 7 years. And there are at least two other viable sites with American backing already in the Southeast Zone.

In fact, we face the real possibility of losing BOTH the casino and Bio-Park because of Sylvanagan & Company's and FROED's reckless decisions. Now they want to throw in with a developer of VERY questionable origins, Richard Baccari of Rhode Island, alleged to have bribed a RI state rep $25,000 for assistance on a development project, to place the Bio-Park on land Baccari owns in Freetown, land serviced by the Route 24 cutoff originally designed, or so we were told, the Bio-Park, now the Wampanoag casino site. The possibility exists that this was the objective all along! Isn't THAT a heart warming thought! Oh, what tangled webs we ALLEGEDLY weave, eh , Bag-Boy?

Look at what has been happening since the beginning of his administration. Aside from a ridiculous law suit against " Lund the Terrible", strip joint maven and constitutional law advocate, which we cannot and will not win, Sylvanagan & Company has been an reactive administration , not proactive. We have been behind the curve, never in front. WE follow disaster, never move forward with positive and constructive financial , economic and administrative initiatives. It's an administration of incompetence , inexperience and lack of foresight. It appears to be all about the next election, and because that's the "elan vitale" of this cast of executive miscreants, we are wasting precious time and opportunities to solve the City's fundamental problems that existed when Sylvanagan took office, and will most likely still remain when he leaves.

Nature abhors a vacuum. There is a hideous vacuum on the 6th floor of City Hall. The passage of time will show this to be the case, Fall River will feel the results and it will not be pretty. And it will fall on the residents AND mayor Sylvanagan & Company. No one will escape unscathed.

Time To Face the Truth

2010-08-10T14:31:00.002-04:00

Bigelow pleads not guilty, 'emphatically' denies charge of seeking a prostitute.City

Councilor Brian Bigelow during his arraignment after being arrested in a prostitution sting.

Arrests made in Operation John

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 09, 2010 @ 11:21 AM
Last update Aug 10, 2010 @ 12:32 AM

FALL RIVER — City Councilor Brian Bigelow pleaded not guilty Monday in Fall River District Court to a charge of offering to engage in sex for a fee following his weekend arrest in a prostitution sting that snared 23 people in total.

Bigelow, 49, of 1367 Robeson St., was one of the first to be arraigned around 10:15 a.m.

His case was continued to Oct. 22 for a pre-trial conference. He is represented by city attorney Michael Sousa, who entered the plea.

Dressed in a dark suit, blue shirt and gold print tie, Bigelow, who serves on the Diman School Committee in addition to the City Council, reiterated an early statement that he has no intention of resigning.
“I have no plans to resign,” Bigelow told a swarm of media gathered outside the Fall River Justice Center.

“He is emphatically denying the charges.” Sousa said.

He declined to state anything about his client’s actions the night he was arrested. “We’re here today to get the process started,” Sousa said.

The lawyer allowed Bigelow, an 11-year city official who works as policy auditor for the Bristol County sheriff’s department, to speak briefly after the arraignment.

“I find it’s a personal matter, a family matter. My family’s coming first,” Bigelow told The Herald News.

He paused and said, “yes” when asked if the married father of four had received their support.

“Not good,” he said, when asked how he felt. “Anyone wouldn’t feel good about it.”

Bigelow said he planned to attend Tuesday night’s City Council meeting and said he would talk to his colleagues personally.

He finished fifth in the race for nine council seats in 2009. He had been appointed to the council a year earlier, after finishing 10th in the race , when Thomas Kozak resigned his council seat in February 2008.

Bigelow said he took a vacation day from his job with Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and planned to return to his job on Tuesday. Later Monday, about 4:30 p.m., he received notification from Hodgson that he had been suspended from his job pending an internal investigation.

After speaking briefly outside the courthouse following his morning arraignment, Bigelow and Sousa headed up Borden Street with three cameramen following close behind.

Among the others arrested in the prostitution sting organized by Mayor Will Flanagan and police Chief Daniel Racine, four admitted to sufficient facts and had their cases continued for six months until Feb. 11.

They were assessed $300 in court costs and fees and assigned to participate in AIDS awareness programs.

The penalty for soliciting sex, a misdemeanor, can be up to one year in jail, a fine up to $500 or both.
Those pleading sufficient facts to the charges were identified as Ronald D. Coulombe, 55, 501 Riverside Ave., Somerset; Peter Feijo, 33, 22 Arthur St.; Juvenil L. DaSilva, 42, 120 Diman St.; and Paul R. Mendonca, 63, 132 French St.

While Bigelow is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 22 at his lawyer’s request, Judge Beverly Cannone scheduled the remaining 18 pre-trial hearings between Sept. 3 and Oct. 6.

