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ARCHIVE STORIES A - F |
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By Dawn P. Goff
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Left to right Elaine, Vikki, Nancy, and Stacy These ladies interrupted their food prep to pose for All Pawtucket. The congregation has been cooking for weeks for the festival |
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| Ringing up the eats | |
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| Right from the grill to the plate | |
By Dawn P. Goff
was a girl who was going to make it. Christine had a remarkable stage presents; she would catch your attention just by walking across the floor. Christine won the Boston Competition and went on to win numerous local and National Titles across New England. By twelve she turned Professional and transferred to the Ann Carr Dance Studio where she was exposed to more performing and studying with Special Guest Teachers and Choreographers. She has study acting with the Young People School for the Performing Arts, Ballet with Sarazin’s in North Attleboro, Ma., advanced tap with Leon Collins in Boston, Ma., and jazz at the famous Luigi’s Jazz Center in New York.
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| Christine Atamian-Bairos & Gloria Dorais | |
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| Christine Atamian-Bairos & Mayor Doyle | |
Christine has assembled a group of well-trained dance teachers all from the Pawtucket area. She invites everyone to visit her web site www.dancinspirit.net for information on the studio and the teaching staff, or call 401 475 5757. Registration is held each Thursday from 6 to 8 and on Saturdays from 9 to 12, classes start on September 2nd. |
Growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Neither is cracking jokes about it as a comedian, because like a blues singer you’ve got to feel the hurt before you can portray your funny take convincingly to someone else. Eugene and Stan Jerome, two 20-something brothers growing up in 1949 in the working class Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, know that real pain, and the funny lines to cope with it, begin at home in the bosom of their increasingly dysfunctional family. Their homemaker mother, with that sure sense no woman can deny especially to herself, knows that her husband Jack has been prowling for other liaisons beyond their 33-year marriage. Also in the household is their often-dotty and unintentionally funny grandfather Ben Jerome. Ben (Carl DeSimone) is an unreconstructed socialist with an increasing aversion to anything that smacks of commercial success, but whose loyalty to his daughter Kate --the boys’ mother -- in her late-midlife crisis is unshakable, even if that means letting his wife relocate to Florida without him. The boys themselves are looking, almost subconsciously, to transform these shattering pieces of their filial glass menagerie into comic material that will resonate with wider audiences who tune into the CBS radio show they’ve begun writing scripts for. If they succeed, they can get their own apartment in New York City, as if their family’s incipient breakup is the raw material of their big break in show business. “Broadway Bound,” the 1986 Neil Simon play that wrapped up his “BB” trilogy (after “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Biloxi Blues”), puts a bittersweet wrapping on the |
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| Kevin Broccoli and Barbara Schapiro |
autobiographical tale of how a clever Jewish kid -- with Eugene Jerome (Simon’s alter ego, portrayed by Kevin Broccoli with just the right comic touch) learns to turn the sweet-and-sour apples of his growing up into the stuff of Broadway comic smash hits. Stan (Adam Florio, in his Community Players debut), who works in a clothing store, is a stand-in for Simon’s older brother Danny, with whom he formed a writing team at their start of their showbiz careers. He has the business focus Eugene, the more spontaneously funny of the duo, lacks but they know intuitively they can make it together. Even that however has its internal contradictions. “The thing about writing with your brother is your relationship gets in the way,” Eugene confides directly to the audience in one of his many such asides. “Can you imagine ‘Hamlet’ written by William and Harvey Shakespeare?” |
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Up, left to right: Kevin Broccoli and Adam Florio; Down, left to right: Janette Gregorian, Barbara Schapiro and Carl DeSimone |
