Back a few years ago someone wanted to open a tattoo shop in the downtown section of Haverhill. Hackles were raised over allowing “Those People” into town. Similarly, zoning and prudishness ran a lingerie shop out of the downtown around that time. Being one of “those people” who would have happily supported those shops instead of the bars and dollar stores currently occupying the downtown area I was disappointed by my fellow Haverhill denizens.
Then we have the lovely rock pile which absolutely brings more tax dollars into town than the successful and popular Friend’s Landing restaurant. So happy we razed that building, drove out the clientele and built that great condo complex. Oh wait – we didn’t build anything. The owner blames the economy but I wonder if the clientele weren’t simply victims of being “those people.”
Zoning makes headlines again as Haverhill attempts to loosen restrictions at the industrial parks to bring new business into the area. Of course “those people” need not apply. In this case “those people” are the smaller businesses, euphemistically dubbed “low employment” companies. Companies like the Canine Fun Time indoor dog park.
These companies are not welcome in Haverhill unless they are willing to settle downtown. With a viable parking solution at least four years away – adding new traffic downtown is untenable. The buildings downtown are also not amenable to every business type. Of course these companies could work towards a zoning exemption but the $5,000 to $10,000 fee is a barrier to many smaller businesses.
I understand the Mayor wants booming large industries akin to what was here when Lucent was prosperous but business has changed much since then. Even successful businesses have fewer on site employees than ever between economy induced downsizing and telecommuting increases.
So while we wait for a savior, Haverhill keeps pushing away people who want to grow our city. We also forget our lives are made of more than work and sleep. We need places to shop and play. And we need “those people” to help us do so. There are more of “those people” around than you think!
The three school committee members who partake of the health insurance benefit available to them have agreed to switch to the Value Option Plan. Finally.
Although I need to wonder how much this (from the linked article above) factored into their decision:
Prior to the School Committee meeting, Fiorentini produced a legal opinion from City Solicitor William Cox that the mayor could switch the School Committee members into the new plan without their consent. In summary, the legal opinion says the city must make health insurance available to members of the City Council and School Committee that want it, but that the mayor has the authority to decide which health care plan is offered.
Nothing like making the change voluntarily now that they know their existing plan won’t be available forever. And I really love how conscientious everyone is about making sure the details are available and that everyone is happy with the plan. Do these folks realize the rest of the working world simply gets a notice that their insurance has been changed and to change doctors and plan accordingly. The notice generally also outlines the increases in premiums, co-pays and prescription costs as well.
The whole health insurance situation is untenable and I wish as a society we had a better method of dealing with it but the reality of health insurance is that it is the most expensive benefit employers offer. Companies across the country have made cuts to health care and people across the country have had to make adjustments to their lives because of those cuts. As much as I sympathize with individuals who will face rising costs because of this – as a tax payer I am also a shareholder in the business of the City of Haverhill.
As we go through the summer, negotiations continue with principals and teachers over contracts and the ever present issue of health care. We’ve listened to budget talks for weeks about how the health care costs are crippling the school budget and have resulted in layoffs, increased class sizes and decreased offerings for our students.
We are now 13 days past this post and this article and still Mr Wood and Mr Toohey haven’t bothered to return the Eagle Tribune’s calls regarding their unwillingness to change to the Mayor’s health care plan. This bothers me especially because Mr Wood and Mr Toohey are 2/3 of the negotiating team that is working with the teacher’s union to finally sign a contract that hopefully switches the teachers to the Mayor’s Value Option Plan.
This strikes me as very poor leadership by these high profile members of the School Committee; Mr Toohey is the current president and Mr Wood is the former president. Both seem to feel it is appropriate to negotiate from the position of “take what we tell you is the best health care plan available – despite it not being good enough for us.” This is one of the largest problems I have with national health care reform; the plan forced by law on all of the citizens does not apply to members of Congress. I like this even less when it happens locally and is perpetuated by people in my own neighborhood!
I’m not sure what really happened in this meeting with the principals but I’m betting the truth lies someplace in the middle. The School Committee found quite a bit of cash to reward the interim superintendent and to hopefully entice a new superintendent to our city and every other union who has switched health care has gotten something in return so I can understand the principals looking for a carrot in this negotiation. This is how negotiations work – each side pushes and pulls to work out something in the middle of what one side wants and what the other side offers.
Of course the principals are just a few individuals and the real budget impact will only be seen when the Teacher’s Union adopts the Value Option Plan. I’m betting with this article that a health care concession won’t be reached any time soon with the 600 members of the teacher’s union. I am a little leery of his quote about doubling premiums last contract – one of the sticking points in one of the last union contracts negotiated while I still worked at Shaw’s Supermarkets was health care. The union balked at the unreasonable concept of union workers paying any amount for health care. The union actually went on strike that year because $2 per week per employee for health insurance premiums was unfair. So until I know what that doubling is in actual dollars I’m not going to give it too much weight.