Those hearings will be held for:

Manual Raposo Jr., 59, 169 Covel St.; Eric C. Hoffman, 36, 822 Meridian St.,; Michael A. Borges, 40, 6 Village Drive, Dartmouth; Clifton R. Neumyer, 50, 190 Jefferson St.,; Brian K. Blackburn, 37, 208 Walter St.; Steven M. Oliveira, 30, 438 S. Main St.; Emanuel D. Fernandes-Mendes, 25, 70 Sunset Hill; Lloyd R. Sherman, 39, 236 Mount Hope Ave., Peter P. Souza, 36, 46 Hiram St.; Paul J. Arraiol, 34, 451 Ocean Grove Ave., Swansea; Steven M. Enos, 23, 41 Seamore St., Berkley; Brijesh M. Patel, 139 Commonwealth Ave., Attleboro; Ritesh V. Patel, 37, 63 April Lane, Tiverton; John E. Rosenbaum, 29, 791 Plymouth Ave.; Guilherme Pimentel, 38, 551 Palmer St.; Gabriel M. Melo, 22, 15 Ridge St.; Scott D. Almeida, 33, 23 Christine Drive, Westport; also, Staci Coutu, 40, 40 Chaloner St. She was charged with propositioning a male undercover officer and the men were charged with propositioning female undercover officers.

E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.

It happens to every one of us at some time during our lives. It's not a function of wealth or station. Every person who has ever walked on the face of this earth comes to what is popularly called these days "a come to Jesus moment", a line in the sand that has been crossed and has caused you great pain, and often , shame. It hurts and can be devastating to yourself and your loved ones.

The self destructive urges that seem to part of the human fabric at times never ceases to amaze me. But once an incident occurs, there are ramifications that we are blind to before a poor decision has been made. In the present case the amount of pain and anguish caused to Mr. Bigelow and his family, a wife and four children, is already being played out in the comments section of the Herald News (HN). The casual statements and rumors erupting, some going back several years, can be nothing but painful to the Bigelow family and the public ordeal has just begun.

I have faced challenges based on my own bad decisions in the past. I hurt my own loved ones. I suffered publicly for my personal foibles and have seen the world and so called friends turn a blind and cold eye my way. It is a deep and terrible , and definitely lonely, place to be. And it takes years to recover peace of mind, both you, your loved ones, and between you all, together.. And there are permanent scars that serve as visible reminders of what your bad decisions have delivered.

I cannot fully understand what Mr. Bigelow is going through, both he and his family, at this moment. Every personal tragedy, and that is what this is, has a uniqueness all it's own. But I do know that to get beyond these moments requires patience and understanding and energy devoted to healing all the wounds that arise from such a debacle. And I know from personal experience that it cannot be done by trying to act as if nothing is wrong. Sometimes you are the only one who cannot see the depth and breadth of what your poor decisions have caused. Maybe it is a simple human defense mechanism to protect the mind from having to absorb so much maladjusted behavior that grievously hurt both yourself and your loved one, and let down those who depended on you. But in order to live a full and happy life once again, you have to start the lengthy process of healing. And unfortunately, most times you can only heal yourself.

So my best advice to Mr. Bigelow is to resign and end the public spectacle for your sake and your family as well. You cannot think only of yourself and how you will appear to others. You've lost that war, so surrender to the reality of what has happened. No one believes you, and you have to be wary of those who are supporting you and what their motives are. Most of all, whatever you were doing , your work life, your political life, your responsibilities as a public servant, have been a dangerous thing to your health. I mean, driving around in a known drug and prostitution area at 1:15 in the morning and soliciting sex from an undercover police officer is not the actions of a happy man. And I find it hard to believe that this was your first time, or that you' have no other pressures on you that caused this terrible act outside of societal norms. You deal with criminals in your line of work, you are aware of the STD rates in the area for drug addled streetwalkers in Fall River. No, Mr. Bigelow, you have already been tried and convicted by your peers, all 90,000 of them. Whatever the formal disposition of your case, it matters little in the actual scheme of things.

End this mess for right now by resigning and taking care of yourself and your loved ones before WORSE things happen. You need help. Get it. And resign your public offices. It's time to face the truth. Be responsible to yourself, your family and the City.

HIGH HOPES...ah, yeah!

2010-08-09T19:44:00.003-04:00

Let's all here it for Mayor Will Sylvagan !!!

What, NO??!!

