Archive
by On Springfield | May 26, 2010 | On Springfield
Could it really be true—is the Urban League finally preparing to move out of 765 State St., opening the way to the long-overdue restoration of full library services in Mason Square?According to a May 21 update on the status of the building—which the City...
by On Springfield | May 27, 2010 | On Springfield
One more promising, if long overdue, sign that Mason Square will, indeed, get back a full-fledged library this fall: a report in this morning’s Springfield Republican that the Urban League of Springfield, which has occupied the former library site at 765 State...
by On Springfield | Jun 8, 2010 | On Springfield
Belle Rita Novak—manager of the Farmer’s Market at the X and unstoppable all-around Forest Park activist—has been recognized for her work by Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, or CISA, which has named her one of its three “Local...
by On Springfield | Jun 10, 2010 | On Springfield
Remember when life was simple, and you could safely assume the swerving driver in the car next to yours had just tied one on at the local pub?Now, thanks to the wonders of technological advancement, there’s all kinds of reasons for idiotic behavior. Perhaps that...
by On Springfield | Jun 11, 2010 | On Springfield
Last weekend, it was the cops who hit the streets, as about 100 Springfield, state and federal law enforcement officers were deployed over a period of about 12 hours in “Operation Blue Knight,” described by officials as an effort both to deter crime and...
by On Springfield | Jun 21, 2010 | On Springfield
Bill Dusty has published a very intriguing story on his Springfield Intruder blog about Springfield City Hall’s apparently schizophrenic policy when it comes to public bidding for public leases. Most infamously, the city (namely, the Sarno administration and the...
by On Springfield | Jun 24, 2010 | On Springfield
Tomorrow’s groundbreaking ceremony at the new state data center at 53 Elliot Street will be dripping with political big wigs, among them Gov. Deval Patrick, U.S. Rep. Richie Neal and Mayor Domenic Sarno—“and others,” according to the press...
by On Springfield | Jun 28, 2010 | On Springfield
It doesn’t appear that the budget battle between Mayor Domenic Sarno and the City Council is cooling down. Earlier this week, Sarno and Lee Erdmann, the city’s chief administrative and financial officer, sent a letter to councilors calling on them to make...
by On Springfield | Jun 29, 2010 | On Springfield
Local labor activists and their allies are planning a two-day picket this week of training sessions held by the Springfield law firm Skoler, Abbott & Presser. Skoler, Abbott—which also has offices in Worcester and Meriden, Conn.—specializes in...
by On Springfield | Jul 2, 2010 | On Springfield
The Springfield Health Disparities Project hosts CORI Independence Day tomorrow (June 30), where the public can learn more about the criminal record system and how it affects them. The Mass. Legislature has recently made significant several changes to the state...
by On Springfield | Jul 7, 2010 | On Springfield
I’d hoped I’d read the headline wrong: “Red Brick Books—Springfield’s Last Bookstore—hangs in there.”But in truth, I already knew it was true: I’d seen Johnson’s Bookstore, on Main Street, close up shop not longer...
by On Springfield | Jul 13, 2010 | On Springfield
As one of those dinosaurs who still prefers to read my news off the inky page, rather than the computer screen, I run the risk of missing some great stuff that’s only available on that world wide web all the kids are talking about—or, at least, finding it...
by On Springfield | Jul 16, 2010 | On Springfield
Channel 22 reported last night on the latest in a series of neighborhood walks organized by Mayor Domenic Sarno. According to the mayor’s office, the walks are a chance for Sarno and others (he was joined by members of the Springfield Police Department and the...
by On Springfield | Jul 19, 2010 | On Springfield
The city of Springfield got official word this week of the grant it received under the state’s Green Communities program. The city—one of 35 municipalities across the state to share a total of $8.1 million from the Mass. Dept. of Energy Resources...
by On Springfield | Jul 22, 2010 | On Springfield
It wouldn’t be summertime without a new wave of interest in the issue of prostitution in the city.This time around, it’s City Councilor Jimmy Ferrera who’s taking up the charge. Tonight, the Council will vote on proposed home-rule legislation,...
