So long and thanks for all the fish
Honesty is still the best policy.
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) — Andrew Lahde, the hedge-fund manager who quit after posting an 870 percent gain last year, said farewell to clients in a letter that thanks stupid traders for making him rich and ends with a plea to legalize marijuana.
Just in time for the Cheech & Chong reunion tour!
According to a Suffolk University poll, 72% of Massachusetts residents look forward to beginning the process of decriminalizing marijuana.
Of the three questions on the Massachusetts ballot this November, only one question — #2 the decriminalization of marijuana — appears all but certain to pass, according to a poll analysis released today by 7NEWS/Suffolk University. Seventy-two percent favored the proposed law, which would replace the criminal penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana to a civil penalty of forfeiture of the marijuana and a fine of $100. Twenty-two percent opposed the proposed law.
“The public may be signaling that pursuing small-time marijuana users is a waste of taxpayer resources,” said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University. “This issue suggests that there is a Libertarian streak in the thinking of Massachusetts voters.”
Tickets to see Cheech and Chong at the Orpheum in Boston
Who are they and what do they make?
A few people have asked me recently both here on RBDN and in the real world where they can find out things like the number of people the City of Worcester employes or what they get paid. There’s no easy answer to that with out a course on public records requests, but a quick and dirty solution has been available for awhile from the Boston Herald.
Have fun kids.
The street vendor war continues
The continued discussion of how to regulate Worcester street vendors Tuesday may have been the most exciting City Council meeting Worcester has had in some time, but not in a good way. It was a ridiculous exercise in just how juvenile, provincial and poorly informed some of our elected and appointed officials are. In particular, Mayor Lukes and Councilor Palmieri went out of their way to embarrass themselves and the City of Worcester. The eye rolling, face making and insults hurled at colleagues and constituents, you have to wonder if these two even realize people actually watch the meetings at home. Foolishness aside, the opposing armies in this debate have defined themselves and in effect, speak for themselves. It’s actually quite interesting when you look at the lists, as they break out into rather obvious personality types.
Representing Team Bat Shit Insane:
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Mayor Konnie Lukes
At-Large Councilor Joseph Petty
District 2 Councilor Philip Palmieri
District 3 Councilor Paul Clancy
District 4 Councilor Barbara Haller
District 5 Councilor William Eddy
Two things jump out here. First and most obvious, all but one of the district councilors are in favor of eliminating street vendors from Worcester. These are the people whose entire voting constituency could fit into your average elementary school auditorium. And there is also some overlap between the district councilors and the other demographic at play in this group, people who are likely to be found at an early bird special. If we were to only focus on food vendors here, the group that want’s to get rid of vendors using a late night public safety argument is also the group that hasn’t seen last call in 20 years, if ever. Think about who that, these are the folks defining how you should be allowed to enjoy your city and they’re also the people who are least likely to experience your city outside of normal business hours. The one unexplained exception is my district councilor Bill Eddy. I still can’t wrap my head around what he’s doing on this side of things. Best guess, a bad sausage at the St Patrick’s Day parade in ‘93 and he’s holding a grudge.
Representing people who get out of the house every now and then:
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At-Large Councilor Michael Germain
At-Large Councilor Gary Rosen
At-Large Councilor Frederick Rushton
At-Large Councilor Kathleen Toomey
District 1 Councilor Joffrey Smith
Oh look, the one district councilor in this list is the one district councilor who you’ll actually see out in the city after the sun goes down. What’s most interesting about this crew, none of them seem to be against regulating street vendors. They’re just asking someone, anyone to explain the what and whys of regulating street vendors. An important distinction and one we don’t see enough in Worcester. Simply going to the Chief of Police and asking him if there is a Public Safety component to street vending is not the same as getting a fully fleshed explanation of what exactly that public safety component is. Any idiot could come up with a heat map of arrests for a given area and make an argument there is a risk to the public in said area. Explaining how they got to that conclusion takes a little work. Which brings us to our final waring faction…
People who don’t actually have anything to say but are more than willing to talk into a microphone:
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Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme
City Manager Mike O’Brien
City Solicitor David Moore
These guys were astounding on Tuesday night, collectively they took up a majority of mic time but literally said nothing. No numbers, no statistics, no maps of affected areas and even reports requested by the Council for this meeting were nowhere to be found; they came with nothing. Nothing but continued assurance that they actually do know how to redevelop an urban area. The Chief gets an extra special prize for the quote of the week…
“The city of Worcester changes after midnight.”
Yes Chief, it actually changes into a city in more than population designation. A place where people actually get out of their cars, off of their couches and interact with other citizens for better or worse; the city is starting to come to life. We’ve been waiting over two decades for that change, please stop fucking that up.