Coming soon as a ~~major~~ ~~motion picture~~ direct to DVD release

Filmed in the fabulous new technology, FALL RIVER VISION

With an introduction by Leo Pelletier, Marilyn Roderick , John Mitchell Esq.,

"Justice"Joe Camara , and Brian "SoulPatch" Bigelow

Special appearance by Mike "The Drizzle" Herren

with all proceeds going to the Fall River Shelter for Battered and Abused Women

Brian Bigelow, 22 Others Arrested In 'Operation John'

2010-08-07T19:11:00.005-04:00

Boston News
Channel 5

City Councilor Arrested In Sex Sting

Brian Bigelow, 22 Others Arrested In 'Operation John'

POSTED: 4:50 pm EDT August 7, 2010
UPDATED: 5:22 pm EDT August 7, 2010

The Herald News/Fall River

Brian Bigelow...aka Mr. Soul Patch, a Fall River city councilor was among nearly two-dozen men arrested over the weekend during a prostitution sting operation, said police.

Authorities said City Councilor Brian Bigelow was charged Friday night with offering to engage in sex for a fee after he being approached by a female police officer. The officer was working undercover as a prostitute, in the area of 26 Morgan St.

Police said ‘Operation John’ was organized after Mayor Will Flanagan received numerous complaints about prostitution activity in numerous neighborhoods.

Along with Bigelow, authorities also arrested 21 other men and one woman

MR. SOUL PATCH LOVESSSSS THE LADIES

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Looks like "Sportcoat the Lesser", aka Brian Bigelow, aka " Mr. Soul Patch", aka, employee of Bristol County Sheriff Tom "charge them for the maggots in their hard tack" Hodgson, aka, Sylvia/Flanagan BUM KISSER and close associate, caught what Bob Seeger calls the FIRE DOWN BELOW, as the song says, and did the dumbest thing since Mayor Sylvia/Flanagan hired his indolent brother as a janitor for the Fall River School system. That's way to much outstanding stupidity for one weeks time even for a stupidity factory like Fall River.

Brian, Brian, Brian, dude, couldn't you go out of the City?...or better yet, out of the county? How about out of state, to Providence? BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Mr. Soul Patch has to get a burnin' yearnin' for some real down home Fall River dirty girl cookin', right knucklehead? I sincerely hope he had protection with him, because, you know, a Fall River recovery debutante like the kind you're likely to meet on Morgan Street is very likely to have Hep C or the HIGH FIVE (HIV). My oh my oh my, what will the lady of the house say? Bad times in his little castle, I'm sure. Brian, you are a dumb ass, and instantly radioactive.

Congratulations you idiot - you've earned your social pariah status. And you have got to be the single dumbest guy I know.

My sincere and heartfelt condolences to your wife and kids, if you have them. You did this to yourself , and they are innocents whose lives have been butt raped by your actions. It's on you pardner. If I was you, I'd resign now and get on with taking care of your family, if there's still time.

Do the smart thing, not the Fall River thing. You already did the Fall River thing and it put you in the position you are in.

LOSER...Mr. Soul Patch, my man!

Shameful is as Shameful does

2010-08-06T14:36:00.004-04:00

I have been asked several questions about the Mayor's hiring of his brother to a job in the School Department as a janitor.

Photo taken during mayoral campaign, showing Flanagan's Moms (holding sign) , City Councillor Pat "never met a mayor I wasn't a hemorrhoid for" Casey and Fall River School system's newest Janitor, in the background, sporting the gang look! Oh yes, he must be a real bright boy, this one. You can hear it now.."What's the point of bein' Mayah if ya can't hiyah ya bruthah?.. I want him outta heeah, he needs a payin' jahb with insuuurence!"

Let me be direct in response:

He is the head of the School Committee by virtue of being Mayor of Fall River...it is unthinkable that one so incompetent and so unprepared for the responsibilities on the office he holds would then turn around and put the final nail in the coffin of bad public opinion by an act of arrogance and hackery which directly refutes everything he said he stood for and would do if elected as Mayor. He has truly hoisted himself up on his own petard. It is right and just to assail him publicly for this decision, which everyone with functioning brain cells knows he forced through the School Committee. Only his collection of "Don't Be Negative, it's A beeeeutiful day in the Fall River" Flanagan bum kissing droids think otherwise.

It is not at all clear that he and the School Committee did not violate the letter and spirit of the law by making this appointment:

" Each such local director shall maintain rosters of labor service employees, by class, for each departmental unit in his city or town in the manner specified by M.G.L. c. 31, §71 and PAR.19 (2)(c).

All registers, requisitions, certifications and reports thereon, records of appointment, or copies thereof, and rosters shall be readily available for public inspection at the city or town hall or offices during regular business hours. Notice shall be posted at the location where such documents are made available advising applicants of their right to appeal to the administrator and, if they continue to be aggrieved, to the civil service commission with respect to any alleged irregularities. "

Just the dumbest thing this dummy as mayor could have done. It's a slap in the face of every taxpayer in Fall River, and every employee of the City. It IS a big deal. One of the commemters tried to equate what this mayor has done to what JFK did with hiring his brother Bobby to be the US Attorney General. I mean, what is in the water in Fall River to induce people to write such madness with the likelihood it will be printed? I just cannot understand the thought process. But what can you do...it's the exact same thought process that elected this personally chosen by FROED Board members incompetent and camera crazy boy as mayor.