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Touchy-feely does not describe the Jerome family. As Ben’s other daughter, mink-coat wearing Blanche (Janette Gregorian) who lives on Park Avenue with her wealthy husband, asks her father, “Why is it so hard for us to talk to each other?” “Because you ask too much of me,” the 77-year-old Ben replies. “I’m not an affectionate man. I don’t trust affection. Sometimes people give it to you instead of the truth... But I cannot accept the benefits of a society that makes my daughter rich and makes poor half the country.” “I was taught,” Blanche replies, “that a family that loves each other takes care of each other.” Ben, it will turn out, has some secrets of his own, which he confesses to his straying son-in-law Jack, Kate’s husband. Stan hits it on the head when he tells Eugene that “the essential ingredient in every comic sketch” comes down to “conflict” in wanting some thwarted thing -- a girl, money, getting to Philadelphia. “And when one brother wants to kill the other brother,” observes Eugene. “It’s not funny if it’s not believable,” Stan chastises. “You think the Three Stooges are believable?” counters Eugene. At the press night opening last Friday (June 13), Broccoli as Eugene and Florio as Stan already had their comic byplay down pat. DeSimone, despite occasional rough edges to his timing, well portrayed a dotty grandfather who may not be so self-unaware after all. Sonny Dufault, as Jack, a Garment District cloth-cutter who has begun to wonder whether his family sacrifices have come at too high a personal cost, could perhaps lend a bit more vulnerability to the role but was still able to bring out the conflicts built into his character. But it is upon Kate (Community Players newcomer Barbara Schapiro), the pot roast-pushing mother who sees her family life crumbling on all sides, that is the center around which the play, recognized as one of Simon’s best, must turn. Here Schapiro succeeds admirably, striking the right tone of wronged spouse, stalwart mother, concerned daughter, and reflective woman who Eugene finally convinces to relate in detail the adolescent night she snuck off to a ballroom to entice a young George Raft to ask her to dance. The feminine wiles involved in all that are, Eugene admits to the audience, probably more than he bargained for hearing from his mother, but he shows us every mother’s son’s transformation from being a self-centered kid to seeing his mother simply as a person. Schapiro convinces us that the deepest family trauma is felt not by the one who’s leaving home but by the one who’s left behind. The way Schapiro and Broccoli pull off the ballroom reenactment scene with humor-laced sensitivity is itself worth the price of admission, in a play that stays in your head long after the laugh lines have died away.Director Brian Mulvey has gotten everything out of the script and his actors in what is the Community Players last production of the season. He also designed the upstairs-downstairs set of the Jerome household in what is a marvel of form-follows-function. Kudos also to stage manager Mary Booth and properties manager Mary Thompson, and a golden spike for master carpenter Victor Turenne and set builders Peter Babiec, Erich Koch, Lee Hakeem and Mulvey. Erika Koch’s costumes give us a timepiece we accept without question, and the brown and amber tones complete furnishings that tell of a signature time period of the American family yet never lapses into nostalgia. If you haven’t been to a production of the Community Players, now in their 87th season, for awhile (as I should confess I had not), “Broadway Bound” is a great reason to enjoy an inexpensive and entertaining night out in the neighborhood and indulge in the home-baked goods offered in the Jenks cafeteria during intermission of this approximately 2 ½ hour play. It’s well done from start to finish, and will send you off reflecting that maybe that crazy family is not so unlike your own after all. “Broadway Bound,” play by Neil Simon. Directed by Brian Mulvey. Performed by The Community Players, Jenks Junior High School auditorium, Division Street. Tickets $15. Peformances Friday and Saturday (June 20-21) at 8 p.m., Sunday (June 22) at 2 p.m |
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Story and Pictures By: DOUG HADDEN Executive Editor Continuing what has now become a years-long tradition, scores of seniors turned out last week for the annual health fair held at the Leon Mathieu Senior Center. They lined up for glucose and oral cancer screenings, a brief therapeutic massage or a check of their blood pressure, and perused vendors’ tables offering a host of other services. But with looming budget cuts threatening funding for senior services statewide, seniors and their supporters will also be lining up Thursday for a bigger cause, when a 2 p.m. rally will be held in the Statehouse Rotunda. The proposed cuts would be “devastating,” Mathieu Center