City Council Liveblog 6/3/08

7:40

We’re here, just nothing too fun going on so far, beyond budget talk.

There’s some talk about how to resolve the FY08 budget as the year ends–there’s probably about $1 million in expenses that will be “carried over” to next year

8:02

Some of the councilors are hammering Community Healthlink for the planned (Spencer House) wet shelter in the Elm Park neighborhood.

“Putting a wet shelter in a neighborhood…without supervision, is a recipe for disaster,” says Rick Rushton.

He and Haller are asking the City Manager to meet with Community Healthlink.

8:10

The council meeting ended, and we’re back to budget hearings. The Cable service budget was quickly approved, and the administration/finance budget will be approved in a moment.

Highlight of the night: Mayor Konnie Lukes just said ESCO’s sound like a “Ponzi scheme.” City Manager Michael O’Brien tries to allay her fears, to no avail.

8:23

Purchasing Department is done, but not before Councilor Haller asks if the state delegation can look at changing a law that requires bids to go to the lowest bidder, to allow purchases to be made locally, where possible.

8:26

Technical Services says that they are going to be separating out RFPs for a new fiber network for the city and the wireless network they’d like to see. When they put out a combined bid, say officials, only one bid came in.

8:51

Meeting adjourned

Jim the Loyal

Congressman Jim McGovern is known for sticking to his guns, even when he’s the last guy shooting. So it is no surprise that he has stayed true to Hillary Clinton throughout the Democratic primary. Actually, “stay” is a bit weak. He’s been one of Clinton’s most loyal and vocal supporters wire-to-wire, even when his closest Massachusetts political allies were backing Obama.  Over at theThe Washington Post blogs, Ann Kornblut noted that loyalty last night.

“One of the subplots of the Clinton campaign has involved monitoring which members of Congress have worked hardest for her — which ones have simply stayed loyal, and which have flipped.

Put Rep. Jim McGovern down in the worked hardest category….

At a time when scores of delegates have moved toward her rival, Clinton described the loyal McGovern as “one of the most extraordinary leaders, someone who stands up for true American values, a man of faith and patriotism, who has been working on my behalf,” adding that he opposed the Iraq war from the start and would be a tireless congressional leader on helping fix the economy.

McGovern has been clear that he’d strongly back whoever the Democratic nominee is, and with Clinton’s campaign presumably winding down, we’ll see McGovern back Obama in the near future.

Blog Log Digital

(We apologize for the lateness of the post–no technical difficulties, we promise)

Posted by “Ms. Crystal” on universityparklofts.blogspot.com
As many know the auction was this past Thursday, the unit next to ours sold for 91k-YIKES and then 3 units on the 5th floor sold for a combined around 300K. Of course there was about 40 people that attended and wanted to see if they could score a unit for 50k.Sorry people this building has not been paid off three times coming at this point. The units are still BRAND new and they are not going to auction off like a triple decker for 25K.The good news is this…. The bank is taking ownership of the rest of the units and the ERA agent that is now in charge of selling these units believes there will be some changes.

Posted by “Brendan” on radioball.net

Claire Schaeffer-Duffy of the Worcester Catholic Worker will not be spending any time behind bars for her role in Januarys anti-Guantanamo demonstration outside the Supreme Court.

That’s nice.

But I still can’t shake the charge against her from my head, “unlawful free speech”. I would really appreciate if any American citizen reading this would entertain a simple request by saying that out loud a few times, maybe try it in front of a small audience. Now try and imagine a judge saying it; how could we allow such an Orwellian phrase to find it’s way into a US courtroom?

Posted by “Train Rider” on trainstopping.blogspot.com
The train ride in this morning was quiet and subdued. I am sure the Green Line crash was on the minds of most of the commuters. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Terrese Edmonds, the operator who was killed in the crash last night.

I know that the conductors, operators and engineers bear the brunt of commuters’ frustrations when there are delays with the train, but I wanted to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for all they do to ensure safe and expedient trips.

Posted by “Bill Randell” on worcesterma.blogspot.com
In the Canterbury Street area, there is street sweeping going on. Off street parking is vital in these neighborhoods and you can not pick a worse time then to see the streets full of cars (Saturday and Sunday). If you lived in any of these three deckers would you think that the signs that have been up on the street for five days would kick in on a Saturday morning?

Seriously I can not tell you how many cars I saw towed around the block so that the streets could be cleaned and then slapped with a tickert ($50 I believe). I know that nobody is ever happy with some services but it does not make sense to me to clean streets on week-ends where there is no off street parking to begin with.