However...I bet his brother is more qualified to be the City's Tax Collector than the women he put in THAT position....

This City is doomed!

Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow Candidate for Governor, Speaking at Citizens for the Common Good

2010-08-04T19:11:00.000-04:00

For all of you interested, here is a video of Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow Candidate for Governor, Speaking at Citizens for the Common Good. The presentation concerns the gaming legislation pending for signiture on the Governor's desk.

Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow Candidate for Governor Speaking at Citizens for the Common Good from MondoLizzie on Vimeo.

AND FINALLY, NEPOTISM REARS IT'S UGLY HEAD!

2010-08-04T18:45:00.004-04:00

Fall River School Department hires
brother of Mayor Will Flanagan

Will Richmond
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Aug 04, 2010 @ 02:51 PM
***************
FALL RIVER — The school department has hired the brother of Mayor Will Flanagan to a custodial position.

Chief Operating Officer Thomas Coogan said Anthony G. Sylvia is currently in the department’s preemployment process and will soon begin a 180 day probationary period. During that time Sylvia is not assigned to any specific school.

Coogan said Sylvia was one of six people hired for positions that opened following a series of retirements and the negotiation of a new contract with the custodial union. Coogan said all applicants were ranked based on interviews, experience and qualifications and that Sylvia was hired only after the first round of hires was completed and then another person retired. Coogan said Sylvia will start at the first pay step as dictated by the union contract.

As required by state law, Flanagan did notify the School Committee of his relationship via a letter dated July 21. Members were also presented a letter from Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown. As mayor, Flanagan serves as chairman of the School Committee.

The state law states that “a school district shall not employ a member of the immediate family of a school committee member unless written notice is given to the school committee of the proposal to employ or assign such a person at least two weeks in advance of such person’s employment or assignment.”
E-mail Will Richmond at wrichmond@heraldnews.com.

I'm only surprised that it took this long!

For those of you who bought into the entire " young Will Flanagan is a breath of fresh air" nonsense, I hope you now realize precisely what you have voted for. Nepotism , on top of incompetence and a desire only to run for higher office.

He has lost Fall River a Bio-Park , it appears, because of his decision to gamble on a Destination Casino, but now deals with a suspected bribery maven , Richard Baccari, who has been the subject of a Channel 10 I Team report and has reportedly bribed a RI representative $25,000 to help him with favorable decisions to develop another property, to bring the Bio-Park to Freetown. This the Mayor is doing through the increasingly fishy Mr. Fiola and the Fall River Office of Economic Development (FROED). Does it make sense to you that FROED and the Mayor of Fall River are in any way involved in the development of land owned by a questionable character in a municipality not it's own? It baffles the heck out of me. But then again, NOTHING this Mayor has done has ever made sense, and that includes the rridiculous promises he made prior to being elected.

He has accomplished nothing in office other than destroying the finance departments at City Hall without having a clue how it was supposed to be run, without knowing what time of the fiscal year is optimum to make such changes. It surely is not at the close of the fiscal year! Pure lack of experience and lack of caring. Amazing, simply stupefyingly amazing!

His failures and gaffs are literally too many to list and discuss fully in this post. But this last one is so stunningly STUPID it takes my breath away. How can he look anyone in the eye when he talks about cost controls, or fires a man making $50,000 a year and the head of the City's IT department who refuses to take an 8% pay cut, then hire his own brother for a City job at the school department even if it was merely to enroll him on the City's health insurance rolls? Doesn't he realize how bad this looks. Does he not care what the tax payers think. Wouldn't any number of out of work people in Fall River been qualified to do this job and get benefits tax payers now have to pay? Reports are the job wasn't posted online. It just looks poor, and that's being polite!

Politically, this has the potential to damage the guy beyond repair if Casino Gambling is not approved by the Governor. It means young and stupid Will Flanagan took a gamble with your community and lost big time. His entire mayoralty has been beset with mind boggling arrogance and stupidity of the type everyone thought they had seen the last of with Flanagan's very election almost nine months ago .

YOU who voted for him (not me) were wrong. And his time is running out.

Bully-boy DeLeo

2010-08-04T13:13:00.004-04:00

Globe Editorial

DeLeo’s stubbornness puts
fellow Democrats in a bind

August 3, 2010

HOUSE SPEAKER Robert DeLeo’s decision to put the needs of the state’s racetracks ahead of all other interests is a staggering example of why voters worry about legislative excesses. His stubbornness has hurt his party and put a governor of his own party in a terrible bind. Thus, it’s a relief that Governor Patrick is standing up forcefully to the speaker, and he must continue to do so.