director Joan Crawley said, including elimination of the Community Information Specialist Program -- already cut in half last year -- which provides information on Social Security, Medicare including prescription drug coverage, the RIPAE pharmacy assistance program, food stamps, respite care, subsidized housing and counseling options. Crawley said without such assistance, many seniors and their families would be helpless to navigate such bureaucracies. Also, said Crawley, a new $4 round-trip fee for RIDE transportation would put the service out of reach for many seniors on fixed incomes, who often take the bus several times a week for medical appointments such as dialysis and cancer treatments or to attend senior center meal sites. The fee would be the first for RIDE since it was created more than 30 years ago. Senior centers throughout Rhode Island would see a 50 percent cut in grants in the proposed state budget -- which is still out of kilter by about $450 million -- for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Such prospects have prompted some lawmakers to react, including a bill by Sen. John McBurney, D-Pawtucket, to keep the RIDE program free. At the Mathieu Center, seniors have been signing a petition in support of McBurney’s bill and decrying the other cuts. At last week’s “Senior Health Fair,” health professionals and other supporters of the center showed how much they think of the place and the people so in need of the services they volunteered to provide that day. Dr. Russell Chin performed oral cancer screenings, screening cheeks and lips and checking for white pre-canerous lesions under the tongue that could go undetected. “It’s very important. A lot of people don’t go to the dentist” for a checkup. “If you catch it early you can treat it and it’s not complicated,” Chin said. But if not, the cancer can extend to the larynx and beyond, he said. “It made me feel better,” 84-year-old Dorothy Plante, of Pawtucket, said after getting her swab test. “I think it’s wonderful. It helps a lot of people.” At a table, two phlebotomists from Memorial Hospital, Jake Myers and Gbelai Forkpa, were giving health tests with high-tech devices yielding remarkably fast results: 20 seconds for glucose levels, three minutes for cholesterol. Myers noted the participants could then take the results to their own physicians. The highest cholesterol count they saw was 229, a reading that could call for diet changes and medication. Myers advising eliminating carbohydrates like white bread (“it turns to sugar”), substituting wheat bread (“the best”), and getting the right proteins. “I think it’s wonderful,” Charles Piela said after his testing. “I’m 86 years old. I never thought I’d live that long. These are the things that make it possible,” the Pawtucket resident said. His forehead propped against a massage chair, Victor Kaplamskiy, 76, enjoyed the skilled ministrations of licensed massage therapist Mindy Trudell, who now practices with South County Orthopedics in South Kingstown but years ago interned at the Mathieu Center and returns annually to |
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help with the health fair.This day she had no shortage of clients. “A lot of people do it to see what it can do,” she said.“It is helpful,” said Kaplamskiy, of Pawtucket, noting Trudell instructed him on techniques he could practice on himself at home to help him “fall asleep without my drugs.” In another area, Leslie Escobar, a registered nurse with home care agency Bayada Nurses, Providence, was checking out 79-year-old Catherine Frechette’s blood pressure. Her 120/60 reading was fine, but “a lot of times I’ll find people with elevated blood pressures” who need medication, Escobar said. “So it’s a preventative.” Frechette, of Central Falls, said she gets her blood pressure taken every week. “It’s very important. My mother died of a stroke and my father died of a heart attack,” she said. |
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Troop # 733, Nancy Tumidajski, Kerri Meehan and Mr. Pete Mecchi |
Troop # 733: Lauren Gaj, Victoria Tumidajski, Alex Wall, Victoria Haworth, Nicole Chartier, Jordan Hutnak, Katelyn Shileds and Jessica Simpson |
| Recently Cadette Girl Scout Troop # 733 put on a health fair in the hall of St. Teresa Church. Over 60 girls attended this fair where they learned about nutrition, exercise, stress relief and personal hygiene. Troop # 733 first worked with Mr. Pete Mecchi, the owner of Buttons for You. They designed buttons for their health fair so each girl attending would have a reminder of this fair night. Mr. Mecchi went to the troop meetings with his button making equipment and supplies to teach the girls the process of button making. The girls made name tags and certificates too.