While I don’t usually give much weight to the comments because they are generally the same dozen trolls all feeding each other I noted a few who echoed rumors I’ve heard around town that Mr Harvey doesn’t act on the will of the entire body of teachers but listens closely to a few more vocal groups. If this is true I think perhaps the teachers need to vote in a new spokesperson and negotiator.
I’ve copied the bulk of this post directly from the Mayor’s email newsletter that I received June 1st. If the Mayor is unhappy with my copying and further disseminating this information I encourage him to let me know! About the recycling, I want to say hooray and finally! The lack of a decent recycling program was the first frustration I discovered when we moved to Haverhill in 2002. I’m so glad our City Councilors – primarily Sven Amirian and Colin LePage – worked so diligently on this issue despite opposition. See our city recycling faq here and then on to the Mayor’s message below:
Expanded Recycling Goes City Wide– Last Week of June Starting the last week of June, the new expanded curbside single stream recycling program started by the Mayor last year goes city wide! No matter which trash route you are on, starting on your last recycling day in June, you can put all your recyclables out at curbside. We will continue to pick up on your regular recycling day every other week. You put it all into one container, no sorting is required! It’s that simple!
Tonight’s School Committee meeting will be the last one of the year to deal with the 2010-2011 budget. If there’s anything you’d like to say about the budget this is pretty much the last chance open forum on the issue. If you would like to see the proposed budget they’ve posted a link to the very large pdf here.
The last School Committee meeting was pretty much a rubber stamp approval of the budget by the Committee and then a round of pats on the back for everyone.
A few parents got up to speak. They were frustrated with the cuts in the budget and felt people didn’t know how badly programs are affected. I wonder where these parents were all year. I certainly never saw them at any of the other meetings I attended over the school year. Parents can’t just show up at budget time and expect the committee to just pull money out of air for their children’s programs! We need to band together and fight how this fiasco is being funded at the state level if we want anything to change in our town. I can’t be the only one emailing my representatives and looking for people to speak to on beacon hill!
Along the way someone on the committee was bright enough to figure out that they sounded awfully obnoxious with all their comments about how well they did this year; so they then each took 20 minutes to bemoan the state of the economy and how that made this an awful budget to work with. Education in Haverhill is in dire straits. Those poor children are missing out. None of us are happy with this budget. Services are at a bare minimum across the board. Once they felt they’d been appropriately contrite the meeting moved along to new business.
The Mayor proposed that those non union employees of the Haverhill School Department including the School Committee adopt the health plan they are currently trying to convince the unions to accept. This was met with a surprising amount of contention. The committee felt the employees should be notified and asked if this is something they want to happen. Apparently the committee doesn’t understand how executive decisions are made when unions aren’t involved. No one I know who is non union ever gets a say in benefit changes. The companies simply say “Here’s your new insurance plan.” or “Here’s the new rate for your insurance plan.” or “Here’s the pay cut we’ve instituted.” While I can appreciate letting people know that as of X date your plan is changing… I don’t understand having endless discussion on the topic – especially if this is the plan you want all of the unions to adopt!
Another disappointingly business as usual meeting of the Haverhill School Committee.
A few days ago I discussed school choice and why I made the decision to keep my kids here in Haverhill and fight to make the School Department here stronger. In reading today’s news I wanted to followup on some of the items from the other post.
Groveland did not pass the override to provide $350k in funding to the Pentucket Regional School District. I’m not surprised. Parents make up a small fraction of the voter pool. People like to forget that their own education, or their children’s education or their grandchildren’s education was funded by people who did not have children currently in the system either.
I hear a lot around town about the HHS renovation. I hear much also about the lack of funds for a roof at Tilton, flaking paint, poor landscaping, lockers that need painting, and fences that need fixing. Generally I don’t hear about the other town’s problems. I found the comment on the above linked article to be telling: Part of the buzz around Groveland is that they don’t want to spend money on capital school improvements either. “Memo to all those folks who want to build an $8 million addition to the Bagnall School by taxing the Groveland citiziens with a huge override: take a look at Monday’s vote, it won’t pass!” (I quoted Sachemmon – the spelling and grammar are hers)
Now that the override has failed – Merrimac also said no to the override; West Newbury was the only town to support extra taxes – what will the Pentucket Regional School District do? The options are limited and are the same ones we’ve debated in budget meetings here in Haverhill. Pentucket plans to lay off teachers and support staff. Course offerings have been lessened and enrollment numbers are being watched at the elementary level to see if any cuts can be made there. Unfortunately, the upper grade levels will probably feel the greatest loss from these cuts. I find the comment by “Gone Fishin” interesting as the points he makes are ones I hear over and over about Haverhill: Failure abounds in the school’s leadership, the town’s government, the teacher’s union and society as a whole.