Gov. Patrick rescinds compromise offer on casinos

For DeLeo, much riding on battle over casino bill

Editorial:
Stubbornness of DeLeo puts Dems in bind

DeLeo has tried to corner Patrick into approving a gambling bill that allows slot-machine parlors at racetracks, insisting in a statement that a veto would “ "kill the prospects of 15,000 new jobs’’ and money for local aid. But it’s the speaker’s own intransigence that has put at risk the benefits that a more targeted bill could create. Patrick supports the licensing of three resort casinos, which would represent an enormous expansion of gambling in Massachusetts. But DeLeo has deep personal and political connections to the racing industry; his father worked in it, and it’s a major presence in his district. And the speaker was unyielding in demanding that racetrack owners be given special consideration in the gambling bill.

How he got his way wasn’t pretty; progress on a host of unrelated issues stalled for weeks until Senate gambling negotiators knuckled under. Tellingly, DeLeo’s negotiators didn’t bite on proposals to create one or two slots licenses that would be awarded under an open bidding process. In the end, the conference committee agreed to offer two slots licenses to the state’s four tracks. But this was hardly a concession; since the owners of two of the state’s four tracks — Suffolk Downs and Wonderland — are widely expected to seek a casino license, the provision likely means that the Plainridge track in Plainville and the Raynham Park dog track in Raynham would get a clear shot at slots licenses, and all the track owners would come away happy.

The favor to Raynham Park particularly defies logic. Across the country, track owners have insisted that they need slot machine revenue to shore up a declining racing industry. But now that Massachusetts voters have banned dog racing, there’s no real industry to shore up. Track employees who are losing their jobs deserve new opportunities, but help can take a variety of forms — and no-bid gambling licenses for track owners shouldn’t be one of them.

State Senate President Therese Murray, who opposed racetrack slots before compromising in the end, has urged Patrick to sign the resulting bill, and has pointed to a provision that may allow him to block racinos via a new gambling commission that Patrick would help appoint. But this is no solution at all. Because the commission doesn’t even exist yet, citizens have no reason to trust its decision-making. The eventual shape of the gambling industry in Massachusetts will have profound implications for the state, and the state’s elected leadership needs to be accountable for the outcome.

On most issues, DeLeo’s leadership style has been more open and less iron-fisted than that of three recent predecessors, all of whom have been brought up on criminal charges. (Those against DeLeo’s immediate predecessor, Salvatore DiMasi, are still pending.) Yet their troubles highlight the vast amount of power concentrated within the speaker’s office — and the need for speakers to deploy it with exceeding care. DeLeo is entitled to feel a sense of kinship with the racing industry. But to put its needs above all others is an abuse of his authority.

************************

Whichever side of the Gaming Bill you support, one thing is for certain. For far too long the position of House Speaker in the Massachusetts legislature has been too powerful and entirely subject to the character of the person residing in that office. The very fact that many of the occupants of the office have left under criminal investigation and eventual guilty findings says all that need be said for an institution we all depend upon for the laws which rule our state.

Just looking at the last two Speakers prior to current Speaker Robert DeLeo, Finnegan, found guilty of crime while in office, and DeLeo's professional rabbi, Sal "200 years for extortion" DiMasi, currently awaiting trial on serious extortion charges and under further federal investigation for activities while Speaker of the Massachusetts House or Representatives, tells you all you need to know of the corrupting influence that such absolute power carries with it. And it simply doesn't need to be that way!

After the iron fisted rule of Senate President William Bulger, who was called by 60 Minutes "the most powerful politician in America after the President", there was pressure to elect a more reasonable presence as Senate President than Bulger. The fact that for many of the years Bulger was Senate President his brother, James "Whitey" Bulger, notorious organized crime figure on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List and a widely feared thug and murderer was ever present was most definitely a power behind the power to keep every state senator compliant during most of President Bulger's term in office. Few would admit to that fact, but it's the truth. Plainly put, most state senators, during Bulger's time in office, were intimidated. Having been born in Southie, and hearing tales of the "Gustan Gang" where Whitey Bulger got his start, I know this is true.

Now comes the Gaming Bill. Given that a single man, Speaker DeLeo, killed the gaming bill last session when it dealt only with casino gambling while both Senate President Murray and Governor Patrick favored the legislation tells you what you need to know about the power of the race track lobby and it's hold on DeLeo. Because his district is feeling a particular pain while he's Speaker of the House, he feels completely justified to hold up the state's interest because it doesn't fit his own personal one. And this is the kind of unfettered power that has to end.

