MT Hope

John Twomey 

Posted at 6:23 PM | Crime | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A Comment as Opposed to a Blog Entry

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John Twomey

Posted at 9:28 AM | Website | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Awesome!

Mount hope IS a great place to live.  ALL of my neighbors are good people that want to work TOGETHER to make ALL of Mount Hope an even better neighborhood!

I know Mount Hope is a great place and is capable of being even better if we ALL work together.  Don't we ALL want an area we can ALL be proud of?  We ARE the East Side!

DC

Posted at 11:28 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sidewalk Trees

Side walk trees are paid for by the city; however someone (an adult) must sign a commitment type of form with the city stating they pledge to care for the tree until it full takes and begins to grow (i.e. you have to water the tree in front of your home).  If anyone has empty sidewalk space and they would like to have a tree or two put in you need to contact the horticulturist (even if there is any place on your street that can fit it a nice tree) thru City Hall @ 401-4217740 and ask for the horticulturists' office and ask for and speak to/leave a message for Tom.

D. Cregg

Posted at 5:22 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A Real Fine Mess

This just in submitted by an anonymous poster presumably from the Grandview Street neighborhood.

WHAT DO THESE PICTURES SAY TO YOU?

Do they provide a general idea of what FILTH is present in our neighborhood?

Do they make you cringe?

Garage on Camp & Grandview

Do they make you think "What the heck are people thinking and do they have ANY CONSIDERATION FOR THEIR NEIGHBORS!"??

It has looked like this for YEARS.

The city has known about it for YEARS...........

Yet another example of how Mount Hope gets a pass on following the City's laws, housing codes and other ordinances.

Grandview & Camp Streets

The City of Providence has been called for years, buy numerous people, to try and get this mess cleaned up!

It is disgusting, unsanitary, and unnecessary!  What has to be done to get this mess cleaned up, and get our neighborhood cleaned up and make it the great neighborhood I KNOW IT CAN BE!!

How many calls, emails, complaints need to be made in order for this mess to get cleaned up?  City Hall HELP, we have only been asking and waiting for 4-5 years now!!!!!!!!!

Calls and complaints to City hall, the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood services, Code enforcement and Environmental services, and 4-5 years later we are still looking at this mess!

Let's ALL HELP EACH OTHER!!!!! Please call city hall at 401-421-7740 and ask to speak to Elise in the Mayor's office of neighborhood services. The phone number above will also allow you to call and submit a complaint to code enforcement and the environmental department.  The more calls we make the better chance we have of getting this mess cleaned up.

Clearly at this point the property owners are NOT going to take responsibility and clean their mess; it's time to take it to the next level!  MAKE THE CALL READERS!  WE PAY THE SAME TAXES AS EVERYONE ELSE ON THE EAST SIDE AND YOU CAN DAM WELL BET THAT THERE WOULD NEVER BE A MESS NEXT TO THE MAYORS HOME, SO WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO ACCEPT IT???

CALL CITY HALL. WE NEED YOUR HELP!  401-421-7740.

Grandview & Camp Streets

Grandview & Camp 

Posted at 11:30 AM | Issues | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Broken Windows Still

Why isn't the City putting all the weight of it's resources and agencies to correct the quality of life imbalance extant in Mt. Hope in comparison to all other East Side neighborhoods. Is the City racist? Do the City's policies toward Mt. Hope reflect institutional racism? Is criminality allowed to prosper in Mt. Hope because there is a small, influential minority population in Mt. Hope who are invested in the Drug Trade and who wield a disproportionate influence on how the police police and the City governs? To the detriment of the Real Mt. Hope? The law abiding, tax paying citizens of Mt. Hope?

Just look at these disgusting pictures of boarded up houses and drug dealing locations!

Knowles Street near the corner with Pleasant Street

Pleasant Street

Camp Street, corner of Camp & Grandview

Boarded up houses on Knowles and Pleasant, a house on Camp Street home to notorious drug dealers who operate in broad daylight with the windows blocked with heavy doors and a garage around back where drugs are peddled and is the site of public drunkenness on a daily basis?

I defy you to provide evidence of any other such properties in similar condition in any other East Side Neighborhood: any other open air drug markets on the East Side. It is just not tolerated in other East Side neighborhoods.

Why?

My best guess is that Mt. Hope is the only East Side Neighborhood with a measurable African American demographic. Drug dealing and dilapidated housing, clearly in violation of criminal law and housing codes, simply is not tolerated in other East Side Neighborhoods.

Institutional racism? Call it what you will, the situation exists.

Is this the fault of the African American Community in Mt. Hope? I think not. The embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope is embedded in the political/social institutions in Mt. Hope who have enabled the drug trade to flourish. Those who are part and parcel of the drug trade who masquerade as community activists and so-called pastors. Preying on their own community, contributing to Black on Black violence. The larger African American community in Mt Hope are victims of these entrepreneurs who prey on their own people with drugs and death.

Drug dealing in Mt. Hope is an African American run business: is that why the City is impotent, or even loath to enforcing the law. Is it institutional racism. The old, "Let them destroy each other, let them kill each other", as long as it doesn't spread to other, predominately white neighborhoods?

From the WPRI report:

Lt. David Schiavulli says "It's kind of the broken windows theory. If the neighborhood looks rundown, and the neighborhood looks unkempt, it invites crime."

The Broken Windows Theory

Hmmmn. Lt. Schiavulli may be a visionary up against the powers that be. I'm sure that if the Lt. had his way Mt. Hope would be free of drug dealing and rundown housing. But he is up against the entrenched political establishement who try to tie his hands behind his back so as to not upset the apple cart and the vote generating machine in the form of M-O-N-E-Y.

Politics is ugly, dishonest, and the new liberal residents of Mt. Hope do not deign to dirty their hands with inconvenient truths.
How convenient.

Yet politics means speaking up for your rights, politics means righting wrongs, setting things straight.

Where is Code Enforcement in Mt. Hope? Where is the Drug Squad, the NOCD, of the Police Department? Where is our Councilman, Kevin Jackson on the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope.

Are any of you asking these people where they are, what they are doing about these problems?

I guess it's just too embarrassing or scary to make waves, eh?

Not really! Not for a few! Anonymous tips have been rolling in along with cellphone pics. So, keep them coming.

Soon GCCC wil be doing some fundraising to upgrade this website, establish a dedicated tip phone line and to hire a top law firm to represent GCCC and Mt. Hope.

Keep your ears to the ground and continue to be proactive with phone calls to Code Enforcement and to the Police NOCD.

And click on the link below to send anonymous information.

Anonymous Tips

Posted at 10:20 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Search Terms Again

Below, find a few interesting search terms that people have used recently to access our Mt. Hope website.

Interesting.

I wonder what location they are referring to below? I know of only one that fits that criteria.

drug dealers who operate in broad daylight with the windows blocked with heavy doors and a garage around back where drugs are peddled and is the site of public drunkenness on a daily basis

And this is very interesting. God, I love monitoring the website stats.

why? my best guess is that [...] is the only east side neighborhood with a measurable african american demographic. drug dealing and dilapidated housing clearly in violation of criminal law and housing codes simply is not tolerated in other east side neighborhoods. institutional racism? call it what you will the situation exists. is this the fault of the african american community in [...]? i think not. the embedded drug trade in [...] is embedded in the political/social institutions in [...] who have enabled the drug trade to flourish. those who are part and parcel of the drug trade who masquerade as community activists and so-called pastors. preying on their own community contributing to black on black violence. the larger african american community in [...] are victims of these entrepreneurs who prey on their own people with drugs and death.

And finally:

people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education and now we ve got these knuckleheads walking around

And here are some miscellaneous search terms:

kevin jackson s voting record providence

street home to notorious drug dealers who operate in broad daylight with the

brown sex powder party

bad student sexparty

forced to strip home invasion

providence apple crisp miriam hospital

kevin jackson city councilman landsaping money providence

she was forced to strip

how can i put a stop to my drug dealing kids father

embezzlement providence tax collector s office

brown university sex parties

can a girl get pregnant at the age of 17 in providence is it illegal

evil female pirate

mount misery hellhound

cracker

Posted at 10:31 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Autumn in Mt. Hope

This is what autumn looks like around my house.

The Last Burning Bush

The Lookout.

Backyard

The Old Gentleman: Sterling at 16.

A crazy cat named Ulysses

Raspberries in November?

John Twomey

Posted at 11:04 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Renovation of Billy Taylor Park Kiddie Playground

Mt. Hope is finally joining the rest of the East Side with a state of the art kiddie playground in Billy Taylor Park.

Kudos to Councilman Kevin Jackson for securing the money for the project and to Bob McMahon, Parks Superintendent, for supervising the design and installation.

Our Mt. Hope kids deserve to be served at least as well as other kids on the East Side.

It's about time!

John Twomey

Posted at 3:51 AM | Community | Comments (0)

EAST SIDE RANT!!!!!!

"The class gap here is not only a grand canyon, but one that is filled with hate, entitlement, and some of the worst liberal hypocrisy I have ever seen. It borders on total ignorance."

"The moneyed people on the east side as a whole, are a bunch of exclusionary monsters, who successfully got rid of the Dunkin Donuts on Hope St.(one of the only affordable lunch counters) because the awning outside 'ruined the neighborhood aesthetic'."

I came across this insightful, heartfelt piece of writing on a discussion board on the Outside In site, simply titled Rant!!!!!!!!.

I suggest it for everyone here as a good read for it is quite apt in some regards and raises some further questions for debate.

Here is the link:

Rant!!!!!!!! (from Outside In)

Here are a few more excerpts:

"I am a native Rhode Islander who lives on the west side, and I have worked in a non-professional job on the east side for almost 5 years. I deal with the public in the Mount Hope/Rochambeau area, and I am currently looking for another job. I am sitting here on a Sunday afternoon so twisted up with anxiety over going to work tomorrow, that I have indigestion, and hives."

"I have lived and worked in several different urban communities in my life including New York City, and the east side is among the worst as far as inter-personal relations go. The people I deal with in the community from day to day are predominately white, and professional. Most are involved to a strong degree in academia-professors, grad students etc. The class gap here is not only a grand canyon, but one that is filled with hate, entitlement, and some of the worst liberal hypocrisy I have ever seen. It borders on total ignorance."

Our ranter sums it up neatly in a few paragraphs:

"To sum it up, the folks I deal with are cold, insulting, and very entitled. They play psychological mind games with me, and treat me like an indentured servant on a day to day basis. I have had so much of my personal self criticized from my wardrobe, to my RI dialect."

"Thanks so much for reading this, I hope others do too, and adopt a new way of looking at class issues apart from race. A little inclusion, faith and open-mindedness never hurt, and smiles on the street are always free."

You comments are welcome both here and on the linked discussion board.

Posted at 10:23 AM | Community | Comments (0)

East Side Broken Windows: Why isn't the City . . .?

Why isn't the City putting all the weight of it's resources and agencies to correct the quality of life imbalance extant in Mt. Hope in comparison to all other East Side neighborhoods. Is the City racist? Do the City's policies toward Mt. Hope reflect institutional racism? Is criminality allowed to prosper in Mt. Hope because there is a small, influential minority population in Mt. Hope who are invested in the Drug Trade and who wield a disproportionate influence on how the police police and the City governs? To the detriment of the Real Mt. Hope? The law abiding, tax paying citizens of Mt. Hope?

Just look at these disgusting pictures of boarded up houses and drug dealing locations!

Knowles Street near the corner with Pleasant Street

Pleasant Street

Camp Street, corner of Camp & Grandview

Boarded up houses on Knowles and Pleasant, a house on Camp Street home to notorious drug dealers who operate in broad daylight with the windows blocked with heavy doors and a garage around back where drugs are peddled and is the site of public drunkenness on a daily basis?

I defy you to provide evidence of any other such properties in similar condition in any other East Side Neighborhood: any other open air drug markets on the East Side. It is just not tolerated in other East Side neighborhoods.

Why?

My best guess is that Mt. Hope is the only East Side Neighborhood with a measurable African American demographic. Drug dealing and dilapidated housing, clearly in violation of criminal law and housing codes, simply is not tolerated in other East Side Neighborhoods.

Institutional racism? Call it what you will, the situation exists.

Is this the fault of the African American Community in Mt. Hope? I think not. The embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope is embedded in the political/social institutions in Mt. Hope who have enabled the drug trade to flourish. Those who are part and parcel of the drug trade who masquerade as community activists and so-called pastors. Preying on their own community, contributing to Black on Black violence. The larger African American community in Mt Hope are victims of these entrepreneurs who prey on their own people with drugs and death.

Drug dealing in Mt. Hope is an African American run business: is that why the City is impotent, or even loath to enforcing the law. Is it institutional racism. The old, "Let them destroy each other, let them kill each other", as long as it doesn't spread to other, predominately white neighborhoods?

From the WPRI report:

Lt. David Schiavulli says "It's kind of the broken windows theory. If the neighborhood looks rundown, and the neighborhood looks unkempt, it invites crime."

The Broken Windows Theory

Hmmmn. Lt. Schiavulli may be a visionary up against the powers that be. I'm sure that if the Lt. had his way Mt. Hope would be free of drug dealing and rundown housing. But he is up against the entrenched political establishement who try to tie his hands behind his back so as to not upset the apple cart and the vote generating machine in the form of M-O-N-E-Y.

Politics is ugly, dishonest, and the new liberal residents of Mt. Hope do not deign to dirty their hands with inconvenient truths.
How convenient.

Yet politics means speaking up for your rights, politics means righting wrongs, setting things straight.

Where is Code Enforcement in Mt. Hope? Where is the Drug Squad, the NOCD, of the Police Department? Where is our Councilman, Kevin Jackson on the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope.

Are any of you asking these people where they are, what they are doing about these problems?

I guess it's just too embarrassing or scary to make waves, eh?

Not really! Not for a few! Anonymous tips have been rolling in along with cellphone pics. So, keep them coming.

Soon GCCC wil be doing some fundraising to upgrade this website, establish a dedicated tip phone line and to hire a top law firm to represent GCCC and Mt. Hope.

Keep your ears to the ground and continue to be proactive with phone calls to Code Enforcement and to the Police NOCD.

And click on the link below to send anonymous information.

Anonymous Tips

Posted at 10:56 PM | Community | Comments (0)

East Side Crime Tips Roll In!

The East Side Mt. Hope neighborhood declares it has had enough of the Open Air Drug Market: the tips are rolling in in response to the call for anonymous tips identifying the most notorious drug dealing locations in Mt. Hope.

The consensus seem to be that the brown stucco house at the corner of Camp and Grandview is by far the most problematic.

The Corner of Camp & Grandview

Here is what some tips said about this location:

. . . the brown stucco house on the corner of Camp and Grand View is a drug den.

. . . and it's very active there between 2 & 4 . . .

. . . they seem to know when the cops are around.

. . . constant cars pulling over and people running back and forth along with the doors blocking all the windows are just about as blatant as you can get.

. . . obvious code violations and they get a free ride?

. . . how could the police not have busted these ignoramuses? It's so obvious.

. . . In my daily travels up and down Camp that house seems to be the last remaining drug pit.

Looking Down Camp Street, Corner of Grandview.

Wait a minute. Is that not the house that was the target of the GCCC's Local Nuisance Task force back in march of 2005?

I believe so: check out the blog at that time: March 2005

If I remember correctly a local womam and several other residents requested our help in addressing that problem, and so we formed the Local Nuisance Task force to address that problem that so impacted her children and her family and the families and children on Grandview that had to walk past the dealers every day. And we were quite successful at that time in shutting down that operation and getting code enforcement involved as well as the AG's office.

Well, some things never change: the minute you let your guard down . . well, no matter where you go, there you are.
They're baaaaaack!

Can someone please do the research necessary to find out who is the legal owner of that address?

Why are the windows blocked with heavy wooden doors? Isn't that a code violation as one tipster pointed out?

Can someone please call code enforcement and ask them to look into it?

Can someone please call the Police and get the NOFC involved: they are the department within the police who should be handling this blatant drug dealing right in our faces on Camp Street.

If you think the City and the Police are going to put a stop to drug dealing in Mt. Hope under their own initiative you got another think coming! It's in their best interest to look the other way and not make waves. Only if we lean on them relentlessly!

Keep those tips coming in. We've had tips on other locations and we will be revealing them soon enough as the information comes in.

Keep them tips coming: Anonymous Tips

Posted at 6:02 PM | Community | Comments (0)

WPRI: Pleasant Street Faces Lt. Schiavulli & Judge Tavares!

You've go to doff your hats to our own District 8, Lt. Commander Lt. David Schiavulli for taking the bull by the horns, being pro-active, and taking up Judge Tavares offer at face value and walking Pleasant St. with the Judge.

You know Pleasant Street? That's the street that imports criminality to the rest of Mt. Hope and to the rest of the East Side.

Below, read the report from WPRI TV.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - A city plagued by rundown homes. Absentee owners, letting their properties rot bringing down entire neighborhoods and worse these homes are often a magnet to crime.

Now a dramatic approach to holding homeowners accountable. Target 12 Investigator Tim White has the exclusive details.

Since our first story exposing a dead-beat property owner back in February, the Target 12 Investigators have been responding to your emails and phone calls demanding action on abandoned, rundown homes.

Now, we've learned police in Providence have teamed up with a judge to hit the streets, and get aggressive on a city-wide crisis. Pleasant Street in Providence, doesn't always live up to its name. Some homes so bad, Cindy Price's kids say "They're haunted, haunted houses."

At the very least scary. Smashed windows. Garbage, everywhere. The front door, kicked off its hinges. Cindy Price lives near abandoned home.

Tim White asks, So do you tell them don't go near that house?

Cindy: "Yeah I told them and neighbors children as well, I say don't go in that house because they told us someone burned it down."

Just up the road is another disaster. Police tell another abandoned house caught fire when a squatter inside knocked over a candle while smoking crack. The problem not unique, of course to Pleasant Street it's a city epidemic.

Lt. David Schiavulli says, "This is one of the worst ones in my district this house right here."

Schiavulli is a district commander with Providence police. Rundown homes, he says, are like welcome signs for hoods.

Lt. David Schiavulli says "It's kind of the broken windows theory. If the neighborhood looks rundown, and the neighborhood looks unkempt, it invites crime."

The evidence, bullet holes poc-mark the siding of a rundown home where five people were shot in just one night. The city of Providence identified more than 900 abandoned properties. Compounding the problem getting absentee property owners to fix their homes. The issue was brought to the attention of housing judge Angel Tavares at a meeting with Providence police.

Lt. David Schiavulli: "He gave all of us his phone number and said if there was a problem we can go directly to him."

Tim White: So you did.

Lt David Schiavulli: "I took him up on his offer and he's been great.

The call prompted Judge Tavares to leave the bench and walk the streets with Schiavulli.

Tim White: Nothing drives the point home like actually coming out here and seeing it.

Lt. David Schiavulli: "That's true and I think it helps him to deal better with it in court."

Sometimes, the mere presence of a judge prompts action. After talking to the judge on the scene he cleaned up the outside of the house all the garbage that was in the backyard. If a homeowner doesn't cooperate, the judge can put a home into receivership: placing someone else in charge and possibly putting the home up for sale or demolition.

A possibility for the Pleasant Street "haunted" house. Its destiny now sits in the hands of judge Tavares. To Price, that's good news.

Cindy Price: "A lot safer, because I know they are doing their job they're actually out here checking out the streets to make sure nothing is going on."

Lt. David Schiavulli says he was the first district commander to take up the judge on his offer, since then, others have followed suit.

Read the story and watch the video:

http://www.wpri.com/Global/story.asp?s=8824175

Posted at 8:23 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Wonderful Event in Billy Taylor Park

The Baptist Church in Mt. Hope today held a wonderful event in Billy Taylor Park reinforcing what I have always believed: that the African-American community in Mt. Hope is not just about the punks and drug dealers you see polluting our Mt. Hope neighborhood, but it is also about teaching young people to steer toward a righteous path.

From my backyard I heard glorious Gospel Music from a live band, I heard speaker after speaker expound on personal responsibility, duty to community, and commitment to moral values.

It was a pleasure to witness such an event in the park, for that is how our park should be used. Too many African-American events in BTP have degenerated into violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and property vandalism. This event was a wonderful exception!

Hats off to the congregation of the Baptist Church for not reinforcing the negative sterotype of African-American events featuring drugs and violence in Billy Taylor Park.

Prick us, no matter our race, and we all bleed red, and I believe we all bleed red for our neighborhood, held hostage for so long by the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope.

I hope the GCCC can look forward to working with the leadership of the Baptist Church to end, once and for all, the scourge of the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope.

John Twomey

Posted at 3:50 AM | Community | Comments (0)

The Temples of the Drug Trade in Mt. Hope

Ever wonder where the drug trade is centered in Mt. Hope and who controls the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope?

How much are you willing to contribute to end the death grip in which the embedded drug trade has held Mt. Hope for so many years?

Are you willing to overcome your fear and prejudice to end the embedded drug trade and it's death grip on Mt. Hope?

Are you willing to overcome your pride?

Are you willing to face hard and difficult truths?

Are you willing to accept that the powers that be have allowed the Mt. Hope drug trade to flourish because of political connections?

Are you willing to accept that financial and political corruption has for years contributed to and supported the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope?

Are you willing to recognize that African Americans are the foot soldiers of the Mt. Hope drug trade, as well as the Kingpins in Mt. Hope and that in recognizing that fact, that recognition does not make you racist or politically incorrect?

Are you willing to learn the truth and then do you have the courage to act?

Are you willing to support an all out effort to end the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope?

Are you willing to make financial contributions to cover legal fees to support the effort to end the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope?

Ask yourself these questions, because soon you will be called on to answer.

Would you attend a Mt. Hope Drug Trade Summit, where the Mayor's Office, the NOFC, (Narcotics Organized Crime and Firearms) division of the PPD, as well as the Providence Police Department hierarchy is called upon as well as all the power brokers of Mt. Hope, including the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association, the Camp Street Ministries, The Mt. Hope Learning Center, the Hector Family Chapel, Southlawn Corporation, and the Pleasant Street owners of that subsidized housing.

GCCC intends to form a coalition of the willing to end the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope. We will ask the States Attorney to join us, the Mayor's office, the Police Department, and all the non-profits operating in Mt. Hope.

With this coalition, if all are willing and cooperative, we should be able to get to the bottom of who controls the drug trade in Mt. Hope and why it has been allowed to go on for so long.

But most importantly, GCCC will be hiring a private sector law firm to dig, dig, dig the financial records of all involved and the public records of the City of Providence. When the overwhelming evidence comes to light, we will file a Class Action Lawsuit: it takes only 3 people to file such a suit, if we have 3, we will be filing a Class Action Lawsuit.

You want to end the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope? This is your last best chance to get in on it. Get out your checkbook, free up your time to attend this meeting.

Soon pictures will reveal the most active, alleged drug dealing locations in Mt. Hope, the people, the families behind the drug trade, the organizations that serve as a cover for the drug trade.

Everything will be done with the utmost respect for privacy, civil rights, and the letter of the law by accessing only public records. Anyone or any organization who has nothing to hide has nothing to fear.

You want to kill the embedded drug trade in Mt. Hope? Join the Greater Camp Concerned Citizens, contribute to this effort.

It's our last best mission.

John Twomey

Posted at 12:01 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Looking Back

Mt. Hope is in the process of becoming a great neighborhood!

Looking back only to 2005, one finds it difficult to recognize Mt. Hope, now, compared to what it was then.

Remember this mural in the park?




The neighborhood grew, or was dragged, out of the embarrassing shambles it was, with drug dealing rampant on many corners, garbage littering every street, constant noise, gang graffiti, and the constant fear of crime.

Remember the graffiti defacing our property?




The powers-that-be supported the status quo out of a sense of misplaced political correctness, blind to the self-destructive nature of the entrenched drug trade that for so long ruined Mt. Hope and poisoned its population.

Remember this guy: the Great Enabler?




I was looking at the stats for the website tonight, and I noticed that there were very many hits for the month of September, 2005, so I revisited that month on the blog.

http://www.mthope-eastside.com/blog/archives/2005_09.html

That was quite a month for the Mt. Hope Community Website. We had great blog contributions from Jen Bakios, from Shabnam Hashemi, from Nada, from Jessica Klein, from Uri and Ellen Baver, from myself, Nama Gridon, others.

Man, we had something going. I feel sorry that I could not sustain the momentum. It remains a beautiful month on the blog, beginning with Nadezhda Petrovic's wonderful poem, 1937, Leningrad, Before the Snow, to Kevin's post and Nada's cry for Katrina relief.

September, 2005 was also the month I convened a meeting to set up succession for the leadership of the GCCCC, because I, and my wife were in very poor health, and could no longer maintain the energy level needed for this type of community work.

Alas, jealous enemies soon poisoned the well with rumour and innuendo, and people fell for it without ever looking me in the eye, falling for the age old tactic of turning allies against one another: so I gave up on the people I thought I could count on to carry on the work.

But I continued on, advocating for Mt. Hope, as a free agent, and keeping the GCCC alive through this website. I'm happy I did, dispute my poor health and my disappointment in my neighbors and some so-called friends.

I can see and feel the results daily, and I greatly enjoy the new, peaceful Mt. Hope.

Take a look at the link below, September, 2005: this is what the website could have been and still be if everyone had foresight, fortitude, and thick enough skin to battle it out and not give up.

I never gave up, and look at Mt. Hope now.

Read the September, 2005 blog, and enjoy.

http://www.mthope-eastside.com/blog/archives/2005_09.html

John Twomey

Posted at 1:29 AM | Community | Comments (0)

The Blessing of the Windshield

The Blessing of the Windshield

Around 7:15 on the evening of July 8, I pulled out of the parking lot of my condo building at the Crossings and was blocked from going through the intersection by young males wrestling in the crosswalk. I honked my horn a couple of times, but they totally ignored me, so I

leaned on the horn for a couple of minutes solid. A friend of theirs with a skinny little pitbull threw water on my windshield from a bottle he was holding. I don't think it was holy water.

I turned the corner, got out of my car and confronted him. I told him I owned a unit in the building and did not appreciate him throwing water on my car. He said, "I don't care how many condos you own. I don't appreciate you honking your horn at my friends." I told him they were blocking the intersection. (Where are the police when you need them?)

He said, "Do you want to take it around the corner?" I said, "okay." We had more exchange of words on Larch Street, then I peeled rubber shooting up the street.

Just wanted to share that story with you.

I'll be moving later this month to the wilds of Coventry. I'll not miss Mt. Hope one iota.

Peter Cassels

Posted at 2:52 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Enduring Racial Slurs and Laughing in Mt. Hope!

Incredible Improvement in Mt. Hope Neighborhood

Tonight as I walked back home from the convenient store on the corner of Camp and Cypress I came across a young African American resident of Mt. Hope urinating in the front yard of my property on Camp Street. He was part of a group of about 10 or 12 young African Americans hanging out in Billy Taylor Park after the basketball league game tonight. As I walked past this group of young African American residents of Mt. Hope several of them began making racial comments behind my back: grey- haired Cracker, white asshole, etc., you get the drift. I asked the person who was urinating in my front yard, how he could do that on someone’s property, and that person apologized and told me that he was desperate and couldn’t hold it, and, having been in that same situation myself, I accepted that, but asked why he couldn’t have gone down into the park to do his business. He apologized again, and that was that,but his cohorts back in the park kept on with the racial slurs. I just laughed.

Grafitti on White Residents House on Knowles Street

I laughed because I understand their frustration, and I understand what is euphemistically called “reverse racism”, understand that racism is as pervasive among African Americans, if not greater, than any other racial segment of our society. Many African Americans hate white people, and this is especially true in Mt. Hope.

I have endured many racial slurs directed my way from African Americans since I moved to Mt. Hope 12 years ago. I always laugh, because I understand.

I laugh because I understand that the old ways have passed on in Mt. Hope and that much needed change has come, that it is no longer “business as usual in Mt. Hope” with drug dealers on every corner, drug dealers cruising around in rental cars, garbage and trash being tossed on the street and that behavior being accepted, indiscriminate noise, blasting rap music, disorderly conduct, urinating in public, public nuisance properties, this is gone the way of the old Mt. Hope. In the new Mt. Hope none of this is tolerated.

So, of course there is frustration in the dwindling African American community in Mt. Hope who are invested in the drug business. For too long the African Americans who were so deeply invested in the drug culture ran the neighborhood, to the detriment of most residents regardless of race, but no more.

African Americans involved in embezzling government funds from non-profit neighborhood organizations, a virtual patronymic grasp by the Brown family on the organization called the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Organization (a neighborhood organization in name only), and a councilman who acted as an enabler to criminal behavior from drug dealing to misappropriation of government funds to embezzlement, contributing to the chaos that was then Mt. Hope. Check the public records of the Camp Street Ministries and the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association if you have any doubts as to the veracity of these rumours.

"We own this neighborhhod!"

I’ll never forget the day, many years ago, when I went outside my house to break up a drug deal taking place on my street, and a young African American drug dealer told me, “We own this neighborhood, this has always been a drug neighborhood!”

Well, no more, Buddy, your day is done. Mt. Hope has changed and your type is no longer tolerated.

How did this change come about? Hard work, lots of lobbying of City Hall, demanding equal services of the City, especially the Police Department. Countless phone calls, letters, community activism. Lobbying for symbolic changes.

Let's make a list.

1. Getting the City to cut the tall hedges at the corner of Camp & Cypress. Drug dealers hid between the 8 foot tall hedges and dealt drugs day and night from that cover, and people were actually afraid to drive through that intersection. I convinced Bob McMahon, of the Parks Department, to cut them down. That eliminated their cover and largely eliminated drug dealing from the corner of Camp & Cypress.

2. The stop sign on the corner of Camp & Jenkins and the blinking stop lights on the corner of Camp & Cypress. I convinced the DPW to install these signs to interupt the flow of drug dealers who cruised the neighborhood in rental cars, giving the police more probable cause to stop drug dealers. Also, before the stop sign at Camp & Jenkins, cars would routinely get up to 60 mp on Camp between Cypress and Doyle.