by On Springfield | Jul 26, 2010 | On Springfield
On the surface, it was a pretty straightforward affair: At its meeting Monday evening, the City Council approved a request from Mayor Domenic Sarno to lease the old Our Lady of Mount Carmel school on Margaret Street from the Springfield Catholic Diocese. Mount Carmel...
by On Springfield | Jul 27, 2010 | On Springfield
With state legislators’ summer holiday fast approaching, advocates and lobbyists are working hard to get their pet bills out of the House and Senate and onto Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk by Saturday, which marks the end of the current legislative session. To...
by On Springfield | Aug 3, 2010 | On Springfield
After months of construction work—and many more months of neighborhood bickering—the new Forest Park Apartment complex will be officially opened at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this Wednesday, July 28.The Forest Park Apartments are perhaps still better known...
by On Springfield | Aug 6, 2010 | On Springfield
It looks like Mayor Domenic Sarno and downtown club owners Steven Stein and Mike Barrasso are not exactly ready to kiss and make up. Earlier today, Sarno’s Law Department issued a cease-and-desist letter to the owners of the Paramount Theater, ordering them not...
by On Springfield | Aug 17, 2010 | On Springfield
Friday is the day I (sometimes) get an update on the oh-so-protracted process of returning full library services to the Mason Square neighborhood at 765 State St., the site of the former library branch. And while for too many weeks, the reports were an exercise in...
by On Springfield | Aug 20, 2010 | On Springfield
A recent post on Tom Devine’s “Cosmos Report” drew my attention to some interesting lawn signs being distributed by Tom Wesley, one of this fall’s Republican challengers for the 2nd Congressional seat currently held by Springfield’s own...
by On Springfield | Aug 23, 2010 | On Springfield
Eighty-three years ago this month, the Italian immigrants Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death, via electric chair, for the murders of two men during an armed robbery at a Braintree shoe company. Police believed Sacco and Vanzetti, who...
by On Springfield | Aug 26, 2010 | On Springfield
Twenty years after he first took office—and almost as long since he was supposed to leave that office, had he followed the self-imposed term limits he gave himself during that initial campaign—Hampden County District Attorney is about to retire. And the...
by On Springfield | Aug 30, 2010 | On Springfield
The on-going controversy surrounding charter schools —Do they unfairly siphon crucial money away from already struggling local schools to serve a self-selecting group of families? Or do they offer important models of educational innovation, and serve kids not...
by On Springfield | Sep 3, 2010 | On Springfield
Lest you think the recent changes to state criminal-record laws—known as the Criminal Offender Record Information, or CORI, system—don’t affect you, consider this: until recently, a criminal record was generated any time a person was arraigned in...
by On Springfield | Sep 7, 2010 | On Springfield
It’s been a rough news cycle for the candidates for Hampden County District Attorney, as one crucial election day—the Sept. 14 primary, which will narrow the crowded Democratic field to one—fast approaches. The drama was kicked off by a...
by On Springfield | Sep 13, 2010 | On Springfield
It’s hard to imagine how Henry Thomas, president of the Springfield Urban League, could have somehow missed this message. But let’s try it again: It’s time for you to leave 765 State St., and let Mason Square have back its library.Thomas’ first...
by On Springfield | Sep 15, 2010 | On Springfield
I initially missed the first 15 minutes or so of the Sept. 2 debate, on Channel 22, between the two Democratic candidates for the 9th Hampden state rep seat. (The two face off in tomorrow’s primary.) Fortunately, I got an email from one of my favorite political...
by On Springfield | Sep 20, 2010 | On Springfield
Former City Councilor Bruce Stebbins is returning to City Hall. As of last Monday, Stebbins, who served two terms of the Council, from 2006 to 2009, is the city’s business development administrator.According to a press release from Mayor Domenic Sarno’s...
by On Springfield | Sep 23, 2010 | On Springfield
More than a year of hard work by parishioners at Indian Orchard’s Immaculate Conception has paid off: Over the weekend, the Rev. Timothy McDonnell, bishop of the Springfield Catholic Diocese, announced that the church will not close after all. Immaculate...