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Story and photos Like feeding the ducks on the pond or taking a ride on the Loof carousel, the weekly car shows in Slater Park have become an annual local rite of spring and summer. The well-buffed cars and trucks arrayed by their proud owners outside Daggett Delights concession stand also offer a chance to talk about the days when cars had fins, heavy metal was a description of chrome bumpers and you could get three gallons of gas for a buck. Anthony Walsh, the prime mover behind the car shows as well as the concession stand, says the economy and $4-a-gallon gas has slowed participation this season from what it was when the Tuesday night car shows began about seven years ago. But, as a recent night showed, the vintage vehicles are still quite an attraction, their display accompanied by an oldies-spinning DJ. And -- just as you’d expect -- behind every car is a story. In one row was Roger Rebeiro’s brilliant red ’56 Thunderbird, powered by a 1987 Lincoln engine; a row away was George Rizzardini’s gleaming white, all-original ’55 T-Bird. Being original boosts the car’s value, as does having the peak year, explained Rizzardini, of Seekonk, noting that “the one that’s bringing the most money is the ’57.” It’s hard to say why that is, though the two antique car aficionados easily ticked off the differences from year to year: The ’55 did not have the “continental wheel” (spare tire housing on the back), which arrived in ’56, freeing up some trunk space. The ’57 brought a revised body style, a bit bigger in back with a larger trunk and added hot-looking side vents needed to cool off the 12-volt battery, double the prior voltage. |
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Elizabeth Tremblay sits in her husband Frank's (he is at left) 1923 replica Model T Ford |
“It’s good, we relive the ’50s,” Rebeiro, of Rehoboth, said of the weekly car shows in the park, which sometimes attract more than 100 vehicles.Though as time marches on, he said, the car fanciers’ conversation has turned to other topics. “The operations we’ve had, the meds we’re on,” he laughed. Rebeiro said the Slater Park venue, which begins the second Tuesday in May and runs to the end of September, is one of many car show stops in the region. “We kind of make the circuit. There’s a nice one in Easton, Mass. at the Southeast Regional High School, every other Thursday,” which can top 200 cars. “There’s a waiting list to get in there. There’s shows every night of the week, every night of the week you can go somewhere.” Sundays the Sam’s Club on Route 6 in Seekonk hosts a show; Monday nights there’s one in East Providence outside Standard Hardware. The Wal-Mart in Seekonk and Crescent Park in Riverside, both on Saturday, are other pit stops for the shows. On this particular night in June, threatening skies did not deter Charlie Matteo of Cumberland from wheeling in his sparkling ’57 Ford Fairlane with its folding roof. “I’ve had it about six years,” said Matteo, who collects only Fords, including a 1915 Roadster and 1928 Phaeton, “the first Model T,” he said. “I come down every week, just come down and socialize, hang out with the guys,” Matteo said. Parked near Rizzardini’s white T-Bird was Don Governo’s 1969 Mercury Cougar, featuring a 351 HP engine and the signature grill and tail lights, and sequential turn signals, that made that run of Cougars famous. Except for the top, the rugs and the radio, the car is all original, with just 121,000 miles showing on the odometer. “I’ve had it 30 years,” since buying it from Mutter Motors in Cumberland “in’70 or ’71,” said Governo, of Attleboro. Though as an antique, insurance rules require the car be driven no more than 2,000 miles a year, he said a good chunk of that comes from his annual drive to Charlotte, N.C. For an alternate stylish ride, he also has a 1940 Chevrolet wood wagon and has completely restored a 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo. Matteo’s “hang out with the guys” comment notwithstanding, the car shows also attract a female fan element, which this night included Elizabeth Tremblay, resplendent in her drawstring floppy hat for rides in her husband Frank’s canary yellow 1923 replica Model T Ford. The color choice is not an unusual one for the Pawtucket couple, who live on Lake Street near McCoy Stadium. “This is his favorite color, yellow,” Elizabeth related. “This is the third T-bucket I built,” said Frank. “All yellow.” |
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Roger Rebeiro (right), of Rehoboth, explains the fine points of his '56 Ford Thunderbird's 1987 Lincoln engine to George Rizzardini, of Seekonk, who owns a white '55 T-Bird during recent Tuesday night car show in Slater Park. |
