At last night’s HAP, Inc. annual dinner at the Mass Mutual Center in downtown Springfield, Charles Rucks introduced one of the evening’s recipients of the organization’s Leadership Award, Springfield Mayor Charles Ryan. Rucks, who is Executive Director of HAP’s Springfield Neighborhood Housing Services, is also a member of its board of directors, and the treasurer of the corporation. His introductory remarks:
The reason I’m here is to recognize the leader, our chief executive of this city, Mayor Ryan. Those of you who are from the city, or around the city, it’s well-documented, the challenges he faced when he took office for the second time. The financial distress the city was in; the corruption, which has resulted in a number of convictions; and the blight that existed in the neighborhoods all over the city because of neglect.
I and Peter [Gagliardi] from HAP, and [an executive] from Habitat for Humanity met with the mayor about the condition of the Old Hill, and [our thoughts] that the city wasn’t doing enough to correct the blight situation there. The mayor issued a challenge to us about what we thought it would take to correct the situation. He said he really had two criteria: he wanted a plan that could be duplicated throughout the city—because his concern was for the entire city—and he wanted accountability.
We got together and we told him, Mr. Mayor, between the three non-profit developers here in the city, we can build 100 houses over the next five years. And he said well, what will it take to do that? Beyond the financial challenges—because the obstalces aren’t always financial; sometimes they have to do with process and so forth. And so we said, well, you have to change the process by which you distribute tax foreclosed properties, which at that time was through public auction. And, we said, you need to go to an RFP process, and if you did that, that would provide the type of properties that we need, with the resources that we can bring to bear, to meet this very significant challenge.
His reply was, well, if there’s no legal impediment to that, we’ll do it. And he was true to his word. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure to present this award to our chief executive, Mayor Charles Ryan.
Mayor Ryan then came onto the stage to receive his award, and said the following:
I’m very appreciative of this award, considering where it comes from and what it’s all about. I’m almost not used to it, too, because you’ve learned the old American custom that if you have a complaint, you call the Mayor’s office. So we field many of those, and this is a tangible, significant compliment.
Charles and Peter and Habitat—the people that make up these organizations—really are in the vanguard of an extraordinarily important movement in our city. We’re a big city—we’re a city with a significant number of poor people. This seems to be the fate of the central city in the United States of America these days.
And so you have two choices: one is you can let it overwhelm you, and give up, and move out. And the other alternative is that, a lot of people say, this is too important to abandon, that really what we’re tlaking about is our own society, our own western civilization, and that we have a unique responsibility to do better, and to stay, and fight, and to persevere.
And that is really what’s happening in Springfield, and also in the neighboring communities, which you saw featured on the video a few minutes ago. And so, for me, as the mayor of Springfield, it’s a distinct privilege to be associated with each and every one of you, because it’s in that matrix of so many different individuals, bringing their own unique and peculiar strengths to a common problem, that we can be successful.
While the bank account may be low, in people, and in steadfastness, in fidelity, and in just good old common sense, and in giving a helpig hand, where it wisely is needed, we’re a very, very rich community.
I can remember being with Ron [Copes] and Omega [Johnson] at a recent celebration up on Eastern Avenue and Tyler Street, and there was a series of speeches. And I remember greeting both of them when it was all over, and the three of us, all individually, had come to the point where we had tears in our eyes, because we realized that something very precious was happening, that day, at that time, at that spot. And I think we all felt that we had reached a tipping point in the Old Hill. And as goes the Old Hill, so do all of the other neighborhoods in Springfield. And so this neighborhood that we have chosen as our experimental, our pilot project, is going to be successful, with renewed energy, with renewed commitment. Because it’s too important to let it fail.
And so I join with all of you, and I acknowledge every single one of you as partners, and I love you all.
More to come later on this event, and the other two awards given.
