Jurzynski for Mayor

A lost opportunity.

While exploring recently through the labyrinthine catacombs of my historic vaults, I unearthed this July 1981 issue of the Valley Advocate. The Valley Advocate was a bigger paper in those days, and was distributed folded in the middle:

Looking through the 28 year old paper I came across this article about 1981 Springfield mayoral candidate Peter Jurzynski. He was a city councilor and STCC professor who challenged incumbent Theodore Dimauro on a platform of reform that in its insights was way ahead of its time. Jurzynski condemned the city's political establishment for its insular culture, lack of intellectual diversity, weak accountability and insider wheeling and dealing. It would be years before it was widely recognized that Jurzynski's evaluation of city government was all too correct.

By that time Jurzynski had moved to Connecticut. Like so many of those who fought to save Springfield, it was made clear by the powers that be that he wasn't wanted in these parts and wouldn't prosper if he stayed. Springfield's establishment was always glad to see the troublesome activists quit and move away, it meant one less pain in the ass do-gooder to complicate the next round of scams. Today Jurzynski is best known for holding the American record for swimming the English Channel.

This 1981 interview with Jurzynski gives a glimpse of what might have been:

Peter Jurzynski's Big Plans
by Harvy Lipman

The thought of Peter Jurzynski as mayor of Springfield is enough to send most of the established political and banking leaders of the city running for their Alka-Seltzer tablets. During his term on the City Council, Jurzynski has been the one consistent thorn in the side of Springfield's power brokers.

He has argued that Mayor Ted Dimauro's downtown redevelopment policies have been carried out at the expense of the rest of the city's neighborhoods, and criticized the mayor for benefiting a few wealthy and powerful business interests while ignoring the needs of the average Springfield citizen.

So Jurzynski's announcement last month of his candidacy for mayor in this fall's Democratic primary undoubtedly did not sit well with what he describes as the Colony Club/Longmeadow crowd - and that's just fine with Jurzynski.

"When I'm mayor" he says with an air of supreme confidence, "I'm not going to have Springfield Central running the city out of its headquarters. And it's not going to be run out of the Colony Club, either."

Nor is there any mistaking Jurzynski's conviction that he will be elected mayor. "I feel I'm going to win by a comfortable margin," he announced shortly after beginning his campaign.

If he is right, Springfield is in for a political shake-up the likes of which it has not seen before. Jurzynski said that one of his first acts would be to review the list of department heads and the members of the city's various boards and commissions. It is likely that many of the current faces would no longer be seen around City Hall.

"There wouldn't be a massive lay-off of department heads," he promised, but those whose philosophies about downtown redevelopment parallel Dimauro's would be advised to begin circulating their resumes to other employers. "John Benoit (head of Community Development) would be out. I'd get a professional planner in Community Development."

Auditor Henry Piechota also would not survive a Jurzynski victory. "This city is run in a half-ass way," the candidate said of the auditor's department. There would be "a major shake-up" in the Law Department, and he would want to "look closely" at the city grants manager and treasurer's offices.

But what most clearly demonstrates the differences between Jurzynski and Dimauro are their attitudes toward citizen representation on the city's policy-making boards. To become a commissioner in the current administration, you have to be either a prominent lawyer or a well-connected business type. Jurzynski promised to revamp the commissions to include as wide a spectrum of citizens as he can.

"I would get people on the boards and commissions from all the neighborhoods, from all walks of life, from all ethnic backgrounds and from all political viewpoints," he pledged. "I want as many different kinds of people involved as possible, not just the people in the clique or a certain few bankers."

The Police Commission would undergo some drastic changes. Jurzynski would appoint an elderly person to that commission, as well as a person "between the ages of 18 and 25" to the same board.

The Springfield License Commission would also see a "major change," Jurzynski said, although he added that he would probably retain Commissioner David Blair (the only member of that board to have expressed any concern about the involvement of criminal elements in the local bar scene).

"You would find in my administration women, blue-collar people, minorities and professionals - not just lawyers and insurance company officers. I would use a cabinet-style of management. I would get people involved."

And the focus of City Hall would be shifted away from downtown to the neighborhoods of Springfield, away from a policy that has poured money into the pockets of a few well-connected banking, business and political insiders. Instead of helping build skyscrapers, and offering corporate tax breaks, Jurzynski promised to spend whatever federal dollars his administration could garner in this era of Reaganomics on mass transit, street lights, housing for the elderly and revitalizing "the dustbowls that are called our parks."

