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"Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. painted a rosy picture of New Bedford's progress in his annual State of the City address. He..."
More about New Bedford
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Occupation:
armpit of MA
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Hobbies and Interests:
scratch tickets, lassitude, linguica, cruisin' the Ave., Cabo Verde, Azores, street hockey, heroin, Albert Bierstadt, fighting, Sweet Daddy Grace, Sumol, PCBs, commercial fishing, ennui, Albert Pinkham Ryder, malaise, THE FEAST, Underground Railroad
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Favorite Books:
Moby Dick, Robert's Rules of Order, Spinner publications, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (any Vonnegut title with Bunny Weeks)
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Favorite Movies:
Passionada, The Accused, Moby Dick
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Favorite Music:
Tavares, "Math is Money" -- Lifter Puller
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Zodiac Sign:
Capricorn
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About Me:
Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. painted a rosy picture of New Bedford's progress in his annual State of the City address. He barely mentioned the word drugs.
The mayor ticked off program after program to demonstrate that the city under his stewardship is forging ahead, despite the economic lull becalming our state and region.
The mayor has accomplished many commendable objectives, including the fast ferry, a harbor dredging program and that long, hard slog to redevelop Route 18.
He also has launched a slew of softer initiatives, from community policing to a program holding landlords accountable for maintaining safe and secure properties.
A program is only as good as its design and execution, and that takes money, manpower, imagination and follow-through, resources too often in short supply at City Hall.
The city's problems, meanwhile, are real and entrenched.
Drugs remain the major barrier to the city's rebirth. They undercut family life, the best efforts of our educators, and have a corrosive effect on the city's image. They also discourage and demoralize law enforcement, destablize neighborhoods and jeopardize public safety.
They deserve more mention than a passing reference in one paragraph on Page 6 of a seven-page speech.
But at least, they got a mention. Other problems got no mention at all, including the city's unemployment rate, the highest in Massachusetts at 10 percent; the whopping surge in rents in a city where so many people scramble each month to pony up the rent payment; homelessness in a city still shy of shelter beds for the desperately needy; the high school dropout rate, still approaching 40 percent.
We could go on, but the mayor was right to warn against those who would "rage against the wind rather than build a shelter."
Negativity is another barrier to New Bedford's progress, and it is not our intention to join the naysayers.
But honesty demands that the depth of the city's problems be acknowledged by anyone who wo
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Who I Want to Meet:
Lowell, Brockton, Lawrence, Lynn, and Fall River in a no-
holds
barred grudge match.
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How you're connected:
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New Bedford is in your extended network |
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New Bedford |
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all, but maybe linguica pizza.
numa casa portuguesa fica bem!
last weekend. On our way
back to New York, my friend Jason
told me that you were exactly like he
had envisioned you to be, and that
you didn't disappoint... He also
added that he now had more
respect for me knowing I came
from a place like you! Thank you
NB, for having no air conditioning,
not even in the fucking movie
theater!, seemingly having no
structures built after 1954
(something I had never realized
until it was pointed out by another
friend, who had earlier described
you as "Waltham on steroids"), lots
of characters downtown and
NOBODY else, and for making sure
that every business is closed on
Saturday and Sunday. You're one
of a kind.
wasted she never let me leave Mr Down
Town or the Garden until I was ready to
throw some fists. NB taught me how to
take over a party and make it mine
(this includes shows at reflections).
Well now we are far apart. I am in
Alaska and you on the other coast. I
don't care what you change your name to
you will always be smackin I to me
bitch. I'm too drunk to go on. To all
my peeps living in the place I finally
miss enough to call home. A world
series or a stove boat....
go sox!!!!
You never call.
big blue whale, err, i mean bug
Can't you bang a prostitute without a
condom anymore these days?
according to friendster, fall rive
doesn't even exist - something i've
always suspected deep within my heart.
night. I found myself wandering past
the Whaling Museum toward The National
for kino and beer, knowing that the
house would win (as always). Yet, just
as so many before me in that strange
town by the sea, I refused to admit
long odds and once again bellied up to
the bar. God bless New Bedford.
than Brockton these days. word.