The only trouble is the weak sheep we elect to office as state representatives who display a complete lack of intestinal fortitude when confronted by such tyrany and control of thought, word and deed. They are cowards, all of them. True politicians in every sense. And please don't try to explain the historical significance of the inner workings of the State House and why the roles played by the many actors involved are so critical to a proper functioning government on Beacon Hill. Southerners used the same kind of "historical precedent" to justify slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. "How dare anyone question a way of life that worked so well", was their declaration thrown northward, "You just don't understand". Yes, good and right thinking people DID understand all too well. They do today as well.

Oh, I'm sure there will be the uneducated few who will try to explain that having Pat Haddad as Asst. Majority Leader is good for the region, just like the time Bob Correia served in that position as well. Sorry, as I have said many times before, "that dog won't hunt". The current system granting the Massachusetts House Speaker total control of ever aspect of life for representatives is antiquated and far too subject to abuse, as recent history plainly demonstrates. We, the citizens of the state of Massachusetts, have a right to hear every side of an argument on every issue under consideration before the House of Representatives. That's their TRUE function of legislative committees in representative democracy. WE haven't known this type of democracy in my lifetime, at least not in Massachusetts.

Regardless of how you feel about the subject of gaming in this state, there can be no doubt about the method in which it has been legislated by the House of Representatives and their leader, Speaker Robert DeLeo. It is despicable and not reflective of how we need our government to work. Personal agendas should never be allowed to completely stifle public policy or create it. Today in Massachusetts, it does. That needs to end.

The Gelding

2010-08-03T19:48:00.001-04:00

To everyone even tangentially interested in this Kabuki Theater surrounding gaming Legislation pending before Governor Patrick, here is a short ditty, very informative short ditty I should ad, sent to a great friend of this blog and forwarded along to me. I, in turn, present it to you.

The term POLICY ANALYSIS is critical here. On the very first day of any public policy or public administration program in graduate school you are drilled in public policy analysis. It is not sacrosanct, and is very often slanted in its presentation, regardless of what more academic types want you to believe. And you don't need a PhD or even an MBA, MPA or MA to do it, or do it well, although it helps a great deal. Anyone with sufficient handle of the facts can present very solid and valid policy analysis. That's because it's essentially a compendium of objective facts presented to prove a hypothesis. While it always best to include as backup a very detailed analysis of numbers surrounding that hypothesis, the more rigorous the better, in many instances it is not the most important set of facts. It's all too often easy to use regression analysis and tests of those statistics to get lost in the forest and not see the tree of truth you are seeking, only the one's you wish everyone else to see. That's the work of reprehensible attorney's, not social scientists.

The NAICS codes they mention in the article are merely classification codes...sort of a "handbook" on how businesses are classified...it's a census for business and a summary statistic. Sometimes it is used to obfuscate more than educate. This is one of those times.

So, to all of my fellow "policy analysts", enjoy!

* From bluemasscroup (Clyde Barrows - http://www.bluemassgroup.com/diary/16267/six-degrees-of-suffolk-downs) through a fellow traveler in Middleboro,
Gladys Kravitz :: Six Degrees of Suffolk Downs

The Gelding
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next is another sort of celeb - a notorious one to those of us with two years of 'gaming' industry propaganda under our belts. UMass Dartmouth Professor Clyde Barrows. The man who turned counting license plates in Connecticut into a lilfe-sustaining career.

Clyde Barrows, who is quoted in the media at least once a month, is to the gambling industry what Silas was to Opus Dei in the Da Vinci Code.

But this morning it's not license plates he's here to talk about. No, today, he begins by referencing the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) - which apparently is the "statistical classification standard underlying all establishment-based economic statistics in the U.S. Canada, & Mexico."

Not only that, boys and girls, but the "NAICS classifies business establishments into twenty different Sectors and assigns each business establishment in North America a six-digit code."

And guess what? Under NAICS Major Sector Code 71, otherwise known as Arts, Entertainment & Recreation, following sub sector 711 (Performing Arts, Spectator Sports and Related Industries) and right after sub sector 712 (Museum, Historical Sites & Similar Institutions) is none other than sub sector 713 (Amusement, Gambling & Recreation)

It's official. Deval was right. Gambling really is entertainment!

Because if the NAICS says it - then it must be true.

Clyde, nevertheless, fails to mention this would also imply that Cockfighting falls under sub sector 711 (spectator sports) while Brothels and Crack Houses (Amusement and Recreation) would share sub sector 713 with Gambling.
But the message is clear. Gambling is just another legitimate pastime, like going to a Celtics game or visiting Plymouth Plantation. You can feel good about it.

Oh, and another thing. Gambling is pretty.
In his Power Point presentation and handout, Clyde uses some really slick pictures of Foxwoods casino. This is one of them:

Sexy, huh? This is the kind of photo you use of a casino when you really want to sell it.
This is a less flattering angle.

