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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.
I'm begining to realize if you live below the hill, no one gives a damn about you!
ReplyDeleteThe city of the Damned!
I don't think it's only the province of below the hill...I'm thinking it's the whole City. I truly believe that the current administration only cares about reelection, and you can pretty much see that in the very nature of what they are all about...do as little as possible, stick your face everywhewre possible, talk only happy news happy talk, and never try to solve problems if you can't succeed quickly. Nice, huh?
ReplyDeleteWhy does the YMCA in Wareham have 8,000 members, New Bedford 7,000 and Fall River only 2,000? Where was Pereira before the night of the CC meeting with her concern about the lack of sprinklers and the safety of those living there?
ReplyDeleteAs far as Wareham and New Bedford numbers are concerned, what can I say, theyare what they are. I can certainly tell you that it could be because fewer and fewer people have the money to pay for Y memberships than they have in Fall River's past, as the City becomes a bit dumber and a bit more poor as time goes on. That being posited as reasons, it still doesn't reduce the need for the entirety of programs available to those in Fall River, and loosing the Y would constitute a blow to the quality of life in Fall River. That cannot be denied by anyone.
ReplyDeleteLook, your comment on Pererira's coming late to the party with concerns about sprinkler systems is valid...howevere it just goes to prove the larger poiint made in this blog about there being far too much politics going on in Fall River aqcross the board, and the fact that someone is willing to castigate her new found concern borders on polkiticing itself... A pox on all their houses is what I say. MORE COMPETENT ADMINISTRATION, ZERO POLITICS....this city DESPERATELY needs district representation on the City Council!...and maybe a change of government to a Strong City Manager form of governement, witgh the mayor only as a figure head with certain functions. Then, you'd see the possibilities of civic advancement. LOL...with the ever lessening of the Portuguese population in Fall River and the rise of minorities, I think it might behoove the powers that be to move in that direction before they loose COMPLETE political control to a cooalition of minorities which will one day happen...it's as natural as A-B-C, the weak will one day become strong....wait and see Fall River.
Laz,it would be politics if a person's comments were for the purpose of blindly defending their favorite elected official. Like most, I am not immune to bias concerning certain politicians. Though unlike some critics who make it personal, especially with their fast and loose interpretation of the facts, I make every effort to criticize on the merits, leaving out personal attacks. Unfortunately time and again people's comments are based on emotion, which causes a loss of objectivity and there argument devoid of reality.
ReplyDeleteI don't think ANYONE knows all the facts....I know I wasn't personally involved or there to see the negotiations, the meetings where the decision was made to pull the funding, the private conversations that took place to, allegedly, threaten the CD director at the cost of his job over the press coverage of the story and the suppossed breaches of policy direction and statements given to Sylvanagan bum kissers on the HN by this tool of the current administration.
ReplyDeleteA seemingly small number of users constitutes a tiny portion of all the facts in this story. NO ONE can be the holder of absolute truth on this or any other issue. A grain of truth tells NOT the bigger story painted by the millions of grains on beach as a whole. In this case, however, I cannot decry people's holding individual feelings pro and con to a particular politician or person. Such discriminatory judgements are made every day, even from birth. It makes us HUMAN, as Capt. Kirk would say to Spock! I agree, infomed opinion need not be unbiased...being totally unbiased is impossible , BY ANYONE.
All the other factors you mention, emotional voice, molding of "facts" to make an argument that may not be, in other eyes, less than objective and factually incorrect, are certainly wrong. But they reamain that way for EVERY person venturing and opinion, including me, including you.
No one who has every commented here is objective, no matter how you try to fashion an argument. Why would you want to do something that's impossible to do by virtue of the physical laws and realities of character growth and human perception? What you see depends on where you sit!
So, a simple fact like, "2,000" only come to use the Fall River Y, expanded to justify not granting the already committed funding for Y improvements is not nearly an effective argument. That factoid does not deal with the, in some cases, unmeasureable benefits involved with the Y itself. So to me, it's a fact held in suspension, and not an effective fact at all....merely one, and a very small one at that, part of a much larger picture. I personally see it as a very biased attempt to justify an unpopular action by an increasingly questionable political administration of Fall River. How's THAT for bias!
It's one thing to mistakenly state a fact and it's quite another to create your own facts to make your argument. Case in point is your comment that the CD Director's job was threatened. Based on actual fact, or just a "let's throw something out there and see if it sticks"?