3. Targeting nuisance properties, with the Attorney General’s Task Force, code enforcement, and the PD, where drug dealing flourished, especially the Perry house at Camp & Grandview, which for years was under construction and a nexus for drug dealing in the neighborhood.

4. The GCCC meeting where we cornered and chased Col. Esserman from the meeting over the shooting up of the District 8 substation and the impotence of the the police to act on the matter. Within days a news conference was called and an arrest made and charges filed in the case.

For years I, through the GCCC, lobbied for the following:

5. The removal of the horrible, tacky, violent drug glorifying mural in Billy Taylor Park: GONE!

6. The tacky, ghetto mural on the wall of the so called Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association at 199 Camp Street: GONE

7. The constant garbage in front of the Camp Street Ministries across from MHNA: GONE!

8. The re-routing of one-way streets in Mt. Hope to curb drug trafficking: it only took several more shootings, but the City finally changed Pleasant Street, the most notorious drug dealing street in Providence, to a one-way street up from N. Main, thus radically altering the ability of drug dealers to control Pleasant Street: DONE!

9. The June 10, 2007 riot in Billy Taylor Park: solely the responsibility of Councilman Jackson for pulling an illegal permit and failing to notify the police of the event in the park.

This served, for me, as the last straw: I hired a legal team and took legal action against the City. The action is still pending. But my lawyers discovered an ongoing pattern of systemic violations of City Ordinances for almost every permit pulled for Billy Taylor Park, and most permits featured the involvement of Councilman Kevin Jackson.

This legal action put the City on notice that this type of feudal governance by a City Councilor will no longer be tolerated and that the City is legally responsible for their adhering to or violating their own City Ordinances. DONE!

Relentless

It all adds up. If you want to change things you must be relentless. You can’t ask the police to do it for you. And you sure can't count on the liberal enablers. You have to hammer away at the powers that be. You must be relentless.

Mt. Hope has changed for the better. There is no comparison to what it was even a few years ago. We changed the way business is done in Mt. Hope. We changed the way the City thinks about Mt. Hope. We made it uncomfortable for criminals in Mt. Hope.

That’s why I laugh at racial slurs from African American drug dealers. I’m enjoying the New Mt. Hope. I’m enjoying my success. I hope all law abiding citizens in Mt. Hope are enjoying my success too.

I came to Mt. Hope as a knee-jerk liberal, but now, I'm a changed man. Thanks, Mt.Hope, for educating me.

John Twomey

Posted at 1:09 AM | Community | Comments (0)

On Grandview: Liberal Indoctrination Cripples Mt. Hope

Political correctness, the fear of being called racist or some other name, the fear of thinking outside the box, thinking differently, of becomming a social or political phariah is what cripples Mt. Hope and especially cripples the newer residents who moved in to Mt. Hope willing to embrace diversity only to discover that diversity, in Mt. Hope, is a one way street.

It seems that embracing diversity in Mt. Hope means that you must kowtow to the African-American political establishment of entitilment, acceptance of the embedded drug trade, junkies walking the street, an open air drug market, filth and litter on the streets, graffiti on your property, and a District 8 Police Unit, afraid to offend the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association (a neighborhood association in name only) and pressured by Councilman Kevin Jackson to go easy on the African-American drug dealers who ply their trade on Mt. Hope streets.

This is especially true, very sadly so, on Grandview, Peach,and Tecumsech, where a number of new residents invested their life savings to buy homes. Liberal, well educated, and indoctrinated into the straightjacket of political correct thinking, these residents made a token jab at community activism but quickly gave up when faced with forces that they just didn't understand.

For instance a police force that told them one thing then did another.

These liberals still think that the police will solve their problems, will stop the graffiti, will stop the drug dealing on their streets, will stop the filth and the litter and the vandalism.

What they fail to understand is that in order to do so the police would have to enforce the law among the African-American community in Mt. Hope, and in doing so they would be labed racist and accused of racial profiling. They'd rather go along to get along, with the MHNA and with Councilman Jackson.

The tactic used against liberals has always been to divide and conquer. This is evident in the Democratic Party's nomination process this year and is also evident in what has transpired in Mt. Hope.

Call a spade a spade, call crime, crime: crime is color blind, politics is not.

It just so happens that crime in Mt. Hope is generated by the African-American community and white liberals are afraid to confront that fact. They could be Irish, they could be Asian, but in Mt. Hope they are African-American.

Liberals are crippled in Mt. Hope, they don't know what to do.

They want to live in peace, free of crime, but they have been labled "lily white asses", by the African-American community, and I think that is a fitting name for those who are crippled.

The Mt. Hope community is already polarized between those who wish to maintain the status quo, filth, drugs, noise, vandalism, and those who want to live in a clean, safe, quiet neighborhood.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of the bad news, the truth.

But 99 percent of Mt. Hope residents, Africian-Americans, whites, or hispanics, the groups that make up most of Mt. Hope, want the same thing: a neighborhood free of crime, filth, and vandalism, a neighborhood that we can be proud to call home.

It is the established political forces in Mt. Hope that keep the community from achieving that dream. These forces include the Mt. Hope Neighborhod Association and Councilman Kevin Jackson, and every resident who becomes an enabler by default, by projecting the delusional,so-called politiclly correct thinking of entitilment and victimization onto the African-American community in Mt.Hope: thinking that passes for progressive or liberal politics but is nothing more than age old, despised, knee-jerk liberlism.

There is no excuse for what is going on in Mt. Hope.

Posted at 4:10 AM | Community | Comments (0)

What Gives: Graffiti on Grand view?

More Graffiti problems on Grand View Street

once again, homes on Grand View Street are starting to be defaced with inane, juvenile graffiti messages. the last rash of this happened last fall through Dec 2007, and affected pretty much every home on the block. the same message throughout: DTS. these letters were scrawled across my home last night, and this hasn't been the first time this has happened.

now, I'm pretty sure this is the work of stupid kids who have nothing better to do other than to prove their "worth" by defacing private property. somehow it makes them feel tough and strong. psychological profiles aside, this has to be stopped. several reports have been filed late last year requesting increased patrol, or some sort of action taken by the police in the district, and even the police had claimed they knew who it was. if this isn't enough to stop the defacing of property in our otherwise peaceful and beautiful neighborhood, then what's next to feel more secure in our homes? should we form neighborhood watches and posses? rope up the bad guys like an old western? i mean, c'mon, this is getting ridiculous.

something needs to be done. I feel like all the immediate attention is given to neighborhoods like those right off Brown University and in Wayland Square. I never really see the same level of attention given to our community. what gives?

Justin Chua

Posted at 11:26 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Molotov Cocktail

Remember the Hate Crime that Wasn't a Hate Crime?

In a great example of how the news gets spun, that is, interpreted in a way that suits a political objective, read the ProJo article below, but know that what really happened was a personal beef between individuals (someone pissed someone else off and they retaliated against them with a harsh warning) that got blown out of proportion, and you know what, the police don't have a clue as to who did what, but I'd bet all my money that the people involved know exactley what it was all about and who did what, but they ain't talking to the police.

Hate crime, not even!

Reward announced in attack

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, March 18, 2008

By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer

Herbert B. Stern, right, president of the Rhode Island Jewish Federation, announced the reward yesterday. Providence Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy is at left.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer
PROVIDENCE — Three Jewish organizations, in cooperation with the Police Department, yesterday announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for the attempted firebombing of an apartment where an Israeli activist lived.

Herbert B. Stern, president of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, denounced the attack as “a despicable act of violence” in a news conference at the Public Safety Complex. Besides the Jewish Federation, the sponsors of the reward are the Anti-Defamation League and Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design Hillel House.

Although the incident has inflamed the Jewish community, according to Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy, he said the police have nothing to indicate that “this was a terrorism-related incident or a hate crime” directed at a Jew.

In recognition of the fact that it has put the Jewish community on edge, Kennedy said, uniformed and plainclothes police have set up a special watch on Jewish institutions such as synagogues as a precaution.

A Molotov cocktail was thrown into the second-floor apartment of Josef Knafo, 25, a citizen of Israel, on Camp St., at 1:15 a.m., Saturday, according to the police, but it failed to ignite. A second Molotov cocktail struck the front of the triple-decker house, left a scorch mark and fell, flaming harmlessly, on a sidewalk. Nobody was injured.

Knafo, who lived in the apartment with two roommates, is a representative of the Jewish Agency for Israel, an organization that sends young people around the world to conduct education, religious and cultural programs. He is a graduate fellow at Brown University and an employee of Brown University/RISD Hillel House, a Jewish religious center on Brown’s East Side campus, according to the police.

While Jewish organizations alerted their constituencies on the premise that Knafo was the target of an anti-Semitic attack, the police advised rabbis and other Jewish community leaders to tell their followers to be aware but not to be alarmed.

Brown officials said they would make arrangements to have Knafo live elsewhere for the time being. But the police said the four other people living in the three apartments in the triple-decker, including his two roommates, will stay put.

The police disclosed virtually nothing about the investigation except to say that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is analyzing the two firebombs, including the nature of the fuel, and that Maj. Monty J. Monteiro, commander of the police Homeland Security Division, is leading the investigation.

The investigation is a combined effort that, according to Mayor David N. Cicilline, includes the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the city/state/federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, in addition to the ATF.

“We will give this top priority” at the Police Department, Kennedy vowed.

Copies of a personal-safety advice sheet published by the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-terrorism Advisory Council were distributed after the news conference, which was attended by rabbis and other Jewish community leaders as well as police officers and members of the news media. The crowd of 45 people in attendance in the auditorium at the complex was unusually large for a news conference.

Maj. Paul C. Fitzgerald, commander of the police uniformed division, recommended that Jewish leaders tell their followers to maintain a heightened awareness of their surroundings but not to alter their lifestyles.

“You don’t want to succumb to this” and live in fear of a perceived threat, he said.

But he also offered advice for action.

“If it doesn’t feel right. If it doesn’t look right. If the hair on the back of your neck stands up as a result of something you see, based on what’s transpired over the last 72 hours, then you need to call the police,” Fitzgerald said.

“Don’t take any actions on your own,” the major advised.

The police urged that anyone with information about the incident to call the police emergency telephone line at (401) 272-1111 or the police Investigative Division at (401) 243-6406 or send a text message to Citizen Observer, the police Internet-based alert system. Anonymous messages are accepted, but Kennedy pointed out that a tipster who does not identify himself would not be able to collect the reward.

To send information to Citizen Observer, text TIP651 followed by your tip to CRIMES (274637).

If someone claims the reward, the police will be involved in the decision whether to pay it, Kennedy said.

gsmith@projo.com

Posted at 8:36 AM | Community | Comments (0)

City Shovels Snow!

It's a Snow Day . . Hooray! ! !

And the boyz are taking a nap.

Last night I heard a gravel truck on my hilly street spreading sand for the expected storm. I guess our Mayor Ciciline doesn't want to be caught with his pants down again like the last snow debacle he mis-managed where our garbage wasn't even picked up that week. I heard the garbage trucks early in the morning so I guess that tactic worked for him: He dodged one bullet by making sure the garbage trucks could get around. I guess so did Nickerson of the DPW who is supposed to oversee snow removal and garbage pick-up.

This small storm is of no magnitude compared to the earlier storm where the city and State fell flat on their faces and made another fiasco of their response to their failure. Finger pointing was rampant and the blame was laid at the feet of sacrificial victims. The City Council made a show of trying to fire the School Superintendent only to back off a few days later practically admitting that it was all for show.

Well, it seems that they learned a lesson but as usual with this City administration, too little too late.

Still it's fun to watch the snow come down, and I only had to step out on my rear deck in my robe to shoot a couple of pictures with my trusty little point & shoot.

Just shooting across the street.

I like how the white snow covering everything gives the world a bit of a monochromatic look where any little bit of color seems to be magnified in intensity

The Muted Monochrome of Winter

Posted at 1:30 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Another Snowfall Fiasco for Ciccline

As of 9:30 pm, the news reported that there were still 40 Providence school buses, with kids still on them, stranded on Rt. 95!

How utterly embarrassing!

According to the Boston news, that city, harder hit than Providence, has its streets cleared and traffic moving as normal by 6 pm.

What's wrong with our bozos -- incompetence coupled with stupidity and with a "let them eat cake" attitude? They don't give a fuck as long as they can collect high taxes and put out overpaid and under-worked services like the police and fire departments. Let's not mention the salaries people like John Nicholson of the DPW, the man largely responsible for the snow removal fiasco, make. Your tax dollars at work.

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Posted at 12:44 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Mt. Hope v College Hill & Why

I've often maintained that that Mt. Hope gets short shrift from the City as far as services and this is nowhere as evident as when it comes to snow removal. I've often verified this by driving over to College Hill during a snow storm to see how those streets are being cleared compared to Mt. Hope streets. I am able to do this because I am self-employed and as such I control my own time, and I am driving around in a 4-wheel drive vehicle that can navigate even our streets that have not been cleared.

I draw a sharp parallel between College Hill and Mt. Hope because both neighborhoods are situated on steep hills, difficult to negotiate during snow storms. Yet in my observations college Hill streets are cleared immediately while even main streets in Mt. Hope, like Camp Street, Cypress Street, and Doyle Street are ignored for hours and hours.

Why is this? Is it because traditionally Mt. Hope has been home to a largely impoverished minority community? Where is our Councilman in this inequality? Our councilman who is so quick to come to the aid of our poor oppressed African-American drug dealers always alleging racial profiling and police harassment while denying that a drug dealing problem even exists in Mt. Hope? Why isn't he alleging discrimination in allocating City services to Mt. Hope? You can bet your ass he is advocating for the Summit, for he is a savvy politician who plays Mt. Hope and the Summit like a harp -- he knows just what these poor suckers like to hear.

But Mt. Hope is no longer a community dominated by minorities. Minorities are now a minority, largely marginalized to subsidized ghettos like that on Pleasant Street, while most of Mt. Hope is middle class property owners, and almost all of the property tax revenue is
generated by middle class homeowners.

So this poll goes to beg the question, why is Mt. Hope treated like a second class citizen and why isn't our councilman fighting for Mt. Hope? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, our Councilman lives on Jenkins Street and in case you've never noticed, Jenkins Street is always well ploughed.

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Posted at 11:54 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Criminal Activity on the Rise?

I've had a feeling that criminal activity has been on the rise in Mt. Hope lately.

My white picket fence on Camp street has been vandalized 3 times in the last month and yesterday they pulled down an entire eight foot section, which I immediately repaired.

In addition some knucklehead has a supply of firecrackers and has been shooting them off up near the Crossroads, Camp & Cypress, for the last week.

Yesterday I saw a three man foot-patrol around 5 thirty within hours after my fence had been vandalized but several hours before another round of firecrackers went off. They did not seem to have an impact on either event.

When a police officer came at our request to report the vandalized fence my wife had to cajole a report out of him. He repeatedly asked her if she was sure it had been vandalized and it wasn't the wind that blew it down. A picket fence, for chris-sake, you know the kind that the wind blows right through, right between the pickets, which are at least 5 inches apart.

I've noticed a group of young men, maybe 18 to 22, walking back and forth from Pleasant street to the Crossroads lately and I suspect them as the vandals. I also see them stop to look into any cars parked along Camp, looking, I suppose, to see if there is anything in plain sight that they could break in and steal.

I'm sure others have made similar observations.

John

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Posted at 4:12 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Hightime for Lowlifes

Yes, we have some nice graffiti on the side of our building. Couple that with my roommate's rims being stolen and the constant trespassing by neighborhood lowlifes, it's been a good month!

Adam

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Posted at 2:31 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Sox Sweep Series: World Champs!!!

A long strange perilous journey

The Red Sox won the World Series again. Front-runners from April to the end of October the Sox shut all doubters mouths by never faltering enough to let the hellounds (New York Yankees) catch up to them and by narrowly escaping getting their scalps handed to them by the Indians (Cleveland).

All the people were waiting for Crazy Face . . .

The victory parade began at noon today and rolled through the streets of Boston. A special flatbed truck carried Jonathon Papelon so that he could do his riverdance to the music of the DropKick Murpheys.

Superstar!

Four Game Sweep

The four game sweep of the rockies was a team effort from top to bottom with clutch contributions from the manager, a pinch hitter, defensive replacements, rookies, the bullpen, the starting pitchers and every position player. What a satisfying victory!

Pedy makes a play -- Dustin Pedroia - Rookie Extraordinarie

Again, Oki Doki and Paps came in to save the game despite being tired and worn from almost overuse in the playoffs. But they had just enough gas left to get us to the finish line. Paps gave us a scare in the ninth with a mistake that was washed away by rookie Jacoby Ellsbury's great leaping catch at the wall.

Jacoby Ellsbury defensive replacement for Manny in left field catches penultimate out in game four.

Mike Lowell won the World Series MVP award, and it was well deserved and it was wonderful to see him get the recognition he deserves after flying beneath the radar all season and being nearly overlooked. What a classy player.

MVP Mike Lowell connects for a home run in game four.

But this is not the time for a review of the Sox season but a time for celebration and for bathing in the excitement that sweeps New England.

Some must reading for Red Sox fans, Jackie McMullen's Measure this teams worth in sox & bonds.

Also of interest, Stan Grossfeld's Team on cloud nine, but flight is low-key

Bob Ryan gives tribute to the much maligned Tito Francona, who has never lost a World Series game being now 8 and 0, in his, In post season Francona was impeccable

For a real treat check out the fan blog The Soxaholic for their unique take on the post-modern angst of the Boston fandom and their relationship to the New York fandom using a clever take on the comic strip.

Congratulations, Boston Red Sox!

Posted at 2:59 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Interested Resident Speaks

I have been looking for a community outlet to Mt. Hope and am extremely excited to have coincidentally stumbled on to this. I too am so disappointed in the lack of addressing the real concerns in the neighborhood as to the lack of workshops that should be available to the youth as well as young adults in the neighborhood.

I would never consider myself an Uncle Tom but an African American man who takes pride in home ownership and a man who wants to take care of his family. The men in the neighborhood must make a stand and stick to their morals to make a change in the neighborhood.

Let our actions speak louder than the words that so happen to fall on deaf ears. We can never expect to make any changes unless we make them first. So I say this to say this; Is there anyone willing to make this change?????

Although One person can make a change but I feel strongly that this MUST be a unified effort in order to make any inroads in our great melting pot we call Mount Hope.

Interested Resident

Posted at 12:50 PM | Community | Comments (2)

Sox Stay Solvent: Beckett Seals Solid Sale 7:1

Sox stay alive in one of the most entertaining outings of the season given Beckett's performance and the pre-game and post-game comments by Manny and Beckett.

In a games-man-ship ploy that may have backfired, the Indians trotted out an ex-girlfriend of Beckett's, an aspiring country singer, to sing the national anthem. When a reporter asked Beckett how he felt about the Indians doing that, in a live post-game interview, Beckett said, without a moments hesitation,

I don't have any fucking control over what they do, I just go out there to pitch my game. I think it's great that they gave a friend of mine a free ticket to see the game.

Yesterday Manny created some controversy by saying:

We play with confidence every game. Hey, If it doesn't happen, so who cares? It's not like it's the end of the world. We'll be back next year to try again."

Beckett: Not Waiting for Godot (or Lofton)

This was a great team victory, but all you really have to know about it is that Beckett dominated in one of the all time great Red Sox clutch pitching performances of all time. He gave up one lousy run and that run should not have scored. Did I say all time" That includes Beckett's post-game comment. I thought I mis-heard until Tom Carron came out with the disclaimer, "Of course NESN is not responsible for what is said in post-game interviews."

Way to go Josh! Oh say can you see.

Posted at 12:34 AM | Community | Comments (0)

A Cri de Coeur Against the Forces of Self-sabotage

Someone sent me a link to New York Times op-ep columnist Bob Herbert's recent column, so thank you, good catch, I think it will fit quite nicely as a follow up to the Cosby post a few days ago. You can read it on line by clicking this link
Tough, Sad and Smart or just continue reading.

Bob Herbert

Tough, Sad and Smart
By BOB HERBERT

They are a longtime odd couple, Bill Cosby and Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint, and their latest campaign is nothing less than an effort to save the soul of black America.

Mr. Cosby, of course, is the boisterous veteran comedian who has spent the last few years hammering home some brutal truths about self-destructive behavior within the African-American community.

“A word to the wise ain’t necessary,” Mr. Cosby likes to say. “It’s the stupid ones who need the advice.”

Dr. Poussaint is a quiet, elegant professor of psychiatry who, in public at least, is in no way funny. He teaches at the Harvard Medical School and is a staff member at the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston, where he sees kids struggling in some of the toughest circumstances imaginable.

I always wonder, whenever I talk to Dr. Poussaint, why he isn’t better known. He’s one of the smartest individuals in the country on issues of race, class and justice.

For three years, Mr. Cosby and Dr. Poussaint have been traveling the country, meeting with as many people as possible to explore the problems facing the black community.

There is a sense of deep sadness and loss — grief — evident in both men over the tragedy that has befallen so many blacks in America. They were on “Meet the Press” for the entire hour Sunday, talking about their new book, a cri de coeur against the forces of self-sabotage titled, “Come On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors.”

There weren’t many laughs over the course of the hour. Speaking about the epidemic of fatherlessness in black families, Mr. Cosby imagined a young fatherless child thinking: “Somewhere in my life a person called my father has not shown up, and I feel very sad about this because I don’t know if I’m ugly — I don’t know what the reason is.”

Dr. Poussaint, referring to boys who get into trouble, added: “I think a lot of these males kind of have a father hunger and actually grieve that they don’t have a father. And I think later a lot of that turns into anger. ‘Why aren’t you with me? Why don’t you care about me?’ ”

The absence of fathers, and the resultant feelings of abandonment felt by boys and girls, inevitably affect the children’s sense of self-worth, he said.

The book lays out the difficult route black people will have to take to free the many who are still trapped in prisons of extreme violence, poverty, degradation and depression.

It’s a work with a palpable undercurrent of love throughout. And yet it pulls no punches. In a chapter titled “What’s Going on With Black Men?,” the authors (in a voice that sounds remarkably like Mr. Cosby’s) note:

“You can’t land a plane in Rome saying, ‘Whassup?’ to the control tower. You can’t be a doctor telling your nurse, ‘Dat tumor be nasty.’ ”

Racism is still a plague and neither Mr. Cosby nor Dr. Poussaint give it short shrift. But they also note that in past years blacks were able to progress despite the most malignant forms of racism and that many are succeeding today.

“Blaming white people,” they write, “can be a way for some black people to feel better about themselves, but it doesn’t pay the electric bills. There are more doors of opportunity open for black people today than ever before in the history of America.”

I couldn’t agree more. Racism disgusts me, and I think it should be fought with much greater ferocity than we see today. But that’s no reason to drop out of school, or take drugs, or refuse to care for one’s children, or shoot somebody.

The most important step toward ending the tragic cycles of violence and poverty among African-Americans also happens to be the heaviest lift — reconnecting black fathers to their children.

In an interview yesterday, Dr. Poussaint said: “You go into whole neighborhoods and there are no fathers there. What you find is apathy in a lot of the males who don’t even know that they are supposed to be a father.”

The book covers a great deal that has been talked about incessantly — the importance of family and education and hard work and mentoring and civic participation. But hand in hand with its practical advice and the undercurrent of deep love for one’s community is a stress on the absolute importance of maintaining one’s personal dignity and self-respect.

It’s a tough book. Victimhood is cast as the enemy. Defeat, failure and hopelessness are not to be tolerated.

Hard times and rough circumstances are not excuses for degrading others or allowing oneself to be degraded. In fact, they’re not excuses for anything, except to try harder.

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October 16, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
New York Times

Posted at 11:42 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Tribe Tattoos & Traumitizes our Troubled Team

The Red Sox face elimination Friday in a do or die game in which two aces will face off again, Becket and Sabathitia.

The indians took a commanding 3 to 1 lead in the series.

It all unraveled in the 5th last night, a dropped pop foul, a mis-played shot up the middle, in a game of inches these two flukes sent Tim Wakefield to an early shower despite the fact he had pitched well and had been in command. Dorchester's own Manny Delcarmen came in in relief and served up a juicy fastball to shortstop Johnny Peralta that ended up in the right rield stands for a 3 run homer. That was all she wrote.

The Sox bats, except for Papi & Mannny for the most part, have been useless. The big lugs can't win it all by themselves.

Hang down your head Delarmen

A Sox win on Friday will keep their hopes alive and bring the series back to Boston.

Posted at 11:30 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Bill Cosby's Speech to the NAACP

Comedian and Black Activist Bill Cosby was in the news again promoting his new book, COME ON, PEOPLE! ON THE PATH FROM VICTIMS TO VICTOR of which you can read a review by clicking on the link to the BlackVoices Blog.

Cosby has been excoriated by some in the black community for truth telling and for the so called "airing of dirty laundry" in front of white people. Much of this comes from his speech delivered to the NAACP in 2004, a speech which sounds to me like an unscripted, off the cuff speech by someone who just grew tired of the same old rhetoric of victimhood.

Bill Cosby delivering his speech to the NAACP

If you'd like to hear this controversial speech you can hear it by clicking on this link Bill Cosby: 2004 NAACP Speech/ American Rhetoric or you can read it here. It is one freaking incredible speech!

Bill Cosby Speaking to the 2004 NAACP Convention

Ladies and gentlemen, I really have to ask you to seriously consider what you’ve heard, and now this is the end of the evening so to speak. I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, “David, listen to me. It’s not what’s he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing."

Ladies and gentlemen, these people set -- they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.

Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.

I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?

The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to ask doing things for you. You can’t keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you . God was there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. That’s where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, “I’m going to find a way.” I wasn’t there when God said it -- I’m making this up. But it sounds like what God would do.

We cannot blame white people. White people -- white people don’t live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still don’t know us as well -- they stay open 24 hours.

I’m looking and I see a man named Kenneth Clark, he and his wife Mamie. Kenneth’s still alive. I have to apologize to him for these people because Kenneth said it straight. He said you have to strengthen yourselves, and we’ve got to have that black doll. And everybody said it. Julian Bond said it. Dick Gregory said it. All these lawyers said it. And you wouldn’t know that anybody had done a damned thing.

50 percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse? I want somebody to love me. And as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them. All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” These people want to buy the friendship of a child, and the child couldn’t care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever we’ve done, we still fear our parents. And these people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid -- $500 sneakers -- for what? They won’t buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.

Kenneth Clark, somewhere in his home in upstate New York -- just looking ahead. Thank God he doesn’t know what’s going on. Thank God. But these people -- the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged: “The cops shouldn’t have shot him.” What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother." Not, "You’re going to get your butt kicked." No. "You’re going to embarrass your mother." "You’re going to embarrass your family." If you knock that girl up, you’re going to have to run away because it’s going to be too embarrassing for your family. In the old days, a girl getting pregnant had to go down South, and then her mother would go down to get her. But the mother had the baby. I said the mother had the baby. The girl didn’t have a baby. The mother had the baby in two weeks. We are not parenting.

Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack -- and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).

Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We’ve got to take the neighborhood back. We’ve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It’s right around the corner. It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk. “Why you ain’t where you is go, ra.” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with, “Why you ain’t…” You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they’re moving ahead on this. Well, they know they’re not; they’re just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you’re just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.

Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousin’s house.

They sit there and the cousin says, “What are you doing here?”

“I just killed somebody, man.”

“What?”

“I just killed somebody; I’ve got to stay here.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Well, give me some money, I’ll go….”

“Where are you going?”

“North Carolina.”

Everybody wanted to go to North Carolina. But the police know where you’re going because your cousin has a record.

Five or six different children -- same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you’re going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you’re making love to. You don’t who this is. It might be your grandmother. I’m telling you, they’re young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you’re twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By the time you’re twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. I’m just predicting.

I’m saying Brown versus the Board of Education. We’ve got to hit the streets, ladies and gentlemen. I’m winding up, now -- no more applause. I’m saying, look at the Black Muslims. There are Black Muslims standing on the street corners and they say so forth and so on, and we’re laughing at them because they have bean pies and all that, but you don’t read, “Black Muslim gunned down while chastising drug dealer.” You don’t read that. They don’t shoot down Black Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all. And your neighborhood is then clear. The police can’t do it.

I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves? It’s our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time. And I’ve got good news for you. It’s not about money. It’s about you doing something ordinarily that we do -- get in somebody else’s business. It’s time for you to not accept the language that these people are speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown V. Board of Education if nobody wants it?

What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why haven’t they been parented to shut up? To go up to girls and try to get a club where “you are nobody....” This is a sickness, ladies and gentlemen, and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They don’t know anything. They don’t have anything. They’re homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees: “He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything.” Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on, too.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for the award -- and giving me an opportunity to speak because, I mean, this is the future, and all of these people who lined up and done -- they’ve got to be wondering what the hell happened. Brown V. Board of Education -- these people who marched and were hit in the face with rocks and punched in the face to get an education and we got these knuckleheads walking around who don’t want to learn English. I know that you all know it. I just want to get you as angry that you ought to be. When you walk around the neighborhood and you see this stuff, that stuff’s not funny. These people are not funny anymore. And that‘s not my brother. And that’s not my sister. They’re faking and they’re dragging me way down because the state, the city, and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because they don’t want to accept that they have to study to get an education.

We have to begin to build in the neighborhood, have restaurants, have cleaners, have pharmacies, have real estate, have medical buildings instead of trying to rob them all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, please, Dorothy Height, where ever she’s sitting, she didn’t do all that stuff so that she could hear somebody say “I can’t stand algebra, I can’t stand…" and “what you is.” It’s horrible.

Basketball players -- multimillionaires can’t write a paragraph. Football players, multimillionaires, can’t read. Yes. Multimillionaires. Well, Brown v. Board of Education, where are we today? It’s there. They paved the way. What did we do with it? The White Man, he’s laughing -- got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out -- rest of them in prison.

You got to tell me that if there was parenting -- help me -- if there was parenting, he wouldn’t have picked up the Coca Cola bottle and walked out with it to get shot in the back of the head. He wouldn’t have. Not if he loved his parents. And not if they were parenting! Not if the father would come home. Not if the boy hadn’t dropped the sperm cell inside of the girl and the girl had said, “No, you have to come back here and be the father of this child.” Not ..“I don’t have to.”