Jurzynski wants to make it clear that he is not anti-business, but merely opposed to a few powerful interests calling the shots behind closed doors. "When you're trying to get jobs you've got to help your existing industry. Nationwide more people are employed in small businesses than anything else. I don't see a problem with low-interest loans from the Massachusetts Industrial Finance Agency for factories and industries, but not for law firms to relocate or for moving theaters. The bread and butter jobs are not in skyscrapers."

"I would get together all the small businesses in the city and tell them what industrial revenue bonds are about and how to apply for them, and then help them apply. But I'd do it at an open meeting to explain to all businesses that we want their help, not just to people who know somebody. Everyone would have a crack at it."

Superintendent John Deady, Mayor Ted Dimauro, and School Committee Members Nicola Gioscia and Ronald Peters.

Jurzynski believes his emphasis on rehabilitating the neighborhoods and opening City Hall up to a broader spectrum of citizens has already begun striking a sympathetic cord around the city. And while he acknowledged that Dimauro can pull in thousands more in campaign contributions, as well as the support of his friends at the Springfield Newspapers, Jurzynski thinks the voters are fed up with hearing what a wonderful job the mayor is doing downtown while they watch their neighborhoods rotting away.

"I'd like to debate the mayor, not just on one issue but on the direction of the city. Dimauro is doing a lousy job. The city's not better off than it was before he was elected. You ask the elderly who can't find a decent place to live, or the mother with a child who wants to play in the parks, or the city worker, or the cops - ask them what they think of Dimauro."

On November 6 the voters will get the chance to answer that question, and Jurzynski thinks the mayor is in for quite a shock.

Mayor Dimauro was in fact shocked by how well Jurzynski did in the primary. However, with the Springfield Newspapers going balls to the walls in Dimauro's behalf, the final election saw Jurzynski defeated.

It was also interesting looking at some of the other items in the 1981 Advocate. For example, the local music scene was really in flux that year. The mighty FAT, surviving seventies warhorses, were still very much on the scene. The newly emerging 80's music was represented by The Cardiac Kids. Meanwhile, Westfield's The Vandalz represented the fading punk scene.

This advertisement for the late, lamented Rusty Nail is typical of the time, with all three major Valley bands playing the same venue in one week. Can you believe the 25 cent drafts? No wonder I became an alcoholic! 

Cardiac Kids included in its membership Kevin O'Hare and George Lenker, both currently with the Springfield Newspapers. A writer calling himself A.B. Dee had this to say about the band.

Speaking of hooks, I caught most of the a set by the Cardiac Kids, but I left.

Why? They're alright - good hooks, yea, good r&b-based pop, real love songs, real good harmonies, some flute to lighten them up some -

I hate flute rock.

And you like Black & Decker tools played through ring modulators, I know. The Kids are playing traditional American rock, not your avant-garde stuff.

All right, all right. Everything you say about the kids is true. The tunes are very catchy - my favorite is "Waddya Say We Go Out Tonight" - but once I'm caught, I often don't find enough to keep me there. When you do "straight" love songs in that traditional vein, you've got to testify. The Kids singers don't cut loose and belt - they hit the notes, and it's often pretty, but they sacrifice power.

"When you say I'm in love, you best be-leeve I'm in love L-U-V BAY-bee?"

Yes, David Johansen can belt, even if he can't sing. I also thought the Kids need to develop that sixth sense of dynamics that will make the traditional fresh. It can be a matter of a single drumbeat or a single note in a solo that will put that cutting edge of the new on a song -

You gotta admit they're a good Night Out band, even if they're not the Doobie Brothers yet. I heard the demo of their new single, "Little Lies" and it's very catchy. But will it stick?


Turning to the present, UMass is of course primarily an educational institution, but it is also a major research facility. Therefore there are always opportunities to participate in various research projects for which you can get paid. I avoid the medical ones, at least those that involve drugs. If in the long run the drug turns out to be unsuited for human consumption, I don't want to endure any side-effects!

However, today I went over to Tobin Hall to be a paid participant in an experiment. 

The experiment was held at the psychiatric lab. I do good on those tests, especially the ones involving Abnormal Psychology.

This one was about memory and was conducted by Dr. Davide Bruno.

I can't tell you much about the experiment, for fear of tainting the pool of future participants. However, I did enjoy getting paid.

Advocate on Devine

A flashback to 1997.

 
Here's something from the Valley Advocate about me that was published in 1997. 

