PAYBACK’S A BITCH: There’s been a lot of noise recently about the Worcester Public School’s Chief of Finance and Operations Officer Brian Allen and his $12,000 pay raise. The debate over whether to give him the pay and benefit increase came as a measure to ensure he’d stay with the WPS after word got around that he’d been offered the budget director job for the Acton-Boxborough school district for the same salary he has now, but in control of a budget roughly 33 percent the size of the WPS. The superintendent trying to lure away Allen? Steve Mills, the Worcester assistant superintendent passed over by the city for the super’s job after James Caradonio retired.
LET’S GET BUS-Y: The Worcester Regional Transit Authority has benefited from the stimulus package to the tune of 15 brand new Gillig buses, four of which are hybrids. Ten of the fifteen new vehicles will be 30 or 40 feet long. The new vehicles significantly lower the average age of the WRTA’s fleet, which had some buses running since 1996. “We are very pleased to bring four new hybrids to Worcester, which will provide for a much more environmentally-friendly and more fuel-efficient operation. The hybrid buses boast anywhere from a 25 to 40 percent fuel advantage over the current WRTA diesel buses,” said WRTA administrator Stephen O’Neil via press release. According to the same release, these new buses will be more handicap and elderly accessible than previous WRTA buses.
WOOGLE VS. SHREWSBURY: After Worcester Mag’s article last week on bringing Google’s high-speed Internet to Worcester, we saw that Shrewsbury got on top of its game with a website asking residents to submit applications on behalf of the town and to come to four different open mic nights between March 9 and 12 at Shrewsbury Media Connection. There, they could record a quick video to upload to YouTube based on the questions “Why Shrewsbury is a great community for this project” and “What would you do with a gig?”… Not to be outdone, Worcesterites Brendan Melican and Scott Zoback have created “Woogle for Google,” an online petition and map that allows Worcester residents to “flag” their address on one big map and write a blurb about what having 1 gig-speed Internet would do for them and their community.
THE CLANCY-MOYLAN SHOW: It’s not often one finds a sense of humor at City Council subcommittee hearings — especially when the agenda items deal with asking residents to cough up money for sewer installments. But the dynamic between City Councilor and Public Works Chair Paul Clancy and DPW Commissioner Robert Moylan on Monday bordered on Johnny Carson/Ed McMahon (or at least Conan O’Brien/Andy Richter). When talking about Worcester’s appeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rising costs for water treatment, Clancy suggested to Moylan the case be tried by the Supreme Court, saying “You’ve got to get it in front of those conservatives.” On the same topic, when Moylan brought up the possibility of using rain gardens and plants to remove phosphorous and bacteria from waterways, Clancy replied “wet ponds, rain gardens; sounds very tropical, Commissioner.” Moylan responded with, “You want the piña colada franchise?”
AH, PRIORITIES: Billboard and sign size have dominated both the Zoning Board of Appeals and City Council agendas recently, but the full weight of the attention devoted to putting a moratorium on sign permits until the city can draft an ordinance for digital signs didn’t become clear until the issue was put up against another hot topic: the taxis vs. liveries situation. At Tuesday’s council meeting the 12 agenda items regarding taxi and livery regulations filed by Sam Rosario were given roughly seven minutes of discussion. Worcester signage: nearly 45 minutes.
Promotional Material: Two Assumption College seniors have won the WooTube 101 video competition for their four minute promotional video for the city and surrounding areas titled “Wootube 2010.” The winners, Gregory Sebastiao and Thomas Sleeper, entered their submission as the Hound Vision team, and will split the $1,000 prize. The competition was sponsored by the Consortium of Worcester Colleges.