Therefore, you have the pile up of these sweet beautiful things born by nature -- raised by no one. Give them presents. You’re raising pimps. That’s what a pimp is. A pimp will act nasty to you so you have to go out and get them something. And then you bring it back and maybe he or she hugs you. And that’s why pimp is so famous. They’ve got a drink called the “Pimp-something.” You all wonder what that’s about, don’t you? Well, you’re probably going to let Jesus figure it out for you. Well, I’ve got something to tell you about Jesus. When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus. Look at them. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your friends. Let’s try to do something. Let’s try to make Jesus smile. Let’s start parenting. Thank you, thank you.

Bill Cosby, to the NAACP, 2004

Posted at 11:42 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Sox Tied 1 - 1 in ALCS

After a handy victory in Game 1 the Sox lost a brutal game 2, extra inning battle that wasn't over till after 1 am Sunday morning. The deadly dagger that did 'em in was delivered by old friend Trot Nixon with a pinch hit game winning single that drove in the decisive run.

I told them not to let Trot go. And the guy who replaced him hasn't won a game for us all season.

Trot Delivers

Trot's Instant Replay

The Sox and the Tribe go at again tonight in Jacobs Field in Cleveland. Dice-k on the mound for the Red Sox.

Posted at 6:38 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Racists in Mt. Hope

Several times in the last week, I have been called a "cracker" as I walked through or drove by the Crossroads (Camp & Cypress) by groups of young thugs.

This overt racism is intolerable. Do I go around yelling the N word? Of course not. Why do I have to put up with being called a "cracker" by young black men who likely don't even know the etymology of the term?

There is overt racism in Mt. Hope. The next time I'm called a "cracker" I am going to confront the thugs and likely risk being harmed.

I know the real estate market is tough right now, but I'm going to sell and get the f*** out of this open sewer of a neighborhood while I still can. Any white person who continues to live here with these racists is nuts.

Peter Cassels

Posted at 11:09 PM | Community | Comments (1)

Big Daddy, Big Papi & Manny bien Manny!

After sweeping the Angels 3 straight the Sox are resting up for the ALCS against the Cleveland Indians. The winner takes home the American League Pennant.

Curt Schilling, dubbed "Big Daddy" by Jon Papelbon, came through in dramatic fashion against an injury weakened Angels lineup with 7 strong innings, and Papi and Manny provided the fireworks with back-to-back homers.

Big Daddy

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Big Papi

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Manny bien Manny

Again the champagne flowed freely after clinching the first round playoff, and Jackie MacMullan, of the Boston Globe, wrote a nice article on the frat-boy like celebration, They're soaking it all in which you can read by clicking the title link or continue reading below the fold.

They're soaking it all in

By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Columnist | October 8, 2007

ANAHEIM, Calif. - It was a frat party run amok, a band of delirious baseball brothers who raucously celebrated as if they had won the World Series.

The Boston Red Sox haven't done that - yet. But they unabashedly partied like it was 2004 yesterday afternoon after thrashing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 9-1, to complete a thoroughly humiliating sweep of the best the West had to offer.

As the smell of sweat and champagne wafted throughout Boston's clubhouse, the Red Sox let loose, hugging and shouting and dancing to the heavy beat of their victory tunes. Kevin Youkilis, clad in royal blue swim goggles, screamed with delight as he doused Mike Lowell with a champagne and Budweiser cocktail. Jonathan Papelbon screeched like a little kid with a liquor license, tormenting anyone and everyone in his path with a bath of liquid refreshments.

David Ortiz, who knocked yet another ball out of the park yesterday, traded some elbow high-fives, then quickly donned a rain poncho and retreated to the back of the room. Manny Delcarmen, the pride of Hyde Park, grabbed his own bottle of bubbly and promptly poured it down Papelbon's pants.

General manager Theo Epstein, who on this day did not have to answer questions about J.D. Drew's production or Eric Gagné's price tag, smiled broadly and proclaimed, "This is fun. The guys have worked so hard . . . "

Slugger Manny Ramírez interrupted Epstein's victory speech by drenching the young GM with a bucket full of ice water. With no Gatorade readily available, it was the next-best thing to the well-known postgame tradition.

With the Angels safely eliminated, the Red Sox happily put the playoff button on pause for a moment to enjoy their accomplishments. The beauty of these celebrations is it doesn't matter whether you were a playoff hero or a playoff scrub. Kyle Snyder and Curt Schilling were indistinguishable in the madness that unfolded late yesterday. Both were soaked in alcohol, and mobbed by teammates.

The question was raised whether such a spirited celebration was premature - and, perhaps, a bit overdone. After all, winning a Division Series was hardly the established goal when this team trucked its gear down to Fort Myers, Fla., in February. No one in the clubhouse is supposed to be truly satisfied until the Red Sox win another championship.

"We understand that," said manager Terry Francona. "We haven't accomplished all that we've wanted to yet. But I don't mind this. The emotion you see in here is real."

Who could help but notice Jon Lester quietly taking it all in, knowing one year ago at this time his life - never mind his baseball future - was so cloudy because of a shocking cancer diagnosis? And there was Delcarmen, who grew up idolizing the team of his native city, who shuttled back and forth to Pawtucket wondering if he would ever get his chance to prove he belonged in the big leagues.

"I'm living my dream right now," he said. "All I ever wanted was to play for the Boston Red Sox, to have a chance to be in a playoff series. It's even sweeter, too, because I'm here with Pap [Papelbon] and [Dustin] Pedroia. We were in the minors together, hoping for the day something like this would happen to us."

Red Sox owner John Henry visited the clubhouse and offered his congratulations to his ball club, upon which he, too, was subjected to a victory bath of Bud and bubbly. Asked to characterize his team, the owner answered, "Relentless. That's the word that came up today. The lineup we had out there was so perfect. When you drop Manny back into that four spot, behind Ortiz and ahead of Mike Lowell, I can't imagine anything better. And Schilling - every pitch sequence was so crisp. It was a joy to watch.

"This group totally reminded me of the teams from 2003 and 2004. But even those teams didn't have this kind of bullpen."

The stars appear to be aligned for the Old Towne Team. Schilling fired seven shutout innings, aided in the third inning when catcher Jason Varitek chased down a tricky pop fly, dived for it, bobbled it, then hung on for the third out to end a bases-loaded situation.

As they have done so many times before, Boston's batters gave their pitcher some subsequent breathing room. Ortiz led off the fourth with a towering home run to right field, then Ramírez followed with a shot to center field.

"Manny and I are the heart of this team," proclaimed Big Papi afterward. "This was our short series. We didn't want to waste any time. We wanted to win this one and get going. When Manny and I are swinging the bat like this, we are very tough to beat."

He is right. With timely hitting, timely pitching, and consistent defense, the Red Sox are peaking at the right time. There are a number of alumni from the 2004 championship team - Ortiz, Ramírez, Varitek, Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Youkilis, Mike Timlin, and Doug Mirabelli - but there are also a collection of kids who have heard all about the World Series wins, but were itching to create their own memories.

"It's a beautiful scene," said Papelbon, in between ripping open beers with his teeth. "It is what all of us have been working toward. And now we're here, and for a little while, at least, we're going to have some fun."

The fun is officially over this morning. The Angels must be relegated to the past, along with the champagne and the Budweiser and the buckets of ice.

If the frat boys want another party, they better be ready to get back to work.

Posted at 3:46 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Manny Being Walk Off Manny: 6 - 3 Sox

In the bottom of the ninth with the game tied 3 to 3, with a man on, the Angles walk Big Papi to pitch to Manny -- lights out!

Did he know it was gone!

Manny Rameriez hit his first walk off home run of his career and it could not have come at a more clutch time: bottom of the ninth, 2 outs, and men in scoring position. They walked Big Papi to pitch to Manny, and Manny made them pay.

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Manny knew, the catcher knew

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Manny dives into the scrum at home

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Papi: "They walk me to get to you!"

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The Fan stole the ball! The fan stole the ball!

This youjng man may have made the play of the game by keeping Manny's foul ball from being caught. After Manny drew a walk, loading the bases, and Lowell followed with a sacrifice fly to score the man from third tying the game 3 all.

Sox up 2 games to none: Big Schill up next in LA.

Posted at 3:12 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Playoff Pandemonium

Jerry Remy is officially the President of Red Sox Nation and will be the dignitary throwing out the first ball. The Sox are Eastern division Champions. Playoff Pandemonium begins now.

Tito Francona

This ALDS should be a great match up for the Sox. We've the better record head to head. But it can be interesting in the playoffs where pitching and defense usually wins. The Angles play small ball and do it in classic manner: they hit and run, they bunt to move a runner over, they go from first to third on a single and score from first, and they steal a lot of bases.

Old friend Orlando Cabrarea put together a great year and he will be dancing off base trying to distract our pitchers and taunt our catchers. Josh Beckett's main job tonight, keep those speedy Angles off the base paths.

Posted at 6:22 PM | Community | Comments (0)

The New Mural in Billy Taylor Park / Joseph I. Hector Victims of Crime Day

A new mural appeared in Billy Taylor Park courtesy of a $4500 grant orchestrated by Rep. Gordon Fox on September 22, during the event Joseph I. Hector Victims of Crime Day.

ProJo covered the event in a fine article by Philip Marcelo, titled, Mount Hope neighbors remember Joe.

Marcelo’s report:

Hector’s death, a case of mistaken identity in a long-running feud between East Side and South Side gangs, has come to symbolize for many the senselessness of the street violence that still plagues the city.

contradicts the conventional wisdom on the streets of Mt. Hope that the young Hector’s death was not a case of mistaken identity but a case of his being targeted by a rival drug dealing organization albeit from the south side.

The fact that you can still drive by the vicinity of his home near the corner of Camp and Evergreen and still see young African American teenagers selling drugs right in front of his house testifies to the fact that the profit motive of these kingpin drug dealers in Mt. Hope knows no bounds; when it comes to financing expensive cars and expensive habits, there is too much money to be made to let the deaths of a few young people get in the way.

At any rate, the event in BTP this year, unlike last year, went off without any violence or any overt vandalism. Kudos to the Hector family and everyone involved for keeping a lid on it. They put forth a great deal of effort to do so and the entire neighborhood appreciated their effort. Of course the City made sure they had an adequate police detail at the event and that the proper permits were pulled: at least an entertainment license was pulled for the music, which still by far exceeded the legal limits set by the Providence noise ordinance.

Unfortunately the event was capped off by a drive by shooting at the Crossroads, the corner of Camp & Cypress at around 10:45 pm that night.

The mural pictures are dedicated to Dennis and to his girlfriend down at the Park’s Department. Some improvement.

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Posted at 12:40 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Sox Clinch Division Title

The Red Sox celebrated in raucous fashion last night after winning their first Eastern Division Title in ten years behind Dice-K Matsusake's 8 inning 2 run performance and Jonathon Papelbon's 37th save. The game crowd stayed around as well as those watching on TV to see the outcome of the Yankees Orioles game which the Orioles won in fine baseball fashion with a squeeze play in the 10th, giving the Eastern Division Title to the Rod Sox.

Paps goes wild with DK

The champagne flowed (or rather sprayed) in copious amounts as fans, players, owners, even the cops got a dose of the bubbly.

Wake & Paps hose down Big Papi

Last night Daisuke pitched 8 strong innings an Papi hit his 35th home run and his 52nd two-bagger.

Dice-K ready to bust some bubbly

Now the Sox are playing for the best won lost record and are tied with Cleveland at 95 - 65, with two game yet to play. With the best record comes home field advantage in the playoffs. Their first opponent? The Los Angeles Angels in a 5 game series. If the Sox win that series they the will play for the American League Pennant.

Congratulations Red Sox on your Eastern Division Title.

Posted at 6:48 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Charrette Wrap

This evening, 7 to 10, the Neighborhood Charrete for the Mt. Hope, Blackstone, and Hope neighborhoods will wrap up at the Martin Luther King School.

There will be a wrap up presentation of findings and discussion on how they translate into guiding principals for the future of these neighborhoods. You can still make suggestions and give feedback on the process. Free pizza too.

Providence Tommorrow: Charrette 2 is a link to our neighborhood's page on the city's Department of Planning and Development website, and it has all the information you need to participate.

Posted at 2:16 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Sox Magic Number 2

It could come tonight for the Red Sox, the first Division title since 1995. If the New York Hellhounds lose a game and the Sox win a game then it's clinched. It would be nice to get those HellHounds off our trail and the monkey off our back. There are 4 games left in which to get it done.

Big Papi & Dusty Pedro

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Gorden Edes of the Globe explains what the future may hold.

The immediate future came into focus for the Sox with last night's 11-6 win over the Oakland Athletics. Their magic number to clinch the AL East and win their first division title since 1995 is down to 2 - any combination of Sox wins and Yankee losses totaling that number and the Sox will have captured the division.

And with the Angels being routed by Texas, the last-place Rangers completing a three-game sweep, the Sox are now virtually certain of meeting the Angels in the first round of the playoffs. The Angels are on the verge of being eliminated from the race for best record in the league; if that distinction falls to either the Indians or Red Sox, the Angels will play the Sox in the first round, because the Indians will play the AL East wild-card entry.

Gordon Edes, Boston Globe

That AL east wild card entry he's talking about in the above scenario, that would be the New York Yankees.

Posted at 12:11 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Mach on Gentrification

Thanks for the tip and a nod to Matt's blog entry on the Gentrification issue in Olneyville on RIFuture website.

Very interesting reading. But what I liked was the comment made by Mach after the post and the one that mentioned Mt. Hope by Dan. It seems some of the same forces are at work over there but even worse with some far left leaning artsy fartsy types crying foul after spitting into the soup. Read it and you'll see what I mean even if you may not agree with me.

Heres's the link to the post:

Debate on Olneyville Gentrification Continues

And here is Mach's comment quoted from the rifuture.org website (Why can't we get people like him in Mt. Hope?):

Right this wrong?

I'm sorry, but maybe because I'm one of those who moved into the area I have trouble seeing how my move was a "wrong" that needed someone to be "righted." Apparently what some want is for better living conditions in Olneyville, but when these better living conditions present themselves they don't want white people to move into them. Or, they want what is bought and developed to be turned into low-cost housing, although nobody was apparently willing to make the significant investment necessary to rehab the blighted and polluted lands if they couldn't get their money back - i.e. if they had to be low-cost units. What a surprise, that there is little interest in spending vast sums of money to fix-up buildings that won't generate a return. Would it be nice if there was such an interest? Absolutely. Was there such an interest? Not that I know of.

People bitch and moan about gentrification and complain about how nobody tries to improve their neighborhoods, but when people actually move in and start improving things they scream "gentrification!" As far as I have seen, that means "WHITE PEOPLE!" I eat at Olneyville restaurants (La Lupita is the best Mexican food around and of course NY System), I ride the bus with my neighbors, I used to buy my groceries at Shaw's (not anymore), I get my tires fixed at George's, I get cheap booze at Al's. I don't rob people, I don't assault people, I don't pay for prostitutes, I don't buy or sell drugs, I don't blow through the stop sign at Delaine & Valley like most people do, I pick up trash on my street as I walk to the bus stop (sadly, no garbage cans around though), and I even relax with a good game of kickball in the PKL. In short, I try my best to be a good neighbor and I support my neighborhood because I like it. What I don't like is the possibility of being stabbed when I get off the bus (end of my street last week, guy lived), prostitutes in my park, trash up and down my street, and shootings in my neighborhood (August was a aprticularly active month).

Olneyville can't have it both ways - you can't say you want to improve your neighborhood and then bitch that the people who are actually trying to help out are white and not minorities. If you want the shootings, stabbings, rampant littering, and poor business to end then the people responsible for those things need to go and people who don't do those things need to stay. But, you shoot yourself in the foot when people who move into the neghborhood and don't happen to be poor or a minority are derided as supporting "gentrification" despite the fact that they are exactly what Olneyville wants to be - good neighbors who make a decent wage.

Discourse is, with respect to the relation of forces, not merely a surface of inscription, but something that brings about effects. - Michel Foucault

Mach

Posted at 6:33 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Neighborhood Safety Charrette

Today on short notice, I was able to attend the charrette on neighborhood safety held from 11:30 to 1:00 in the afternoon. One question begs to be asked, who can attend such a meeting at such a time? Do you think the City may be scheduling these meetings so that no one of any consequence can attend.

Of course the Ann Marie Reddy's and Ray Watson's among us, government funded non-profit, welfare recipients all, were well represented as their non-jobs allow them such flexibility while still being paid. I was able to attend because I am self employed, and I sacrificed my time (my for profit time) because it was important to me.

I expected to hear the usual rhetoric, but instead I sat at a table with a woman of oriental decent from the Summit and six young African Americans from Mt. Hope. And me. To my surprise everyone agreed that the biggest problem in Mt. Hope was the drug dealing. And that the second biggest problem was the police. Specifically the police's failure to target the bad guys and instead harass people of color because they fit the profile of Mt. Hope drug dealers.

I pointed out that the police are poorly trained and that it doesn't matter whether you are young or old, black or white, the District 8 police do not know how to interact with Mt. Hope residents with respect. To the police, we are all scum because we live in Mt. Hope, a problematic neighborhood.

One young man, Steve, described how he was walking down Camp Street and a cop pulled over on the other side of the street and ordered him to cross the street and put his hands up on the retaining wall and spread his legs. He told him that he fit the profile of a suspect. I believe that my wife, Irene, witnessed this incident last week.

Now, let me tell you, I know every drug dealer in Mt. Hope because I've been fighting this battle for ten years and because I work all day every day in the neighborhood, and I know many people in the neighborhood, and I employ many people from the neighborhood, and I knew with one glance that Steve was not a drug dealer, so why don't the cops, whose job it is to know these things, know the same as I know. Why did they harass Steve: that is a rhetorical question: to create more distrust in the African American community, to perpetrate the belief that the police are stupid, that they racial profile.

I can tell you why, but I already did. And it came up in the charrette: the police are afraid, scared, they'd rather harass innocent African Americans than take on the ones whom they know are bad, and I mean "bad" as in dangerous. Who wants to fuck with dangerous drug dealers who may be packing heat when you can harass some kid and still look like you are doing your job?

A bunch of tough guys, huh.

But we still got drug dealing in Mt. Hope.

The police will not solve this problem for us. In fact, they are part of the problem.

The African American young people at our table this afternoon spoke of being completely disenfranchised -- one spoke of Mt. Hope as the neighborhood that is invisible, that doesn't count, that has been forgotten, and believe me these young adults are the best of the best.

It doesn't matter who you are, young or old, black or white, if you live in Mt. Hope, to the City, to the Police, you are a loser, and you are scum, and you don't count.

I'm often tempted to give up, sell out, move, but my warrior instinct always kicks in at some point, and now, I'm in full warrior mode.

All we need is a group of strong minded, strong willed, courageous, independent thinking individuals to turn this neighborhood around.

It's a shame that a small group of criminals and knee jerk liberals -- did I mention mamby pamby academics (;>) -- hold Mt. Hope hostage, hold it back from being a safe neighborhood free of political corruption, non-profit corruption, and the drug trade this corruption supports.

We can beat it. Listen to me.

John Twomey

Posted at 11:49 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Comprehensive Plan Process -- This Week

Neighborhood charrette

If you want input into the future of your neighborhood plan to attend and participate in the Comprehensive plan being put in place for Providence's neighborhoods. This plan, once enacted, will impact our neighborhood and the city for years to come.

Providence Tommorrow: Charrette 2 is a link to our neighborhood's page on the city's Department of Planning and Development website, and it has all the information you need to participate.

Toward the bottom of the page, highlighted in red is a survey residents can fill out. The very least a resident should do is to fill out this survey and clearly state your concerns about the Mt. Hope neighborhood so that those who lobby against gentrification and for fewer police patrols and for more subsidized housing are not the only voices that the City hears.

The paragraphs quoted below are from the Providence Journal.

City planners are conducting a charette for the Mount Hope, Hope and Blackstone neighborhoods as part of the Comprehensive Plan process, where planners are dissecting the city neighborhood by neighborhood to see what changes are wanted and needed.

Yesterday, in events at the Martin Luther King School on Camp Street and the Church of the Redeemer on Hope Street, residents of the East Side got their first chance to tell the city what changes they wanted to see in their neighborhoods.

The sessions soon evolved into discussions among residents about the best and worst parts of their neighborhoods: which buildings need replacing, where residents think illegal drugs are sold, and where a good turkey sandwich can be found (they recommend the Butcher Shop on Elmgrove, in case you’re curious).

The charette continues this morning at 9:30 with sessions on neighborhood character, community safety, affordability and youth. A roundtable with area elected officials is scheduled for tonight.

The charette will wrap up Thursday night with a session starting at 7.

Read the ProJo article by clicking the link or continue reading

East Siders help map their neighborhood

East Siders help map their neighborhood

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, September 25, 2007

By Daniel Barbarisi

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — East Siders stood poised around maps of the Hope, Mount Hope and Blackstone neighborhoods, ready to pounce.

Jonathan Harris, a consultant working with the city’s Planning Department on the Comprehensive Plan process, handed out colored markers, with the brief instructions that residents were to mark the areas in their neighborhoods that they wanted to preserve, and strike those they wanted to eliminate.

“Red is keep. Green is change. Go.”

Soon, arms were intertwined like it was a game of Twister, and the map was marked up with red and green.

Sadly for the Brown Bears, Brown Stadium was the first to go.

“Move the football stadium down to the river. We don’t need it in our neighborhood,” said Pamela Vogel, who said she felt that way despite being a Brown graduate.

Yesterday, in events at the Martin Luther King School on Camp Street and the Church of the Redeemer on Hope Street, residents of the East Side got their first chance to tell the city what changes they wanted to see in their neighborhoods.

City planners are conducting a charette for the Mount Hope, Hope and Blackstone neighborhoods as part of the Comprehensive Plan process, where planners are dissecting the city neighborhood by neighborhood to see what changes are wanted and needed.

Some of the popular suggestions — like improved walking paths, and renovations to Billy Taylor Park — may result in real changes. Others, like the stadium demolition, seem unlikely.

Planners are trying to determine where the boundary lines fall between areas, and so residents were asked to define their “neighborhood” — but no two definitions were the same. Jim Kelley circled the entire map — including the cemeteries. Wayne Rosenberg and Priscilla Shube drew a long, kinked neighborhood that looked like a gerrymandered congressional district, seemingly without logic — until the family pet is factored in.

“This is where we look for our cat,” Rosenberg explained.

Moderators asked hyper-specific questions to gauge residents’ interests in topics from crime to the best places to grab lunch.

“Where do you shop? What’s the longest walk you’ve ever taken in your neighborhood? How far do you walk without driving? What’s your favorite place to eat?” asked Steven Cecil, a consultant with the Boston-based Cecil group, which is assisting the city with the process.

The sessions soon evolved into discussions among residents about the best and worst parts of their neighborhoods: which buildings need replacing, where residents think illegal drugs are sold, and where a good turkey sandwich can be found (they recommend the Butcher Shop on Elmgrove, in case you’re curious).

The answers will help the city formulate a neighborhood plan for each area.

Once the neighborhood plan is completed, it will go before the City Plan Commission and serve as a handbook for zoning and planning decisions in individual neighborhoods.

This is the second of a total of 11 charettes to be held through 2009. South Elmwood and Washington Park received the attention of city planners this spring. The Olneyville, Smith Hill and Valley neighborhoods are next.

The charette continues this morning at 9:30 with sessions on neighborhood character, community safety, affordability and youth. A roundtable with area elected officials is scheduled for tonight.

The charette will wrap up Thursday night with a session starting at 7.

dbarbari@projo.com

Posted at 9:11 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Shots Fired in Drive-by -- Camp & Cypress

A few minutes ago drive by shooters fired 4 shots at a group of African Americans who were hanging out on the corner of Camp & Cypress around 10:45 this Saturday night.

I'm sure this is related to the Hector Event that was held in Billy Taylor Park this afternoon, an event held in memory of the 17 year old Hector child shot to death a few years ago near the same corner.

This shooting took place a few feet from the Police Substation and of course no policemen were around it being shift change.

Posted at 11:07 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Black on Black

An interested party sent me this link to a Boston Globe column by Jeff Jacoby, titled, Destruction in black America is self-inflicted. Click the above underlined, boldfaced link to access the column.

In the column Jacoby sites some interesting stats:

In a new study, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics confirms once again that almost half the people murdered in the United States each year are black, and 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by someone of their own race. (For white homicide victims, the figure is 85 percent.) In other words, of the estimated 8,000 African-Americans murdered in 2005, more than 7,400 were cut down by other African-Americans. Though blacks account for just one-eighth of the US population, the BJS reports, they are six times more likely than whites to be victimized by homicide - and seven times more likely to commit homicide.

Jacoby visits the belief among African Americans that they have much to fear from racist whites:

But the data aren't in dispute. Though outrage over "racism" is ever fashionable, African-Americans have long had far less to fear from the violence of racist whites than from the mayhem of the black underclass.

"Do you realize that the leading killer of young black males is young black males?" asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan 16 years ago. "As a black man and a father of three, this really shakes me to the core of my being."

Jacoby provides us with an interesting quote from Rev. Jessie Jackson:

"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life," Jesse Jackson said in 1993, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps . . . then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

And Jacoby echoes the sentiments of Daniel Patrick Moynihan 40 years ago that have proved prescient:

Such huge disproportions don't just happen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously warned 40 years ago that the collapse of black family life would mean rising chaos and crime in the black community. Today, as many as 70 percent of black children are raised in fatherless households. And as reams of research confirm, children raised without married parents and intact, stable families are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.

Jacoby expounds on the topic in his column with the two following paragraphs:

If there is racial bias in the system, it clearly isn't in favor of whites.

But if you choose to focus on the race of victims, I added, remember that nearly all black homicide is intraracial - more than nine out of 10 black murder victims in the United States are killed by black murderers. So applying the death penalty in more cases where the victim is black would mean sending more black men to death row.

What is going on in Mt. Hope?

In light of what is going on in Mt. Hope today, with black on black violence erupting regularly on Pleasant Street, with African American drug dealers selling their evil poison to their own kind, with African American kids not knowing any better than to throw garbage on the streets of their own community isn't it time for a Black on Black dialog about the self-destructive problems the African American community is experiencing in Mt. Hope?

The Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association

The MHNA has traditionally represented the African American community in Mt. Hope. The MHNA has never offered any pretense of representing the entire community, only in their representing the interests of the African American community in Mt. Hope. Why doesn't the MHNA step up and address the pressing problems the African American community of Mt. Hope is experiencing.

Gentrification Workshop

The MHNA offered a Gentrification Workshop in conjunction with D.A.R.E. as if Gentrification is the biggest problem facing the African American community in Mt. Hope. No wonder so many people were outraged and treated it like a bad joke.

Letters to the MHNA

Why is no one writing letters to the MHNA, at 199 Camp Street, Providence, RI 02906, suggesting that they hold workshops on Drug Dealing in Mt. Hope: How do we stop it?,

Or this workshop: On Black on Black Violence: How do we stop young black men in Providence from shooting each other over an old feud?

Or this workshop: Why does the African American community in Mt. Hope perceive white people as the problem in Mt. Hope, when it is clear that the problems of crime and filth originate with the African American community in Mt. Hope?

Or this workshop: Why does the African American community in Mt. Hope blame everyone else for their problems instead of taking responsibility for their own self determination?

My guess as to the reason why nobody asks these questions of the MHNA is that no white person wants to risk being portrayed as racist for asking these questions, and no black person wants to be portrayed as an Uncle Tom for asking the same questions.

Again, have I mentioned cowardice on this blog? Is that too strong a word. Ok, how about timidity. Is that more palatable? It's all semantics. People are too cowed to say what they really believe because of fear. Call it whatever you want to call it: it does have a name. Where does the word "cowed" come from?

Read Jacoby's column below.

Destruction in black America is self-inflicted
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | September 5, 2007

DEBATING capital punishment at an Ivy League university a few years ago, I was confronted with the claim that since death sentences are more often meted out in cases where the victim is white, the death penalty must be racially biased. It's a spurious argument, I replied. Whites commit fewer than half of all murders in the United States, yet more whites than blacks are sentenced to death and more whites than blacks are executed each year.

If there is racial bias in the system, it clearly isn't in favor of whites.

But if you choose to focus on the race of victims, I added, remember that nearly all black homicide is intraracial - more than nine out of 10 black murder victims in the United States are killed by black murderers. So applying the death penalty in more cases where the victim is black would mean sending more black men to death row.

After the debate, a young black woman accosted me indignantly. Ninety-plus percent of black blood is shed by black hands? What about all the victims of white supremacists? Hadn't I heard of lynching? Hadn't I heard of James Byrd, who died so horribly in Jasper, Texas? When I assured her that Byrd's murder by whites was utterly untypical of most black homicide, she was dubious.

I thought of that young woman when I read recently about James Ford Seale, the former Mississippi Klansman sentenced last month to three life terms in prison for his role in murdering two black teenagers 43 years ago. The killing of Charles Moore and Henry Dee in 1964 was one of several unsolved civil-rights-era crimes that prosecutors in the South have reopened in recent years. Seale's trial was a vivid reminder of the days when racial contempt was a deadly fact of life in much of the country. His sentence proclaims even more vividly the transformation of America since then. White racism, once such a murderous force, is now associated mostly with feeble has-beens.

Yet many Americans, like the woman at my debate, still seem to view racial questions through an antediluvian haze. To them, white bigotry remains a clear and present danger, and the reason so many black Americans die before their time.

But the data aren't in dispute. Though outrage over "racism" is ever fashionable, African-Americans have long had far less to fear from the violence of racist whites than from the mayhem of the black underclass.

"Do you realize that the leading killer of young black males is young black males?" asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan 16 years ago. "As a black man and a father of three, this really shakes me to the core of my being."

From Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a veteran of the civil rights movement, came a similar cry of anguish. "Nothing in the long history of blacks in America," he lamented in 1994, "suggests the terrible destruction blacks are visiting upon each other today."

Happily, crime rates have declined from their 1990s peak. But it remains that the worst destruction in black America is self-inflicted.