by On Springfield | Sep 27, 2010 | On Springfield
The McKnight Neighborhood Council is the latest community group to come out in opposition to a wood-burning power plant planned for Page Boulevard.Last week, the McKnight council announced that its board had decided, by unanimous support, to ask the City Council to...
by On Springfield | Oct 1, 2010 | On Springfield
Is the City Council about the take dramatic action to finally restore full library services to Mason Square?At its Oct. 4 meeting, the Council will vote on an order to evict the Urban League from 765 State St., site of the former Mason Square branch library, which the...
by On Springfield | Oct 4, 2010 | On Springfield
Three proposed charter schools that would serve Springfield students have advanced to the final stage of the state approval process. Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick announced that the three were among 25 applications, selected from an initial group of 42, to be invited...
by On Springfield | Oct 6, 2010 | On Springfield
The City Council will not, after all, vote tonight on whether to issue an eviction notice to get the Urban League out of 765 State St., which the Council took by eminent domain in August of 2009 in order to restore full library services to the Mason Square...
by On Springfield | Oct 7, 2010 | On Springfield
Should Springfield mayor’s job come with a bigger paycheck?There’s been a move afoot over the last couple of years to raise the mayoral salary from its current $95,000 to something comparable to what a chief executive of a large operation in the private...
by On Springfield | Oct 12, 2010 | On Springfield
Three City Council committees will take up tonight a proposed ordinance to improve communications between the Springfield Police Department and residents who don’t speak English.The meeting of the Veterans, Administration and Human Services, Public Health and...
by On Springfield | Oct 19, 2010 | On Springfield
“It is time to take back our democracy and demand that our elected officials stand with everyday people—not the greedy bankers and corporations that crashed our economy and put families in crisis. Together we will stand against the politics of division and...
by On Springfield | Oct 20, 2010 | On Springfield
When Republican gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Baker makes a campaign in Springfield today, he’ll be joined by an unexpected supporter: City Councilor Tim Rooke, a life-long Democrat.Rooke tells the Advocate that he’s never before endorsed a Republican, but...
by On Springfield | Oct 25, 2010 | On Springfield
During my (mercifully short-lived) tenure as an editor at the Advocate, at the top of my list of pet peeves were sloppy mistakes, the kind that make editors and reporters slap their foreheads and then scramble for a hole to crawl into. Ironically, and also mercifully,...
by On Springfield | Oct 26, 2010 | On Springfield
As Election Day fast approaches, the Hampden County DA’s race is being reduced to a fight over Steve Buoniconti’s refusal to release his personal tax returns. And it looks like Buoniconti has no one to blame but himself.Buoniconti has described all the...
by On Springfield | Nov 8, 2010 | On Springfield
For reasons I can’t quite explain, I always get excited about Election Day. Don’t ask me why; I rarely find much to inspire me among the field of candidates, and even when I do, those candidates hardly ever win. But my misgivings about the larger political...
by On Springfield | Nov 9, 2010 | On Springfield
Mark Feb. 24, 2011, on your calendar: That’s the tentative date for the grand opening of the reclaimed Mason Square branch library. After interminable, and unconscionable, delays, it looks like the Springfield Urban League—which in 2003 bought the building...
by On Springfield | Nov 15, 2010 | On Springfield
Is there an issue that has proven more useful to Springfield politicians in recent years than the dread trash fee? To recap: in 2006, the Finance Control Board instituted a $90 annual fee for curbside trash pick-up, in an effort to plug up serious budget shortfalls in...
by On Springfield | Nov 17, 2010 | On Springfield
Mason Square residents were treated to a welcomed sight last week: a large moving van outside of 765 State St. The van was there to move the Springfield Urban League to its new home on the campus of Springfield Technical Community College—opening the way,...
by On Springfield | Nov 22, 2010 | On Springfield
Today’s the grand opening of the “Art & Soles Gallery,” a display of the public art project organized earlier this year by the Springfield Business Improvement District. “Art & Soles” features about 20 giant fiberglass sneakers...