J. Michael Curley and Tom Devine

THE DEVINE RIGHT

by Tom Vannah

By now, Tom Devine knows better than to expect big, dramatic changes in Springfield. Devine has spent most of his life in the City of Homes, and though he remains indefatigably hopeful that the "mediocrities" who populate the city's elected ranks will be cast aside by voters, that the electorate will finally wake up and break apart the self-perpetuating political machine that endeavors to control and stifle all that is good and bright in Springfield, he can still be impressed by more subtle shifts in city politics.

So Devine was somewhat encouraged by last week's election results.

"I expected a big dud," Devine said on a recent afternoon, as he put the finishing strokes on the latest edition of The Baystate Objectivist, his piquant "zine" of political opinion. "It was much more interesting than I thought it would be."

In particular, Devine was happy to learn that nearly 44 percent of the 20,112 residents who cast ballots on Nov. 4 had refused to give Mayor Michael Albano their votes. Though he acknowledged that some of the blank votes were likely the result of sheer laziness - Albano ran unopposed and didn't need much support to hold on to the office - Devine believes the voters sent the mayor a message: "We're watching you, Mike Albano."

The Albano results, Devine said, don't tell the whole story. Just as important, voters had strongly supported some of the mayor's biggest critics: City Council President William Foley - "Voters gave Foley more credit for his criticism of the financial consequences of hiring 100 new cops than Albano did" - and City Councilors Tim Ryan and Bill Boyle. ("Boyle isn't really a critic, so much as an independent," Devine said. "Which makes him an enemy in Albano's mind.") He was also pleased to see City Councilor Raipher Pellegrino, a dependable vote for Albano, lose his seat.

"Pellegrino basically waited for the phone to ring and Albano to tell him what to do," Devine said. "Raipher is very pleasant, very nice. But you couldn't associate him with an issue."

More than the election results themselves, Devine took great pleasure in watching the newspaper he's used so much ink upbraiding - The Springfield Union-News - try to explain what happened. On the whole, he was impressed with the coverage, particularly a Nov. 6 piece that ran under the headline, "Irate voters send mayor a message."

"That was written by Union-News reporter Ellen Silberman, who has an extra dose of integrity. Most of their reporters let the editors decide what's important. Silberman's too smart for that, but I still don't know how she's getting away with it," Devine said, admiringly.

(She didn't get away with it for much longer. Ellen Silberman, was transferred out of the Springfield Newspapers to a different outpost of the Newhouse media empire about two weeks after this article ran. - TD)

Silberman's contributions aside, Devine was amused and heartened to see voters reject much of what the newspaper has opined over the the last two years. "The election was a major embarrassment for the Union-News, which had written devastating editorials against most of the mayor's critics," he said. The attacks on City Councilor Barbara Garvey had been particularly vicious, Devine said, and he was happy to see her re-elected, if only by the slimmest of margins. Devine, as many others in Springfield have said, believes Garvey was unusually roughed up because she tried to help a group of Springfield residents ask questions about the Springfield Library and Museums, an institution largely under the control of Union-News publisher David Starr.

"Barbara fooled with Davey Starr's favorite play pen," Devine said. "Nobody fools with Davey's toys."

For the thousands of readers who wait eagerly for every issue of the irregularly published Baystate Objectivist, who copy it, annotate it and send it around to others who might find it edifying, it may be a wonder that Starr and his editors have never tried to bring Devine in from the cold. Surely, the Union-News, with it's ossified op-ed page devoid of anything resembling local political commentary, could use a healthy dose of Devine wisdom.

But Devine isn't complaining. He started the Baystate Objectivist in 1991 with his friend Jay Libardi, who died in 1994. "It was really a lark," he said. "It was easy to notice that there were two Springfields: the official Springfield - the views reported and sanctified by the Union-News - and the real Springfield - the ideas that people talked about on the street. Pretty soon, people expected us to keep turning it out."

From print, Devine made his way into electronic media, filling in regularly on Dan Yorke's television show, which Channel 40 took off the air last year, hosting his own radio program on WNNZ, The Tommy Devine Show, and helping out on WHYN's Kateri Walsh Show.

Though he enjoys working in all media, Devine considers himself "first and foremost a writer." There are many who would take that title in the Valley, but few who deserve it as much as Devine. His work is marked by sterling prose and bolstered by a deep understanding of the city's history - knowledge that imbues his work with a sense of continuity that is missing in much that passes for local journalism. Better yet, Devine is on the street, his ears attuned and eyes alert to the nuances of social and political life in his city.

