HEEE-HAAWWW, HEEE-HAAWWW

For Flanagan, House votes
are a mixed bag

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By Will Richmond
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Apr 15, 2010 @ 11:56 PM
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FALL RIVER — Two actions taken by the state House of Representatives Wednesday presented Mayor Will Flanagan with good news and bad news.


Flanagan Thursday voiced his pleasure with the House’s vote to approve a bill that could pave the way for casino gambling in the commonwealth. That excitement, however, is tempered by the proposed budget released by the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday, which will result in funding cuts in both local and Chapter 70 education aid for the city.


Flanagan said the casino bill, which permits the operation of two resort style casinos and up to 750 slot machines at racetracks, works in Fall River’s favor.


“I think the proposal before the Legislature is favorable to the city of Fall River because the city is an attractive destination for resort gambling,” Flanagan said. “With our high unemployment rate, we have a work force that is ready and able to work. And with a number of highways running through the city, from a transportation standpoint we’re very attractive.”


Flanagan said he favors siting a casino in the SouthCoast area and in western Massachusetts because the separation would allow the state to draw on consumers from different markets. He pointed to the low tax rate in the Fall River area as another reason why the Spindle City would make a strong destination for a casino.


Even prior to the House vote approving casino gambling, Flanagan said he has held conversations with potential investors interested in locating a casino in the city. Flanagan declined to identify any of those parties, but said he expects further discussions to take place.


“My door remains open to any investor that wants to come to Fall River and take a gamble on Fall River,” Flanagan said.


As to where a casino would be located, Flanagan said he does not favor a waterfront location, but would remain open to discussions on such a location. Instead, he said a casino should be built in an area that would have limited effects on small businesses and homes.
While the sounds of jackpots being struck will have to wait for the future, any hopes of a financial windfall from the state were likely eliminated with the release of the House budget plan.
Under the House budget proposal, both Chapter 70 and unrestricted general government aid would be cut by 4 percent.


The reduction means Fall River would be eligible for $89 million in Chapter 70 aid and $20 million in unrestricted funds.


The city would receive a total of $111 million when including a $1.7 million allocation through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.


“This raises serious red flags for us,” Flanagan said of the proposed cuts. “This budget will be one of the tightest in city history. There’s not much room left or meat on the bone to cut.”


He said his financial team is already working to form a budget based on the House numbers and he is planning to meet with city councilors and members of the city’s legislative delegation in regards to the expected financial hardship the city faces.


The Legislature has to be aware the city of Fall River, like other cities, relies on state aid, and when you’re making drastic cuts to state aid, you’re making drastic cuts to the services of Fall River,” Flanagan said. “With these proposed cuts you’re not talking about reducing services, you’re talking about closing services.”


Saying that finding additional funds might be difficult, Flanagan advocated for tools that would help to take the burden of expenses such as health care and pension costs.


“We need these tools to raise revenues so we can continue to offer the same level of services we have now,” Flanagan said.
E-mail Will Richmond at wrichmond@heraldnews.com.

There are several reasons I wanted to reprint this article from the Fall River Herald News that ran last week. One is to eventually engender a discussion of the likely impact cuts in Local Aid and Chap. 70 monies might have in FY11. Another is to once again make the case why establishing casino's in the Southcoast region would be ideal for blunting the savage unemployment situation in Fall River.

But the last reason is especially important for Fall River. Only one member of our House delegation voted against the establishment of extended gaming and casinos in Massachusetts. Only one is listed by the Bio-Tech industry as a favorite and urges it's members to drown him in maximum dollar campaign contributions in his run for the State Senate. Only one has been quoted that he'd rather see the Bio-Park in Fall River  take precedence over any casino that might be developed in the greater Fall River area.
That person is Rep. Mike Rodrigues, whose district lies mostly in Westport.

  DOING THE PEOPLE'S BUSINESS!

I don't know about you all, but I am really tired of hearing the same collection of names mentioned when development issues are discussed. Of course, we have FROED who should be involved, but whose principal ruling faction, the Karams, and their personal mouthpiece and picture of Fall River failure, Ken Fiola , aka the "Weasel Easel", only seem to arise when projects appear to benefit mostly the Karams and the banks they own or with which they do business.  They ply most every leading politician in the City with campaign contributions. In such ways are puppets made. And it appears Rodrigues is one of them. Just go on-line like I do and check for yourself, the information is there!