In a new study, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics confirms once again that almost half the people murdered in the United States each year are black, and 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by someone of their own race. (For white homicide victims, the figure is 85 percent.) In other words, of the estimated 8,000 African-Americans murdered in 2005, more than 7,400 were cut down by other African-Americans. Though blacks account for just one-eighth of the US population, the BJS reports, they are six times more likely than whites to be victimized by homicide - and seven times more likely to commit homicide.

Such huge disproportions don't just happen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously warned 40 years ago that the collapse of black family life would mean rising chaos and crime in the black community. Today, as many as 70 percent of black children are raised in fatherless households. And as reams of research confirm, children raised without married parents and intact, stable families are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.

High rates of black violent crime are a national tragedy, but it is the law-abiding black majority that suffers from them most. "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life," Jesse Jackson said in 1993, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps . . . then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

It isn't an insoluble problem. Americans overcame white racism; they can overcome black crime. But the first step, as always, is to face the facts.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

© Copyright 2007 2007 The New York Times Company

Posted at 8:05 PM | Community | Comments (2)

Lackadaisical Policing in Providence

I am a small woman who lives in Providence. All 100 pounds of me is scared to walk from my car to the door of my apt. building sometimes. Occasionally, I scoot around the block or to the closest block in an effort to have an officer watch me walk to my door, since it's a bit dark where I park my car and possible mishaps can be eliminated by asking for this minor favor.

I say favor, but our tax dollars pay for that to be their job. Unfortunately, I have had a recent incident where it took Providence Police ONE HOUR to respond to my call.

As I expressed my frustration, the officer who responded (in a less than prompt fashion) proceeded to get very defensive with me. She phoned other officers to show up, since all 100 lbs of me must be so intimidating, and there I was- all of a sudden 5 mintutes later 2 cops come popping out of the woodwork, talk about favoring phone calls vs inadequate response times.

After I was surrounded by 3 cop cars, the 2 male officers proceeded to assure me that I was fine and watched me walk to my door. Although it ended well, must the first responded be so defensive after responding an hour later- whatever I was complaining about could have harmed me and left me long before she got there had I gotten the nerve to get out of my car alone in that dark ally.

Providence Police are too lackadaisical, as this is not the first time they have taken their sweet time responding to my calls ...I don't live in the best area.

Alyssa

Posted at 1:57 PM | Community | Comments (1)

A Different Recipe for Change

To those who agree with the person who posted Recipe for Not Stopping Gentrification.

Uppity white folks? Maybe they just don't feel comfortable moving to that area, as crime is going to exist in poverty stricken areas -and Camp street doesn't exactly have millionaires. How ignorant to think that changing the elected official would stop crime.

What about giving the teens in that neigboorhood a place to go, where they can legally practice graffiti artwork and other art forms that fall under the category of hip hop as a MOVEMENT.

Perhaps the person who runs the Mt Hope Community center could be held more responsible for conducting activities that the kids actually would be interested in.

The last time I heard him speak of his plans for youth programs, I heard chess get mentioned. I'm sure that's just what these kids need ...yea maybe 8 in the whole community. The rest of these kids face REALITY on a daily basis, to which chess and uppity white folks do not apply.

Perhaps the answer is staring us in the face -ASSIMILATION with our youth, to start bridging some of these gaps.

As for Councilman Jackson- he supports this realistic notion that we need to meet the youth in the middle somewhere, and provide for them activities that don't involve hand selecting teens, only to select ones that were going to be successful anyway, to glorify their own stance, to satisfy their own ego. Rather, assimilating to teens and incorporating their chosen activities into a program structured around ending crime in this neighboorhood is a more effective way to deal with these concerns.

Jackson is a fine example of what this community needs in office.

Alyssa

Posted at 1:53 PM | Community | Comments (0)

"Providence is still an extremely safe city."

27 and counting, that is how many shootings we experienced in the city of Providence since August 1st (ProJo: Providence shooting is 27th for August) and the shooting began well before August rolled along.

I wonder how many of those shots we can call our own, here in Mt. Hope. Read the blurb below for an account of recent Mt. Hope shootings.

From A violent month in Providence: Providence Journal -- with map feature locating shootings.

McCann Place, a cluster of subsidized, low-income housing in the Mount Hope neighborhood, also has seen its share of violence in recent weeks. Specifically, a peeling drab gray unit with red trim at 61 Pleasant St.

On Aug. 1, Kevelin Davis, 29, was riddled with gunfire outside the apartment. He suffered four bullet wounds to the back and one to the right arm. He told the police that he was on the front steps of 61 Pleasant St. at 12:50 a.m. when a gold-colored car occupied by two men wearing dark, hooded sweatshirts pulled up. They opened fire and sped off.

Davis was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, and survived the shooting. At the hospital, a health-care worker discovered a plastic bag containing crack cocaine stuffed up Davis’ buttocks. He was arrested and charged with a drug violation.

On July 22, Justin T. Potter, 26, of East Providence, was grazed in the head by a bullet as he was hanging outside the same apartment on Pleasant Street.

The neighborhood, described as a trouble spot for decades, is just a few hundred yards from Hope High School and less than a mile from Thayer Street and Brown University.

Deputy Police Chief Kennedy said,

“Providence is still an extremely safe city,” Kennedy said. “We are an urban city and with that comes a certain level of crime. You have to realize that in this business you do have upticks in violence.”

John Lombardi

JOHN J. LOMBARDI, a city councilman from the Federal Hill neighborhood, said that many people do not feel safe, and he said he talks with elderly residents who are afraid to leave their homes after 4:30 p.m.

A violent month in Providence
08:40 AM EDT on Thursday, August 30, 2007
By W. Zachary Malinowski
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — A blazing sun beat down on the makeshift memorial yesterday where Vidal “Lucky” Rodriguez, a leader of the Almighty Latin Kings Nation street gang, was gunned down early Saturday.

A white T-shirt featuring “King” in bold gold lettering and the gang’s emblem, a crown surrounded by dollar signs, was pinned on the wall of El Tiburon Sports Bar at the corner of Valley and Harold streets.

About 50 candles flickered under a crude altar on the sidewalk where Rodriguez’s life came to an end. Empty bottles of champagne, brandy

and beer were crowded among the candles.

Another weekend and another shooting, this one leading to the ninth homicide of the year in the capital city. Over the past month there has been an explosion of gun violence and bloodshed in different neighborhoods, some less than a mile or two from the much-celebrated downtown Providence Renaissance.
In terms of violence, the Providence police say August has been the worst month in at least five years.

A review of the gunfire by The Providence Journal reveals that since Aug. 1, there have been at least 26 shootings in the city that have been reported to the police. During that span, 20 people have been shot and 2 people, including Lucky Rodriguez, have been killed. The police have yet to make an arrest in the latest homicide.
The total number of shootings for August has accounted for more than half of the shootings in the city this year. In the previous seven months, 19 shootings were reported to the police.

“It kind of reminds me of 30 years ago, when there were a lot of mob shootings,” said City Council President Peter Mancini. “I haven’t had any formal meetings with the council or the police, but the whole council is concerned about these shootings.”
Mancini, who serves on the police advisory board, vowed to raise the subject at its next meeting, in Police Chief Dean Esserman’s conference room on Thursday, Sept. 6 at 8:30 a.m.

Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy said he hopes August was an “aberration.” Still, the department is not sitting on its hands hoping for a reduction. He said the police have redirected officers and resources to hot spots in the city that have seen a significant uptick in shootings. The department has also tapped officers from the gun squad, narcotics and gang unit to help quell the violence.

Among the problem areas are Asian enclaves in the city’s south and west sides, Smith Hill and Mount Hope on the city’s East Side.

“We really believe that cops count,” Kennedy said. “We try to put more cops out there.”

He said that many of the shootings can be attributed to long-simmering feuds between rival gangs, the recent release of violent felons from prison and drug-related disputes.

“These are not random acts,” he said.

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to study the shootings and come up with a definitive reason for the violence. But almost all of them involved young men and many of them involved drugs.

Maj. Stephen M. Campbell, who oversees the detective division, said the police crackdown has yielded results. He pointed out that the police have arrested eight people with guns in the past two weeks. A felon in possession of a gun faces an automatic five years in federal prison.

The police say the month’s other murder, on Aug. 15, was a drug deal gone bad.

The police say that Marc Quintal drove David Rocha and two other men from Fall River to South Providence to buy drugs.

They said that David Mello, using a cell phone, directed Quintal to a driveway outside a house at Pearl and Hayward streets. Once there, Mello and Sylvester Moses, both 20, of Providence, approached the car with drawn handguns.

About 6:40 p.m., gunfire erupted and Quintal, 20, was fatally shot in the back. Mello was arrested last week and charged with murder, first-degree robbery and using a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence.

Moses turned himself in yesterday morning and has been charged with murder, according to the Providence police.

The police have not said which of the suspects is believed to have fired the shot that killed Quintal.

McCann Place, a cluster of subsidized, low-income housing in the Mount Hope neighborhood, also has seen its share of violence in recent weeks. Specifically, a peeling drab gray unit with red trim at 61 Pleasant St.

On Aug. 1, Kevelin Davis, 29, was riddled with gunfire outside the apartment. He suffered four bullet wounds to the back and one to the right arm. He told the police that he was on the front steps of 61 Pleasant St. at 12:50 a.m. when a gold-colored car occupied by two men wearing dark, hooded sweatshirts pulled up. They opened fire and sped off.

Davis was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, and survived the shooting. At the hospital, a health-care worker discovered a plastic bag containing crack cocaine stuffed up Davis’ buttocks. He was arrested and charged with a drug violation.

On July 22, Justin T. Potter, 26, of East Providence, was grazed in the head by a bullet as he was hanging outside the same apartment on Pleasant Street.

The neighborhood, described as a trouble spot for decades, is just a few hundred yards from Hope High School and less than a mile from Thayer Street and Brown University.

A 24-hour period that began early on Aug. 12 was a particularly bad stretch. On Aug. 12, at 2:21 a.m., two cousins, Sophon Meas, 17, and Kan Hosp Bou, 20, were shot in front of Bou’s house at 24 Bernon St. in Smith Hill. A 17-year-old witness who accompanied the wounded men to the hospital told the police that he was a member of the Tiny Rascals, an Asian gang.

Meas was shot in the left hip, while Bou was hit in the shoulder and upper chest area.

Six minutes later, Keivan DeLeon, 21, and Jose L. Garcia, 18, were both shot outside 126 Julian St., in Olneyville, after an apparent altercation. DeLeon suffered a gunshot wound to the left leg; Garcia was hit in the buttocks and knee.

On Aug. 13, at 1:15 a.m., three Asian men were ambushed and shot during a backyard party at 168 Waverly St., in the West End, a known hangout of the Dark Side Asian gang. The unidentified gunman fired five or six shots from behind thick shrubbery at 179 Althea St. A young man wearing a red bandana was seen running from the area.
Thompson Eang, 16, was shot in the thigh; Sophea Hem, 19, was hit in the leg and arm; and Sareivouth Cheam, 18, suffered a gunshot wound to the leg.

JOHN J. LOMBARDI, a city councilman from the Federal Hill neighborhood, said that many people do not feel safe, and he said he talks with elderly residents who are afraid to leave their homes after 4:30 p.m.

He said he recently met with a constituent off Broadway when several loud cracks that sounded like gunshots echoed outside her home. “She didn’t even flinch,” he said.

Kennedy, the deputy police chief, said the police will continue to tap every means possible to attack the sudden escalation of violence in the city. He said the Providence police are working with the state police and FBI.

Still, career criminals such as Lucky Rodriguez will always find their way onto the police blotter or a gurney at the state medical examiner’s office. The police say that the gang member survived a shooting four years ago and had spent time in prison.

Kennedy said that Rodriguez, murdered at 33, chose a lifestyle that placed him directly in harm’s way, but that doesn’t mean that law-abiding citizens or downtown visitors should live in fear.

The city’s Board of Licenses also has gotten involved. At the request of the police, the board temporarily shut down El Tiburon, a known Latin Kings hangout where Rodriguez spent the final moments of his life. The board is moving to permanently close the bar.

“Providence is still an extremely safe city,” Kennedy said. “We are an urban city and with that comes a certain level of crime. You have to realize that in this business you do have upticks in violence.”
bmalinow@projo.com

Posted at 5:01 PM | Community | Comments (0)

The Inconvenience Store

A significant contributor to the ambiance of the Crossings (Camp & Cypress Streets) in Mt. Hope is what I call the "inconvenience store," a magnet for the 'hood's thugs. Yes, it's better than it was five years ago when the store's previous manager was selling drugs, but it still contributes to the poor atmosphere.

Since I live in a condo in the same building, I'm constantly picking up trash dropped by the store patrons, and even have to climb up on its roof to pick up cans, bottles and other refuse the pigs (thugs) toss up there. I suppose it's too much to ask that the store manager put a large trash container outside the door for patrons to dispose of their trash.

The inconvenience store recently began selling hot American and Spanish food. Unbelievably, I spotted the concessionaire dumping unbagged garbage in the store Dumpster, situated conveniently right under my living room windows. I witnessed him with a plastic trash container lined with a plastic bag dumping the food in the Dumpster, then drop the empty plastic liner in after it. How can anyone be THAT stupid? Because of his unsanitary practices, the Dumpster was swarming with flies during last week's hot and humid weather.

I complained to the concessionaire and the store clerk about the health hazard and was told it was being taken care of. Yeah, sure. On Thursday, I notified the state health department, which then closed down the hot food operation. The clerk and the concessionaire put two and two together and figured out it was I who caused the shutdown. They are angry. Well, so am I. They should have followed the food regulatory laws before starting to serve hot food. Thankfully, we won't be seeing chicken bones and half-eaten food on the streets or unbagged garbage in the Dumpster. Perhaps that will keep down the fly population.

Peter C.

Posted at 3:09 PM | Community | Comments (0)

A No No by Buchholz

Clay Buchholz

Red Sox Nation rejoiced as last night, twenty-two year old rookie Red Sox righty Clay Buchholz, called up from Triple AAA Pawtucket only hours earlier, hurled a no-hitter at the Baltimore Orioles.

Game Over -- No-hitter!

Buchholz spun his magic with no hit stuff that baffled the Oriole batters with a devastatingly deceptive change up clocking in at around 77 mph, a fastball in the low 90’s, a 12 to 6 curveball that clocked in around 80 – 84 mph and the occasional slider. That he was able to throw any of these pitches at any point in the strike count kept the Orioles off balance all night. Captain Jason Varitek called a superb game and deserves, if not almost equal credit, a great deal of credit for the night’s accomplishment.

The Captain & the Kid

Solid defensive helped the No No along with outstanding plays by Crisp, Pedroia, and Buchhloz himself (a former shortstop) preventing potential base-hits. Coco Crisp made several good catches in the outfield, but Dustin Pedroia undoubtedly made the play-of-the-game with a diving backhand stab behind second base where in seemingly one motion he dove outstretched for the ball, landed face down with the ball in his glove, rose and threw a strike to first to nab the runner by a split second.

To illustrate the rarity of a no-hitter, Buchholz’s was only the 3rd no-hitter at Fenway in the last 45 years, following one by Hedio Nomo and Derek Lowe. It’s the first ever by a Red Sox rookie. It’s the 2nd ever in the history of Major League ball of a rookie No No in his 2nd big league game.

Posted at 3:06 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Sympathy for the Devil: the Police are Scared!

Let's show some compassion. Bullets fly around Mt. Hope. Mt. Hope and Chad Brown idiots carry guns and are stupid enough to use them.

The Police are scared.

That is one reason why they act the way they do.

The Providence Police Department has its share of cowards, like any community, like Mt. Hope.

They have their share of incompetents, fools, individuals who can charitably be characterized as semi-literate.

So let's cut them some slack. They signed on for a difficult job, and many of them simply want to reach retirement alive.

They are caught between a political rock and a political hard place courtesy of pandering politicians like Mayor David Cicilline and Councilman Kevin Jackson.

Be aware. Be active. The police will not rescue you or Mt. Hope.

Posted at 11:31 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Receipe for Stopping Gentrification

I don't need to attend the MHNA Gentrification Workshop to know how to block more uppity white folks from moving into Mt. Hope.

Here's how to stop further gentrification:

-- Continue to tie the police's hands in fighting crime.

-- Continue to allow open air drug markets throughout the neighborhood

-- Continue to litter the streets, sidewalks and private property.

-- Continue to spread graffiti.

-- Continue to reelect Kevin Jackson.

If this simple recipe is followed.you can bet that any sane, affluent person who has done a minimum of homework will not be buying property in Mt. Hope.

Peter C.

Posted at 4:16 PM | Community | Comments (1)

D.A.R.E. to Gentrify! ! !

Gentrify This!

This house on Camp Street, which sat unsold on the market for over one year, is undergoing renovation: new paint, new appliances, new cherry kitchen floor, granite and tile in the kitchen and baths, a perfectly clean basement, upgraded electrical in order to make it perfect for some new home owner (most likely a first time buyer) to move into and enjoy without ever lifting a finger.

I suppose that is a bad thing.

Or so D.A.R.E. would have you believe.

Here is the message that D.A.R.E. left yesterday:

Sarah called from D.A.R.E. and she invited me to a workshop about gentrification organized by D.A.R.E. and MHNA tomorrow, August 30, at 6:00 P.M. at the MHNA, at 199 Camp Street.

Sarah said, "We will be looking into what it is, how it has happened that communities have been displaced in the past, how we can work together to prevent that from continuing to happen especially since housing prices have been going up so much”.

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Let's Take a Look and Shine a Bright Light

It's time we took a good look at D.A.R.E. Who are they? What are the principal's backgrounds? How are they funded? What other organizations are they connected to.

Start by visiting their website: D.A.R.E. Then look at the URL: that tells you something.

Sounds like some rich, academic know it all outsiders (most likely from upper-middle class suburban backgrounds) coming into our neighborhood to tell us poor ignorant Mt. Hopers how to improve our neighborhood and to tell us what we are doing wrong. At least according to some academic theory that they just learned from some book written by a guy who never lived in an inner-city neighborhood.

Anyway, the meeting is at 6:00 pm this evening, so hurry home from work and learn how to stop EVIL GENTRIFICATION from spreading in Mt. Hope.

Posted at 12:10 PM | Community | Comments (2)

Gentrification Solicitation

Last evening I received as call from a member of the D.A.R.E. association which, as far as I am aware of, is an affiliate of the 199 Camp St Neighborhood Association. I was invited to attend a meeting scheduled for Thursday at 6:00PM at 199 Camp Street.

This is the first time that I have been directly contacted by any member of this association. Post work I returned the call for more details. The phone was answered by a young woman – first name: Sara. She confirmed that she was the individual whom had left me the message. I asked her to speak of the meeting agenda. She proceeded to tell me that a meeting was in place to speak of the “History of gentrification” from the 1920’a to current, the history of Fox Point and its urban changes and the learning’s we should take from that movement and the obstacles facing our Mt Hope community and the “gentrification” which is occurring.

I was silent on the phone; initially from shock. When I responded I proceeded to tell her that first, a 6:00PM meeting based on feedback from many of my neighbors who had hoped to join previous meetings scheduled early weekdays does not suit the availability of most of the working professionals in the neighborhood. Despite consistent recommendations regarding meeting times to this association, I questioned her again in regards to this issue. I received no answer. I mentioned that meetings that are scheduled early are only going to attract a demographic who work non-traditional hours which will severely limit the participation rate in the aforementioned meetings.

Secondly, I told this woman that perhaps I was not the best “participant” for this meeting as I am very happy with the improvements that our neighborhood has made in recent years (Thank you Lt. S.) and I welcome all individuals and families alike who are moving to Mt Hope, investing in real estate, improving and maintaining their homes, landscaping, sweeping their curbs, planting flowers and over all making this neighborhood a beautiful and safe place to reside and asked her to either agree or disagree with me.

If you think this so called “gentrification”– is the sole cause of rent increases and property value increases I challenge you to research the economics of our society. The cost of living is increasing all around us, no matter who you are! I am empathetic to anyone who may be “forced” out of their home due to raising rents, but I am enraged that many think the sole cause of this is from the Caucasian or Non-African American population.

I told Sara of the meeting I attended about 1 month ago, where members of our community directly think that it is the Caucasian population and their “Lily white asses” causing this issue! I was and still am outraged at the reverse racism which exists within our community. I told Sara that if the community worked together they could pool resources and their efforts to ensure that the City was properly considering members of various households and ensuring proper housing options. Instead, members of the community are crying “gentrification” and would rather “not see the neighborhood change” and remain in harms way with crime.

Interesting enough many feel that the “crime does not affect them.” At current standing, why would the community want to promote more housing options with mentalities like that? I told her that if she were to review the police reports from this year alone she would notice that most of the illegal activities stem from residents residing in these housing options.

In the last many years of homeownership, all disturbing events near my home in which police were called to intervene, were due to excessive noise and gatherings of individuals residing or visiting tenants in the subsidized housing on my street – not the hard working homeowners and their families or tenants.

Why isn’t local government more actively involved in this? Where is our often disengaged Councilman? Our problems in this neighborhood have been previously diagnosed due to “intercommunity relationships”. Why are neighborhood tax dollars for these programs not being used to create better neighborhoods through relationship building efforts with neighbors, law enforcements and other city officials rather than meeting about “gentrification”?

C.Penardo

Posted at 10:28 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Incident Report Recap

To recap the previous lengthy post concerning Incident Reports and Incident Report Numbers.

What is an Incident Report?

An Incident Report documents an incident in which the police answered a citizen's call about an event in which the law was broken or was about to be broken or about suspicious activity that may be criminal.

What is an incident Report Number?

To get an Incident Report a citizen must ask a police officer for an Incident Report Number.

An officer calls in for an incident report number that he can give to you. He will then write and submit a report.

To get a written copy of that report you must go to the Police Station with the Incident Report Number and ask for a copy of the Incident Report. They are usually ready within 2 to 7 days, though sometimes it takes longer.

Why is it important to get Incident Reports and Incident Report Numbers?

It is important because it documents the incident or event for future reference. Without an incident report it’s almost as if the event never happened as far as the police are concerned. Incident Reports are compiled statistically by the police department.

How do I get an Incident Report Number?

Ask the officer who answered your call. If an incident occurred the officer is obligated to provide you with an Incident Report Number.

Remember when talking to a police officer to always look at the badge number on his chest and write it down. That is the only sure way you can identify the police officer for future reference.

If an officer refuses to provide you with an Incident Report Number you can do the following: 1) talk to his superior officer or call the Station and ask to speak to the shift commander, give the badge number and ask to have an officer sent to provide you with an Incident Report Number; or 2) you can ask a dispatcher to identify the officer who answered your call for service if you provide the time and date of your call, then ask to have the officer or another return to give you an incident report number.

All Calls for Service to the dispatchers in the Communications Department are recorded and documented. Usually the officer (or another) will be sent to provide you with an Incident Report Number.

Posted at 11:01 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Dealing with the Police

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Misunderstanding & Misbehavior

An unfortunate incident occurred last Thursday that brought home to me how fragile and how potentially rife with conflict is our relationship with our District 8 Police.

Without going into exquisite detail of the event, a misunderstanding occurred when a young neighbor of mine after enduring weeks of harassment and threats called the police to report the incident and obtain an incident report as I suggested would be the prudent course of action to document the call for service to the police and the incidents of threats and harassment.

She had to call several times because a police car did at first respond but told her he did not have time to take the report and drove off. After further calls, including one to the Desk Sergeant the Officer returned and had quite an attitude with her, seeming angry that he had been ordered back. She documented some of the things he said to her in a report. It seemed uncharacteristic of the District 8 officers we have now but eerily familiar with police behavior before Col. Esserman became Chief. Let’s just call this behavior intimidating, bullying, and unprofessional.

The event seemed to center around my neighbor asking for an Incident Report Number, which she claims the Officer tried several times to avoid giving.

The second part of this will discuss Incident Reports and Incident Report Numbers.

Incident Reports: How to get one.

When a police officer responds to your call and is in your presence if you are reporting an incident of any kind, including:

threats, vandalism, drug dealing, theft, blocking a public way, illegally parked cars blocking streets, sidewalks, trespassing etc. etc

you have the right to ask for an Incident Report Number, not an Incident Report.

To generate an Incident Report, the officer calls down to dispatch and they give him an incident report number, which he in turn should give to you. When the officer has the opportunity to write the report during his shift he writes it and turns it in. It will be available for you to pick up at the police station from the records department within a few days usually not less than a week. To get the written report you provide the Records Department with the Incident Report Number.

Do you now understand the importance of asking police who respond in person to your calls for an Incident Report Number. If you want documentation of what happened and that the police responded you must get it down in an Incident Report.

Documentation is the only way to establish the frequency and the pattern of incidents and the police response.

As far as the police are concerned, if it’s not in a report accessible to the public, it never happened. No incident report number -- no incident.

Why Do The Police Resist giving Incident Report Numbers?

I’ve experienced it and many other people have experienced it also, a Providence Police Officer refusing to provide an Incident Report Number when requested to do so and answering your call.

I can think of only several reasons why an officer would not respond to a legitimate request for an Incident Report Number:

1)

It’s a lot of work to write and submit a report and many officers do not like to do paperwork.

2)

Incident reports are included in police statistics and fewer incident reports of criminal behavior or disturbances result in more favorable statistics for the police department to report.

How to handle asking for an Incident Report.

I believe the police are obligated to provide citizens with Incident Report Numbers when answering their call.

I’ve trained myself to handle it this way: when the officer responds, first make note of his badge number, that way if you need to discuss this incident with anyone else you can identify the officer by badge number. It is not necessary to make a show of this. You should have a pen and paper on which to write down the requested Incident Report and you can note his badge number on this paper.

If the officer refuses to provide the incident report number, ask him why and make note of that reason. Now that you know his badge number and can identify him you can address his behavior with his superior officers. I would first approach the District 8 Commander, and see if he would follow up and get you the incident report number you requested. If that fails, follow your request up the chain of command by using the city’s web page.

You must be relentless in demanding service and accountability or you will get none.

John Twomey

Posted at 11:48 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Another South Providence?

News of yet ANOTHER shooting on Pleasant Street and the unabated drug dealing at Tecumseh and Grandview (the subjects of the two latest posts) leads me to believe that Mt. Hope is turning into another South Providence.

I'm angry, frightened and depressed over the state of our neighborhood. I equate the hoodlums and thugs in our midst with terrorists. Do we have to call in the Department of Homeland Security to take care of these people, who are no better than wild animals?

Message to David Cicilline, Kevin Jackson and police: clean up the neighborhood NOW even if you have to declare martial law.

Peter C.

Posted at 10:47 AM | Community | Comments (2)

Trouble on Grand View?

Feeling skittish

Was it just hyper-active teenagers expending residual summer energy on the street at 9:00 p.m.? Perhaps. If it were not for this series of shootings in our neighbourhood; if it were not for the proliferation of open-air drug dealing on Grand View and Tecumseh, I would have simply opened my front door and asked the kids to tone it down, get out of the road, stop shouting and hollering, and racing mopeds up and down the street. But I did not know if I was dealing with over-the-edge teens or with crack heads...I was afraid. Not a great feeling. I called the police. I have no idea if they responded, but the noise did die down after a while. The whole episode left me feeling down-right sad and uneasy about the skittishness invading our neighbourhood.

I know my neighbours. The vast majority are good, responsible people. Now this new invasion. And I am more than a little uneasy. Are the police on the side of law? Or on the side of expedience? Just a question.

N.P.

Posted at 7:54 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Another Pleasant Street Shooting -- Mid-day! ! !

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Breaking News

This just in. 08/23/07

While working on a Locust Street property around 11:45 to Noon, I suddenly heard 8 or 9 loud gunshots ricocheting from the Pleasant Street area. Then several police cars zoomed past. Me & Jim Dawg hopped in his van and drove down there to see what the hell was going on. A guy got shot in the leg in a brazen mid-day drive-by shooting.

Watch your local media for updates.

This from MSNBC local affiliate Channel 10:Shooting Extends String of Violent Crimes

Saturday August 25

Someone just sent me this link to ProJo's coverage from Friday:

Providence police say man, targeted before, shot in leg

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, August 24, 2007

By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — A man who escaped being shot on Pleasant Street in Mount Hope about three weeks ago was shot there yesterday morning, the police said.

Eighteen-year-old James Goddard, of 2 Carver Court, who was outside munching a sandwich made by his mother, was wounded in the leg, but

escaped serious injury when someone in a passing car cut loose with a handgun, according to a police report. A witness said about eight shots were fired.

“Mom, I got shot in my leg,” Goddard called out as he ran back into his apartment. A relative drove Goddard to the emergency room of Miriam Hospital, where, Maj. Paul C. Fitzgerald said, he was treated for a single gunshot wound.

In a case of bad aim or mistaken identity on Aug. 1, Kevelin Davis, 29, of 19 Pleasant Court, was shot five times in the vicinity of 61 Pleasant St., in a drive-by shooting like yesterday’s. Goddard, who was standing near Davis that night, is believed to have been the shooter’s intended target, Fitzgerald said yesterday.

Police officers marveled at the fact that Davis survived his wounds, because he had been shot with a 45-caliber handgun. He was hit once in the arm and four times in the back, the police said at the time.

When he was taken for treatment, a hospital employee found that Davis had bags of crack hidden between his buttocks. Davis was charged with drug possession, and after he was released from the hospital, he was turned over to federal authorities because he was in violation of his probation on a federal firearms charge, according to the police.

As for Goddard, he was on the sidewalk, across the street from McCann Place, shortly before 11:30 a.m. when a dark-colored vehicle with a broken headlight drove down Pleasant. He told the police that “the vehicle looked shady,” and he began to run away. As he ran, the shots were fired, he said.

His mother, Jeanne Wilson, 50, of 10 Pine Grove St., Pawtucket, told the police that she had made a sandwich for her son and that he ran back into the apartment within seconds of having left.

The police determined that the car that carried the drive-by shooter yesterday was apparently stolen on June Street, Wanskuck.

gsmith@projo.com

Posted at 3:19 PM | Community | Comments (4)

Summit Checks In! Thanks Jim. First Time!