Devine is utterly unpretentious, despite his obvious intellect. Though he is regularly frustrated by Springfield's political establishment, he brings a good deal of humor to his critiques, using his wit to pierce the whale blubber of platitudes that surround city politics.

Because he will say what few others will, Devine is often relegated to the fringe of the political debate. He adopts the role with relish, regularly bashing the half-baked revitalization schemes that he believes have driven the city further and further into decay.

Yet through it all Devine remains incurably optimistic. "The only hope for reform in Springfield is to smash the stagnant machine in control," Devine said as he went back to his writing last week. "That can only be done with information. No matter how the paper and others try to block the flow, information has a way of getting out, even if it's only in a little zine."

A few new commerical developments have caught my attention. In Amherst, a new store has moved into the old Michelman Gallery. That was quick. 

A new patio has been erected at the Souper Bowl Restaurant. 

In Northampton, the long vacant bank building next to First Church appears to finally be gaining a tenant, at least according to this sign. 

I wish somehow I could get a copy of this poster advertising the September 4th show at the Calvin by Hot Tuna. 

Here's a video of internationally famous rock star and Northampton resident Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth performing locally. The only info on the location is the video liner notes which say, "The gig took place in an antique store in Florence which is part of Northampton, MA."




 

I said in my last post that Barsie's in Amherst used to have cute bartenders. My friend Jimmy insists that this is what you call a cute bartender. 

Okay Jimmy, you win.

 

Advo Errand

Around the downtown.

This beautiful morning I took the bus to Northampton to pick up my check at the office of the Valley Advocate. When I got off the bus, I took this little shortcut between the courthouse parking lot and Center Street.

Dynamite Records is moving from its longtime location in the Thornes complex to a place on Main Street. 

That's remarkable for two reasons. For one, most record stores seem to be going out of business due to the internet, not expanding to a new location. Also most of the moving by downtown businesses these days is off of Main Street, not onto it.

Is this spraypainted stencil cool or scary?

The Valley Advocate offices are located in the building of their corporate parent The Daily Hampshire Gazette. 

Inside the Advocate headquarters not much was happening. Tom Sturm was doing his usual chore of putting together all the listings for the Happenings section. 

Helping out is intern Alex Ross from Westfield State College. 

At noon I went to the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the Unitarian Church that is officially called the Northampton Lunchtime Group. It is however universally known as "The Looney Nooner." 

Notice the sign saying it is a violence free zone. The sentiment is nice, but has a single act of violence ever been stopped by such a sign?

After the meeting an AA friend and I put on the ritz by going out to eat at the King Street McDonald's. I noticed that the Wendy's that stood for decades next door has been completely torn down. 

This is what it looked like before the arrival of the wrecking ball. 

Oh well, nothing lasts. Arriving at the bus stop a little early, I avoided boredom by stopping in at Broadside Bookstore. 

There is no excuse for boredom as long as there are books in the world.


Amazingly, I have not gotten fat as I've aged. 

These days I like to just watch the river flow.

Sweaty Stroll

 

Baby, it is hot outside!

 

This morning in Northampton  I was running around doing all sorts of errands. It was hard to do anything in the ninety degree temperatures, but I knew it would only get hotter as the day progressed.

Despite the heatwave, the diligence of the defenders against sexism remains unflagging as they correct this sign which implies that only men do construction work.

 

 

I stopped by the offices of The Valley Advocate on Conz Street and chatted with some of my friends such as Tom Vannah, editor of the Advocate but perhaps even better known as half of the popular radio team Collins and Vannah.



We talked about fishing, Ted Kennedy and J. Wesley Miller. Reporter Stephanie Kraft took this picture of the two Toms.

It turned out that radio folks were everywhere, with the always charmingly urbane Valley Free Radio star Mary Serreze  relaxing outside behind the Haymarket Cafe. 

We talked of blogging, photography and Paolo Mastrangelo.

I always check this paper-box:

Drive By Poets is a kind of dadaist consciousness expansion group that gathers poetry, prints copies of the best poems, and then run all over the Valley leaving their poems everywhere to be found by innocent passerby. As they put it on their website:

Drive-By Poets is a non-profit public poetry postering project in Northampton, Massachusetts. Anyone may submit poems to DriveByPoets@gmail.com. Every few weeks week we choose one, print a hundred or so, & blitz the bulletin boards, bookstores, launderettes, libraries, & bathroom walls until they're gone. This blog has many of the poems we've posted. Feel free to submit your work.