ReplyDelete"What you see depends on where you sit" may be true. Certainly on what side of the fence you sit influences your opinion. But in order to have a credible opinion you cannot preclude reality. Same goes for interpreting comments of others. Nowhere in my comments did I state whether I was for or against the Y. Yet in an attempt to make your case you falsely conclude that my question is anti Y. If you want to be credible stick to reality.
I allowed this comment from cretin boy here because it's obvious he's simply trying to sound objective when he's actually anything but!...BTW, it must really hurt you, MH, and your collection on much younger rectal polyps, especilally Lil' Petey who writes all your so called rantings, to know your comments will never see the time of day on this blog.....what, afraid that when I call for a full disclosure of how and when you got funding for the "internet radio", which is just another attempt to create a Sylvanagan propaganda outlet with the people's money, all aimed at his reelection,that something might happen to make it all go away and you'll be stuck with yourself again...no more idiots to hang around your collection of Ralkh Cramden-like plans to make it big in "AMEEEEERRKA!". Go punch your girlfriend. Things don't go your way and you howl like stuck swine you are! Big Mike Herren, BIG SH*T!lmao. " His retort: "I used to be famous in high school"
ReplyDeleteLook...I've said it before....you don't like what is being written,. stop acting like the perpetual high schoolers you and your coterie of professional dumbasses are, and start your own blog THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ!..
I must really be laying out some serious truth for you ignorant morons to be trying to protect your buddy Bag-Boy Sylvanagan.
Frankly, I just don't get what Mike sees in you you lil' petey...and I'm not referring to the Urinecane! But I can tell you one thing I do know...everything I thought about any kind of UMass/Dartmouth education is true!...LOL
I do not know who you are nor do I know the identitiy of MH or Reality Check. I have been an occasional reader and found your blog to be mildly entertaining and sometimes thought provoking. However, I feel you are over the top lately in attacking political figure's family members (no I do not know any of them at all) and in your criticism to the commenters. Why not just blog your thoughts and not allow comments?
ReplyDeleteIt's time for cretin boy to end this debate, as it has become painfully clear that you are starting to unravel. I guess I should feel honored that you have "allowed" me to comment on your hallowed blog. Apparently not everyone is as lucky as I. Then again it is your blog, and you do have the right to take your ball and go home.
ReplyDeleteWell...to the first reader...for your edification, these two classless pawns of the powers that be send far many more comments to me knowing I will not print them, and are filled with vile ad hominum attacks. It pains them to know I will only allow comments from human beings. Oh, and thise who I wish to tear to shreds on my very own blog.
ReplyDeleteWhy do they do this? Because I expose the critical side of pol;itics in the City. I am not a kool-aid drinker, nor do I believe the City is headed in the right direction at all. Thjey still desire to have influential people close to them to pollute the body politic for their own individual beneifit, not to the benefit of the City at Large. They are, by and large, young, inexperienced and pretty much full of themselves. They think only of themselves and of no one else. So in thaqt respect they are typical young fools , one in his mid twenties, the other a well known and very used up idiot in his eqarly forties who should know better but cannot because of the lack of direction he received throughout his childhoood, and he makes the world pay everyday because of this. He inflicts himself on Fall River much like ebola or flesh eating bacteria - once you've been exposed, your chances of survival are less than 50%. You'd have to ask the women he's battered (allegedly, of course - insert upward eyeroll here!), the people he has sponged off of for years, and all the numerous people he's suppossedly sucker punched. Please, ask around and people will know exactly what I'm saying is true...just use those intials "MH" and see the reaction.
What these deluded younger people cannot see at all is the need for profound change in the way Fall River conducts it's daily financial and administrative business. They think the City is "GREAT" just the way it is. It clearly is not, nor is the current Sylvanagan regime capable of, or desirous of, doing a single serious thing about it. It's the same old political shell game the low-middle to low income voters in Fall River have known for generations. Accept and go along. And the current state of affairs, of high unemployment (thank you FROED), bad, in fact, FAILING schools (thank you MMB and the School Committee) and finances on the verge of receivership by the state , as a bundle of incompetence and flat out thievery that has contunued for decades by the same group of politicians, is what they point to in pride. As long as someone is providing the cash and support THEY need. Just newer, dumber crooked influences on Fall River....It's like Augustus Ceaser molding young Caligula "like a viper, close to his chest" to unleash, in a sort of demented vengeance, on Rome. This is precisely what these young men associated with the Sylvanagan administration are like.