Posted as a comment to Peter's post, Community Meeting, August 20, MHNA.

Thank You for your excellent and timely re-cap. I copied it and posted it to the Summit Neighborhood Association ListServ since Summit has a broad definition and we are all part of this great(er) community.

Jim Kelly

PS. Thanks, Jim, and I'm not being facetious. This is the first time I have felt even an inkling of sincerity from anyone from the Summit Neighborhood Association.

John Twomey

Posted at 12:48 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Upcoming Events in Billy Taylor Park

Announcing an upcoming event in Billy Taylor Park, August 25, Billy Taylor Day, Sponsored by the MHNA and the Browns and Kevin Jackson.

Announcing the Hector Event in Billy Taylor Park, September 22, sponsored by the Hector Family and Kevin Jackson.

Posted at 11:46 PM | Community | Comments (0)

The Mr. Bigs: The Kingpin Drug Dealers of Mt. Hope

Would it surprise you if the biggest drug dealers in Mt. Hope, the Kingpins who are supplying all the petty drug dealers in Mt. Hope, are so called pillars of the community, big time drug dealers masquerading as community activists?

Would it surprise you?

Would it surprise you if political corruption was involved in the drug trade in Mt. Hope?

Payoffs?

How do you think it has survived for thirty years?

Does it appear to be protected now?

Listen to the rhetoric.

But follow the money.

Follow the events in BTP.

Posted at 11:28 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Community Meeting, August 20, MHNA

Taxes & Property Re-evaluations

Despite a 4.5 percent increase, Mt. Hope homeowners should receive slightly lower property tax bills later this month, City Councilman Kevin Jackson said at the monthly Community Police Forum at the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association August 20.

Jackson said 80 percent of East Side property owners will have lower 2007 tax bills than in 2006. The only ones who won't are College Hill property owners, who likely will get bigger bills. Other Providence neighborhoods, such as Washington Park, also will be hit by property tax increases.

The councilman mentioned the good news during his report on the budget, which the council approved in time for the new fiscal year that began August 1.

This year's property revaluation, which under state law are required every three years, have resulted in assessments that will be taxed at a lower rate than in previous years. So even with the 4.5 percent increase Mayor Cicilline was forced to implement because the Rhode Island Legislature did not increase aid to schools, taxes in Mt. Hope will be lower, Jackson reported.

Police Activity Report

On another topic, much of the discussion following a report by Lt. David Schiavulli, commander of the District 8 police substation, and Maj. Paul Fitzgerald, commander of the Providence Police Uniform Division, centered on Pleasant Street problems. The police reported that they continue to investigate the shootings that occurred in the vicinity of 61 Pleasant St., but thus far have not been able to identify the gunmen. Fitzgerald said the victims and witnesses have not been cooperative. Schiavulli said patrols have been increased on the street. Also sitting in on the meeting were the sergeant responsible for the third shift and three police officers.

Code Enforcement

Several residents also asked what the city is doing about several boarded-up properties on the street, which have been in a state if disrepair for several years. Jackson and the police officials said they would contact city inspectors to see if they have cited the property owners for violations. Jackson mentioned that proceedings in the City Housing Court are lengthy, cumbersome and inefficient, and that the City Council had recommended combining it with the City Municipal Court, but the mayor did not approve it.

Park Event

MHNA Executive Director Ray Watson, meeting facilitator, reported that the annual Billy Taylor Day event will be held in Billy Taylor Park from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, August 25. The event is held for neighborhood children and will feature a cookout and entertainment.

Gentrification Workshop

He also reported that a Gentrification Workshop will be held at the MHNA at 6 p.m. August 30 and East Side Neighborhood Planning Charettes will be held September 24- 28. The charettes are being held in conjunction with the city's long-range plans for rezoning.

Attendance & Schedule

The meeting was well attended, with a good representation by white and African-American community members. Several are residents of the Grandview-Tecumseh section of the neighborhood, which has been the site of drug dealing and other criminal activity. For the first time, the audience included several youths, which Watson and others said was an encouraging sign.

The next monthly community meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday, September 17.

I left the August 20 meeting before the community discussion on "What elements make up a good community?" I encourage other attendees to comment on that discussion and/or other aspects of the meeting.

Peter C.

Posted at 10:03 AM | Community | Comments (3)

I hear fear - anger - stress - hate and desire.

Submitted as a comment on the post: .45-Caliber Shells Fired - 61 Pleasant Street, Mt. Hope: Victim Had Drugs Up His Ass

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I hear fear...anger....stress....hate and desire. Desire to have order in the community...desire for the legal penalties to be enforced...Desire for "these people" lives to change...but I do not hear anything that involves positively impacting the society of the people you're speaking out against. Do you not see that something is missing that's key to living in this world? Do you not have the knowledge of these life skills yourself, thus you cannot foster a constructive network or platform to remedy the situation..therefore your only option is for the City to do it for you?

I know there's more substance in the minds of the people within this blog. This blog is the first stepping stone...but it's not all...there more that can be done!

We all work...Blue collar and/or White collar. At our jobs we have to speak to people we don't really have 1. Much in common with, 2. A personal reason not to like them, and 3. An understanding of who they are. However, through emails, errors and meetings you get to form FACTUAL & PERSONAL based opinions and feelings toward that person. I challenge those that read this to engage those who live in and around Mt. Hope whom you don't know, in dialogue about school, community, sports, entertainment ...anything!

We already see that the communication barrier internally in the community is one-sided and the same with the City Offices set up to protect our rights a residents.

Majority of what I've read on the site is GREAT material and some heartbreaking....heartbreaking that someone even took the time to process a ridiculous thought that frankly, is filled with racial hatred/tension. It's humoring to a (jack-ass) degree but in this day and age no matter how many (*) you use or how cautiously you preface things, racial divide and inequalities are more visible/prominent beyond any other issue in the USA. Face it. You live with it....you deal with it...you cannot fix it. You CAN grow to understand it!

...Understand points of view you just weren't faced with dealing with as a child/teen. Understand what makes someone think they own a side-walk or community. Understand what innocence has been lost in the kids of our community. With the opportunity you can then educate, relate and rebuild relationships.....and most importantly the Community.

Don't let fear feed your human tendency to stereo-type or place judgment....it only clutters the minds purpose in finding meaningful and peaceful solutions to the problems we face everyday as Citizens of the United States of America.

-A.Non

Posted at 1:39 PM | Community | Comments (2)

To Use or Lose: Dream On

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Make a Blog Entry

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Many people want change in Mt. Hope, for instance the many passive readers of this blog who never contribute their voice. They want change, they just want someone else to do all the heavy lifting. I view that attitude as an overt act of cowardice, the weakest impulse to passive aggressive behavior.

I commend all the people who have contributed to the discussion lately, Lisa, Dennis, Adam, James, Peter, Anonymous. All voices are welcome. But I want all you Mt. Hope residents of IP addresses known and unknown who read and then cluck, cluck, cluck and talk the talk but are unwilling to walk the walk, that you might as well move out of Mt. Hope, for you will not effect change by being passive, and you are nothing but dead weight for those of us who are willing to fight for what we believe is right: the right to live in peace in our homes, the right to drive and walk down our streets without being harassed by drug dealers, without living in fear of drive by shootings related to punk-ass rivalries by rival drug dealing welfare recipients, the right to live in a clean, law abiding urban environment.

Last Thursday, a person from the most crime ridden area of Mt. Hope, the Grand View, Tecumseh area had the courage and the commitment to organize a meeting to address the issues in this area and in Mt. Hope in general, and he got the police to commit to the meeting and thought that the people most affected would show the gumption and commitment to attend and to show their support and commitment. 15 to 20 people from the area were expected for the meeting: 4 showed up. Shameful.

Talk is cheap: action speaks louder than words.

The internecine back-biting, the petty jealousies and resentments, and the egos are the Achilles heel of those who see themselves as the intelligent and the well educated.

Divide and conquer: it has worked for centuries, why shouldn't it work in Mt. Hope?

But if anyone wishes to contribute their thoughts to this discussion, read on.

I know the blog entry box on the site has been down for some time so it is necessary to use a Blog Entry Link for submitting entries.

Of course one could always use the comments tab below any post and designate it as an entry or post.

But if you have an essay or comment of length, a book or movie review, announcements, or a photo essay, maybe of your garden, your hobby, or of your pets, poetry or artwork, or some miscellaneous whatever, use the underlined Blog Entry link above or below to submit your contribution.

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Make a Blog Entry

Posted at 12:28 AM | Community | Comments (0)

The Sin of Sunflowers

This spring we got together with a bunch of our neighbors to take advantage of the city's "free tree" offer. Many thanks to our neighbors who took part in this event.

Well I have a neighbor who came running outside flipping out at the members of our community who were planting the trees, and she forbade us to plant a tree in front of her home. She claimed that she "owned" the sidewalk and that the tiny little tree would block all the morning light she receives (mind you she is in her 70's). Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the city of Providence own all sidewalks?

Anyways, LONG story short I had a talk with my neighbor, and we agreed that I would plant sunflowers and other flowers in the hole that was dug for the tree, and my neighbor agreed to let me use her hose and water to care for the flowers. Today, my neighbor’s daughter cut down ALL of the beautiful sunflowers. Mind you not only did I buy all the flowers, fertilizers, etc, but I have also tended to them.

I just looked out my front door and am appalled by what I see! All the sun flowers GONE!. I spoke to my neighbor, who owns the house and she said "my daughter is driving my crazy." Great excuse.

I am disgusted at this moment. Adam, as previously mentioned occurrences of this nature makes you think "WHY BOTHER"..... I am disgusted to say the least!!!.

Does anyone know if I have any legal recourse regarding this situation? Obviously I do not want any problems with my neighbors but they (not even the homeowner, but her daughter) have crossed the line...... Anyone have any thoughts?

D. Cregg

Posted at 7:48 PM | Community | Comments (4)

Just Not Getting It . . . !

Adam, I feel your pain man! I pick up shit daily!!!! However you CANNOT give up.

If nothing else you are leading by example and that is great, and as an individual it is one of the few things you can do. Things have been getting better in Mt. Hope and will continue to improve as time goes on.

I completely agree with you that a reasonable and prudent person would see you cleaning, and all your hard work, and would thus respect it.

NOT SO MUCH, ey?

I have planted flowers in 4 tree rings on my street and I see individuals walking their dogs multiple times a week and the people let their dogs WALK ON the flowers and pee and poop on all of them and in the gardens: of course I politely tell them this is not acceptable. Unfortunately many look at me as if I am the crazy one!! As a dog owner and lover I deem this completely unacceptable! Unfortunately many people are ignorant and just DO NOT get it!!!!

Dennis Cregg

Posted at 2:26 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Every Urban Problem Under Heaven

A little respect, just a little bit . . .?

I had always read that if people see trash on the street, they're more likely themselves to litter their garbage on said street. When I moved onto Camp Street, our little front "yard" (no more than 5 feet by 12 feet) was littered with garbage, weeds and dog shit, as were the nice street trees just planted. So, one day me and my friend weeded the entire sidewalk in front of my building, sprayed vinegar down to kill all the roots, picked up all the garbage and put a nice little garden fence around the street trees with flowers. Then, just last week, a landscaper finally came and planted bushes and laid mulch down in the "yard." I thought this would send a message that we care for our property so don't mess with it. Sadly, it didn't. Daily I remove napkins, soda cans, blunt wraps, etc. from the garden and sidewalk. If people can't respect the hard work we have put into making our street a little cleaner, then I have no respect for them and will stop trying.

It's no trivial matter

It may sound trivial to some for us to be bitching about litter since it's not killing or hurting anyone, but it's just one more thing (like graffiti) that brings down the quality of life in the neighborhood. I have a great tolerance for urban living but it gets tiring sometimes having to deal with what seems to be EVERY urban problem (drugs, prostitution, littering, graffiti, violence) all in one hood.

Adam

Posted at 5:21 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Filthy Streets Indicative of Neighborhood Health

Just as a patient's fever is a sign of possibly serious illness, Mt. Hope's filthy streets and sidewalks are an indicator that city officials and residents have a lot of work to do to make it a safe, quiet and drug-free community.

I agree that Mt. Hope residents are not teaching their children to respect the neighborhood and dispose of trash properly. I constantly have to pick up bottles, cups, paper and other trash tossed in front of my property. Of course, it's not just the little ones who are doing it. So do older youth. Some of them even urinate on property near the "inconvenience" store, as I call it. There's an anti-littering law on the books, but apparently people are smart enough not to do it if there's a police officer around.

The trash problem was mentioned at the second community meeting, but I guess no one was listening.

Peter C.

Posted at 10:36 AM | Community | Comments (2)

Pigs On Mt. Hope Streets: Who is Mentoring these Childern?

McDonald's Cup

Walking back from the convenient store this evening I was behind a group of maybe 5 young African American girls around 12, 13 years of age who had just left the store as I was entering.

On the way back home I watched them as one discarded a McDonald's cup right on the sidewalk, just dropped it from her hand as she walked, as if that was perfectly normal behavior.

Sprite Can

A few steps later another girl dropped her empty sprite can right on the corner of Camp & Locust and a few steps farther another girl dropped another cup from Mcdonalds.

Another Mc Cup

I turned down my street toward home as these girls continued on their way.

Before I got to my door I heard the sounds of something breaking against a building so I turned and went back up to Camp Street.

Looking down the street I saw a neighbor from the next corner standing in front of his apartment building looking flustered and upset.

Egg Shells

I walked down there an he told me that a group of girls just pelted his house with eggs, and while he was loading his car with his professional gear for a gig, one of the girls ran into his open front door and threw and smashed an egg onto his oriental carpet.

Egged On Window

I asked about the broken picket fence around his yard and he told me that it had been vandalized the night of the June 10 riot in the aftermath and that no one had gotten around to fixing it. He said that it had been vandalized once more since then.

Vandalized Fence

I can hardly wait for MHNA Board Member Ms. Taylor, of Pleasant Street, to give her take on this behavior. I hope it will be as interesting as her take on drug dealing and criminality in Mt. Hope. I'm sure it will have something to do with white people moving into Mt. Hope and causing all these problems.

What are the adults responsible for raising these kids teaching them: anything? Are they teaching them to respect other people and their property? Are they teaching them respect for their environment. Are they teaching them cleanliness? It doesn't look like it.

Kids will behave like kids, but adults who raise their kids in ignorance, passing their own ignorance on to a new generation, should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

John Twomey

Posted at 10:31 PM | Community | Comments (1)

OPEN AIR DRUG MARKET: COURTESY OF MAYOR DAVID CICCILINE

Attention: Come to Mt. Hope to buy your drugs, courtesy of Mayor David Cicciline.

The buck stops here!!!

Visit 61 Pleasant Street.

Visit 206 Camp Street.

Visit upper Grandview.

Visit 40 - 48 Techumseh Street.

We all know it, the police all know it, Councilman Jackson knows it, and of course Mayor Cicciline and Police Chief Col. Dean Esserman, who both live on the East Side (but not in Mt. Hope) know it, so let us all celebrate the OPEN AIR DRUG MARKET in Mt. Hope.

Drugs in Mt. Hope: Just a fact of life: We can't do anything about it!!!!

Them drug dealers and criminals, after all, are just trying to support their families the best they can, or so some would have you believe.

These people, who believe such myths, are the people who give liberals a bad name, who are responsible for the Democrats losing the last election, who have knee jerk reactions without putting their mind in gear before thinking and speaking.

Mt. Hope is Mt. Hope. It is not the nation. It is a small, corrupt neighborhood that has been manipulated by users who wish to maintain the status quo that they worked so hard to achieve (like the Patriarchal Brown Family dominating the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association (MHNA) for generations, siphoning off Block Grant Money from Kevin Jackson for salaries to relatives and hangers on for alleged kickbacks): votes -- for the right to operate their drug trade with impunity.

Now, the jig is up.

No more tit for tat.

Let's call a spade a spade.

Under Rhode Island's (link) Access to Public Records Act, 38 - 2 - 3, anyone can request the financial records of the MHNA for the last 20 years and examine the way they have done business. You can examine whether they have abided by their non-profit charter. Under Rhode Island's General Laws 38 - 2 - 3, you can request all records of their financial dealings and all of the grants orchestrated by Councilman Kevin Jackson.

I requested the permit application that Kevin Jackson put in for the June 10 event in Billy Taylor Park (that resulted in the June 10 Riot) from the DPW and from Rita Murphy and both Bernard Levy (DPW) and Rita Murphy (MONS) refused to provide me with a copy of the requested application.

Yet today, I have a copy. (And I will provide it to anyone who asks.)

The DPW application, signed by Kevin Jackson, implicates Jackson and the Lewis family in the June 10 riot as the only parties responsible, except for the Providence Police Department, which refused to enforce the law when called upon to do so. Bear with me and legal proceedings will reveal the truth despite the City's efforts to sweep this matter under the rug and bury it.

I just won't go away as long as I am alive!

I hired a lawyer who obtained Jackson's DPW application for me through the above mentioned statue, Access to Public Records Act, 38 - 2 - 3. Just click that link to read the law.

Turns out I did not have to pay a lawyer for that, it was my right to get it under the law: Levy and Murphy broke the law in refusing me the records, and because they did I am entitled to recover my legal fees from them for their illegal refusal to provide the records.

It is a sad day when a citizen has to hire attorneys to get the city to do the right thing, like enforce the law in Mt. Hope. yet if that is what it takes, well, I have the means and I have the the will and I have the courage to go all the way.

I only hope that some other Mt. Hope residents have the courage to stand by my side and fight the good fight and set this neighborhood right.

CORRUPTION NO MORE!

GO ALONG TO GET ALONG?

NOT IN MT. HOPE!

John Twomey

Posted at 12:02 AM | Community | Comments (1)

Pleasant Street Shootings

Pleasant Street Shootings

The drug-related shooting at 61 Pleasant St. August 1 and another shooting 10 days earlier at the same spot require immediate action. Drug dealers need to be put on notice that they will not be tolerated any longer in Mt. Hope.

City Councilor Kevin Jackson needs to stop protecting the dealers, as has been reported, and cooperate with the police in identifying and arresting them. This isn't about racism. It's about making Mt. Hope safe for all of its residents.

This should be a major topic of discussion at the next community meeting.

Peter C.

Posted at 7:40 PM | Community | Comments (1)

.45-Caliber Shells Fired - 61 Pleasant Street, Mt. Hope: Victim Had Drugs Up His Ass

* Dem ain't no pussy shells, dems some serires lead, dem 45's, Bro.

Ah kain't wate for some a dem shells to go thru some kids winnow and kil em in deys sleep. or betta yet kil one a dem white motherfuckers whos driving us drug dealers outta Mt. Hope.

Us African American drug dealers gotta right to wheel & deal in Mt. Hope (lik we done for the last 30 years) courtesy of Kevin Jackson and Mayor ciccline and in da tradition of Budi Cianci who knew how ta go along to git along, because we rappers, we got bling, we gangstas, we doun got ta work, wes entitled, wes da victims, we knows how to play da system. Yeah, we playahs! Wellfare, SSI disability, young girls in da projects wit our babies, wes playahs!

An aferall, we owns Mt. hope!

Yes, surprise, surprise the shooting last night on Pleasant was drug related.

What will it take for the police to go down there and find that gun and take it off the streets. I sure hope they do not violate anyone's

civil rights in doing so. Maybe they should wait until an innocent person is killed by a stray bullet.

From Pro Jo:

Shooting victim faces drug charge

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, August 2, 2007

By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — A man was shot in the Mount Hope neighborhood early yesterday morning, the police said. And then he wound up facing a criminal charge when an employee of Rhode Island Hospital reported that the man had concealed illegal drugs in a body cavity. Kevelin Davis, 29, of 19 Pleasant Court, was found shot five times, four times in the back and once in the right arm, and lying on the floor of an apartment at 61 Pleasant St. at 12:50 a.m., according to the police. It was the second shooting in 10 days at or in the vicinity of 61 Pleasant St.

He told officers that he had been on the front steps of 61 Pleasant, talking to the residents there, when he saw a gold-colored car occupied by two men wearing dark-colored hoodies pull up. He and the residents turned to go inside — it was not clear why — and then gunshots were fired from the car, according to Davis.

He was shot and the car drove away, down Pleasant to North Main Street, he told the police. Detectives found seven .45-caliber shell casings, meaning that at least seven shots were fired.

Davis was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, where he was admitted in serious condition initially. As he was being helped, a hospital employee found a clear plastic bag concealed between his buttocks that, according to the police, contained at least six pieces of crack cocaine.

Davis immediately was put under police guard, and later in the morning he was hand-delivered a District Court summons charging him with possession of cocaine.

Sgt. Paul Brousseau, commander of the police prosecutions unit, said Davis normally would have been brought to court to answer a criminal complaint, but due to his physical condition, he was given the order to appear Aug. 22. Davis’ condition is not life-threatening, according to the police.

The previous shooting occurred July 22, when Justin T. Potter, 26, of 226 Juniper St., East Providence, was grazed in the head by a bullet.

A sport-utility vehicle in which Potter was the driver or a passenger crashed into a parked car outside 61 Pleasant and then, a couple of minutes later, into the side of an office building at 747 North Main St., according to the police.

The Potter shooting remains under investigation.

gsmith@projo.com

* This is a poor attempt to use what is characterized as Ebonics (an African American dialect) to dramatize the ignorance of the drug dealers and the people who support them in Mt. Hope. In no way do I wish to impinge the intelligence of any random African American by generalizing that that is the way they speak or think: I only refer to the peculiar breed of African American drug dealers who live and ply their evil trade in Mt. Hope, Providence, RI. Any perceived condemnation by association is unintended and is in the mind of the beholder.

Simply leave a comment with your contact info and we can engage from there.

John Twomey

Posted at 1:04 AM | Community | Comments (3)

Man Shot at 61 Pleasant St. Mt. Hope 8/1/07

A tip just came over the wires about another shooting at 61 Pleasant in which a man was shot twice. This is the 2nd shooting in about a week at that address. Do ya think that someone around there might have a gun and might be dangerous. I hope our Police Department can do something.

This sounds like a job for the MHNA's Board Member, Ms. Taylor, who

claims that she doesn't mind such drug related criminal activity in her neighborhood. What can you say!

Man shot in Providence's Mount Hope neighborhood

PROVIDENCE – A man was shot early this morning at 61 Pleasant St. and taken to Rhode Island Hospital.

Emergency crews from the fire department responded to the 12:53 a.m. report of a man shot twice in the Mount Hope neighborhood, and they took the man to the hospital, according to James Taylor, chief of communications for the Providence Fire Department.

Police in the capital city cannot be reached for comment.

The man is believed to have been shot twice, Taylor said. His condition is unavailable at this time.

-- projo.com staff writer Kate Bramson

Posted at 8:51 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Here Comes the Old Boss, Same as the New boss . . .

The ProJo story about Buddy Cianci cutting off his probation bracelet kind of reminds me of a song by the Who, Won't Get Fooled Again, but I may have reversed the lyrics somewhat.

I was talking to a City Councilor recently, yeah, one of Providence's, about the recent riot in Billy Taylor Park and about how it really only happened because Councilman Kevin Jackson (who operates in Ward 3 as if it is his own little fiefdom, where he can do as he pleases because he is in tight with David Cicilline, the Mayor of Providence) and, yeah, the Councilperson, a long time veteran, says Jackson was able to pull an illegal permit just a few days before the event and not notify the police department or anyone, as required, because Jackson is a relic from the Cianci administration and still does things the way they were done then, a little tit for tat, votes for favors, you get the drift. In other words, he throws his weight around as a friend of the Mayor.

* Sieg Heil, Herr Jackson, Sieg Heil!

Does Jackson realize how widely he is despised by the new, prevailing demographic in Mt. Hope?

Jackson thinks that the City Ordinances do not apply to him, which is why he authorized the Park to be used without a Parks Permit, without the required insurance binder, without the required entertainment license for live, amplified music, and he allowed a major street (Camp St.) to be closed illegally, resulting in a riot that still has Mt. Hope shaking and in which the entire Police Department's 3 -11 shift had to respond to, leaving the rest of the City unprotected and the neighborhood shaken and vandalized.

That is also why he steadfastly refuses to take any responsibility for the riot that set Mt. hope back ten years. He thinks that he can stonewall and that it will go away, be forgotten. He and Lt. Campbell think that we have moved beyond it. Oh, they wish! Are they bosom buddies or what?

But the truth is out. By his documented actions, year after year, by pulling illegal permits for African American events in Billy Taylor Park that invariably end up in violence and by pandering to and protecting African American drug dealers in Mt. Hope by political pressure on the Police Department to go lax on law enforcement in Mt. Hope, Jackson has set up the Mt. Hope community and the Police Department for failure and for racial conflict, while he comes out looking like a hero to the African American community in Mt. Hope and delivers the vote to whomever is running and also insures his place in the current political firmament. The truth is out!

The Councilperson made the point that Jackson still operates the same way under Cicilline that he did under the corrupt Cianci administration in which the law was routinely ignored, so, not much has changed.

Both Alix Ogden, Head of the Parks Department, and Bernard Levy, DPW Traffic Engineer, are Cicilline hires, and they are rightfully afraid of political hari-kari by opposing a friend of David's when he asks for an illegal permit. After all Ward 3 is Jackson's Little Kingdom, and he is the Mayor's friend and earliest supporter in his bid for Mayor besides their other common interests.

Ogden and Levy do not want to lose their jobs.

Not much has changed. New boss, same old, same old! Shit!

Weren't we supposed to get a new, enlightened way of doing things under the Cicilline administration? Transparency?

We all know that Jackson is a panderer, a pander-bear and that David panders to Jackson, and so what does that make Cicilline: no better than Cianci?

Hello, New Boss. You ain't no better than Buddy.

Don't count on my vote: for anything. Ever.

-

* Sieg Heil is a German phrase, which literally means "Hail [to] Victory." During the Nazi era, it was a common chant at political rallies.

Of course some argue the German contention that they never intended the dire consequences that resulted from the Nazi political manipulations, but history well documents how setting race against race ends up in disaster. It starts small and grows from there.

Posted at 1:13 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Man's Head Grazes Bullet on Pleasant St.

A man's head grazed a bullet causing chaos in Mt. Hope Sunday night down around 61 Pleasant St. and at 747 N. Main St. The bullet, a straight A student, who was only out trying to support his family, ran directly to Councilman Jackson claiming harassment and profiling when his casing was found at the scene. They planted it, he told the Councilman.

You think I'm joking? Read all about it in the ProJo article Bullet grazes man's head at this link or continue reading below the fold.

Of course I adapted the spin you'll probably hear when the incident is discussed at the next MHNA meeting. At the last meeting I remember asking, "Why do we live in a neighborhood where we have to worry about getting shot?" and Mr. Watson, without missing a beat, responded, "Because that's the kind of neighborhood it is."

-

Bullet grazes man’s head, SUV strikes parked car

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 24, 2007

By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Detectives are still trying to sort out what happened at about 1 a.m. Sunday in Mount Hope when a parked car was struck by

another vehicle and an East Providence man was grazed in the head by a bullet.

Although there are discrepancies in the statements of those involved, the police said they have concluded that Justin T. Potter, 26, of 226 Juniper St., East Providence, was shot in the head as he drove or rode in a rented GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle, that the SUV struck a parked car in the vicinity of 61 Pleasant St., Mount Hope, and that the SUV later smashed into an office building at 747 North Main St.

Potter told the police that he was shot at on Gano Street in Fox Point, but detectives theorize that the shooting occurred in the vicinity of 61 Pleasant. No shell casings were recovered from that area, however.

“We’re still looking to speak further with the victim on this,” Detective Capt. Hugh T. Clements Jr. said yesterday. Officers were dispatched to 61 Pleasant, near McCann Place, for a report of gunshots, and witnesses said they had heard six to eight shots. But the shooter had not been seen. Officers found glass in the street and noticed that a parked car owned by Carol Robinson, 31, of 127 Suffolk St., Wanskuck, had been damaged by another vehicle.

They then learned that a maroon SUV matching Robinson’s description of the second vehicle had pushed in a wall at the offices of Rhode Island Court Reporting on North Main Street, about 3½ blocks from 61 Pleasant. The police had the unattended SUV — a slug was lodged in its tailgate — towed away as evidence.

A call then came from Rhode Island Hospital, where Potter was being treated for a minor gunshot wound.

gsmith@projo.com

Posted at 10:11 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Another Point of View

It is interesting to me to read that some of the people at this meeting heard what Cheryl said differently than I did. What I heard her say was that she talks to some people that we don't. My understanding was that some of these people have the opinion that the conditions in Mt. Hope help to keep the neighborhood affordable for their families by scaring away some of the more affluent. My understanding was that she was sharing another point of view with the attendees.

My understanding of Kevin Jackson nodding in agreement was that he has heard the same things himself. I do not for one minute believe that either Kevin Jackson or Cheryl Taylor promote illegal activities. One of the important principals of nonviolence is to attack the forces of evil not the people doing evil. It is clear to me that there are some issues that do need to be addressed in Mt. Hope.

I am glad that we are talking about the city council money that comes into our neighborhood and where it goes. We need affordable housing for all and gainful employment for our neighbors. Perhaps if we devote some energy in that direction we will all be rewarded with a community that is pleased with all its neighbors.

-Lisa Niebels

Posted at 11:48 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Lily White Asses

It’s all here, verbatim.

I believe the July 16, MHNA Meeting was an eye-opener for all who attended.

We already received a great, general recap of the meeting which is quite accurate, but I’m hoping that many people who attended have vivid recollections that they will be able to share in detail on this website.

I want to list a few of the moments that stood out for me.

Lilly White Asses

I recall vividly the moment when Cheryl Taylor, MHNA Board Member, referred to all the Mt. Hope residents in the audience who are Caucasian as “your lily white asses”, and told everyone that the drug dealers aren’t going anywhere, that in fact the drug dealers will keep plying their trade, essentially, in hope that it will drive the new (read, white) residents out of Mt. Hope. This was a sad moment. But what an eye-opener it must have been for many at the meeting.