Here's a recent sample:

This white unswaying place

I'm sorry not to have written you sooner.
We are peculiar forms, like someone's old papers rifled quickly through
But not read before the burning.
How to speak of the icy cave-like place I lately feel,
Its white reluctance dividing me from all things I desire and see.
I think it must often be the case
That one holds within oneself a guardedness, expectant, steeply quarried,
The way mistakes grow magnified inside the mind, spiked and sharply gleaming

How skilled, how dominant, this white unswaying place.
Anid I wonder how, bred from our churning, it constructs itself so strongly
Like the crush of light I sometimes at the noonhour hear.

-LAURIE SHECK

 

Valley Advocate Visit

 

Today I took a walk down to the offices of the Valley Advocate, now located in the same building as the Advocate's new owner, The Hampshire Gazette. There is a beautiful old tree in front. 

In the Advocate's 35 year history, the Gazette building is the fifth location of the paper's headquarters. Their first office was opened in the Amherst Creamery building in 1973, but a year later they moved to an old house in Amherst on Amity Street near the Jones Library. They quickly outgrew that space, and in 1981 relocated to an old mill building in Hatfield where, among other things, parts for guns had once been manufactured - the irony of which was not lost on the many staff members who were also peace activists. In the year 2000 the Advocate was sold to the Tribune Company, which relocated them to office space in Easthampton. When they were sold last year to the Gazette, they left Easthampton and moved into the Gazette's building on Conz Street in Northampton, where I visited them today.

The reason for me going there is that there is an article coming out in the Advocate that I helped write and I had to sign some papers in order to get paid. After all the public service work I've been doing, it's nice to finally do something for money! I suspect I will be doing more things for the Advocate in the future, but more about that another time.

I must say I found the new Advocate offices to be quite nice. They are roomy and bright but to get to them you have to go through the Gazette newsroom. Here is the section of the newsroom devoted to the Gazette website.



The Gazette has an excellent website, but it is heavily criticized in the blogosphere for keeping mostly behind a paywall. That flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that the key to online success is to give your content away for free and then sell the readership (eyeballs) to advertisers. The Gazette argues that such a change is premature and will undermine the value of their printed product.

Less controversial is their new printing press. The future of the product known as newspapers is in doubt, but the technology known as printing is not. There will always be a demand for printed material, even when newspapers become mostly online there will be at least a small number of printed versions made for news stands and coffee shops. The desire to read things on paper will most likely never disappear, and those who own high quality presses will always find people who will pay to have things printed. The Gazette is obviously proud of its new press and promotes it as soon as you come through the door.

Unfortunately, at the time I came by the two people I know best at the Advocate, Editor and radio personality Tom Vannah and Senior Writer Maureen Turner were not in. I did however spot my old friend Associate Editor Stephanie Kraft, shown here helping Editorial Intern Chase Scheinbaum. 

I first met Stephanie back in 1995 when she was my guest one night when I was the fill-in host on The Dan Yorke TV Show which used to air on Channel 40. She has been with the Advocate since the earliest days, and as we talked this afternoon about the old times she reminisced about how the original Advocate staff used to pause every day to go outside for a marijuana break. She did not tell me whether that tradition still continues.

We talked about Springfield politics for a bit. Kraft seemed skeptical about the Sarno Administration, expressing the fear that he would let "the bad guys back in" once the Control Board leaves. She also expressed surprise that Frankie Keough went to prison, stating that she always believed he would end up being murdered because of how he played people against each other in ways that created bitter enemies. Perhaps if the titanic power struggle between Keough and "Papa Ray" Asselin over who would be Papa Ray's successor at the Springfield Housing Authority had reached its climax there might indeed have been bloodshed, but we will never know because the FBI intervened and sent both Keough and Papa Ray to prison.

We both expressed regret over the many things we believed to have happened in Springfield which we could never write about because they cannot be proven with solid evidence. We were united in expressing the wish that the true and complete history of modern Springfield might one day be written.

Also present in the office was Advocate Associate Editor and blogger James Heflin. 

This is staff writer Kendra Thurlow and Listings Editor Tom Sturm. 

After a pleasant visit with the Advocate folks it was time to sign the paperwork and leave. 

I don't know when the article is coming out, but it deals in varying degrees with two topics on which I am a recognized expert - drugs and gay sex.

Earlier in the day I was surprised to see that the UMass cafeteria known as The Hatch is already closed for the summer. Hey, everybody is still on campus for finals!