A barroom full of nonsense
Here are just a few of the completely nonsensical arguments laid out in todays Telegram and Gazette by Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme regarding the cities new and ‘improved’ police detail policy for drinking establishments.
A bar or club may pay a couple of hundred dollars for one police officer to work a detail for four hours, but the city can face hundreds of thousands of dollars in liability if the officer has to use force to subdue an unruly patron and/or is injured while doing so, the chief said yesterday. The new policy should address that issue as well, he said.
So the obvious and immediate result of this policy will be either rebate checks to city taxpayers or increased funding to other city services? I can’t wait to see the savings during next years budget hearings.
“Think about it from this perspective; an officer is hired for $200 and the bar gets the officer, but the city has the liability if the officer is sued or if the officer is injured,” Chief Gemme said. “There is much more liability for the city than there is on the bar owner.”
This is similar to the broken logic the city of Worcester is using to attack street vendors. Somehow in the Chiefs mind the city is under attack by businesses and law enforcement officers should never worry about having to subdue or arrest an individual. Isn’t that a rather basic component of the job description?
The chief said yesterday that when his department noticed a spike in assaults and other crime around bars in May, June and July, and when he found officers had to strike people with their batons while at bar details in the first weekends of July — a new policy was needed for safety reasons. He did that while the policy announced yesterday was still being crafted.
“We looked at the data and what was taking place and we knew we had to make a decision,” he said. “The decision behind the two police officers working the bar details together was for officer safety first and foremost.”
‘We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.’
This is a city built on a foundation of logical fallacies. Worthy of note, this is the same broken logic being used to justify putting the military on the street in Italy, today.
Chief Gemme said since Jan. 1, four out of the nine times an officer had to strike someone with a service baton it was at a bar or alcohol-serving establishment. In July, officers on two different occasions had to defend themselves with their baton and accidentally struck a person on the head during a struggle. Striking someone in the head is not authorized, but it occurred during the struggle, he said.
So now simply by an officer yelling “I COST THIS BAR 1/25th MORE THAN PREVIOUSLY, CITIZEN” all training issues involving use of force will be rectified. Color me unimpressed.
Since 2006, the city has paid out $300,000 in settlements because of incidents that were directly or indirectly related to bar details. Chief Gemme said one of the problems was the bar details did not have any supervision.
“I felt we were completely vulnerable in terms of bar details because of lack of supervision,” he said. “This policy will now allow us to address our supervision and police officer safety.”
On more than one occasion I’ve made snarky admittedly churlish comments about oversight for the overseers. Apparently they were neither snarky or churlish, but in the eyes of the City Administration spot on. Unless my public school reading comprehension skills are on the fritz again, Chief Gemme is telling the city of Worcester his officers can not be trusted to make good, rational decisions under stress. I didn’t say it, the Cheif did.
Think about that next time you interact with the police in our city.
Demographic Inversion
Excellent piece in The New Republic regarding population shifts in American cities. Some of the comments are as interesting as the actual story.
In the past three decades, Chicago has undergone changes that are routinely described as gentrification, but are in fact more complicated and more profound than the process that term suggests. A better description would be “demographic inversion.” Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city–Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts. The people who live near the center–some of them black or Hispanic but most of them white–are those who can afford to do so.
Time to meet Worcester’s Street Vendors
Here are just a few of the individuals Mayor Lukes and Councilor Palmeri insist pose a serious threat to the city of Worcester.
Fridays news today
It’s Monday, but I’m just noticing a story that ran in the Telegram on Friday. My own fault to be sure, I’m always playing catch up on local business news. I’m confused though, how this story didn’t get front page, above the fold placement? Check this headline:
Condos’ developer wants to liquidate
Foreclosure hits University Park
Many of us who spend too much time online have been watching this drama unfold via the University Park Lofts blog. It would stand to reason if the developer of a 37 unit condominium project, 25 of which were foreclosed on, files for Chapter 7 it would be more worthy of front page real estate than this follow up piece on arson in Northboro.
Who is the Telegram writing for again?
WHO study finds Americans love getting high
To all those brave men and women on the front lines of the 45 billion dollar a year War on Drugs… You’re doing it wrong.
The global distribution of drug use is unevenly distributed with the US having the highest levels of both legal and illegal drug use among all countries surveyed.
And here’s a lazy persons Reuters story on the study
link
Outlawing the future
Looks like some new water colors are in order! I can only imagine this rendering from the official City Square website was created in error. To think Berkley Investments would suggest street vendors could actually play a role in the revitalization of Downtown Worcester. Who do these people think they are? Urban planners!?!! Look how smug that cartoon vendor lady looks as she steals business from legitimate brick and mortars! The nerve.