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entertainment for young audiences. The programming brings together a wide range of disciplines. This year’s performances include:The Day It Snowed Tortillas presented by The Crabgrass Puppet Theatre on August 15, Craig Babcock Mime on August 22 and Squeaky Clean on August 29. Children’s Festival performances will be held every Friday from August 15 – August 29 at 10:00 am and 12 noon. Single tickets are $10.00 each with a three show package for $25.00. Discount rates are available for groups of 20 or more by calling (401) 782-3800 x18. Before or after the show families can enjoy cold drinks, pizza and cookies, which will be available for purchase at the gazebo. Following each performance, children are invited to join the creative team from Oop! for craft activities in Theatre By The Sea’s backyard. Tickets to Children’s Festival performances, as well as productions being presented as part of Theatre By The Sea’s 75th Anniversary Season are currently available at the Box Office. The theatre is located at 364 Card’s Pond Road, Matunuck, RI. Tickets are on sale at the box office Mon-Sat from 10:00 am-4:00 pm, online 24-hours-a-day at www.theatrebythesea.com and via telephone during normal box office hours by calling (401) 782-TKTS (8587). Ocean State Theatre Company, Inc. is an IRS designated 501(c)(3) charitable corporation. For information regarding donations or gifts please call (401) 782-3800 x24. |
By DOUGLAS HADDEN Executive Editor With the double whammy of local revenues and state aid sharply down, and expenses including a big expected whack for utilities sharply up, the dread “L” word -- for layoffs -- is on the table as the Doyle administration works on the new fiscal 2009 budget it will shortly send to the City Council. Top city officials and council members discussed the possibility of approximately 100 layoffs, plus an unspecified number of temporary workers who may also get caught in the financial squeeze, in a closed door meeting late Friday afternoon at City Hall. The pain would be felt among the AFSCME Locals 1012 and 3960, which represent unionized workers from laborers to City Hall, though cuts in the unionized police and fire ranks are not being proposed in the interest of public safety. So-called nonclassified (non-union) workers are also at risk of having the budget-cutting axe fall on their jobs. City Council President Mary Bray confirmed after the 80-minute executive session Friday that layoffs are on the table. “Oh yeah, we’re looking at everything. None of us feel comfortable with any of it,” she added. Bray noted the state cut its local aid (by $1.4 million) to Pawtucket in mid-fiscal year, as with communities around the state, “and we know we can’t count on that for next year (either). Local revenue is down. So we need to look at everything possible.” Eight of the nine council members (with Councilor Robert Carr tied up at his Statehouse job as chief legal counsel to the House majority leader) had the sitdown with Mayor James E. Doyle’s brain trust: Administrative chief Harvey Goulet, Finance Director Ronald Wunschel, Personnel Director Angel Garcia, City Solicitor Margaret Lynch-Gadaleta and outside attorney Robert Brooks, the city’s chief negotiator for union contracts. One thing they heard was an innovative plan, which would ultimately need approval from state Auditor General Ernest Almonte, basically allowing the School Department to deficit-spend by stretching out repayments over four years. The current schools funding shortfall is $2.8 million. School officials have already indicated they could accept a plan not to count the final total of extra city aid toward what’s called maintenance of effort, meaning it would not go to the bottom line schools budget figure as an increasing base the last three years. Wunschel told All Pawtucket All The Time that move would save the city several million dollars. “We started working with the auditor general about a month ago, talking about what if’s,” said Wunschel. “I still haven’t finished the budget,” unusual this far into the year, he said. “The problems are how do we survive (fiscal) 2008 and how do we budget for 2009,” Goulet summarized. “There will be layoffs,” he said, conducted in line with contractual obligations and the “bumping rights” that entails. “It’s not the easiest but it’s totally necessary. At this point in time, maybe 100 (layoffs), plus temps,” Goulet projected. Not helping is a forecast of a $636,000 current shortfall in projected revenue, mostly fallout from housing foreclosures. While the city will eventually recoup that revenue when properties resell, the pain is real in the short term as the afflicted housing market continues. The city also continues to work out the remaining $200,000 in red ink from the 2006 schools budget. That started out as a $1.8 million problem, remedied by tapping $1 million from the city’s hard-won reserve fund and $200,000 in annual payments spread over four years. The proposal to plug the new schools gap is to fund it at approximately $756,000 -- which would be about 14 cents on the tax rate -- per year for four years, without the funding total going toward maintenance of effort. That plan would save about $7.5 million over four years, Wunschel said. He said the goal is to come up with something all sides can sign on to, with the schools agreeing not to sue the city for more money as they did successfully two years ago. Even with money short, school spending has gone on. “(About) $3 million (above budget) is being spent in 2008. When they told me they were having a debt, we didn’t stop paying their bills,” Wunschel noted. “But without this plan, it would be a lot higher. It would be devastating,” he said. “Basically what they’re doing (if approved) is they’re being allowed to carry a deficit. That’s where the auditor general comes in. So there’s a plan to clear it in four years.” The municipal side’s day-to-day operations however have mostly been in line, with only a $300,000 gap -- principally due to big jumps in gas and fuel costs -- on a $100-millon plus budget. But those costs further cloud the picture for the new fiscal