The first time I ever partied at UMass was as an underage drinker who snuck into The Hatch. I was still a student at The High of School of Commerce in Springfield at the time. On the bill that night was a group called Cricket Hill, a sort of rip-off of the Jefferson Airplane, and a musical maniac called Sweetpie - a boogie-woogie piano player who used to perform in a loin cloth or less in an era when nudity on stage was still scandalous. Later, when I was a college student at UMass me and my friends used to get stupid drunk there while supposedly doing homework.

The times sure have changed - today there isn't even a bar in the Hatch. Because it was closed today the other eating places in the Campus Center were crowded, such as the coffee shop. 

The same was true of the Blue Wall. 

 

He Bombed in Springfield

Revelations from the early Neal era.

While continuing to rummage through my vaults, I stumbled upon this gem of a lost document. It's a Valley Advocate article by veteran reporter Stephanie Kraft that was published in September of 1992. This is not the complete two part article, it includes only those parts I considered still relevant to current issues. None of this has never appeared online as part of the Valley Advocate's archives or anywhere else, despite its obvious value as an essential documentation of some of the forces that led to Springfield's tragic decline.

 

He Bombed in Springfield

Springfield taxpayer's are still paying
for Richie Neal's mismanagement.

by Stephanie Kraft
for The Valley Advocate
September 3rd issue 1992




Why is Technical High School, a prime piece of city owned real estate, still an unused, boarded up shell?

A fine 81 year old brick structure in an ideal location on quiet Elliot Street near the Library, the Quadrangle and St. Michael's Cathedral, Technical High was shut down along with Classical High because it was thought that building the new Central High School made them unnecessary. Technical High was slated to be converted to market-rate housing - a good idea, if only it had worked out.

When Mayor Richard Neal named a preferred developer from among eight companies contending for the $9 million project, it was Springfield Schoolhouse Development Association of Boston, one of whose principals was Sen. John Brennan of Malden. Like Neal, Brennan is a moderately conservative politician with strong Irish interests. Brennan was also chairperson of the Special Senate Committee on Redistricting - a good man for an ambitious politician to know. As recently as September 1990, Brennan's name turned up on Neal's campaign finance report as a contributor of $250.

Schoolhouse Development put down a very small deposit - $5,000 - on the building it was expected to pay $500,000 for. No work began. Yet Neal extended the purchase-sale agreement for three disastrous years, during which the city could not look for another developer. Legally, the city was still the owner, but no one had insurance on the empty school and no one saw to its maintenance.

Vandals stripped valuable copper piping and other trim, which caused water damage and made the building less valuable than it was when plans for housing were first broached. The police and fire departments warned the City Council that the building would be ruined if it were not secured. The Technical High story became such a symbol of the city's laxity in maintaining surplus properties waiting for sale or development that even Springfield Union reporter Carol Malley called it "a model of city government at its worst."

Finally - after Neal went to Washington as Congressman in 1989 - Mayor Mary Hurley ordered the Springfield Redevelopment Authority to secure the building.

Ironically, by 1989, the School Department was paying $798,000 a year to rent portable classrooms. (One of the most sensible suggestions made in the aftermath of the Schoolhouse Development fiasco came from School Superintendent Peter Negroni, who asked that Technical be used for some school support operations, thus freeing up classroom space in buildings owned by the School Department. But nothing was ever acted on.)

Today, Technical High School - a beautiful, historic building on one of the city's most charming streets - is still empty, damaged inside, wasting away in a time when the need for housing and for school space are both acute.

Then there is the larger, more appalling story of the Hollywood project, a $14 million South End development effort that had mixed results, involved highly questionable actions by the Springfield Redevelopment Authority and is still costing the city money. Neal announced this development with great excitement, and appointed all the members of the committee that shepared it through to its unsatisfactory completion.

The Hollywood project was touted as the salvation of the South End neighborhood comprising Dwight Street Extension, Maple, Oswego and Richelieu Streets. Run down housing, drug-related fights and other crime had disrupted the lives of hundreds of tenants in apartment blocks there. Plans included the acquisition of 31 properties, some demolition and millions of dollars worth of rehab to produce 174 units of subsidized and 64 of market-rate housing. Funding would come from a combination of public and private sources.

Most of the project was completed and it did improve the quality of the housing stock in the neighborhood, though some poor workmanship - cracked walls painted over but not plastered, porch railings not built so as to be safe for children - was reported by tenants from the beginning. But the development wasn't up to the quality promised by the city and developers Lester Fontaine and Paul L. Oldenberg - in particular promises about security - and today conditions in that part of town are hardly better than when the plan first went on the drawing boards.