Mohegan Sun actually wants to deposit something like this less than a mile from downtown Palmer, Massachusetts. (Hey - is that Clyde down there in the parking lot!)

Barrows, who co-authored a paper titled, The Persistence of Pseudo-Facts in the U.S. Casino Debate: The Case of Massachusetts, in which he insists that you can trust him because he's a policy analyst while everyone else is merely part of "the chattering class", doesn't want you to see what Foxwoods really looks like. He would like us to be reassured by comforting advertising photos of luminous Cinderella castles rising from enchanted forests.

Clyde would prefer the Senators not see the many homes in the area for sale, the proximity of elementary schools to the casino, the lack of local businesses, the neighboring single family homes used for "hot bunking" multitudes of low-wage casino workers, the road trash or the ever present exhaust-belching tour buses which idle in the parking lots for hours on cold days. In fact, that would be downright counter-productive to that whole "entertainment" theme he's got going on today.

If Clyde Barrows is a 'policy analyst', then I'm not really an 'activist blogger' - I'm a 'non-lobbyist.'
Because Clyde is a salesman, and everyone knows it - even the Senators and even the 'gaming' industry. And right now he's trying to sell us a vacuum cleaner. One that will suck the money out of our pockets while promising us an easier, better life.

When Clyde's sales pitch presentation is finally over, but before he can manage to slither off, Senator Tucker asks, "as someone who is quoted on this subject more than anyone else, can you tell us, how are you compensated?"
He is paid, he explains, by the UMass Center for Policy Analysis, though... once or twice there may have been that thing for the Rhode Island Building Trades Council, and then there was that other thing for the Rhode Island Senate something or other and way back in '97 he picked up a little work for the Wampanoags.

What he doesn't mention is that those 'things' were part of efforts to build casinos.

And he fails entirely to mention a job he took just this past November for the Las Vegas-based Olympia Group, to sell a casino to Oxford County Maine.
Poor Clyde. He's conflicted between his desire to be a respected policy analyst with a valuable opinion, and his need to continue in his role as an assiduous paid shill for the gambling industry.

Martha wasn't kidding when she said the public needs to know more about the people who want to put casinos in our backyards

NEWS BULLETIN!!!!

2010-08-03T12:37:00.001-04:00

NEWS BULLETIN!!!!!!!!

It was reported by Boston's channel 5, WCVB, that Speaker of the House, Robert DeLeo, would call for the legislature to come back into session to act on Gov. Patrick Deval's suggested amendment to the Gaming Bill passed by the leigislature last weekend before the Saturday midnight deadline.

No word yet on reaction to Speaker DeLeo's action by Senate President Therese Murray. More to follow!

As they say in Brooklyn, Yez hoid it heeer foist!"

The Butcher's Bill continuedddddddddddddd.....................

2010-08-03T12:31:00.000-04:00

And there's even more!

7/30/2010 ASSAD, BRUCE
486 NICHOLS ST FALL RIVER, MA 027207310LAWYER
BRUCE A ASSAD Patrick, Deval L.$250.00

03 August, 2010 00:10
Anonymous said...

The casino/biopark in Freetown transaction is going to be interesting.
Menard and Jim Karam held a "private fundraiser at the Venus the week (ending) 7/31/10 for $250 a ticket to buy support for their pet projects and of course Joans retirement.

hmm look at the coincidence of who just happened to send a check for $250/$500 that week besides Baccari who the city will buy the land from:

Same names always involved in city

"development" transactions:
It's also nice to see that the 8% paycut didn't affect the city of Fall River staff:
7/30/2010 CHRIST, NICHOLAS
201 ATLANTIC AVE WESTPORT, MA 02790 BANKER
CITIZENS UNION BANK Patrick, Deval L. $250.00
7/30/2010 CADIME, SHAWN
36 PALMER ST 2 FALL RIVER, MA 027243236 ADMINISTRATOR
CITY OF FALL RIVER Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/30/2010 COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CAROLE FIOLA
307 ARCHER ST FALL RIVER, MA 02720
Patrick, Deval L. $100.00
( Kenny the LAWYER only paid $400 so this evens out to $500 or = 2 tickets)

7/30/2010 DONOVAN, JEREMIAH
16 BEDFORD ST FALL RIVER, MA 02720 ELEC CONTRACT
G&J PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CORP Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/30/2010 HOEY, JOHN
221 SHAG BARK RD TAUNTON, MA 027802065 ADMINISTRATOR
UNIV OF MASS Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/30/2010 KARAM, JAMES
119 MEADOWBROOK LN WESTPORT, MA 027904360 PRINCIPAL
FIRST BRISTOL CORP. Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/30/2010 KARAM, JEFFREY
37 DUDLEY ST FALL RIVER, MA 02720 DEVELOPER
FIRST BRISTOL CORP. Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/29/2010 KARAM, JAMES
PO BOX 2516 FALL RIVER, MA 02720 PRESIDENT & CEO
FIRST BRISTOL CORP. Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