by On Springfield | Nov 24, 2010 | On Springfield
It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving week without two sleep-deprived radio djs and a couple of giant tractor trailers.This morning, Rock 102’s Bax & O’Brien kicked off their annual Mayflower Marathon, a 52-hour fundraiser for Springfield’s Open...
by On Springfield | Nov 30, 2010 | On Springfield
Friday is the first home game of the Springfield Armor’s second season. The team, part of the NBA’s Development League, will play the Maine Red Claws at 7 p.m. at the MassMutual Center. Mayor Domenic Sarno will toss the ceremonial opening tip before the...
by On Springfield | Dec 1, 2010 | On Springfield
With unemployment benefits are set to expire today for about two million out-of-work Americans, activists in Springfield and around the state are organizing last-ditch rallies to persuade legislators to extend benefits.Congress has until midnight tonight to vote to...
by On Springfield | Dec 3, 2010 | On Springfield
Two great reasons to resist the early-December urge to hibernate and get out today:1) This morning, Springfield Technical Community College hosts a talk by Ramsey Clark, U.S. attorney general during the Johnson administration—a job he almost lost, event...
by On Springfield | Dec 6, 2010 | On Springfield
When the City Council meets on Monday, members will have to choose between two competing proposals regarding the controversial municipal trash free. And it’s hard not to see the battle as a kick-off to next year’s mayoral race. On the agenda for the Dec. 6...
by On Springfield | Dec 8, 2010 | On Springfield
Tonight’s the big showdown between Mayor Domenic Sarno and City Council President Jose Tosado over their competing visions for the future of the city’s controversial trash fee. Sarno wants to extend the fee for two more years; Tosado is calling for its...
by On Springfield | Dec 10, 2010 | On Springfield
On Thursday, a City Council subcommittee will take up a discussion of the city’s Riverwalk—and fans of the walking and bike path along the Connecticut River have a long list of the issues they hope will be on the table. An ad-hoc citizens’...
by On Springfield | Dec 15, 2010 | On Springfield
Today’s a day of political disappointments in Springfield.First up on the list of bad news: U.S. Rep. Richie Neal has been bypassed for the much-coveted chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee—a powerful position that could have yielded great...
by On Springfield | Dec 22, 2010 | On Springfield
As if the early sunsets and frigid temperatures weren’t bad enough, the coming of winter also signals an end to all that great fresh, local produce we’ve enjoyed all summer and fall, right? Wrong. The Valley’s rich—and growing ever...
by On Springfield | Dec 23, 2010 | On Springfield
Critics of the proposed wood-burning power plant in East Springfield continue to pressure the City Council to revoke the special permit it granted to the developers, Palmer Renewable Energy, in 2008. The $150 million project, which would be sited on Page Boulevard,...
by On Springfield | Dec 28, 2010 | On Springfield
Project No One Leaves, a group that fights for people living in foreclosed properties, had planned a protest this afternoon in Indian Orchard, where a family faces losing its home. The 1,260-square-foot home, at 38 Seneca St., was scheduled to be auctioned off at 4...
by On Springfield | Jan 5, 2011 | On Springfield
Amaad Rivera is not exactly receiving a universally warm welcome as he gets ready to join the Springfield City Council. Rivera will be sworn in to the Ward 6 seat at the first Council meeting of the new session, on Jan. 3. He’ll replace Keith Wright, who...
by On Springfield | Jan 6, 2011 | On Springfield
The city of Springfield has won a key victory in a high-stakes battle over the future of Hungry Hill’s now-closed Our Lady of Hope parish, with a federal court decision that keeps in place historic protections the church was granted last year. The Armory Street...
by On Springfield | Jan 7, 2011 | On Springfield
The Catholic Diocese of Springfield has responded to Tuesday’s federal court decision in the Diocese’s lawsuit against the City of Springfield, over the 2010 creation of a historic district at Our Lady of Hope Church. The district was created after the...
by On Springfield | Jan 13, 2011 | On Springfield
Last weekend, the Springfield Republican marked the end of Hampden DA Bill Bennett’s 20-year tenure with a rather flattering article headlined: “Hampden District Attorney Bill Bennett, who leaves office after 20 years, sought justice in unjust...