President of MA Bio-Tech Council (left) and Rep. Rodrigues (right),

their  favorite MA legislator according to the MA Bio-Tech Council.

Waiter - check please!

Build a Bio-Tech park and get yourself an off ramp and they will come, right Brothers Karam and Rep. Rodrigues? Who decided we needed to attract this potentially deadly and nasty industry to Fall River and Freetown? Has there been extensive discussion about the ordinances Fall River has to promulgate to insure all potential dangers are controlled and constantly observed? Do you trust the local Board of Health to oversee what is going on down at the Bio-Tech park? Both Boston and Cambridge have considered sweeping local ordinances to maintain public safety, and all of those activities have long been published.

It's absolutely MIND BOGGLING that we could be considering doing ANYTHING without first knowing that those facilities in the park will have only the highest security and drainage safeguards possible. This City already suffers from leakage into the aquifer from dangerous materials in  the landfill that were not suppossed to be dumped there in the first place! Now we want to hand over property that will eventually be a set of facilities in this Bio-Tech park without knowing what these businesses will bring there, and what they will be doing with those highly contagious, carcinogenic, mutagenic and deadly substances? I don't know about you, but that scares me to death! It should scare you too!  This is not exactly high tech clean industry by any means.

Consider that Boston and Cambridge have already considered the dangers of this type of facility and related industry:

"....BIOSAFETY LEVELS


Books have been written about Biosafety levels and how to achieve them. This is not the place to delve into the arcana of BLx. However, this set of reminders for lab Biosafety levels has helped in the past:


Biolabs come in four Biosafety Levels; BL1 (least dangerous) - BL4 (bad news organisms)
 C BL1 : (don’t eat it) A standard, properly run lab.
C BL2: (don’t touch it) BL1 with a biohazard sign on the door, precautions to prevent sprays to the face (biosafety cabinets), lab coats and gloves on the workers and special waste decontamination procedures.
C BL3: (don’t breathe it) Labs train their workers carefully, keep the door shut, do all their work in special Biosafety cabinets, and decontaminate their waste. They work with dangerous, often airborne, organisms and special air handling equipment is necessary.
C BL4: (don’t do it, if it involves recombinant DNA in Boston or Cambridge) These labs don’t exist at Harvard.


COMS also has a few of its own Biosafety level designations. BL2+, for instance, means a lab with BL2 containment and BL3 procedures.
Animal facilities are also graded according to a 1-4 system with characteristics to lab studies. Animal Biosafety levels are called BL1-N through BL4-N. Plants have their Biosafety levels: BL1-P, through BL4-P.


No Biosafety levels are associated with human studies. Standard Infection control designations may be useful in the future: “Contact Precautions,” “Droplet Precautions” and so on.

Why Biosafety Committees?


A good question! It is naive to think the sole reason for IBCs is to protect staff, public and environment from biohazards. The NIH RAC and the IBCs were established in the 1970's to head off federal and local legislation. At the time recombinant DNA was thought to be extremely hazardous, primarily because so little was known. In the scientific community some groups worried that legislation would inhibit investigation.


Most  groups felt legislative actions would provide inadequate protection, because it was impossible to predict where safety problems would occur. The public was plain scared and wanted reassurance and oversight.


Donald Fredrickson, the Head of NIH at the time, proposed a set of local committees composed of scientists and public representatives to oversee the use of recombinant DNA. At the NIH the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) would propose national safety standards while local committees would diversee local activities. This stratagem defused the legislation and eased public concern.

Hence, an argument can be made that the true IBC function is to reassure the public and their representatives. Responsible people are checking to make sure research with biohazardous agents is being properly monitored.


Thus, in my view, COMS has two roles: keeping investigators, subjects and the public safe and, no less important, reassuring the public that biomedical research is under responsible control. The first role protects researchers, the public and the environment, the second protects science.