Just weeks ago, one landlord told the Advocate he was furious at the way crime problems from the redeveloped apartment blocks - especially the vacant buildings never rehabbed for market-rate housing - spill over onto his property.

The failure to complete the market rate phase was the damning feature of the Hollywood venture. The SRA bought back the four undeveloped parcels that had been slated for rehab into market-rate housing for more than it sold them for in the first place. The vacant buildings still blight the neighborhood and there are still lively suspicions that someone wasn't serious about getting the market rate component of the project built in the first place.

"A lot of people who are residents in the south End believe there was never any intention to build Phase Three," says City Councilor and outspoken SRA critic Tony Ravosa Jr. who is challenging Neal this November for the Congressional seat.

"I don't think you can blame the economy for the reasons Phase III never moved forward. You have to take a look at the whole package and how much the buildings were sold for and how much they were bought back for. It was a cute deal and I'm not sure we'll ever get the real answers. This is one of the great debacles of the Neal administration," says Ravosa Jr.

Hers'a an example fo the funny arithmetic that went into the Hollywood project:

On July 31, 1984, Paul L. Oldenberg sold Lester Premo, a real estate agent who also was the city's tax title officer and a member of Hollywood Associates II, four properties in the Hollywood area for $432,000.

The very same day, Premo sold those properties plus two others on Bayonne and Saratoga Street to Springfield Renovation Associates (an arm of the Springfield Redevelopment Authority) for 833,610.10. The two extra properties he threw in had cost him a totla of $180,000, according to the Registry of Deeds. So Premo apparently pocketed $221,619.10 at the city's expense.

On August 15, 1984, then-Mayor Neal named Lester Fontaine and Oldenberg as principals in Hollywood Associates II Limitied Partnership, developers for the Hollywood project.

Weeks later, Hollywood Associates II bought the four properties for $495,899.

(Interestingly, though the HUD forms used for such sales leave space for deposits paid by "redevelopers" in this case the form shows the city didn't charge Fontaine and Oldenberg a deposit on this purchase of half a million dollars worth of property.)

Hollywood Associates II failed to redevelop the four properties and on May 31, 1988 sold them back to the Springfield Redevelopment Authority for $749,325.78 - over 50 percent more than they had paid for them in the first place.

In another transaction much publicized but still not completely understood, Springfield Restoration Association paid Premo $1,684,100 for another 11 properties he had bought only a day and a half earlier for $1,207,500. Dominic Sarno, who was head of the Springfield redevelopment Authority and of Springfield Renovation Association, later said publicy that Premo received the generous payment because he had incurred carrying and maintenance costs.

Sarno later admitted under questioning from the City Council that he did not know how much those alleged expenses had amounted to, or whether Premo had made a profit.

Why did all this money change hands - with the city taking a loss every time - for a development that was mediocre at best and never finished?

Neal blamed "the economy" for the developers failure to build the martket-rate phase, as well as the fact that crime problems had reasserted themselves by the time the subsidized housing was finished.

That excuse isn't good enough. If Richie Neal had forced the developers to build the market-rate housing first, laying the cornerstone of quality for the project, the area would have stood a better chance of improving and the public money would have been better invested.

As for the financial highjinks of the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA) Neal put no curbs on those. On the contrary in 1987 - after the Hollywood Project hijinks - he made Sarno head of the city's Community Development Department as well as the SRA.

When Bob Markel became mayor, he ended the era that had Sarno as the head of the SRA and the head of the Community Development department, a situation with untold conflict of interest opportunities, because Community Development takes in federal funds and then disburses them to the SRA.

Hollywood Associates principal Leon Fontaine referred all our questions to Sarno, who did not return our calls. Meanwhile, the city has to keep plodding along with payments on the debt for the publicly funded part of the project. A total of nearly $4 million is still owed for a $3 million bond issue and a $3 million federal loan that went to finance Hollywood.

State analysts noted that while the city went from a $6.6 million deficit to a surplus of $9 million under Neal's predecessor Ted Dimauro, the Neal years ended with the city some $10 million in the hole - and the big cuts in state aid had not yet set in.

Neal's administration was rapped by the the Local Services Division of the state Department of Revenue in 1989 for what DOR analysts called "a general and longstanding weakness in sound fiscal management. Particularly in the area of expenditures in excess of appropriation and payrolls, there are gaps in the control of expenditures that allow overspending to occur without warning," was the stern verdict from DOR.