year beginning July 1. Wunschel noted the city must also renegotiate its utility rates set in an expiring five-year contract under what’s known as the REAP program, which has saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Increases in gas and oil, electricity, repairs --- plus, plus, plus, all the way down the line,” Wunschel said in a weary tone. “I’ve got a $620,000 increase just for electricity in the fiscal 2009 budget. That’s my biggest operational increase except for salaries and benefits.” Current projections call for the municipal side of the budget to rise from $104 million to $110 million, and on the schools side from $100 million to $105 million. The administration’s budget proposal could be sent to the council as soon as its meeting next week. “If the plan is not accepted by the council,” Goulet said, “then we’re in a whole new ballgame.” The stretch-out of the school funding shortfall requires the auditor general’s approval because schools by state law are not allowed to deficit-spend. “If this plan doesn’t fly, we’ve got to come back with another plan. That means more layoffs,” something the administration is trying to avoid, Goulet said. “It gets to the point where services are impacted severely.” Department heads are now scouring their operations to outline layoff plans that would cause the least disruption and displace the fewest number of people, Goulet said. What savings will be realized can’t be pinpointed yet due to bumping rights, which allow senior workers who receive pink slips to push out more junior employees or use other options. “That person can either retire, get laid off, or bump. Before we know the savings, we’ve got to wait for all the bumping to end,”Goulet explained. The council last year rejected a Local 1012 deal worked out with the administration and Local 3960 is in talks for a new agreement. The firefighters contract is now headed for arbitration. Wunschel said the administration has asked Fire Chief Timothy McLaughlin and Police Chief George Kelley to come up with operational savings in their departments. |
By DOUGLAS HADDEN PAWTUCKET -- A federal judge has ruled in the city’s favor in a lawsuit brought by the would-be operator of a massive trash transfer operation planned for the Goff Avenue area along the Providence & Worcester Railroad tracks on the west edge of downtown. Pawtucket Transfer Operations LLC brought the claim after the city overruled an occupancy permit issued by a lower city zoning official, which the city argued was improperly granted. PTO planned to work with the railroad in transferring “clean” trash, much of it to be brought from Massachusetts, that after sorting and compacting would be transported by rail to clients predominantly in the Midwest. But the city, backed by the Pawtucket Foundation, affected local businesses, the growing artists community and others, fought the plan, which would have seen dozens of trucks and scores of tons of trash trucked daily through city streets to the proposed transfer station. The city’s case was argued last month in Providence before District Court Judge William Smith by Assistant Solicitor Frank Milos, along with local attorney Michael Horan, who represented affected business owners in the nearby area. The written decision came down in recent days, city officials confirmed Tuesday night. “We appear to have fought off the trash plant,” said Richard Davis, outgoing executive director of the Pawtucket Foundation, who assiduously researched the issue over a two-year period. “In a word, I think the judge summed it up when he said (in his decision) that the attempt to make a local zoning issue into a federal court case fails. “If it had gone in the wrong direction,” Davis said, “the city could have gone back to an industrial age in the worst way.” Mayor James E. Doyle also lauded the decision. “I can (summarize) it in two words: Justice prevailed,” he said. “It means that we’ve rid ourself of a potential disaster, a disaster in the sense that it would have wreaked havoc on all we’ve been trying to do in this city the last 10 years,” the mayor said. PTO will have 30 days to appeal the decision in federal court, where the case was potentially worth millions of dollars, and could also press an action in state Superior Court, where liability for municipalities is typically capped at $100,000. |
Story and photos By turns solemn and celebratory, proud and patriotic, members of the Mathieu Senior Center including several veterans showed their colors in a Flag Day ceremony conducted by the Dusza-Almeida Post & Auxiliary 2339, VFW in an hour-long event last Friday. The calendar said June 13, a day ahead of the official Flag Day, which commemorates the adoption, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress, of the official American banner on June 14, 1777. Instead the timing was pegged as close to the official date when the senior center is also open, in what has become an annual celebration. About 40 seniors plus guests including Mayor James E. Doyle took part in a solemn flag-raising at the flag pole in front of the senior center, heard patriotic readings inside,sang along with a Kate Smith recording of “God Bless America” and generally conveyed a profound sense of respect for the flag and love of country in commemorating an occasion that many bypass on their busy calendars. |