Actually, I admire Cheryl for her brutal honesty. She told us how she feels. She said what many think but would hesitate to say for reasons of political correctness. When asked if she appreciated the many good things the new residents have brought to Mt. Hope, cleaner streets, renovated houses, less crime, she basically replied that she didn’t care about that, that she was fine with the neighborhood the way it was, drug dealing and all, that she did not want change.

But can you imagine the repercussions if during the meeting a Caucasian had referred to African American residents of Mt. Hope as “your black asses” or even “your brown bottoms”? I think we all know what would have ensued.

A young girl from the Center for Non-violence Scolding and Reprimanding Craig

I witnessed a conversation after the meeting where a young woman from Teny Gross’s Center for Non-Violence attempted to alternately scold, rebuke, reprimand, and criticize Craig for his exchange with Cheryl Taylor when he asked her exactly how she felt about the neighborhood and the changes that are happening.

These people from Teny Gross’s organization (and Mr. Gross himself) are so full of themselves that it makes me ill. I consider them nothing but outside agitators, ill informed about the history of Mt. Hope and ill informed about what is going on in Mt. Hope today. And in the height of arrogance, attempting to push their ultra-liberal agenda down our throats. How condescending!

I won’t soon forget the gasp that issued from the Teny Gross disciples from his cult when I had the audacity to say that his comment about how neighborhoods change based on the presence of drug dealers which was based on a quote from an anonymous real estate agent in Boston was not even valid. They actually gasped, turned around and looked at me with mouths wide open. Talk about brainwashing.

I won’t soon forget how at the previous meeting Mr. Gross dropped the fact that he was in the Israeli Army, that he studied at Harvard, and that he condescendingly lectured someone who dared to put forth an idea that did not jive with his ultra-liberal agenda.

It’s just an opinion, my opinion, that non-violence is a great thing, a superb goal, but that in this day and age it’s kind of like pissing into a strong wind.

Here’s a suggestion: since Mr. Gross is an Israeli army veteran, and superbly educated at Harvard, maybe he should take his non-violent philosophy over to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has raged for years – compared to that working in Mt. Hope is simply child’s play. That is where he is needed. But he's not there.

Liberal Welfare

I resent just a little having the liberal agenda shoved down my throat by liberal welfare recipients like the Ann-Marie Redys of the Learning Center, the MHNA, and the Teny Grosses of the world. Understand that they are in the business of collecting grant money from the federal government to run their organizations and to pay their salaries. It is in their self-interest to perpetuate the liberal myth of the poor-victim that needs the great white father figure to ride to the rescue. They are in business, self-employed, but paid with my tax dollars. They are self gratifiers with huge egos who have only their own self-interest at heart. Deep down inside, for them, I believe it is all about them. Suffice it to say, I don't like them.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

Content Rich Meeting

So much content from this meeting, text and sub-text. If anyone wishes to share their thoughts, recollections, and impressions from the meeting click on this link: July 16, Meeting or use the comments tab below.

I did record the meeting on a digital recorder which I downloaded to my computer hoping to be able to upload it to the site or download it to CDs for anyone to access. Unfortunately, I nearly crashed the site trying. The only way to share it is to provide the recorder to anyone who wishes to download it to their computer, and I can make arrangements for anyone who wishes to do this. Just get in touch through the website.

John Twomey

Posted at 11:44 PM | Community | Comments (4)

Notes from July 16, MHNA Meeting

Notes from the Mount Hope Community Meeting – July 16th 2007

Next meeting will be Monday, August 20th at 6:30pm.

Notable Attendees

Ray Watson – President of the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association
Kevin Jackson – City Councilman
Captain Campbell – Providence Police Department
Patrolman William Dickey
John Twomey – Mount Hope Community Web Site
Irene Twomey – Greater Camp Concerned Citizens

Meeting lasted from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.

Overview - What should these meetings be about?

1. Ray Watson set out to ask the community what we would like to discuss and what we would like to hear.

2. The entire meeting focused on what we hope to accomplish in our once-a-month meetings with the police officers.

3. The broad tone left many with a sense of frustration, especially those who wanted to talk about specific incidents and action items.

4. However, detailing an agenda of how to proceed on a go forward basis should prove to be constructive and fruitful. Often these meetings degenerate into chaotic shouting matches with no resolution. Having a detailed agenda, especially the agenda we decided on (below) can be an excellent tool to communicate exactly the types of concerns the residents have.

5. The agenda going forward will include the following updates:

a. The police officers will report on the following-

i. What are they doing to reach out to the community and what events have they attended, or plan to attend to help further the goal of "Community Policing"

ii. What are some of the crime statistics and hotspots in the neighborhood?

iii. What should we as community members be doing? Be made aware of? How can we help?

b. Political Update. Kevin Jackson was asked to provide a political update.

i. What is the city doing to help Mount Hope?

ii. What programs is the city investing in where our citizens can get involved?

iii. What are our political leaders doing to help our city?

c. Community Feedback

i. The residents will be able ask specific questions to the police.

ii. The residents will have an opportunity to air grievances.

Turnout

1. Captain Campbell was very impressed with the turnout on Monday. It was more than double the previous meeting.

2. Increased turn out will only strengthen the cause.

3. Lt. Schiavulli and Sgt Steve were on vacation and not able to attend

4. Greater police participation should be expected now that the community has begun to respond.

5. Thanks to all the residents who were able to attend and let’s do whatever we can to expand our numbers for the next meeting!!!!

Tone of the Meeting

1. Ray Watson began the meeting talking about the relationship the community has with the police. He referred to "a contentious relationship with the community and the police."

2. Mr. Watson was soon to realize, based on the comments of the majority of the community residents in attendance, that the relationship the community has with the police is not the issue bringing them to the meeting. The issue bringing the residents to the meeting was the relationship between law-abiding citizens and those who choose not to abide by the law.

3. Many of the most vocal residents who were looking for more law enforcement where African Americans. This is an important note and one that should be recognized by the leaders in the community.

4. This, the third such meeting, was very well organized and civil. Mr. Watson did an excellent job maintaining flow, allowing all people to speak, and ensuring the tone was civil and respectful.

5. The main detractor from group consensus was Cheryl Taylor. Ms. Taylor referred to the newer residents as "Lilly White Asses" and also said, "I know the drug dealers in Mount Hope and I don’t care. They don’t bother me." She also admitted to being afraid of white people because they complain, as well as saying the drug dealers in the neighborhood are okay as long they keep the white folks from moving in. What’s most disturbing about her comments is that Ms. Taylor is a long time board member on the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association and was sitting right next to Council Jackson who was nodding his head in affirmation.

Going Forward

1. It is very important as many residents as possible come to meetings and be vocal. Please do what you can attend!!!!!

2. Again, the next meeting is August 20th at 6:30pm.

3. Specific Issues will be discussed in the next meeting.

-

-

Special thanks to the Anonymous Attendee who took the time to type up these excellent and detailed meeting notes and submitted them to the blog.

Posted at 7:50 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Mt. Hope Community Meeting Notes for Tuesday, June 16th

An Anonymous Attendee submitted these meeting notes from the June 16th meeting at the MHNA. I'd like to thank that person for submitting the post: it is a thorough and well written report.

The next meeting will be held on Monday, July 16th from 6:30pm – 8:00pm, at the MHNA, 199 Camp Street.

-

Community Meeting, Mount Hope, Notes from Tuesday, June 16th

The next meeting will be held on Monday, July 16th from 6:30pm – 8:00pm

The plan is to meet every third Monday of the month from 6:30pm-8:00 going forward. Showing up late is acceptable.

The overall tone of the meeting was a little chaotic, but constructive.

Notable attendees included the following:

Ray Watson – Mount Hope Neighborhood Association President
Lt. David Schiavulli – Providence Police Dept
Major Fitzgerald – Providence Police Dept
Sgt. Steve
Patrolmen Brian and Dave
Teny Gross – Executive Director for the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence
Councilman Kevin Jackson
John Twomey from www.mthope-eastside.com

Discussion topics;

What is the definition of "Community Policing?" The below definition

was provided by Ray Watson and was generally agreed upon and accepted. The definition is credited to Chief Dean Esserman from the winter of 2005. For the full interview with the Chief - Chief's Interview

- Community policing is essentially about breaking down the anonymity of the police officer. It relates to the idea of reducing fear. If we want to create a fearless environment, we must first ensure that people are not afraid of the police. Too often, seeing a uniform makes people feel uneasy. If they get to know the person in the uniform, that fear goes away.

-To foster the relationship between police and citizens, community policing calls for decentralized, neighborhood-based police agencies, in which local officers are permanently assigned to communities. This model allows police officers to get to know the neighborhood and the neighborhood to get to know them. Both sides of the badge become more at ease with each other.

-Ideally, community policing results in two things. First, crime and fear will decline. Second, partnerships, mutual trust, and respect will develop between the police and the rest of the community. In practice, community policing is hard to do effectively. On the one hand, if are super crime fighters, but alienate the community, you have failed. Conversely, you can be loved and embraced by the community, but not bring down crime and then have also failed. In Providence, we try not to crash onto either shore.

The Changing Face of Mount Hope

-Some members of the community tried to say the problems were due to an influx of new residents and implied the new residents had fewer rights than the residents with 30 plus years or multiple generation connections to the neighborhood. They asked why things need to change and why behaviors, like John Paris' boats and front yard junkyard, that were acceptable before should be deemed unacceptable now.

-Others objected stating a house is no less a persons home no matter how long they have lived in the neighborhood and a resident is no less than full member of the community. Also, because laws and ordinances were ignored for years is not an excuse to continue ignoring them in the future.

-Counter points were that the community feels that white people are displacing minority families.

-More counter points ridiculed the idea of a larger organized movement to displace minority families.

-This issue will take much time resolve and the answers are less clear than the problems.

Turnout

– Lt. David Schiavulli said he was disheartened by the turnout of the residents. Especially the residents who were very vocal in the first meeting.

- Representatives at the meeting conveyed to the Lt. that the 4pm Tuesday meeting was difficult for people with jobs to attend. The result was that the next meeting – Monday July 16th – will be held at 6:30pm.

Teny Gross

– Executive Director for the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence

- A very interesting speaker was Teny Gross. He’s an Israeli who spent the required 3 years in the Israeli Army kicking down the doors of the Palestinians. He moved to the United States when he went to Harvard (and he did say he went to Harvard about 6 times). He worked in Boston targeting inner city violence and is now trying to help here in Providence. He’s trying to tackle this issue from a systemic viewpoint.

-His points were pushing the "soft approach." Looking to help the neighborhood as an effort to help ourselves. Such as volunteering at the community/recreation centers. Getting involved in local politics to stress the need for funding for programs to give the troubled members of the community a place to learn and grow.

- This approach is not for everyone, especially some of us who work 60-70 hours a week, but it’s worth investigating.
Racism

-There was definitely talk if racism and overreacting police officers but I think the police officers handled themselves incredibly well and I commend them for both their patience and politeness during the entire meeting.

Council Kevin Jackson

-Councilman Jackson was oddly quiet throughout the meeting except for one story about he was riding with the Chief of Police. He said they were riding together when a call came in about kids smoking pot a Billy Taylor Park. When they got to the park one of the officers was already there playing basketball with the kids and there was no pot smoking around. What Councilman Jackson was trying to communicate with this story, and more importantly, how it enriched the conversation in the room is truly elusive. It appeared he was trying to say that many of calls received by the police are false alarms and asked if that were true. Again, how this was constructive is confusing. This was clearly not a demonstration of leadership.

Posted at 1:12 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Now this is Great Police Work!

Hats off! Hip hip hooray!!!! Thank you Lt. Verdi and the Providence Police Department.

Every significant drug bust in Providence affects the drug business in Mt. Hope, but this one, just blocks away from Mt. Hope, I think will put a significant damper on the supply of drugs available to Mt. Hope dealers. At least one can hope.

So, hats off to Lt. Verdi, of the NOCD, Providence Police Department, and to all the officers involved, for orchestrating this incredible operation that closed down a large drug dealing operation.

Read about by it clicking this ProJo link, and if you have to register, it only takes a minute and it’s free. Or read the entire article below.

But first check out this Organizational Chart

You won't often read this from my pen, but Good job ProJo!

Police halt cocaine scheme
03:11 PM EDT on Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Amanda Milkovits
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — The chief executive officer of what the police called the largest street-level drug-dealing operation in the city is allegedly a pregnant mother who drives a Porsche Cayenne SUV — while on welfare.

The police say that Joanna “Rosa” Gonzalez, a 28-year-old mother of two in Wanskuck, was employing dozens of people including her mother, her sister, their boyfriends, and their children in a crack-cocaine enterprise that covered the city from the North End to the West Side.

The operation was run as efficiently as if Gonzalez had taken a page out of a business-management textbook — so lucrative, the police said, that she and several other welfare recipients working for her drove expensive luxury cars and made thousands of dollars. It was a family business, said Lt. Thomas Verdi, head of the Providence police narcotics unit, where even the young children were involved as lookouts and drug runners with drugs stashed in their backpacks for delivery.

But the business closed last week, when the police locked up 17 people, charging Gonzalez, her family and other alleged top managers under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. The Providence police and Drug Enforcement Agency announced the outcome of “Operation Rosa” yesterday.

Gonzalez, who is 8½ months pregnant, is being held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions, along with her alleged drug supplier,

“enforcer,” “banker,” “managers” and “distributors,” said Assistant Attorney General Bethany Macktaz. Her two children, ages 9 and 12, are now in the custody of the Department of Children, Youth and Families. “It’s just sickening,” Verdi said yesterday. “[Gonzalez] was pretty much grooming them to do what she does.”

The detectives who ran the 18-month investigation say the case is ongoing. Twelve people are wanted in connection with the sting, including Gonzalez’s 26-year-old sister, Evelyn. The investigators are also following the drug supply and have traced one source to San Diego, Calif., said Brian Crowell, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Providence field office.

The operation was bringing in 2 to 3 kilos of cocaine every one to two weeks, Crowell said, which was cut, cooked and packaged for sale on the street at about $30 to $32 per gram. The proceeds came to about $9,000 a week, Verdi said, although that was a conservative estimate.

The police searched five residences and four bank accounts, seizing $52,000 and a loaded .32-caliber pistol that was stolen.

They also seized vehicles worth a total of $300,000 that were owned by some of the drug operators claiming welfare checks, according to Providence Detective Sgt. Patrick McNulty.

That included Gonzalez, who had a Porsche, 2002 Kawasaki motorcycle and Nissan Maxima, McNulty said. Her alleged “banker,” Virgen Chadheen, 40, who the police said was on welfare, had a Cadillac Escalade. Her alleged “supplier,” John Delarosa, 33, whose wife receives state assistance, had a Mazda MPV and a Mercedes S550. And police said welfare recipient Henry Grullon, 36, an alleged business “associate” and boyfriend of Gonzalez’s sister, owned a Lincoln Navigator, BMW 745i, Suzuki and Honda motorcycles — and a rundown Chrysler minivan.
Related link

See an organizational chart of the alleged operation provided by law-enforcement officials

This investigation began when undercover Providence detectives made a few simple drug buys on the street. Then they learned that the road led to Gonzalez, Verdi said, and the police and DEA detectives began targeting her to dismantle her organization. They obtained a Superior Court order in April authorizing wire interceptions.
Over 74 days of daily wiretaps, from 8 to 1 a.m., the police intercepted more than 20,000 phone calls and monitored more than 2,000 drug sales totaling about $100,000, Verdi said. And the investigators learned about how the business was run.

The police say Gonzalez was an organized entrepreneur. She kept ledgers and records, and her “banker” handled the money, Verdi said. Everyone had a job and a shift, and an hourly wage. Some made crack in their homes, and the distributors arranged product deliveries. Her boyfriend, Michael “Ice” Taylor, was the “enforcer,” the police said.
When customers called, the distributors would meet them in public spots along main roads, Verdi said. One popular spot was near a Sunoco gas station on Broadway, where 722 drug deliveries had been made since April, he said.

As the police detectives listened in on the calls, what they heard mirrored the mundane issues within any company. The business ran from 8 a.m. to midnight, with day and night shifts, seven days a week, said Providence police Detective Peter Conley. There were half-hour lunch breaks and time off, he said. Some of the distributors grumbled that they weren’t making enough money (the police said the dealers were making $32 an hour, some as much as $40) — and they were invited to work all the overtime they wanted, he said.

The business closed last Thursday night, when the police moved in.

Gonzalez, of 49 Anchor St. and 78 Clym St., her mother, Evelyn “Diamond” Caraballo, 46, of 102 Berkshire St., her live-in boyfriend, Taylor, 22, her alleged supplier, Delarosa, of 61 Ridgeway Ave., and Chadheen, of 91 Pocasset Ave., are all charged under RICO statutes.

Gonzalez and Taylor are also charged with possession of over one ounce to one kilo of cocaine, possession with intent to deliver, and conspiracy. Delarosa was also charged with unlawful delivery of cocaine and possession of over one ounce to one kilo; he’d previously served time in federal prison for drug trafficking.

Myrna Vazquez, 20, of 26 Bodell Ave., is charged with three counts each of unlawful delivery of cocaine and conspiracy. Grullon, of 135 Terrance Ave., Cranston, is charged with possession with intent to deliver heroin and soliciting another to commit a felony.
Anthony D. Chadheen, 29, of 91 Pocasset Ave., is charged with possession of a stolen firearm. Anthony Brunetti, 41, Xiomara Guitard, 24, Paul Neri, 47, Donna Parsons, 45, Christina Wordell, 22, Thomas Mallozzi, 30, Lori Calderone, 42, and David Romano, 49, all of Providence, are all charged with soliciting another to commit a felony. Angel Lasanta, 42, of Providence, was arrested for unlawful delivery of cocaine and conspiracy.

All 17 have been arraigned and are being held without bail on the drug charges, while some are also probation or bail violators, said Macktaz. Their cases will go to Superior Court for hearings July 20 and 23, she said.

Twelve people are still wanted on drug charges: Estrellita Carabello, 35, of Central Falls, and Providence residents Edward Babbitt, 39, April Burns, 33, Stephanie Bassett, 24, Tanya Rivera, 28, Evelyn Gonzalez, 26, Tamara Chenard, 45, Dennis Delvecchio, 36, Louise Vigeant, 38, Robert Antonelli, 46, Christopher Riccio, 46, and Lisa Rotondo, 42.

CORRECTION: The name of Louise Vigeant was incorrectly spelled in a previous version of this story.
amilkovi@projo.com

Posted at 7:15 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Kevin Jackson the Enabler -- Redux

This post first appeared in December of 2006: check the archives.

History does indeed repeat itself: who was it said that those who fail to learn from history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them?

Can you connect the dots to complete the picture of how the June 10, Riot in Billy Taylor Park came about through Kevin Jackson?

-

-

Kevin Jackson the Enabler (first posted in December, 2006)

It has long been the worst kept secret in Mt. Hope that Councilman Kevin Jackson is the greatest enabler of drug dealing in Mt. Hope.

Without K.J., drug dealing would have disappeared long ago. He may as well stand down at the Crossroads, the corner of Camp & Cypress, and pedal drugs himself for all he has done to enable the drug dealers in Mt. Hope.

He leans on the police to go easy, to not enforce the law in Mt. Hope. He never hesitates to play the race card and to accuse the police of racial profiling. The drug dealers know of his liberal, knee-jerk leanings and run to him with stories of racist police action whenever a minority drug dealer is arrested for selling drugs on the streets of Mt. Hope.

That is the main reason why the police seem to be hamstrung in Mt. Hope. They are loath to take on a City Councilman when he opposes them enforcing the law. Who wishes to commit political suicide?

How would you like to be the District 8 Commander and have the Ward Councilman tell you to "leave them alone"?

He crows about being one of the first, avid supporters of our new mayor. How complicit is Mayor Ciciline for going along to get along?

We, the law abiding, property tax paying citizens of Mt. Hope pay for these politicians pandering to the scum who deal drugs on Mt. Hope streets.

For what?

Because the drug dealers are minorities?

You guessed it.

If Kevin Jackson opposed drug dealing in Mt. Hope, and actively represented the property owners in Mt. Hope, as well as all the law abiding, market-priced renters, family's, and working people in Mt. Hope, drug dealers would not be controlling the streets in Mt. Hope. In fact drug dealing would have long ago ceased to exist in Mt. Hope.

It is a shame that Jackson usually runs unopposed and that people do not realize what destruction he has wreaked on Mt. hope through his pandering.

The Summit is also victim to his pandering for Mt. Hope exports crime to the Summit neighborhood. Yet he wins them over with money for landscaping and "bump outs".

What a joke!!!

No more fear!

Even if you are a policeman, hamstrung and frustrated by the situation, or just a citizen,

VOICE YOUR OPINION HERE,

YOU WILL BE KEPT ANONYMOUS!

opinion

Posted at 11:20 PM | Community | Comments (1)

Deja Vu All Over Again

The post re-printed below, The Billy Taylor Park Event of September 23rd, first appeared last September, the 24th, 2006, after the Hector event in BTP turned violent and at least 10 police officers, if I recall correctly, had to come and quell the violence, which culminated in front of my house when a young woman wielding a hammer attacked several people.

We are in the process of pulling a copy of the permit and the resulting police report for this event for our legal action.

What would you bet that the permit was illegal and that it was pulled by Kevin Jackson?

Can you draw a parallel to the June 10, 2007, riot in Billy Taylor Park precipitated by Councilman Kevin Jackson pulling an illegal permit for another violent event?

How many more times?

Coming soon, I will repost my post, Kevin Jackson, the Enabler, from 12/17/06.

Check the site's archives from September 06, and December 06, to verify that history does indeed repeat itself.

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The Billy Taylor Park Event of September 23rd. (First posted on 09/024/06

If you are aware of what has been going on in Mt. Hope for many years, with the violence brought on by the embedded drug culture in Mt. Hope's African American Community and the City of Providence's refusal to enforce the drug laws, you will get a kick out of this ProJo article, or a laugh, or else you will get further infuriated.

The event, which was ostensibly against violence, wreaked violent havoc on the neighbors adjacent to Billy Taylor Park.

The community police were at a loss to cope.

They did not want to upset the "community", read, "minority" per political pressure!

What??????

http://www.p

Posted at 12:06 AM | Community | Comments (0)

The Next Secret Meeting

The next secret meeting won't be so secret.

The meeting will be held at 6:30pm, Monday, July 16, at 199 Camp Street at the MHNA.

These meetings were supposedly set up to address the events of the June 10 riot in Billy Taylor Park, where city workers from the DPW were assaulted and 4 policemen were also assaulted and sustained minor injuries, Camp St. was closed illegally, and improper permits were used or proper permits were not pulled to use the park. Drugs and alcohol were in wide use and the streets around the park were used by drug dealers to ply their trade.

At the meeting I attended, the 2nd, none of the above concerns were addressed. The debate was framed by a decidedly left wing, liberal, Socialistic/Marxist approach to the community's problems, blaming the ills Mt. Hope suffers from on society, framing law breakers as victims, and framing new residents as the problem, even claiming that new residents have driven out long time Mt. Hope residents.

At the first meeting I heard that the Police were verbally attacked for their response to the incident. I heard that the people who support effective policing, the people who oppose drug dealing in Mt. Hope were under-represented as none of us were told about the meeting.

We were also under-represented at the 2nd meeting.

If the people who wish to live a peaceful life in Mt. Hope, free from drug dealing, vandalism, litter, and undue noise, do not speak up at these meetings the police and politicians will only hear the voices of those people who want no law enforcement in Mt.Hope. Those people who want no law enforcement may be few, but they are loud and obnoxious.

I have a copy of the Police Report, #2007-00068036, copies of the DPW guidelines and permit application, as well as those from the Parks Department, if anyone wishes to reference this material. Click the link below or use the comments tab if you wish to obtain copies.

We're still looking for comments from those who attended the last meeting who may be able to share their experience in writing.

Here's the contact link Mt. Hope Community Website/Blog or use the comments tab, below this post.

Posted at 6:31 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Yankee Doodle Dandy

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Yankee Doodle do or die.
A real live nephew of my unlce Sam,
I was born on the 4th of July.

I've got a yankee doodle sweetheart,
she's my Yankee Doodle joy.

Yankee doodle came to London,
just to ride the ponies.
Say, I am a Yankee Doodle Boy.

A Troop of Highly Irregulars

Fath'r and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Goodin',
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy;

Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy!

From Out of the Fog

Mummers from Philly

Happy 4th of July

* All photos from Cranston's Gaspee Day Parade.

Posted at 12:42 PM | Community | Comments (0)

Free Herb!

Free Herb? No, it's not some guy illegally detained and it's not something you smoke: it's the aromatic kind that you use to flavor sauces, meats, salad dressings, mayonnaise, etcetera.

Garden Herbs

Our garden has provided copious amounts of fresh herbs this summer, much more than we could ever use, specifically Italian Oregano, Greek Oregano, French Tarragon, Chives, and Marjoram. The dry stuff in jars cannot compare to garden fresh herbs.

If anyone who is into cooking wants to pick some of these herbs to take home just click on this link Free Fresh Herbs or use the comments tab below this post.

We'll make arrangements for you to come by and pick some herbs.

John

Posted at 10:51 PM | Community | Comments (1)

Secret Meeting Theory

I 100% agree with the theory that these meetings are being held on the down low, at the most inconvenient time for the working, tax paying members of Mt. Hope society.

A policeman notified me of the meeting last week, however due to prior commitments I could not attend. I forwarded on the meeting info to many residents on Grand View and Evergreen Street. Even if I had NO commitments I never would have been able to attend as I am not fortunate enough to have a career which allows me to be out off the office by 4 p.m.

I would love to hear what was discussed in this meeting. Anyone who attended please do share your take!!

Dennis Cregg

To submit, click link: Mt. Hope Community Website/Blog Entry

Posted at 11:04 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Secret Meetings

I attended the meeting at the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association at 199 Camp Street Tuesday that was ostensibly about the June 10 riot and about Community Policing. This was the 2nd such meeting the first being on Tuesday, June 12, right after the Billy Taylor Park Riot.

From what I understand of the first meeting (I did not know about the meeting so could not attend) there was much yelling at the police as if the riot was their fault.

I believe that these meetings have been carefully orchestrated so that working people and people who support strong law enforcement efforts in Mt. Hope either do not know about the meetings or can not attend because they were held at 4:00 pm in the afternoon when most working people could not attend. In addition, only a few people were notified of the meeting, I believe a select few.

I have a lot to say about the meeting I attended Tuesday, but not much time to put it into writing. Suffice it to say, I came away disgusted.

However, there were other people there who witnessed what went on and what was said and who may be able to share their thoughts and analysis of what took place at that meeting.

I urge anyone who attended and who can put their thoughts and experience into writing to post their experience of the meeting on the Mt. Hope Community Website.

Just click on the following link and submit your post:
Mt. Hope Community Website/Blog Entry or use the Comments tab below this post.

There will be more meetings, and I will post the schedule on this blog. The more people attending who represent a rational point of view the more likely our voices will be heard down at City hall and at the Police Department.

Posted at 7:34 PM | Community | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

To Whom it may Concern

To whom it may concern,

I called Rita Murphy 2 days after this horrific event occurred; she was unavailable for consultation at the moment but however, returned my phone call promptly.

When I began expressing my concerns and questioning her regarding the events that had taken place at Billy Taylor Park, she gave me the run around, and attempted to spin all the questions I asked her. In short, I could not get a direct answer to any of my questions. I was quite pleased that she rang me back so promptly; however I was gravely disappointed with her lack of answers to my specific questions.

I have emailed and called Councilman Jackson’s office numerous times (for reasons not only regarding the incident in Billy Taylor Park), and have NEVER received a response.

I emailed the Mayor also, however I have not received a reply.
In addition to my efforts I know some of my neighbors have also called and sent emails and as of the last information I have heard from them they too had received NO responses.

Mr. Twomey,

I could not agree with you more that Mr. Jackson is an ENABLER. I have heard this from individuals, and from Police officers. Mr. Jackson IS one of the primary reasons Mt. Hope is still dealing with issues which have plagued the neighborhood for YEARS!

To all:

Mt. hope is a GREAT place to live. Do not give up hope. In the 4 years I have been a homeowner in the area I have seen MAJOR changes. In the 6 years prior to living in Mt. Hope I lived on the other side of Hope St. (which for whatever reasons has the luxury of abiding by a completely different set of laws and ordinances), but still noticed huge changes happening in Mt. Hope.

Sincerely,

Dennis Cregg

Posted at 11:38 AM | Community | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Make a Contribution?

Anyone who wishes to contribute to the blog simply click the link below, or click on the comments tab below any post.

Blog Entry

Posted at 12:55 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

ProJo Covers BTP Melee

ProJo ran a story in Friday's paper, June 22, about the horrendous June 10th incident in Billy Taylor Park, a near riot actually, in which 4 police officers were injured. The incident resulted from improper permitting by Councilman Jackson, failure to follow their own guidelines and city ordinances by the DPW, and failure to properly respond to calls for service and to investigate whether the event and street closings were legal by the police department.

Click the e-link to read the article. Register for ProJo online if you haven't: it only takes a minute.

http://www.projo.com/ri/providence/content/MCMelee_06-22-07_3864023.36846a8.html

Or you can continue reading below for the entire article.

Residents still upset over recent melee in Taylor Park

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 22, 2007

By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE —

“I was shaking. It was just unbelievable,” said Peter Cassels. “It was a terrible melee …”

Recalled John Twomey: “It was a nightmare. I never want to live through that again.”

What occurred in and around Billy Taylor Park in Mount Hope on June 10 still has tongues wagging in the neighborhood. And it has produced a vow by City Councilman Kevin Jackson.

A family cookout that afternoon and evening deteriorated into a wild disturbance in which police officers and employees of the city traffic engineering unit found themselves dodging rocks and bottles. Four officers suffered minor injuries.

Seven people were charged, including at least two members of the family that sponsored the cook-out at the park and a man who allegedly escaped police custody and had someone cut off his handcuffs.

Jackson, D-Ward 3, obtained a street-closing permit from the city on behalf of Michelle Lewis of University Heights, who told him that she wanted to have a cookout for about 50 people to celebrate the end of the school year and to remember her son who died last year. But no one obtained the required permits to use Billy Taylor Park, to have amplified music and to have live entertainment. And no one notified the Police Department, which the police say is a requirement.