While Haverhill’s School Department budget crunch is just beginning – North Andover’s seems to be winding down. When the dust clears they will have lost: “Under the Finance Committee’s proposal, Hottel said School Department layoffs will include a part-time special education teacher, roughly seven classroom aides and one social worker. Hottel said there will be no major cuts to educational programs and no layoffs of classroom teachers under the Finance Committee recommendation. Fee schedules also will remain in place, he said.” Nine jobs lost, no major cuts to educational programs – I have to wonder what that means … major is really determined by those who won’t have programs to go to in the fall, and fee schedules will remain – Is the DESE criticizing North Andover as it does Haverhill for charging fees to students for programs? I guess even affluent towns are feeling the recession!
Methuen’s mayor has decided to turn funding of the a new high school into Methuen’s very own Hale Debt Fiasco. He’s taking the tax increases from building three grammar schools that the people are already paying and extending them out beyond the 2018 end date to some as yet unnamed date. I had to double check the article to make sure they weren’t discussing HHS when they quote Manzi saying: “The chief complaints about the high school are the open concept, outdated science labs, and parts of the building that are not up to code. Failing to fix the building will threaten the school’s accreditation, Manzi warned.” Of course this all hinges on not having budget shortfalls that cost Methuen public safety. Councilors are hearing the city will lay off police officers and firefighters as it deals with budget cuts, “so I don’t know where we’re going to get money to put into the (high school) stabilization fund,” Cronin said. Its like deja vu all over again!
Lastly, lets check the grass in Andover, where a former Superintendent laments about how that town is handling its budget woes. He also mentions the need for a strategic plan for the schools – something we hear about at our own School Committee Meetings. In his call for a strategic plan, Ken Siefert even speaks to the need to conduct an audit! We’ve heard much about audits during the last few School Committee meetings as well.
Life is similar all around the Merrimack Valley; and I’m going to guess that other than the weather, life is similar throughout much of the United States. Certainly we can do better here in Haverhill – I believe in the city even when it doesn’t believe in itself. But do not assume we’re an anomaly of budget woes and school department issues and tax burdens for those items fertilize the lawns of our surrounding towns too!
Two email missives have landed in my inbox this week that I think bear publicizing. In the end they both come down to the same thing – tell our state government we’re done with budget cuts that paralyze the cities and towns we live in.
The first one I received was from a parent at Golden Hill Elementary. There is a rally at the Statehouse in Boston on March 23rd from 9am – noon. Whether or not you have children the education provided in your city affects you. It affects property values and the attitudes of surrounding towns regarding doing business in or with your city and it affects the willingness of businesses to locate themselves in your city.
The second is from our Mayor, James Fiorentini. He is urging everyone to contact your representatives and urge them not to cut local aid further. I will not post the entirety of his message but the contact information he provided for Haverhill’s representatives is this:
House of Representatives
State Senate
You might think there is nothing the state can possibly do. The budget has to be cut and you cannot get blood from a stone. I thought that too until I learned that the budget accounts for only 55% of the money spent by Massachusetts. In 2009 Massachusetts spent approximately one billion dollars a week. We desperately need to have knowledge and accountability of that other 45% and decide whether that money can be used for local aid instead of this “off budget spending.”
Thank you Kamal Jain for the education and my copy of the CAFR. (Warning extremely large pdf behind that second link.)
The phone rang Tuesday morning and I was very surprised to hear from Ron Sanders of WBZ TV. He wanted to discuss snow removal with me and wondered if I would be home. This is school vacation week and I have two bored children on my hands – of course we’re home. So about an hour later Mr Sanders and myself and the children and a camera took a walk to the bus and discussed the problems involved with removing snow – or not – from sidewalks around the city.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when the piece aired. The children were ecstatic to see themselves on television but I’m not a big fan of the spotlight myself. Funny thing to admit when I write so publicly but its not that I’m shy with my thoughts or feelings – I just prefer to do the hard work behind the scenes and let someone else be the spokesperson for whatever is happening. If you missed our appearance WBZ has been kind enough to post the article and video on their website.
What makes me happy about this whole situation is that the Mayor has finally stated publicly that the ordinance exists and it needs to be adhered to or fines will follow warnings. From the linked article:
“We need people to abide by that ordinance. We have to do this. We cannot go back to having 70 or 80 people in the highway department. Even then, we didn’t clear every sidewalk. We can’t afford to clear every sidewalk. No city in the country can do that. We need the public’s help,” explains the mayor.