Former City Councilor Mitch Ogulewicz recalls many examples of "overspending without warning" situations he said were difficult for the Council to question because Neal became angry and defensive:

MOCA - "When MOCA (Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs) ran up a deficit in excess of $400,000 because events and programs were contracted for without the programs being self sufficient, I remember him coming to a Council meeting very angry," says Ogulewicz. "He cloaked himself in red, white and blue and felt you were unpatriotic if you complained about the deficit."

Springfield Central - Late in 1986, according to Ogulewicz, the mayor first directed Springfield Central to do some ornamental work downtown, and later went to the Council insisting on an appropriation. "At our first meeting in 1987, what we call our organizational meeting, when we elected the president and don't usually do financial business, he came in under a suspension of rules for an appropriation of $100,000 for Springfield Central," Ogulewicz recalls. "Two of us objected, Vin DiMonico and I. We wanted to ask questions about where this $100,000 appropriation was going. The mayor had no right to direct Springfield Central to spend moneys without the City Council having appropriated the money first."

Neal's administration made funding for Springfield Central a high priority, which strengthened his ties to Springfield Newspaper's publisher David Starr, a leader of Springfield Central. Another link between Neal and Springfield Central is David Kenney, who was an aide to Ed Boland, Springfield's Congressman before Neal. Kenney now works in Neal's Springfield office and doubles as clerk of Springfield Central Business District Inc. one of Springfield Central's three corporations.

The Police Department - The DOR noted that in the city's 1989 budget, the Police Department's payroll was "underfunded" by a whopping $l.2 million because the Neal administration had gone on a hiring spree the year before. Says Ogulewicz, "One of the problems leading to the police department payroll underfunding in 1990 was that 50-odd employees on that payroll did not have authorized and funded positions. But the mayor ordered it."

The result? Subsequent layoffs of police, which were demoralizing for the city and a waste of money. Laments Ogulewicz, "We spent thousands of dollars training police officers who now have jobs in Chicopee, Tampa, any place you can name."

This is the DOR's analysis of the fiscal malaise that built up during the Neal years, and struck in force during Mary Hurley's early days as mayor: "Had the city not appropriated virtually every dollar of increased revenue each year, but rather smoothed out the growth rate in the budgets, holding to a more sustainable rate of growth, the need for major cutbacks would have been greatly moderated and in many areas avoided."

Here is a translation in street English from a source who asked not to be identified, "He spent money on glitz, green triangles, fireworks. It was "Take care of everybody. Never say no. If somebody calls up saying, 'My daughter needs a job for the summer' give her a job." It gives you a hold on the caller (the summer job patronage mess was also cleaned up by Markel, with a lottery). In the summer the parks had to close early because he had hired twice as many lifeguards as they needed and five or six times as many recreation leaders. He didn't care what happened after him."

"In 1989 Richie Neal went to Washington and laughed all the way to the House bank, while the taxpayers of the City of Springfield were left holding the bag," says Ravosa, who continues his research into the city's debt service. "Within a matter of months after he left, the city was forced for the first time in its history to enter into a deficit reduction plan with the state Department of Revenue, to pick up the tab for the Neal legacy."

 



So you can see from the preceding excerpts from an old Advocate article how the path was paved for the Control Board to be put in place long before they actually arrived in Springfield in 2004.

But enough politics. I like the saying on this sign outside an Amherst Church. 

Hotel Hamp

Encounter in Room 512.

Hey, I got lucky yesterday and a friend called to say they had rented a room at the luxurious Hotel Northampton!

We went to the glassed-in bar of the Coolidge Dining Room.

Of course I couldn't have anything stronger than orange juice, but that didn't bother me. My willpower is a lot stronger these days.

The oldest part of the hotel is the Wiggins Tavern, which dates back to 1786. Here is the ancient brick and stone fireplace around which generations of Valley residents have sought warmth.

This is what the room looked like, with old fashioned furniture throughout.

The pictures were of local scenes, such as this watercolor of Northampton's Academy of Music. 

The view out the window was nothing special. 

In the morning they leave a copy of The Springfield Republican outside your door. Not the Hampshire Gazette?

I recommend you plan yourself a stay at the historic Hotel Northampton!

The cyberzine Local Buzz has a funny satirical piece up featuring my old radio and Valley Advocate buddy Tom Vannah with his look alike Comrade Fidel.



I like these psychedelic sneakers I saw in the window of a shop in Hamp.

Finally don't try this at home.