7:23: Late start tonight. The budget presentation is in our hands and literally hot off the press. We’ll blog as the City Manager presents later, and try to get material online as/if possible.
7:25: BUDGET PRESENTATION:
O’Brien calls it “unprecedented times.” “The ripple effect is real…we have to recognize we’re not alone.”
Entries from March 2009
March 31, 2009
City Council Liveblog 3/31/09
March 31, 2009
No minor league basketball for Worcester
It looks like between Maine and Springfield getting franchises, we’ll be out of luck for an NBDL team for now.
Oh well, at least we don’t have to worry about the DCU court flooding.
March 31, 2009
Major downtown development announcement
Worcester is posed for an “exciting announcement on downtown development” tomorrow at 10am at the Mass College of Pharmacy.
Could this be CitySquare/Unum? Something else entirely? This is CitySquare/Unum.
Some reports are that we could be looking at initial Galleria/Common Outlets demolition in the next few weeks.
March 30, 2009
Konnie Lukes: America’s most loved Albanian?
We’ve written about Mayor Konnie Lukes’ appearances in the Albanian press before–one paper featured her after election win.
Now, the Albanian Telegraphic Agency – sort of an Albanian AP/UPI – is featuring a picture of Lukes riding in a car in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in a feed across the top of their page.
Better than [...]
March 30, 2009
Worcester’s public safety $$ per capita
UPDATE(10:52pm)-While rechecking the Columbus report tonight, we noticed an error in their math; that error has been confirmed by The Boston Globe. The number has been adjusted in the text below.
The City of Boston is under a bit of heat after a study by the City of Columbus showed Boston spent the most per [...]
March 27, 2009
A ‘Best places to live’ of the day
Another day, another “Best Places to live” survey. This time, a report by Mass High Tech parent American City Business Journals ranks the Worcester metro area #29th out of 124 mid-sized metro areas across the country. (Mid-sized being anything between 250,000 and 1 million)
#29….not bad, even if Bridgeport-Stamford was #4.
March 27, 2009
Census kick-off Monday
The 2010 Census is a major one for Worcester and Massachusetts: The tally could effect congressional redistricting and size, and federal aid, among other things.
But already, there are concerns Worcester may not be prepared enough for next year’s census, especially in regard to outreach to minority and underrepresented communities.
We’re working on a feature story for [...]
March 25, 2009
Kate Toomey’s no good, very bad night
It’s not all fun and games being a city councilor—just ask Kate Toomey, who was visibly irritated after being the target of several disagreements at Tuesday night’s meeting. First, Toomey, who is considering a run for mayor, came under fire for her proposal to hold a series of hearings on the budget around the [...]
March 24, 2009
City Council liveblog 3/24/09
7:14: Here we go. Kate Toomey wants the city to consider a series of three public meetings on the FY2010 budget to allow for more community input and transparency.
Paul Clancy says the process – with six weeks of meetings in chambers – is already transparent enough. He can’t resist a dig at the school [...]
March 24, 2009
Byrnes’ money
Former Superintendent office manager (and now former special education teacher) Donna Byrnes has been at the center of the storm over the past few days for being appointed to a position she had, by all accounts, no technical qualifications for.
So who has Byrnes – a 15 year employee of the School Department central office – [...]