About 150 people came, as Jackson understands it, and the event got out of hand. He vowed yesterday that from now on he will only get street-closing permits on behalf of organized groups rather than individuals, to ensure that a legal and orderly event is the result.

“I think they were just overwhelmed with the amount of people that were there,” Jackson said. Lewis could not be reached for comment.

Twomey, acting president of Greater Camp Concerned Citizens, a longtime neighborhood organization, charged that the cookout became intolerably loud, in violation of the city noise ordinance, with profane gangster rap audible from nearby streets, that illegal street barricades were erected and that the event became the occasion for brazen drug dealing.

He complained that an officer who responded to his call to the police that day was not diligent, in part because the officer failed to verify that the people holding the cookout had the necessary permits.

Twomey, who lives at 28 Locust St., adjacent to the park, said that after several years’ improvement in the neighborhood due to police attentiveness, he is worried that Mount Hope is regressing. Twomey was joined in his criticism by Eric Lim and Cassels, another neighbor. Lim, who is a tenant of Twomey’s in a house at Camp and Locust streets, said he intends to move out.

“I don’t even feel safe walking home at night,” Lim said.

Lim said that when he moved some parts of a crude barricade to drive down Camp Street that afternoon, bystanders cursed him. Cassels said that he and other neighbors are upset about how the event spiraled out of control and that he now wants to sell his house and move.

Lt. David Schiavulli, commander of police District 8, said the officer about whom Twomey complained saw that part of Cypress Street was blocked off with city sawhorses and understandably assumed that the event was properly permitted. At that time, the crude barricades that people later put up on Camp Street were not in place, Schiavulli said. Twomey insisted that they were.

Twomey said that a professional sound system was set up in the park, that the noise level initially was controlled, but that it became intolerably loud at about 5 p.m. and continued that way until 8:30, when the violence erupted. Some profane rappers came on, backed by a deejay playing a back beat, with their voices amplified through the sound system, he said. When the sound system was turned off at about 7 p.m., according to Twomey, owners of sport-utility vehicles parked, blocking the street, and played music from their stereos at an excessive level.

Twomey said that he has been unable so far to obtain pertinent city records to prove his allegations, but he also alleged that no one obtained an insurance policy that was required for the event. Such policies are sometimes called for to indemnify the city for financial damages if something goes wrong.

The event began to explode when one or more city workers returned to remove the city sawhorses. They saw the crude barricades and also began removing them, when bystanders began pelting them with rocks and bottles, according to the lieutenant. The police returned, too, and said they saw about 200 people in the park and curbside on Camp Street.

Patrolman Brian Auclair began to write a summons for a noise violation for a man who had allegedly parked his SUV in the middle of the street, with the doors and the trunk lid open and the stereo blasting. People in the crowd began to curse and to menace Auclair and Patrolman Jose Mendez, and assistance was summoned, according to a police report.

Brian Daily, 22, of 82 Cumberland St., allegedly interfered with the officers’ attempts to keep the crowd under control, despite repeated warnings. Mendez arrested and handcuffed him and placed him in the back seat of a police cruiser. Bottles and rocks then began flying, and one rock narrowly missed Mendez’s head and broke a cruiser window, Schiavulli said.

Reinforcements arrived — about 20 more officers — leaving other neighborhoods with skimpy police protection, according to Maj. Paul C. Fitzgerald. Six more arrests were made, but in the chaos someone allegedly let Daily out of the cruiser and he escaped.

The police said Daily turned himself in at police headquarters the next day and handed in the cuffs, which had been cut through. He was charged with obstructing police, escaping custody and malicious damage.

Also charged were: Anthony Souza, 21, of Riverdale, Ga., with simple assault, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and malicious mischief; Gregory Bowman, 27, of 59 Lonsdale Ave., Pawtucket, with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct; Preston Laughlin, 26, of 76 Duncan Ave., Providence, with disorderly conduct; and Sheena Gonsalves, 21, of 69 Heath Ave., Warwick, with disorderly conduct.

Also, David Lewis, 19, of 131 Columbia Ave., Pawtucket, and Shanda Lewis, 29, of 3739 Pawtucket Ave., East Providence, were both charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

gsmith@projo.com

Posted at 9:34 AM | Community | Comments (2)

City Hall Stonewalls on BTP Melle

I finally received a call back on Friday, June 15th, from the head of the Mayor’s Neighborhood Services Office, Ms. Rita Murphy. Her report left a lot to be desired.

Here it is broken down:

1) Ms. Murphy said that she spoke to all parties involved,

a) Kevin Jackson,

b) Dean Esserman,

c) the people who sponsored the event, (City Hall will not reveal their name to me) and

d) Kenny Gross(?) an out-reach worker.

I do not understand how her speaking to these people provides any answers to Mt. Hope or answers as to what is being done to prevent another such horrendous occurrence.

Ms. Murphy assured me that it would not happen again. I was less than convinced since it happened last year during the "Hector" event and unless steps are taken to correct the problem it is sure to happen again.

I asked her who in City government will be accountable for the event going so wrong. I asked her that, since someone apologized to the police for the event, who will apologize to the people of Mt. Hope, who will apologize to me for what I lived through and witnessed and heard.

I asked again if I could get a copy of the permit application and the permit. Ms. Murphy said that she was in the process of asking the City’s legal department if she could release the records.

Everyone knows that those records are public and anyone should be able, by law, to walk into the DPW and request to see the records.

I asked Ms. Murphy if the DPW requirements had been met, i.e. The required insurance binder, the entertainment license, as required in the DPW guidelines and application.

Ms. Murphy grew uncomfortable with this line of questioning. She began arguing with me over whether there was or was not live music there. She insisted that there was no band there. I tried to explain to her slowly, that there was a DJ spinning recorded background music and rappers rapping live over the recordings. After all, I was there. I asked her if she had been there?

When I quoted her some of the offensive lyrics the rappers used, she used that as a pretext to end our conversation claiming that I had offended her. In truth, she had no answers to my questions and was eager to try any type of cheap, manipulative technique in order to distract me and to wiggle out of being accountable for providing real answers.

Today, I received a call from a ProJo reporter doing a background investigation about the June 1oth incident. He was reading from the police report and asking me for corroboration. I'll write more on this when time alows.

Posted at 3:48 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Letter to Neighborhood Services Calling for Action

I sent the following letter via email to the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, Ms. Rita Murphy, on Friday, June 15, 2007.

In this letter I pose a number of questions to which I believe I will never receive an answer from any city official without my taking legal action. However, in a future posting, I will answer these questions to the best of my ability.

I also posit some actions that the City may take in order to avoid a repeat of this incident.

Dear Ms. Murphy,

I've called your office several times the last few days and have left messages requesting you to return my call, but I have not yet received a call back from you. I had a conversation with Col. Esserman this week as well as Lt. Schiavulli, our District 8 Commander. I have been told that you are the person to talk to about the break down in the system that caused the horrible incident, Sunday, June 10th.

I now have a copy of the police report. Have you read it?

What happened is inexcusable. Four officers hurt and the entire community disrupted and shamed. What my wife and I went through that day we never wish to experience again. The event was out of control from 5 o'clock on. With live rappers blasting profane lyrics about "EastSide Niggarz" "motherfucking" this and that, "fucking ho's", and "fucking bitches" while children as young as 5 and six years old milled around and listened to this.

A steady stream of drug deals took place right in front of my house on Locust St. I witnessed 4 transactions where cash changed hands for drugs. Many more took place down the street where I could not see the actual transaction. The ones I saw, I saw from my front windows and deck.

And then Camp street was blocked with over 150 people milling about drunk and high on drugs blocking both the street and sidewalk.


We would like an investigation and a written report detailing just what went wrong, including a time line detailing the following:

1) when was the permit pulled,

2) for whom was it pulled,

3) who pulled it

3) what did the permit allow

4) what type of permit is required for live or recorded music from any type of PA system

5) what is the allowable volume in decibels for music allowed under the correct permit

6) why wasn't the person whose name was on the permit supervising the event.

7) why was Camp Street allowed to be closed off illegally

8) why weren't the police notified of the event when the permit was pulled.

8) why wasn't police action taken after they received numerous calls for service complaining about the event and before the event got out of control and it took over 20 officers to quell the disturbance.

9) were the terms of the DPW permit application met, per insurance requirements, per entertainment license for music, per allowable volume per DPW guidelines as clearly stated on the DPW Street Closing guidelines on the permit application which is available online in PDF form on the city website.

Once a report is completed, we would then like to see your suggestions for protocols to be put into place that would prevent this from happening again, including:

1) a look at the permitting process,

2) a look at the way the police are notified of events,

3) a method for the police to confirm that the proper permits are in place before letting an event commence.

4) is this type of event, commemorating the death of someone involved in criminal activity, appropriate for a public park?

5) And would it be logical to require the person who pulled a permit to be on the site, with the permit in hand the entire duration of the event?

6) Would it be logical to require that the sponsoring party, the permit holder produce the permit at the request of the police?

7) Would it be logical that if a permit is not in order or if the event exceeds what the permit allows the police should shut it down immediately?


And then, after the proper steps have been taken, it would be prudent to distribute written guidelines to each and every officer as to how to handle these types of situations in the future.

I believe that it is possible for the Cicilline administration to put in reforms that would insure that the chances of such an incident happening again in this manner would be slim to none.

Am I asking for anything unreasonable given the seriousness of the problem? Will the administration wait until a policeman or a citizen is killed before acting?

I urge you to consult with Mayor Cicilline and to consider my request and my suggestions. If you disagree with anything I've written, or if you think this is not a serious matter that deserves your attention, then let's set up a meeting so we can discuss these concerns in person.

I urge you and the Mayor both to read the police report.

Ignoring a problem will not make it go away.


Sincerely,



John Twomey
Greater Camp Concerned Citizens

Posted at 3:46 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

BTP Melee: Permit Requirements Ignored

The further I investigate this outrageous incident the more outrageous it seems.

Nothing was done legally or correctly, and the Mt. Hope community and the Police Department paid the price when over 20 officers responded and 4 got hurt dispersing an out of control mob in Billy Taylor Park, Sunday night, June 10th.

I just downloaded and printed the PDF file for the Permit Application for the type of permit needed for the event of Sunday, the 10th, a Special Event Street/Sidewalk Closing Permit.

I also downloaded and printed the DPW guidelines for these permits.

I urge anyone who wishes to investigate this incident to go to the DPW page of the City Website and read these documents.

Links:

DPW Guidelines

DPW Street Closing Permit

Here are some excerpts:

Application for Special Event Street/Sidewalk Closing Permit Application Fee: $25.00 (Make check payable to: Providence City Collector) *Proof of Liability insurance and an Entertainment License is required* MUST APPLY TEN DAYS IN ADVANCE OF EVENT*

Reason for closure:

Approximate number of people attending: __________ Description of event:

Will the street be obstructed with tables, chairs, bands, rides, inflatable bouncing cages, or any other obstruction?
Circle: YES NO
Will propane be used on street or sidewalk areas? Circle: YES NO
Will food be sold? Circle: YES NO
Will there be loud music? Circle: YES NO

You further agree that you shall obtained an entertainment license from the Board of Licenses (401-421-7740, ext 205) to use in conjunction with this street closing permit. Please note that this permit only grants permission to have the street closed for the event in question during the approved time shown on this document ONLY.

You will have to obtain an Entertainment License form the Board of License in order to use amplified equipment for music or sell food and drinks.

From the DPW Guidelines:

Applicants are required to show proof of Liability Insurance for all Street Closing Permit request that caters to 1-5000 people for Special Events or Construction Street Closings in the amount of One million Dollars naming the City of Providence and it employees and/or agents, and the Providence Parks Department, as additional insured. Over 5000 people at an event require proof of liability insurance in the amount of Five Million Dollars.

Applicants who are applying for a SPECIAL EVENTS STREET CLOSING PERMIT are required to obtain an entertainment license from the Board of Licenses (401-421-7740, ext 205) to use in conjunction with a Special Events Street Closing Permit.

Department of Public Works

DIVISION OF TRAFFIC ENGINEERING

“Building Pride in Providence”

ARTICLE III – NOISE CONTROL

Sec. 16-105.
The commercial and noncommercial use of sound amplifying equipment shall be subject to the following regulations:

(3) The volume of sound shall be controlled so that it will not be audible for a distance in excess of one hundred (100) feet from the sound truck.

(4) No sound amplifying equipment shall be operated with an excess of fifteen (15) watts of power in the last stage of amplification.

Count the violations.

And we haven’t even touched on the fact that the park was being used illegally as no Parks Permit was ever pulled.

And still no response from Councilman Jackson, the person ultimately responsible for everything that happened because he circumvented the proper permitting procedures, failing to pull the proper permits, and worst of all failing to notify the police that there was going to be an event in the park.

Soon I will begin posting excerpts from the actual police report.

Posted at 7:48 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Four Cops Injured in Mt. Hope Melee: Park Hijacked!

Why are the people of Mt. Hope so upset about our Billy Taylor Park being hijacked by drug dealers, profane rappers and an out of control mob last Sunday? The police answered the call, over 25 of them converged on the park to disperse the riot. That was most of the 3 – 11 police shift leaving most of the City without police patrols. Four policemen sustained injuries and our City DPW workers life’s were threatened. Lucky no one was killed.

I saw minimal media coverage, nothing in ProJo. I guess it was a non-event. Swept under and out of sight as if it never happened.

But Just Who is Angry

For one, the Police Department is very angry and rightfully so.

The DPW, whose workers were assaulted, is angry.

The Parks Department is angry because a public park was used without their permission, without a Park’s Permit, for an illegal event.

The residents of Mt. Hope especially those who live in the vicinity of Billy Taylor Park are the angriest. And our anger grows each day we hear nothing from the people responsible. And our anger grows because unless responsibility is taken, and an investigation launched, and procedures put in place to ensure there will be no encore, we will be forced to live through this type of incident again and again.

Who is Responsible?

We’ve spoken with City Officials, we’ve learned a lot, but we’ve received no answers. No one has stepped up and taken responsibility for this dangerous fiasco.

We do know this:

1) Councilman Kevin Jackson pulled a permit from the DPW for a block party on Cypress from Camp to Knowles. We still don't know for whom he pulled the permit. So far I have been refused a copy of the permit. We do not know who sponsored the event, only that Kevin Jackson pulled the permit.

2) We know that no supervision existed at the event. We know that Kevin Jackson was not present at the event nor present at the riot where the 4 policemen were injured and the DPW workers were assaulted.

3) We know that the crowd had only a permit for a block party on Cypress from Camp to Knowles, yet they illegally blocked off a 2nd, street, Camp Street from Locust to Cypress.

4) We know that the event was supposed to commemorate the death of a young Mt. Hope man who died last year in an auto wreck while fleeing the police at high speed.

5) We know that Kevin Jackson failed to notify the police of the event, as is required, and that District 8 was shorthanded that day and that the Police did not know about the illegal event or of the lack of the correct legal permits.

6) And most disturbing, we know that this same type of incident happened last year at an event for which Kevin Jackson pulled a permit for an event to commemorate the death of a Mt. Hope teenager, Hector, who was shot to death in a drug related shooting. It's on the public record. Look it up. Pull the police reports from the date on the permit.

What Can We Do?

I sent an email to Councilman Jackson asking him to explain but as of yet he has not had the courtesy to respond.

I spoke with Rita Murphy who had no answers to my questions but who said she would investigate. I put a call in to her today but have not yet received a call back.

The Chief of Police told me that the Police Department received an apology from the person responsible.

I think the Mt. Hope Community deserves an apology and a full explanation from the Councilman and from the Mayor. The buck should stop on his desk. This is Mayor Ciciline’s watch.

If any one wishes to see a copy of the Police Report contact this website or you can obtain it from the PD records Department, ORI #RI0040900, Case # 2007-00068036.

You can email our leaders and urge them to take the appropriate action.

Mayor Cicilline

Mayor@ProvidenceRI.com

Rita Murphy, Neighborhood Services

Rmurphy@providenceri.com

Kevin Jackson, City Councilor

ward3@providenceri.com

Thank You

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Providence Police Department for their decisive response Sunday night and for the increased patrols in Mt. Hope since the incident.

Posted at 12:30 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A talk with the Chief

A few hours ago I spoke with Col. Esserman, Providence’s Chief of Police. He told me that the Police Department too is also upset and angry since four men were injured during the melee. He told me that he has been in Mt. Hope every night since Sunday and that they have beefed up patrols in Mt. Hope.

I spoke to him about the concept of the District Commander being the neighborhood guru coordinating all the city departments. He said that is exactly how it should be. I asked if there is a mechanism where whenever a permit is pulled a copy is sent over to the Police. The Chief told me that that is how it is supposed to work.

I asked the colonel, so what happened Sunday? He said that they did not know about the event. He said that there had been a major screw up. The permit, he claimed, was pulled late Friday by Kevin Jackson who was supposed to notify the District 8 Commander. Mr Jackson never notified the police of the event. If they had known they would have assigned several officers to monitor the event.

I told the Chief that I understand that they had not been notified, but what about the fact that after I and other neighbors called to complain and an officer was sent to speak with me and inform me that they had a permit for the event in the park the police were then aware of the event. I asked why weren’t officers then assigned to monitor the event. I was told that the officers were needed elsewhere leaving District 8 shorthanded.

I asked what could we do to prevent another such occurrence and he said that is topic for your councilman and for Rita Murphy. He told me that the Police Department received an apology from the person responsible for this horrible incident.

Posted at 7:29 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Rita Murphy, Neighborhood Services

I just got off the phone with Rita Murphy of Neighborhood Services. She had no answers to my questions.

1) I asked her who would take responsibility for the fiasco of Sunday night.

2) I asked her why, if a City Official, Councilman Jackson, pulled the permit, why wasn't a city official, namely the one who pulled the permit, there to supervise the event.

3) I asked her why there were no police there to supervise the event and why the entire police force had to come to quell the near riot.

4) I asked her about Chief Esserman's concept of Neighborhood Policing, because Esserman told the Mt. Hope Community,at a GCCC meeting, that the District Commander would be like a neighborhood czar, a liaison between all city departments, a person who would know everything that was going on in the neighborhood. I asked her why the police did not know about the event.

5) I asked her why no permit was pulled for an event in the park, why the event was held without the Parks Department's knowledge or permission.

6) I asked her if I could get a copy of the permit for legal reasons.

7) I asked her who sponsored the event, who, besides Kevin Jackson, was behind the event.

8) I asked her how many more times will we have to go through this.

Ms. Murphy had no answers for me to any of the questions. She told me that she had not talked to the parties involved yet but that she would get answers for me.

We all know that there are no good answers to any of those questions.

The whole thing is inexcusable. We are lucky that no one got killed up there in Billy Taylor Park.

Posted at 2:15 PM | Community | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Dear Councilman Jackson,

This email will be posted on www. mthope-eastside.com

ward3@providenceri.com

Subject: Permit

Dear Councilman Jackson,

The DPW informed me that you are the person whose name was on the permit for, what turned out to be, an illegal event in Billy Taylor Park that ended up with 25 policemen responding to a melee on Camp Street after the event was over.

Furthermore, the permit was only for a block party on Cypress Street between Camp and Knowles. However, Camp Street was illegally closed off between Locust Street and Cypress.

Where were you during the event and where were you after the event was over when the entire on duty Providence Police force, over 25 officers, had to respond to disperse the resulting violent crowd.

Why was Billy Taylor Park used, with loud rap music, without a Parks Department permit? I called the Parks Department and they told me that they issued no permit for an event in Billy Taylor Park.

Who is ultimately responsible for this fiasco that disrupted the entire neighborhood and used the entire police resources to quell the near riot?

Where were you?

How can we, the community, with your help, prevent another such occurrence?

Your constituents await your response.

John Twomey,
Greater Camp Concerned Citizens

Posted at 10:32 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

I was Sadly Wrong!

Peter wrote.

Until Sunday night's disgraceful melee at Billy Taylor Park, the area had been relatively quiet this spring and I had mistakenly believed the problems there and in the Camp/Cypress Street area had been alleviated.

I was sadly wrong. The District 8 police need to beef up foot and bike patrols in the area now that summer is approaching. Patrol cars driving by periodically aren't enough to deter illegal activities. I admire and respect the work of the officers, but they need to do a better job of communicating and coordinating with other city agencies, such as the DPW, and with neighborhood African-American organizations to prevent such occurrences in the future.

I also thought the drug problem had been reduced through last year's crack-downs, but the drug dealers and their customers are back. It's time for District 8 to once again coordinate with the department's undercover narcotics detectives to beef up surveillance.

Mt. Hope could be a good place to live, but the current environment has to change before that happens. These problems cannot continue to be ignored! It's time for city officials to solve them.

Peter

Posted at 10:16 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Councilman Kevin Jackson Pulled the Permit

I just called the DPW and found out that Councilman Kevin Jackson pulled the permit from the DPW for Cypress Street to be closed off from Camp to Knowles for a block party.

I asked Bernard Levy, of Traffic Engineering, for a copy of the permit, since it is on the public record, but he refused. He said he had to clear it with Rita Murphy, head of Neighborhood Services. Then he hung up on me.

I immediately put a call in to City hall to Rita Murphy and got Rita Murphy's office where they told me that she was not in, but I told them that I was calling for a copy of a permit and they suggested that I call the DPW. When I told them that I had already done that and had been refused by Bernard Levy they got shook and took my number.

So what have we learned:

1) that the only name on the permit was Councilman Kevin Jackson's.

I think City Hall and the Police Department will be going into damage control.

Next I will call major Fitzgerald, at 272-3121, ext. 6102, for the third time hoping to either speak with him or get a call back.

If I don't speak with Maj. Fitzgerald by 12:00, I will put a call in to Col. Esserman, the Chief of Police.

Posted at 9:38 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Dear Ms. Rita Murphy, Head of Neighborhood Services

Dear Ms. Rita Murphy, Head of Neighborhood Services:

The citizens of Mt. Hope want to know what went wrong last Sunday in Billy Taylor Park. Why did the entire police force have to converge on Billy Taylor Park, at 8:30 pm, to disperse a rowdy crowd that should not have been there in the first place?

Do you have knowledge of the incident?

The citizens of Mt. Hope wish to engage in a dialog with City Hall about this incident. Will you be our liaison, as you are the head of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services?

We await your response.

Thank you,

John Twomey,
Greater Camp Concerned Citizens

This email was sent verbatim this morning.

Posted at 5:40 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Media Coverage/Political Fear /Race!

I heard that the incident was featured on TV, but I did not catch what station.

I could not find a mention in ProJo about this major incident in Mt. Hope.

I believe that the incident will be buried because the powers that be are embarrassed about the incident.

The African American Community in Mt. Hope has long been allowed to get away with murder because the powers that be are afraid to be accused of racism, and every time a black drug dealer in Mt. Hope is arrested the African American Community plays the race card as if the police are using racial profiling to target Mt. Hope drug dealers. Our City Councilman, Kevin Jackson, has been the major enabler of this dynamic. I do not state this fact lightly; I believe it is backed up by facts and by legal documentation.

Do your own investigation.

Truth is the drug dealers in Mt. Hope are African American. If you need proof, drive down Pleasant street, or stop by Billy Taylor Park next to 124/126 Camp Street, or go by 206 Camp Street during the police's shift change between 2 and 4 pm, and you will see African American drug dealers selling drugs at those locations.

One of my mentors, Lenny Long, a former President of GCCC, once told me, ". . . don't ever bring up race in Mt. Hope, even though it is the overriding, divisive issue in the community: don't ever bring it up, because it will backfire on you. Do not attempt to have an honest discourse about race because it will be used against you, and you will be accused of being racist."

Enough already!

Let's call a spade a spade! Let's be honest!

It is time for the African American Community of District 8, 13% of the population, to step up and put a stop to the drug dealing, the filth, the ignorance prevalent among the African American population in Mt. Hope. A few knuckleheads should not be allowed to tarnish an entire demographic.

Who are the African American leaders of the Mt. Hope, African American Community? I would like to hear from them. What are they doing to help their own. Are there any African American Leaders in Mt. Hope? If there are, who are they . . . and why are they not doing anything to address the problems of the the African American Community in Mt. Hope, namely drug dealing and other criminal activity?

If anyone wishes to comment on this use the comment tab or click on this link: Blog Entry.

Where are the African American leaders in Mt. Hope?

We need you!

John Twomey

Posted at 4:02 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Update #2: Disgrace in BTP

I called Major Fitzgerald, head of the Uniformed Division of the Providence Police, at 272-3121, ext. 6102, and left him a detailed message asking him what happened and why a uniformed policeman had come to my house and informed me that the event in the park was a permitted event, when the Parks Department had told me this morning that they had issued no permit for any event in the park. I asked him to return my call but as of now he has not done that. I will call him again in the morning.

Then I called the Police at 272-1111 and told the dispatcher that I was following up on a call for service that I had placed yesterday and that I wanted to speak with the officer who answered my call yesterday. She promised to send him to my house to speak with me. I wanted to ask him why he told me that the event in the park had a permit, to ask him if he had seen a permit and if he had whose name was on the permit and what type of event was the permit for.

I have a feeling that all this trouble could have been prevented if our City Employees, the DPW, the Parks Department, and especially the Police had all been on the same page and doing their jobs. Not to mention our City Councilor. Don't get me started on Mt. Hope's Mr. Useless.

They did send an officer to my house this afternoon but not the one who had responded yesterday. However, the one who did respond this afternoon was one of District 8's best, an officer I know pretty well for his reputation for toughness and fairness.

He told me that the incident had been covered in today's shift briefing and that additional officers had been assigned to Mt. Hope today because of the incident.

The most important things I learned from the police officer are these:

(1) the DPW did issue a permit for a block party allowing Cypress Street to be closed off between Camp Street and Knowles Street. (Note that only Cypress was mentioned in the permit, no permit was given to close off Camp Street at all.)

(2) the event was to commemorate the death of a young man who died in an auto accident last year, I believe he died as the result of a police chase of a stolen car or of a police chase the result of a routine traffic stop. I recall the incident, I do not recall the circumstances. I will check up on this,

(3) the officer had no information as to who applied for the permit nor who sponsored the event,

(4) the police officer claimed that the police had no knowledge of the event and that that is why no police were present,

(5) the officer told me that the DPW workers who came to place the road blocks on Cypress and Knowles were assaulted with thrown rocks when they attempted to remove the illegal roadblocks on Camp Street.

So, what have we learned:

1) that the party who applied for the permit intended to circumvent the Parks Department by applying only for a permit for a block party on Cypress Street between Camp and Knowles, all the while intending to use Billy Taylor Park for the event.

2) they illegally closed off Camp Street from Locust to Cypress and from Cypress to Locust.

3) then they illegally hijacked Billy Taylor Park for illegal puropses, They had no permission to use the park for any event. No entertainment license, no license for music, no license for food, and no license for fires in Billy Taylor Park.

In plain english, the event in Billy Taylor Park was totally illegal!

4) Camp Street should have never have been closed at all since
the permit only allowed the closing of Cypress from Camp to Knowles.

5) the Police Department was unaware of any of this and ended up pulling all officers from every neighborhood in Providence to disperse the resulting crowd from this illegal event.

Tomorrow I will be consolidating all of these updates and comments into the original post "Disgraceful Event in Billy Taylor Park"

If anyone has anything to contribute they can comment via the comment tab or send an blog entry to this link: Blog Entry.

I would really like to hear from the Summit Neighborhood Association, the SNA, or the West Broadway Neighborhood Association or the College Hill Neighborhood Association to see how well they support Mt. Hope during this outrageous situation.

Remember, Mt.Hope exports crime to your politically correct neighborhoods. Thank you for your support. Ha, ha, ha!

I will keep you updated.

John Twomey

Posted at 8:35 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

I could only roll my eyes . . .

I could only roll my eyes when I saw the sawhorse and boxes blocking Cypress Street yesterday afternoon. Obviously not an official roadblock. I find it amusing at best that a permitless event could block 2 major streets in the city without anyone with authority seeming to care.

Comment by Adam

Posted at 3:06 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

UPDATE: Disgrace in BTP

We have learned several things so far.

We spoke with the Parks Department and learned that no permit was pulled for an event in Billy Taylor Park. The person in charge of that park was quite upset and surprised that an un-permited event had been held in the park involving fires, food, and live and recorded music and that Camp Street had been illegally closed.

She suggested we contact the Police Department since they had told us the event was permitted.

I called the police department for more information, because yesterday around 3pm an officer came to my house at my request to answer a call for service that I had put in for a noise complaint. The policeman told me that there was a permit for the event and that it was good until 9pm.

According to the parks department no permit was issued and no permits are ever issued to go as late as 9pm.

I'm trying to contact the officer to learn why he thought that the event was permitted and why he thought it was permitted until 9 pm.

If anyone has any information on this event use the comments tab below or click on this link to send a post: Blog Entry.

I will update this entry as more information is available.

Posted at 1:09 PM | Community | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Disgraceful Event in Billy Taylor Park

For a second year in a row an event in Billy Taylor Park, sponsored by a Mt. Hope neighborhood organization, turned violent, and the police had to be called in force to break up the melee. I walked up to the park to observe the commotion, and I counted over 22 uniformed police officers and a number of plainclothes officers. Several arrests were made as the crowd refused to disperse and made threatening moves toward the police while heaping verbal abuse on the officers.

Myself and several neighbors had called the police several times over the course of the day to complain about rowdy behavior and excessive noise. I personally witnessed three drug deals in front of my house, as this event is used as a cover for drug dealers who make their arrangements in the park then meet their buyers on the next street over.

Someone blocked off Camp Street at the corner of Camp and Locust by pulling an old desk that I was throwing away out of my trash area and dragged it into the middle of Camp Street to block off traffic. It looked so stupid and ridiculous. But that was the level of organization at this event.

The event featured a loud sound system clearly in violation of the city noise ordinance. They predominately featured rap music as the event seemed designed solely to serve the African American community.