In terms of attacking the children or family memebers of any politicians, where have I done so? With the very allowable and notable exception of Sylvanagan's dullard brother, where have I done so...and that was only done to highlight the filthy continuation of nepotism which has long plagued the City of Fall River!
So, I'm glad you are reading, I truly am. But I stand strong on my comments and my beliefs. Because they do as well. And the difference is, if you read my entries for the last year, I actually lay out the specifics of how the City's management and budgeting should be done, in accordance with accepted and proven public finance and executive management methods. No where else in the City of Fall River, on any other blog, on any board or committee of this City, nor by any group or individual politicians, and certainly never by the incompetent Sylvanagan administration, will you find it .
Of that I am particularly proud. And these clowns supporting Sylvanagan for their own personal gain cannot do the same...They lack the education and experience, especially life experience, to do so. Jealousy is a very ugly thing!
Well...to the first reader...for your edification, these two classless pawns of the powers that be send far many more comments to me knowing I will not print them, and are filled with vile ad hominum attacks. It pains them to know I will only allow comments from human beings. Oh, and thise who I wish to tear to shreds on my very own blog.
ReplyDeleteWhy do they do this? Because I expose the critical side of pol;itics in the City. I am not a kool-aid drinker, nor do I believe the City is headed in the right direction at all. Thjey still desire to have influential people close to them to pollute the body politic for their own individual beneifit, not to the benefit of the City at Large. They are, by and large, young, inexperienced and pretty much full of themselves. They think only of themselves and of no one else. So in thaqt respect they are typical young fools , one in his mid twenties, the other a well known and very used up idiot in his eqarly forties who should know better but cannot because of the lack of direction he received throughout his childhoood, and he makes the world pay everyday because of this. He inflicts himself on Fall River much like ebola or flesh eating bacteria - once you've been exposed, your chances of survival are less than 50%. You'd have to ask the women he's battered (allegedly, of course - insert upward eyeroll here!), the people he has sponged off of for years, and all the numerous people he's suppossedly sucker punched. Please, ask around and people will know exactly what I'm saying is true...just use those intials "MH" and see the reaction.
What these deluded younger people cannot see at all is the need for profound change in the way Fall River conducts it's daily financial and administrative business. They think the City is "GREAT" just the way it is. It clearly is not, nor is the current Sylvanagan regime capable of, or desirous of, doing a single serious thing about it. It's the same old political shell game the low-middle to low income voters in Fall River have known for generations. Accept and go along. And the current state of affairs, of high unemployment (thank you FROED), bad, in fact, FAILING schools (thank you MMB and the School Committee) and finances on the verge of receivership by the state , as a bundle of incompetence and flat out thievery that has contunued for decades by the same group of politicians, is what they point to in pride. As long as someone is providing the cash and support THEY need. Just newer, dumber crooked influences on Fall River....It's like Augustus Ceaser molding young Caligula "like a viper, close to his chest" to unleash, in a sort of demented vengeance, on Rome. This is precisely what these young men associated with the Sylvanagan administration are like.
In terms of attacking the children or family memebers of any politicians, where have I done so? With the very allowable and notable exception of Sylvanagan's dullard brother, where have I done so...and that was only done to highlight the filthy continuation of nepotism which has long plagued the City of Fall River!
So, I'm glad you are reading, I truly am. But I stand strong on my comments and my beliefs. Because they do as well. And the difference is, if you read my entries for the last year, I actually lay out the specifics of how the City's management and budgeting should be done, in accordance with accepted and proven public finance and executive management methods. No where else in the City of Fall River, on any other blog, on any board or committee of this City, nor by any group or individual politicians, and certainly never by the incompetent Sylvanagan administration, will you find it .
Of that I am particularly proud. And these clowns supporting Sylvanagan for their own personal gain cannot do the same...They lack the education and experience, especially life experience, to do so. Jealousy is a very ugly thing!
Sorry about the typos...and the double entry...well, maybe not...lol!
ReplyDeletereality chach is just another name for a Sylvanagan supporter who stumbled upon a fact and wants to take credit for some kind of debating point better than any debating point ever conceived...ahh...on second thought , you win.....now go away little boy!
ReplyDeleteThere are way too many people in Fall River who support the Sylvanagan administration who cannot accept the failure of this mayor, or have an ability to admit making mistakes....it's just like they channel Dubya Bush!