Mayor Fiorentini says the next step will be to give people warnings. If they simply refuse to comply with the ordinance, then the city will enforce it, if necessary.
I’m also tired of hearing people say this is what they pay taxes for. You pay taxes for a lot of things but shoveling the sidewalk isn’t one of them and hasn’t been for a long time – if ever. The sections quoted below were added to the city code in 1980. We pay taxes for road upkeep, park upkeep, utility infrastructure, police, fire, and schools among other things. When it comes to shoveling the sidewalk you’re on your own! From this website on city codes:
The tenant or occupant, and in case there shall be no tenant or occupant, the owner, agent or person having the care or custody of any building or lot abutting on any street, lane, court, square or way within the City where there is any footway or sidewalk duly established, shall, after snow has ceased to fall thereon or whenever snow shall have collected or been deposited upon any such footway or sidewalk either by falling from an adjoining building or by drifting thereon, within six hours, remove or cause the same to be removed therefrom; and where footways or sidewalks have not been duly established, shall cause all such snow to be as soon removed to a width of not less than four feet from that portion of the street or way which is used in common as a footway in such streets or ways; provided, however, that the requirements of this section shall not be in force between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.
And should the snow not be removed:
Whenever any sidewalk or footway shall be encumbered with snow or ice contrary to the provisions of the two preceding sections, it shall be the duty of the Chief of Police to notify or cause to be notified the person responsible therefor, and, if the provisions of the aforesaid preceding sections are not complied with within three hours from the time of service of the above notice, the Chief of Police shall forthwith prosecute the person who has violated the provisions of this or of the two preceding sections.
Also, as mentioned in the article, if you’re unable to shovel please call the Mayor’s office and the boy scouts will come shovel for you. We have various other service organizations around Haverhill who can help if you’re unable to clear snow. My gripe is with those unwilling to deal with the snow.
I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from Team Haverhill’s “Possible Dreams 2010″ event. How many people would brave the rain? What would the conversations be like? Who among our elected officials would attend? How much participation would the audience be allowed vs how much would be presentation by Team Haverhill? We got Grandma to watch the kids and set out for the Technology Center at Northern Essex Community College and answered all of those questions and more.
You can read the Eagle Tribune’s take on the night here. I’d like to mention some of my more memorable moments.
We sat in tables of four or five and discussed different questions posed by Team Haverhill. Then we left comments about our discussion as Graffiti on our table before moving on. The first question was what good things happened last year, follows by what is possible for this year and finally what relationships have been started or should be started to make the goals for 2010 reality. Then the night became a town meeting where people could stand up and speak to the group.
I appreciated that the Mayor and almost all of the City Council came out to join us. I was disappointed that only one member of the School Committee decided to make the trek. I was exceedingly pleased that Garin Veris, our new Athletic Director, came out and spoke about his plans for our kids and sports and his fund-raising and invited everyone to get involved and support our kids by attending Haverhill sporting events. Every time I see him speak; I am heartened by his message. He stresses education, community and personal responsibility among all our students first and foremost and athletics as an important venue for making that happen.
Some items I heard last night that I think bear looking into are – in no particular order:
All in all we had fun, good conversation and met lots of new people. I look forward to seeing what this event spurs for 2010. For anyone interested – Team Haverhill’s first “get things done” meeting is February 8th.
All at the same time? That’s what happened to me Thursday evening when someone from the City came and plowed the section of sidewalk we must traverse three times a day to get the children on and off the bus.
You would think I would be thrilled. The way is clear and we don’t have to walk small children down the street. But this is one section of sidewalk after one storm impacting one bus stop. The real issue is fixing the system so it doesn’t come to this! The only reason why our section was cleared is this article. My hope is the article spurs the discussion necessary around our city to force City Hall to either enforce the current statute or make changes.
I wish as people we could be proactive and responsible and clear our snow. This isn’t just important for the kids who need to go to the bus. The postal and other delivery people who travel our city every day need safe passage as well as the everyday ordinary citizens of Haverhill. What about emergency personnel if the unexpected happens and they must get to our doors?
The counter argument to enforcement is “But what about Grandma and Grandpa who can’t clear the snow and can’t afford to hire someone to clear the snow and have no family to help them clear the snow?” This is the issue that keeps the city from doing anything at all about the snow. We have a Council on Aging and we have Elder Services. We provide assistance for a number of day to day needs for our elderly and disabled – why can’t we provide snow assistance? Then the city would be able to force those who are able but aren’t willing to clear their snow. Not just for me because I’m vocal; but for everyone who walks our sidewalks for whatever reason at whatever time of day.