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“It brings out the thing of being here in the United States,” said Marie Domingos, “to remind us of how lucky we are compared to some other places around.” The honor of striking the Stars and Stripes went to 83-year-old Irving Bassiliere, who served as an infantryman in Europe during World War II. “I do it every day (outside the senior center) and yes, it is an honor,” he said. “I put this flag up every day and it is an honor.” He also struck the white-on-black POW/MIA flag, which flies just below Old Glory. In his blessing, the Rev. William Shaw of Union Baptist Church, who is also the city’s affirmative action coordinator, said Flag Day was a time to be reminded of the many sacrifices made “for the liberty we enjoy... and we pray for liberty and freedom around the world.” Mayor Doyle said while daily headlines tell “the sad story of what’s going on,” from housing foreclosures to high gas and food prices, countless people around the world would do anything to come here. “Be proud today that you’re an American, as I am, as everyone else (in this country) is,” Doyle said. “And thank those buried in cemeteries here and throughout the world.” Rose Abraham, a past president of the state VFW auxiliary, read a poem on the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance, saying the oath was “a promise that I will always be true (to my country).” |
World War II veteran Irving Basiliere (left), with help Vietnam veteran Donald Drew and Dorothy Irving |
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Abraham noted she lost a brother in World War II but has no grave to visit. “He was flying back from Tokyo” when his plane went down. “I can’t visit his grave but we continue to pray for him.” She brought home the sacrifice of countless veterans in a later reading that said that it was not the preacher who has guaranteed Americans freedom of religion, not the reporter who has granted freedom of speech, nor campus organizers the freedom to assemble, lawyers the right to a fair trail or politicians the right to vote. “It is the veteran,” she read. In her reading, “I Am Old Glory,” Auxiliary member Lourdes Mossor said the American flag will continue to fly “so long as men love liberty more than life itself... so long as justice and charity remain deeply rooted in the human heart, it shall be the enduring banner of the United States of America.” As Auxiliary member Dorothy “Dot” Irving read a description of the symbolism behind each step in the ceremony of folding the flag, Bassiliere was joined by Marine veteran Donald Drew, 75, of Fairlawn, who served in the Vietnam War from 1965-67, in that solemn task, which among other occasions always accompanies military funerals. “We go to seven different cemeteries and ‘flag’ them,” Irving said of one of the Auxiliary’s ongoing services. “We do about 100 graves.”The Auxiliary members also go to the state Veterans Home in Bristol, VA hospitals in Brockton and Providence, and every two months send gift packages of day-to-day items -- toothbrushes, socks, robs and the like -- to veterans serving overseas. “It’s a lot of hard work,” and relies on donations, said Donna Ormonde, another past state Auxiliary president and moderator for the Flag Day event. The VFW among other programs also sponsors the annual Voice of Democracy patriotic essay contest for high school students, which recently boasted a national finalist, and the Patriots Pens program for middle school students, among other initiatives. |
The Rev. William Shaw in his blessing at Flag Day |
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Ruth Abraham, a past president of the state VFW Auxiliary |
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By DOUGLAS HADDEN Apparently fearing the cure may be worse than the disease, City Council members balked at a stopgap borrowing plan the city finance chief says may be needed to assure cash flow for the city’s payroll and other ongoing expenses. In offering the plan, city Finance Director Ronald Wunschel cited flagging real estate transfer tax receipts and other lagging revenue sources that could leave the city short on a given payday, and risk fines of $40,000 or more with the Internal Revenue Service. Wunschel said the proposed $1.5 million in three-month borrowings -- known as tax anticipation notes, or TANs -- could insure any gap would be bridged on the biggest paydays. Those occur approximately every three weeks, when compensation for teachers, paid every two weeks, coincides with regular weekly payrolls which with other bills could hit $5 million. Other recurring obligations on such a recent big-payout day included checks to vendors, $612,000; wire transfer accounts, $1.7 million; and pension obligations for current and retired city workers, $1,028,000. Just the IRS share (including FICA taxes) on those payroll accounts was slightly over $900,000, Wunschel said. “It came to almost $5 million on one day we had to pay out,” he said. “I call it the perfect storm of finance, in the wrong way, and it could hurt us.” Major items hurting the city’s cash flow position included the $1.4 million cut in state aid ordered in January -- halfway through the fiscal year -- by the Carcieri administration, and ongoing budget deficits in the School Department. “They’re $3 million short but we’re still paying their bills,” Wunschel told Wednesday’s City Hall meeting of the council’s finance panel, chaired by Councilor John Barry. Wunschel said later he had first run the TANs idea by Mayor James E. Doyle, who supported