7/30/2010 LONG, PATRICK
PO BOX 347 WESTPORT POINT, MA 02791 INSURANCE BROKER
CITIZENS UNION INSURANCE Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/29/2010 LONG, PERRY
991 AMERICAN LEGION HWY WESTPORT, MA 027901124 NEIGHBORHOOD COORDINATOR CITY OF FALL RIVER Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

7/29/2010 LUND, JOHN
161 HARBOR RD SWANSEA, MA 027771446 LAWYER
BORDEN LIGHT MARINA Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

7/29/2010 LUND, KATHLEEN
161 HARBOR RD SWANSEA, MA 027771446 HOMEMAKER
HOMEMAKER Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

7/29/2010 MACCORMACK, JEAN
6 WILDPEPPER LN DARTMOUTH, MA 027481437 CHANCELLOR
UMASS DARTMOUTH Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

7/30/2010 MARSHALL, JOANNE
323 KENYON ST FALL RIVER, MA 027207432 RETIRED
RETIRED Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/29/2010 MARSHALL, LIANNE
244 BEACON ST 4A BOSTON, MA 02116 EXECUTIVE
MARSHALL PROPERTIES Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

8/2/2010 MARSHALL, JOSEPH
323 KENYON ST FALL RIVER, MA 027207432 INSURANCE SALES
J MARSHALL ASSOCIATES Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/30/2010 MATEUS, RICHARD
109 ANGUS ST SOMERSET, MA 02725 EXECUTIVE
PRIMA CARE Patrick, Deval L. $250.00
7/29/2010 ONEIL-SOUZA, ANN
PO BOX 30 FALL RIVER, MA 02722 CHIEF OF STAFF
CITGY OF FALL RIVER Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

/29/2010 REZENDES, SR, KENNETH
PO BOX 879 ASSONET, MA 02702 CHAIRMAN
K R REZENDES, INC Patrick, Deval L. $500.00

7/29/2010 RHEAUME, RICHARD
557 ELM ST DARTMOUTH, MA 027482142 CIVIL ENGINEER
PRIME ENGINEERING Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

7/30/2010 AMARAL, ALAN
4234 NORTH MAIN ST 102 FALL RIVER, MA 02720 ATTORNEY
YOMEGA CORP Patrick, Deval L. $250.00

03 August, 2010 08:08

Anonymous said...
Christmas Party for Deval Patrick??

12/15/2009 BACCARI, RICHARD $500.00 VICE PRESIDENT
785 ACADEMY AVE CHECK CHURCHILL & BANKS
ROVIDENCE, RI 02908-1230

12/15/2009 BACCARI, RICHARD $500.00 C E O
440 OCEAN RD CHECK CHURCHILL & BANKS
NARRAGANSETT, RI 02882

12/15/2009 FRIENDS OF PAT HADDAD $100.00
PO BOX 495 CHECK
SOMERSET, MA 02726
12/15/2009 HADDAD, PATRICIA $150.00
2662 RIVERSIDE AVE CHECK
SOMERSET, MA 02726

12/15/2009 HOEY, JOHN $250.00 ADMINISTRATOR
221 SHAG BARK RD CHECK UNIV OF MASS
TAUNTON, MA 027802065

12/15/2009 KARAM, JAMES $500.00 PRINCIPAL
119 MEADOWBROOK LN CHECK FIRST BRISTOL CORP.
WESTPORT, MA 027904360

12/15/2009 KARAM, JEFFREY $500.00 DEVELOPER
37 DUDLEY ST CHECK FIRST BRISTOL CORP.
FALL RIVER, MA 02720

12/15/2009 KARAM, STEPHEN $500.00 V P
645 MADISON ST CHECK KARAM FINANCIAL
FALL RIVER, MA 027205711

12/15/2009 MACCORMACK, JEAN $500.00 CHANCELLOR
6 WILDPEPPER LN CHECK UMASS DARTMOUTH
DARTMOUTH, MA 027481437

12/15/2009 MARSHALL, LIANNE $500.00 EXECUTIVE
244 BEACON ST 4A CHECK MARSHALL PROPERTIES
BOSTON, MA 02116

12/15/2009 REZENDES, KENNETH $500.00 CHAIRMAN
PO BOX 879 CHECK K R REZENDES, INC
ASSONET, MA 02702
12/15/2009 RHEAUME, RICHARD $250.00 CIVIL ENGINEER
557 ELM ST CHECK PRIME ENGINEERING
DARTMOUTH, MA 027482142

03 August, 2010 09:34