More recently local Public Health Departments have come to the realization that some research labs work with very pathogenic organisms. Consequently several cities have proposed or enacted regulations to deal with these organisms. At this writing neither Boston or Cambridge have enacted infectious agent regulations but it is very likely regulations will be formulated within a year.

From a short paper "Welcome to COMS (Harvard Committee on Microbiological Safety (COMS)): This short discussion is written to serve as an introduction to COMS membership." by Andrew Braun, February 2006, to be found at:
http://www.hms.harvard.edu/orsp/coms/BiosafetyResources/Welcome-to-COMS.pdf   "

HIV pathogen (left) and MRSA pathogen (right)

 Oh that's right, our good old buddy Rep. Rodrigues lives on the other side of the three House districts that serve Fall River, with most of his district made up of Westport. Maybe that's why he's so much in favor of having it so far away from him. Only suckers living near the Bio-Tech Park would be killed, quickly or slowly, depending on the "Emergency Event", such as a terrorist attack or chemical explosion that could release airborne toxins into the air or leaked  into the water supply. Want a little EBOLA for breakfast? How about a side order of SARS? What's that Mike Rodrigues, only coffee for you? YOU BET!

First of all, the people of this City need to become educated about the dangers of the type of substances that might be the subject of bio-research at this park. The types of oversight needed to control these labs and associated firms must also be reviewed in the same manner locals joined together to watch, then move against, LNG. Ladies and gentlemen of the Fall River , Somerset and Freetown areas, this place could kill just as many people and destroy just as much property and commerce as a disaster at the LNG facility. Because of likely low security, it would also be a great target for those wishing to cause destruction and chaos, depending on the biological materials on which the firms in the park work.The Bio-Tech firms will be targets for the same terrorist threats that impact LNG .

WE must face the issueof  why  the Bio-Tech industry wants to move here. These Bio-Tech industry leaders want to locate in a area where local involvement and participation in determining what they should be doing will be at a minimum in comparison to the locations these facilities commonly inhabit, places near groups of scientists and University and PhD rich communities, like Boston or Cambridge. It means a lower cost profile for the industry itself. (fewer regulations ='s saving money.) What Rodrigues and the Bio-Tech Industry won't tell you is that the jobs in these facilities are primarily designed for PhD and Master's level educated and highly specialized careerists. This will do virtually nothing for the average person in Fall River currently suffering from unemployment.  Unless, of course, you look forward to cleaning  out lab rat cages, rats that could be injected with God knows what kind of pathogens or mutagens. Great jobs at great wages, and safe too! HA!

BE CAREFUL FALL RIVER! You might end

up looking like one of these two just by drinking the water!!!

Something for those who will tell you too much regulation and community participation in this oversight  effort will drive up costs and lead Bio's not coming to Fall River is the fact that early intervention to ensure public safety leads to a better, more stable businesses development. Good oversight actually strengthens the industry:

"   Consensus from Controversy: Cambridge's Biosafety Ordinance and the Anchoring of the Biotech Industry , Authors: Maryann Feldman a;Nichola Lowe b Affiliations: a Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

b City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA , to be found at
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a791392360&db=all

Abstract

This paper provides an interpretative history of the early genesis of biotechnology in Cambridge and attempts to reconcile how the 1976 adoption of the most restrictive biosafety ordinance in the US created an unexpected business friendly environment that subsequently anchored the industry. The regulation was motivated by community concerns about the environmental effects of recombinant DNA and ignited a lively debate, characterized by an open process with activities to inform and involve citizens in decision-making.  "

But alas, as in all things Fall River, it appears that the fix is in. The City Council is already discussing the various requirements for a parcel of land nearby the Bio-Tech park and the owner's desire to build high end homes that would be sold, at least according to what I heard him say on the local cable access,  the types of high income, management individuals running the Bio-Park firms. Makes me wonder who  this guy knows, and who is getting contributions from him. Because afterall, even though it might kill you and your children if a small accident occurs, people like Rep. Rodrigues do not care. He only cares about doing the bidding of those who fund his campaign.

Rep. Mike Rodrigues, butt-boy for the Bio-Tech Industry and the Karams. WE always suspected as much, but now there is NO doubt.

I think we may have found out who one of the Karam's Pinocchio Donkey Boys is!