raising the issue with the council. But councilors, many of whom were around in the mid-1990s when the Metivier administration borrowed tens of millions of dollars to finally synchronize the city’s tax and fiscal years, and halt decades of costly short term borrowings, were wary of going back to the credit card. “That’s why we did the synchronization bond and this is a hard sell for me,” Barry said. Councilor Thomas Hodge was wary the three-month borrowings would be rolled into the next fiscal year as a de facto deficit add-on to the budget. “There is no revenue coming in for this,” he said. “First of all,” advised Wunschel, “I’m not going to issue them tomorrow,” but if he had council authority for the TANs borrowing if needed, “I know I’d sleep better at night,” he said. The city in January ordered a hiring halt in all but critical positions. But how much money has been saved by not filling vacant or budgeted slots is not readily quantifiable, Wunschel said. “We’ve frozen things but we haven’t had furloughs yet,” he cited another savings option. The city is also lagging about $800,000 in expected revenues, due in part to successful taxpayer appeals of commercial property assessments, which have fallen sharply with the rest of the real estate market. The city’s investment portfolio has also lost, on paper, about $2 million but Wunschel said that performance was actually better than most municipalities in the current down economic environment. But councilors remained unpersuaded. “It’s going to be a carryover, carryover, carryover,” said Hodge. If there isn’t money to fund the frozen positions, Councilor Paul Wildenhain told Wunschel, “why not take them out.” “That’s not my call,” said Wunschel. Ultimately the panel moved to table the matter pending more information before bringing it to the full council. As for the bottom line in the annual battle between spending obligations and the revenue to pay for them, Wunschel said the schools are staring at a $2.8 million current projected shortfall plus $200,000 from last fiscal year, and on the city side potentially another $2 million, including a projected $500,000 overrun in firefighter overtime and $375,000 shortfall in real estate and realty transfer taxes. On the brighter side, better administration of third party billing for rescue runs is adding several hundred thousand dollars in revenue, and the 15-year synchronization bond will be paid off next year. But the annual $4 million slotted to repay that debt has already been reallocated to fund city pension plans, Wunschel noted. |
Today, a college degree is seen as crucial to one’s success. More students are attending institutes of higher learning than ever before, and many of them face a harsh reality when they step into an on-campus bookstore: exorbitantly high textbook costs. Sen. James E. Doyle II (D-Dist. 8, Pawtucket) has introduced legislation, 2008-S 2451, to create a study by the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education that would find ways to reduce the cost of required textbooks at public post-secondary institutions. The study would examine textbook pricing trends and strategies, the development of book renting programs in Rhode Island, joint purchasing of books by colleges at a volume discount, and the practicality of requiring publishers to offer “unbundled” textbooks instead of expensive combinations of texts, CD-ROMs, and workbooks. “It seems absurd to me that one of the most important ways a student can ensure success for their future – a college education supported by quality textbooks – is also a process that can leave them in substantial debt,” said Senator Doyle. The statistics behind college textbook costs are surprising, he said. According to studies conducted by market observers and student advocacy groups, the average student pays between $600 and $900 for bookseach year and these costs are rising. The bill notes the fact that the average cost of college textbooks has increased at twice the rate of inflation in the past 20 years. However, it is not simply the price of the texts that is causing concern. Publishing companies also print new |
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editions of textbooks frequently, driving up prices and making used versions of the books obsolete. One national study found that 76 percent of professors felt that these new editions were necessary “never” to “half the time.” In addition, many books are prepackaged with CD-ROMs and workbooks, and these bundles cost significantly more than a single textbook. The study found that 65 percent of faculty members “rarely” or “never” use the supplementary materials.
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Blackstone Valley Tourism Council is accepting registrations for the Rhode Island Dragon Boat race to be held Saturday, September 6 in Pawtucket, RI from 9am to 5pm on the Pawtucket River, Pawtucket, RI. The use of dragon boats for racing is believed to have originated in southern central China more than 2,500 years ago along the banks of the Yangtze River. Dragon boat racing as the basis for annual water rituals and festival celebrations has been practiced |
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continuously since this period. In Pawtucket, the Dragon boat race is held as part of the Taiwan Day Festival celebrating the Chinese community in conjunction with the Pawtucket Arts Festival.
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