I heard live rappers liberally dropping the "N" word in a song a bout "East Side Niggarz" as well as much use of the words "Fuck" and "Bitch". Many young, impressionable children were present to hear the profane music and to learn from their elders.

I don't understand how such lyrics can serve the community or have a place at a community event in a public park. I find it patently offensive and inexcusable.

I would love to hear from the organizers of the event to understand what, if anything, they were thinking. Do they understand how ridiculous they now look, how many people they alienated, how they made Mt. Hope look like a ghetto again and again perpetuated the bad reputation Mt. Hope has for drugs, filth, violence, and unsafe streets. Do they?

At any rate the event was over at 7, but the crowd did not disperse. There were no event organizers there to help, nor were any police present as the event drew to a close. A large crowd gathered on the sidewalk by the park along Camp Street. Cars were parked and double parked on both sides of Camp Street blasting their sound systems. It was impossible for cars or pedestrians to pass. The crowd was very loud, rowdy, and threatening. That is why it took 25 police officers to disperse them.

I do not know the name of the event, who sponsored it, nor do I know who pulled the permit nor what type of permit was granted. It is public record so I will attempt to find out. I will also attempt to speak to the police to find out why police officers were not present to help with crowd control as the event has a history of being rowdy and violent.

I consider it another low point for Mt. Hope's African American community, another black eye. The second year in a row their event turned violent.

I'll be passing on the information about the event as I learn more. Someone should step up and take responsibility for this fiasco. They owe the Mt. Hope community an apology.

Posted at 9:41 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Mourn With Me

When I began this website, my vision for it encompassed the involvement of neighbors, people of the community, people who felt strongly that they had a stake in the community, who cared about something, who were passionate about something, and who would contribute their thoughts and feelings to the community website.

It was an unrealistic vision, something that isn't done, as you can see by visiting all the other community websites put up by all the other community organizations in Providence. They are quite dry compared to the Mt. Hope Community Website. Maybe they are better than our website, I don't know. They all certainly share one characteristic with ours and that is that very few people contribute.

I've learned to my chagrin that people are petty, jealous, resentful, but most of all people are cowardly and fearful. Why, what if you voice your opinion and someone disagrees with you. Wouldn't that just be devastating to your fragile sense of self-esteem. What if you discovered that some people did not like you. Devastating! What if someone ridiculed you or spread an ugly rumour about you? Oh, my god, there is good reason to not ever put yourself on the line. Never express yourself or your feelings let alone your opinion. Listen to your fear.

As you know, I am not afraid, or rather let me rephrase that, I do not let my fear control me.

So, thus, let me ask you all, the Mt. Hope community, including those of you who have spread ugly rumours, those of you who despise me, those of you who ridicule me behind my back, as well as those of you who provide strong support, and those of you who provide silent support, to mourn with me the death of my nephew's son, Jeff, 15, who, in an act of incomprehensible adolescent desperation, took his own life this past week.

Join me and my family in mourning the death of one of our own who died so young by his own hand. And in so doing let us remember the deaths of over 3000 of our sons and daughters who have died in service of our country in the war in Iraq. Senseless deaths all.

Look into the face of this beautiful young man and understand our loss.

R.I.P. Jeffrey R. H. Twomey

Jeff feeding a baby lamb

Jeff got arrested in school, in the early afternoon, last Tuesday. He was caught with three packs of cigarettes and a small wooden pipe he wanted to sell. No drugs were involved. It was the first time Jeff had been in trouble in school. The police put Jeff in handcuffs and hauled him down to the local jail in the small town where he lived. They made a show of it in front of the entire school to set an example. His mother, who teaches in the local public school system, had to leave school to bail Jeff out.

She took Jeff home, and Jeff was terribly upset and disconsolate: he went into his room and crawled into bed. Two hours later, his mother came home from school and and went to Jeff's room. He was nowhere in sight. But she noticed a light on in his closet and went to turn it off. When she opened the door she found Jeff hanging there, dead. He had hung himself!

The principal called Jeff's dad about 6:30 PM to say not to worry, they were not going to press charges, and they weren't going to expel him as it was the first trouble he had gotten in to at school. He asked how Jeff was doing, and when Jeff's dad told him, he broke down completely. He had been out of the office all day.

Jeff had called his father the day before to remind him that he had Church Youth Group Wednesday night, and also to make reservations for horseback riding this weekend ("like you promised") out at the farm. His funeral started about the same time as his horseback riding was to have begin. I can't write anymore about this.

Jeff's funeral was last Saturday. His father, James, sent me Jeff's obituary, which I will share with you.

Jeffrey—1991-2007

Jeffrey, ( *Jeffrey R.H. Twomey* ) 15, passed away on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at his home.

Born on August 21, 1991, he was a son, brother, and grandson. He was a freshman in school. looking forward to joining the Robotics competition next year. His career goal was to become an engineer.

Jeff enjoyed computer games (especially StarCraft), soccer, dodgeball, and writing. He was a gifted student and enjoyed beating his father at chess. Jeff enjoyed taking annual kayak trips down the Kickapoo River in Ontario, Wisconsin. He had his drivers permit and was looking forward to getting his full license this fall.

Jeff loved animals. He had 3 cats: Shadow, Ninja and Freakazoid. He also enjoyed spending time at his father’s farm, helping take care of the sheep, goats, and llamas. This spring he experienced lambing season for the first time, even giving one foundling CPR.

Jeff’s favorite television shows were Mythbusters and the Simpsons. He enjoyed classical music and played percussion while in middle school.

He attended First United Methodist Church and a youth group at Immanuel Baptist Church.

He is survived by his mother and father, two brothers and a sister as well as maternal and fraternal grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. He was preceded in death by his uncle and grandfather.

Visitation will be at First United Methodist Church, with funeral services at 11:30 a.m. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, memorials in Jeffrey’s name to the Robotics competition would be appreciated.

Jeff with Sheep

I don't remember the title of the song I'm quoting right now, but I remember Bob Dylan wrote it:

But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fear, bury the rag deep in your face, for now ain't the time for your tears.

In remembrance of Jeffrey.

Fear: it cripples.

Mourn with me, our loss.

John Twomey

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Down On Main Street

Driving down North Main Street one is likely to observe some of the following sites:

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT THIS! ! !

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Street Cleaning

Ward 3 Street cleaning is scheduled to begin may 24th, according to the City website.

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Seeing Bumpouts as Assets

I am a Camp Street resident and I happen to be a big fan of the bumpouts in Summit. I run through there all the time and the bumpouts slow speeding traffic down and put pedestrians at more visible locations when waiting to cross. I see this as a great asset to the neighborhood.

Sure I too am frustrated with the drug dealing and all of its ramifications on Camp Street that I have come to see on a daily basis. Why let that ruin a good thing in Summit though?

There will always be crime issues that are more important than things that seem silly like bumpouts, but that doesn't mean we should discourage them. In an urban neighborhood, even the smallest things have a trickle effect. How many people have been injured in the drug trade over the past few years versus how many pedestrians have been nailed by cars in that same period? I don't know the answer but I could bet that in most urban areas it would even out.

Adam

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Rhode Island Real Estate

I hear the term "sub-prime crisis" a lot lately in the media and this so-called crises, brought on by the manipulation of lenders, affects all home-owners and potential home owners. Rhode Island holds the third largest exposure to sub-prime loans in the country, behind New York and California. Compare the populations of New York and California with Rhode Island's and you have an idea of the impact of this data. They say "third largest" not "3rd largest percentage" which in statistics means a great deal. If the smallest state has the 3rd largest exposure, by number, not percentage, that is incredible.

In the sub-prime market speculative lenders offered mortgages to borrowers with less than good credit ratings, often at high interest rates, variable rates, and no money down programs. They then sold the loans packaged as securities to Wall Street. Some sub-prime lenders have filed for bankruptcy while their principals have walked away with billions of dollars.

Some borrowers, those who bought more expensive homes than they could really afford, or who took variable rate loans hoping to re-finance to a fixed rate when their home appreciated, got caught in the squeeze when the housing market hit a slump, housing prices stagnated and then dropped making a pronounced dent in available equity. People who hoped to use equity in their homes and found out they had none, or those who drew too much equity out of their property found themselves in a bind. Across the country foreclosures are way up and they are way up in Rhode Island as well.

ProJo features an article on the impact of the sup-prime crisis in Rhode Island in Sunday's paper. Click the link below to access the article.

When a link to an article in ProJo or the Globe or the Times appears you may have to register and provide a user-name and a password: the sign up process takes only a minute and is well worth the small effort to access the articles.

House Price Threat

A related article in ProJo's Real Estate Section

Do sellers need to rein in expectations

deals with the slump in the housing market and offers stats about sales and median house prices. The article posits that home owners wishing to sell their homes still think of their homes as having the same value as they had in 2004 and 2005 when the Real Estate market was peaking.

Truth is the market fluctuates neighborhood by neighborhood. The high end East Side market has taken the biggest hit as far as falling home values as registered by percentage, in my opinion, while in Mt. Hope, the biggest losers are those investors who bought at the very top of the market expecting more appreciation and high rents. They have been the victims of both falling resale value and a more competitive rental market that left overpriced rental units empty.

A number of foreclosures have taken place in Mt. Hope including houses on Camp Street, Peach Street, and Pleasant Street. There must be more that I am not aware of, and I'm sure there are more to come.

John Twomey

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Blossoms Blooming Everywhere!

It's spring and All . . .

First the Forsythias . . .

Then the Apricot blossoms . . .

Then the Ornamental Cherry Blossoms . . .

And I know Spring is Here!

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"We Were Dismayed?"

Dismayed in the Summit!

The Summit answers criticism in the East Side Moanthly.

We were dismayed? How so, Summit?

I got a big kick out of Alan Tears’ letter to the editor in this May’s East Side Monthly. Bold Headline: “ ... SNA responds to last month’s letter” “Last months’ letter”? Was there only one?

Does anyone in the Summit have the cojones to address the person who wrote the letter they are responding to? Was it written by anonymous? No. It was written by a man named Maurice Methot. But nowhere in the letter by Alan Tate is Maurice’s name mentioned. Is that meant as a joke? Or is it just gutless? I guess it is open to interpretation.

And in the Community News section an anonymous Summit author goes on to say,

“We were dismayed by last month’s Letter to the Editor about our actions with regard to the library’s request for a zoning variance.”

In his letter, Mr. Tear says,

“. . . SNA’s goal is to sustain the residential fabric of the neighborhood that gives Summit its unique and vibrant character.”

Don't you just detest that type of hyperbole, or is it self-deception?

Whoa! I didn’t know Summit had a “unique and vibrant character”. I didn’t think Summit had any character at all. Certainly the SNA has no character if it cannot even bring itself to name the name of the person who it is attempting to argue with. This reminds me of the weak ploy of Patriot coach Bill Bellichick who tried the same impotent antic when asked about his relationship with his former assistant and new head coach of the Jets, Eric Mangini.

As I recall Mr. Methot’s letter, he made a concise, point by point critique of the way the Summit Neighborhood Association went about the business of opposing the library sign.

But the Summit’s answer, by Mr. Tear, does not offer a point by point rebuttal of Mr. Methot’s argument but rather deals in generalities and a defensive smoke and mirrors ploy about the “transparency” of their methods.

Truth be told, the power of the SNA, like most neighborhood associations in Providence, consists of a few elites who find the time and energy to shape the political discussion in their immediate environs. They try to force their agenda down the throats of unwitting residents by creating hysteria about petty things such as a sign on the library or a strip mall on Hope Street consisting of a cleaner and a restaurant ( they lost that one) that serves the needs of the community. They want to be the arbiters of taste: signage, architecture, businesses. Trouble is, their taste is not everyone’s taste – their methods not appreciated by everyone. Thus Mr. Methot’s eloquent objection.

Mr. Methot’s letter, that Mr. Tear refers to, can be found in this website’s March archive.

Maybe Summit is afraid. Maybe Summit has no vibrancy, no character except in the imagination of the SNA. If Summit had any strength of character they would have long ago stood shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors, the good citizens of Mt. Hope, to fight against the street level drug dealing and criminality inherent to Mt. Hope (which Mt. Hope exports to the Summit in the form of criminal house break-ins, car break-ins, and property crimes, a direct outgrowth of the illegal drug trade allowed to operate with impunity in Mt. Hope.) And the Summit would have volunteered to take some of the subsidized housing so clustered in Mt. Hope and offered to build affordable/subsidized housing in the Summit.

I’d like to see how the Summit’s SNA would deal with a problem like Mt. Hope’s Pleasant Street project. How they’d deal with drug dealers in their parks. How would the SNA deal with drug dealers on the corner of Hope & Rochambeau if the drug dealers suddenly moved from Camp & Cypress in Mt. Hope to that Summit location. There'd be some hue and cry rising from the Summit, I believe. But they tolerate it in Mt. Hope, as if it isn't their problem.

The truth is the SNA has never offered any community solidarity to Mt. Hope. They look down on Mt. Hope. Like the rest of the East Side neighborhoods they are embarrassed by Mt. Hope, and they don’t know how to deal with it. They turn a blind eye. They are afraid to deal with Mt. Hope because in Mt. Hope it always comes downs to race. Ouch! Like the City government they wish to contain Mt. Hope’s problems in Mt. Hope, isolate the drug dealing and contain it there, but Mt. Hope already has exported its problems to the Summit for years and years and will continue to do so. That much is obvious.

John Twomey

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Nuisance Again?

In 2005, GCCC formed a "Local Nuisance Task Force" with the District 8 police, the State's Attorney's Office, and Providence Code Enforcement to address specific "Nuisance Properties" in Mt. Hope, specifically, properties that were functioning as a locus for drug dealing in Mt.Hope. One of those locations was at the corner of Camp and Grand View.

Check out our archives where this was first posted on March 28th and March 31st.

http://www.mthope-eastside.com/blog/archives/2005_03.html

Camp & Grand View

Now, again it seems that the corner of Camp and Grand View is again becoming a "Nuisance Property". The property is at, I believe 206 Camp, but I'm not sure of the number address, but it's a brown stucco house that has been under construction for many years and has had many code violations. Recently a lot of suspicious activity has reappeared on that corner and on the porch of that house. This week I had to stop my car on Camp as so many youths had gathered in front of that house, loitering in the street, that I had to stop and ask them to clear the way so I could drive past. It was intimidating to say the least. Cars were pulled up in front of the house and people were leaning into the windows conducting what looked to me as business. I drive Camp Street many times daily in the line of duty and I've observed this activity many times in the last few weeks. I can only imagine the impact this activity has on the residents who live nearby especially those who have children.

Complaints centered on the activity on the porch and in and around the garage on Grand View behind the house where people were often seen urinating in the street and selling and using drugs.

Back in 2005 GCCC answered the request of a number of members who lived on Camp Street and on Grand View to address this problem. To address this problem we formed the Local Nuisance Task Force that I previously mentioned. It proved to be quite effective.

GCCC will not be initiating any action this time around unless it receives specific requests from residents impacted by this activity. If requests are received we would consider reactivating the Local Nuisance Task Force.

Still, residents who are concerned with this issue should contact the District 8 Police and their City Councilman, Kevin Jackson.

I urge all Mt. Hope residents to keep an eye on this location and remember, they could set up shop next to you next.

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First Drug Dealers of Spring

As sure as the croci (crocus) peek out of the warming earth each spring, the recent warm spring day drew forth the first drug dealers from out of the woodwork to celebrate the Mt. Hope spring.

I spied the dealers at several locations along Camp Street, and yes, with my experience in Mt. Hope, I am able to tell the difference between "kids hanging out" and drug dealers plying their illicit trade.

The knuckleheads who spoil the quality of life for peaceful, law-abiding citizens also descended on Billy Taylor Park, opening their car doors and blasting profane rap music so loud my windows shook almost a block and a half away. I had to call the police.

And so spring brought my first pleasant encounter with one of Providence's finest (well, wannabe finest) Dispatcher # 22. I told her there was a disturbance up at the corner of Camp & Cypress and asked her to send a patrol car there. She asked what kind of disturbance, and I told her someone was blasting their car stereo at incredible volume. Dispatcher # 22, said, "That's not a disturbance." I said, "Well, it's a disturbance to me, it's disturbing the peace and is in violation of the noise ordinance." Dispatcher # 22: "We don't call that a disturbance, we call a fight a disturbance." I said, "I didn't call to argue with you about what to call it, call it a noise disturbance if you want, just send an officer up there, will you." Dispatcher #22: "OK, it's a noise disturbance, we'll send someone up there."

Of course I watched for an hour and I don't believe they ever sent anyone.

Question: Where do they find these people -- and they start them off at $27.00 per hour of our tax dollars.

Ah, spring time in Mt. Hope, I can feel my blood pressure already rising.

John Twomey

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Happy St. Patrick's Day: A Concert Review

I hope you didn’t have to drink any of that awful green beer or even get drunk on anything -- leave that to the professional Irishman or the pseudo Irishman or the wannabe Irishman or the ignorant Irishman.

Like many “Name-that-nationality/Americans” I am proud of my heritage, but I am proud of it every day, not just on March 17th, and no, I don’t get drunk on “St. Paddy’s” though in fact I’m drunk almost every other day: on Saint Patrick’s Day, I refrain from drinking, for I am a confirmed contrarian . Joke!

The Irish in me is blood deep and blood wild. It needs no call for celebration -- it is who I am. I need never set foot on Irish soil. I’m 100%. My people were driven out of Ireland by the English landlords who controlled the land and the harvest and in a time of famine and starvation exported all Irish crops to England to feed their own, leaving my people to starve and creating a situation where peasants, unable to pay their tithes on their meager landholdings, had their land confiscated and were themselves transported to America or Australia. My people came to America during the great Famine of the 1840’s, through New York, to Ohio, then Chicago.

To this day, the only English I like are the Beatles, the Stones and the Who! And oh, yeah, Princess Di.

My great, great Uncle, Seamus Twomey, invented the car bomb. But that is neither here nor there (at least not here).

Every American ethnicity has their story and I embrace them all. Each year I celebrate Cape Verdian independence with my neighbors, the Da Cruz’es. I embrace my Italian brothers, my Latin brothers, my African/American brothers, and my every, Slash/American brothers.

One of my best memories in the Mt. Hope community is being invited to Nada’s home for an ethnic celebration of her family’s Serbian heritage, St. George’s, a saint’s day important to her family. We sampled ethnic food and met her mother and her children, and I felt privileged to be welcomed into her home and into her culture. It was a blessing.

Low self-esteem is endemic to this country, an epidemic in the U.S. That is why so many of our countrymen are what I call Europhiles (and that is worse than being an Anglophile, in my opinion), where everything European is better than anything American, be it cars, cosmetics, or health-care systems. Bull-*ucking- *hit!

I lived in Europe for a number of years, and I love Europe and Europeans and their varied cultures. But they had neither heat nor hot water, drinkable water nor phone service for everyone, when I lived there.

They’d still be in the dark ages. Cowards, perverts, many of them, to be polite, if we hadn’t shown them the way. But I digress. And I don't mean to insult the many good hearted people I love there, just their politicians and their obstinate, socialistic, creativity suppressing ways. But I digress.

So Happy St. Patrick's Day.

To celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day my wife and I went to a concert at the Blackstone River Theatre.

In my vision for this website I envisioned members of the community contributing reviews of the arts, movies, concerts, books, etc. to the website for other members of the community to enjoy, and for writers with the initiative to contribute, a forum.

Well, I’ve never written a review before, but we heard the Karan Casey Band perform at the Blackstone River Theater, Friday night, and this is my attempt at a review.

Karan Casey has perhaps, arguably, the best voice in Celtic music. And she is a sweetheart besides. She began her career as lead vocalist for the great new wave Irish trad band, Solas, lead by Irish/American multi-instrumentalist virtuoso, Seamus Eagan.

Karan Casey

She soon struck out on her own and to this point has three superb albums to her credit.

The line up of her band at this concert consisted of a well known guitarist, Rob Iverson, Kevin Vialilly, on keyboards, and a cellist. With Guitar, cello, piano, and vocals the sound of this band was stately, almost classical in nature, with wide ranging, subtle dynamics. Karen’s voice is an instrument in and of itself – pitch pure and full of a vast range of sounds and emotion and nuance. This was apparent in the several songs she performed unaccompanied in the Gaelic language. She lead off the concert with a stunning version of the old traditional song “She Moved Through the Fair” and ended the concert with a song she wrote, “Bright Winter’s Day”.

At the Blackstone, there is no separation between artist and audience and between sets, when my wife, Irene, complimented Karen on her gifts and on her giving of her talent, Karen kissed her on the cheek and said, “Thank you., so much.” I bought Irene, Karan’s latest album CD, and being shy myself, I asked Irene to have Karen autograph it for me -- Karan wrote, “Thank you, Karen Casey.”

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

John Michael Kevin (Shay-McGuiness – P’McGuiness) Twomey

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Mayor Asleep at Wheel (An Un-ploughed-y Day)

Lord, they tell me of an un-ploughed-y day . . .

I left home around 8 am, this morning and the snow was falling, and when I came home this afternoon around 4:30, pm, the snow was still falling, and the streets of Mt. Hope remained unploughed.

I climbed up Cypress Street in my pick-up, which has 4 wheel drive, and I passed, probably, 6 vehicles stuck in the unploughed snow on that steep hill, which was nigh impossible to navigate without 4 wheel drive. When I arrived at the steep hill that I live on I was not surprised to find that it too had not been ploughed.

This late winter storm had been well forecast, and I can't understand why our Mayor did not have our City well prepared. There is no excuse for such poor city services.

Steep hills unploughed and unsanded? Citizens stranded in their cars on their way home from work? Shame, shame, shame.

You can tell Mayor Cicilline what you think via email, just click on his name.

Or tell the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services Director, Rita Murphy what you think by clicking on that link.

But best of all you can tell the man directly responsible for cleaning our streets, DPW's John Nickelson, Director, 700 Allens Avenue, Providence, RI 02905, Phone: (401) 467-7950. Ironically, we cannot contact the DPW through the City's website. How 'bout that!

An old gospel song came to mind today, An Uncloudy Day, but morphed in my mind to An Un-ploughed-y Day. Good Lord!

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Winter's Almost gone

February Snow

Who's going to miss this strangely weird winter. Rhetorical question requiring no answer. Well, the end is in sight what with the weatherman calling for a wintry blast this coming weekend, hopefully our last cold blast till next December.

We only received several snowfalls of no great significance and quite short lived, a memorable ice storm in which walking was more dangerous than driving, in Providence a real switch-er-ro, and several cold snaps with wind chills well below zero. Still, we got off easy compared with other parts of the country.

It was not a beautiful winter by any measure.

But when we finally did have a fresh, light snowfall that temporarily blanketed the tree branches, I hotfooted it out to the backyard and took a few pictures of the only pretty snowfall that fell this winter.

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Down in the Summit

Is the Summit Up or Down?

Reading the Summit Neighborhood Association blog I saw our neighbors to the North embroiled in a brouhaha over a proposed sign on the Rochambeau Branch of the Providence Public library. Seems like they got their panties all in a bunch over a sign recognizing a donor who made a sizable financial contribution to the branch. The sign measures 14' by 18'', and I guess it offends some of the delicate sensibilities over there in Hope, oops, I mean Summit. I guess for the arbiters of taste there, the sign signifies poor taste. Woe be the donor (Does no good deed go unpunished?).

Click on the Summit link above and you can read all about the brouhaha. I especially enjoyed reading Maurice (Madd Dogg) Methot's comment. (I LOVE MO-REESE!, just as Boston Celtic for life Tommy Heinsohn used to exclaim "I LOVE WALTAH". And to paraphrase the Globe's Bob Ryan, "Why can't Mt. Hope get citizens like that!")

I mean no disrespect, for Mr. Methot makes a nuanced, well thought out, articulate argument for his concern and addresses and provides a thorough analysis of the subtext beneath the SNA's actions. I believe his comments are right on the money, as usual, and though it may take some effort to read and digest all he offers, it is worth the effort.

Find also of interest the District 8 Crime Report courtesy of District 8's Lt. Commander, Lt. Sciavulli.

Reading the report and the comments, you will find that blaming the victim is big in the Summit. Instead of bemoaning the fact of rampant crime, criminal behavior, and lax law enforcement, victims in the Summit are stupid or careless and actually victims of their own naivety for forgetting where they live. Even the victims blame themselves.

What's wrong with this picture?

It is great that the Summit finally has a working blog and some give and take among the residents and the organization. I applaud.

But what the Summit really needs is more subsidized housing, more poor people. Like Mt. Hope. Then they will have more to worry about than signage and ridiculous "bump outs". Ah, the liberal gentry: don't you just love 'em.

Not in my backyard!

John Twomey

Posted at 5:27 PM | Community | Comments (0)

MHNA Checks In

The announcement, appearing below, Mt. Hope Neighborhood News appeared in the Community News section of the East Side Monthly.

Nothing but luck and best wishes to the new leadership at the MHNA, but if they characterize "gentrification" as "Bad" and "Affordable Housing" as in "Subsidized" as "Good" well, there is a need for dialogue about these characterizations.

I hope the MHNA is willing to also address the very real problems of drug dealing, loitering, littering, and gang violence, including the ongoing feud between youth factions of Mt. Hope and South Providence which have lead to many "Shots Fired" in our lovely and much improving Mt. Hope neighborhood.

None of the above issues were addressed in the MHNA announcement. I hope these issues are not on their back burner but rather front and center.

The new leadership at the MHNA seems eminently qualified to lead the organization in a new direction, which will help Mt. Hope reach its true potential as a neighborhood in harmony, not only with its diverse population, but with the environment, and to help Mt. Hope taxpayers get their money's worth in city services, including street cleaning, park maintenance, and law enforcement.

From the East Side Monthly.

Mt. Hope Neighborhood News By Michelle Wilson

New Leadership at Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association

Chris D. Lopes has been elected as new Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association (MHNA). Lopes is a lifelong resident of the East Side with third generational ties to the Mount Hope community. A graduate of Hope High School, Lopes attended the University of Rhode Island (URI) and where he received a bachelor's degree in Economics and Communications. While at URI, Lopes was President of Uhuru Sa Sa, a minority student organization, and was instrumental in moving the organization in a positive direction. Over the years, Lopes has held progressively responsible positions as a software engineer for the State of Rhode Island, Lifespan (RI Hospital), and Atlantic Data Services. He also served in management positions for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Citizens Bank. Currently, Lopes is employed at Fidelity Investments in Boston.

In 1986, while serving as Campaign Manager for Councilman Donald J. "Danny" Lopes, Lopes developed a passion for public service. In his role as Board Chair, Lopes believes MHNA is at a cross roads were the organization is favorably positioned to align itself not only with the needs of the community but also with the residents it represents. He plans to refocus the centers efforts by strengthening organizational capacity, expanding the mission of MHNA, and restoring the Association's commitment to community empowerment. States Lopes, "We will create a business model, goals and bench marks that will help guide MHNA's efforts as we work to introduce new, effective programs that fit the needs of the community." Additional priorities include streamlining costs and establishing more effective communication channels to the community.

Raymond L. Watson also joins MHNA as the newly hired Executive Director. Watson is one of the community's own. Raised in the Mt. Hope area until the age of thirteen, Watson also has strong generational ties to this historic East Side community. A graduate of Classical High School, Watson received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Union College in Schenectady, NY. He continued his studies at the University of Rhode Island where he graduated with a master's degree in Community Planning.

Watson has ambitious goals for MHNA. He sees the task of rebuilding and strengthening those services that address the needs of residents as key to the agencies growth and sustainability. Watson notes that "as Executive Director, I describe my vision for MHNA with the phrase "Hope and Pride." "I hope not only to continue to build the neighborhood's confidence in the Center but also share my sense of pride and excitement for the organization with residents of this community."

Moving forward, there are several social/community issues Watson intends to address. His focus will include expansion of employment and training opportunities for youth, increasing the availability of elderly services, the development of a community needs assessment, and a major study on how gentrification has impacted this neighborhood. "Although Mt. Hope has managed to survive, unless immediate steps are taken to address the affordable housing needs of the neighborhood, we may see what happened to the Benefit Street section of Providence occur here in Mt. Hope - that would be a grave travesty as Mt. Hope has deep roots in the history of the city of Providence."

"This is a very exciting time for MHNAÓ says Watson. MHNA is currently in the process of restructuring and refocusing its energy and resources to ensure that we are serving Mt. Hope in the best way possible. I think that I jumped on board at an excellent time."
Residents of the Mt Hope are invited to meet Lopes, Watson and members of the Board of Directors at the Association's upcoming community open house scheduled for Saturday, March 3rd from 10:00 am - 12:00 p.m. For more information or to R.S.V.P, please call 521-8830.

Posted by: John Twomey

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Brown Strip Propels Pats

Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat

Troy Brown Strips the Ball from Charger Mcree

Just when it seemed that the Patriots season was over with Mr. Mcree’s interception of a Tom Brady pass in the 4th quarter (Mr. Brady’s third pick) and the Pats behind by 8 points,14 year Patriot veteran and stalwart receiver Troy Brown, renowned for playing on

both sides of the ball, offense and defense, flipped the mental switch from offense to defense, and in the blink of an eye stripped the ball from Mcree’s hands where it bounced to the ground and was smothered by Patriot wide receiver Reche Caldwell, keeping the Patriot’s drive alive.

A few plays later Mr. Caldwell achieved a few degrees of separation from his defender in the left corner of the end zone where Mr. Brady found him with the football. Now, all the Patriots needed was a two point conversion to tie the game.

Tom Brady Signals Touchdown

All across New England, and surely including the Mt. Hope contingent of Patriot Nation, fans were glued to the tube and for most of the game surely squirming in their seats. But you could feel a shift had occurred in the game sometime in the 4th quarter. Now was our time.

The Pats lined up for the attempted two point conversion with running-back Kevin Faulk in the backfield. With San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer trying in vain to call a time out (he’d recognized too late what the intended play would be), Tom Brady faked receiving the snap, which instead went directly to the man in motion, Mr. Faulk, who plunged into the end zone for the essential two points. Tie game.

Fake to Faulk -- 2-Point Conversion

It sounds easy in retrospect. All that was needed now was for the ever cool Mr. Brady to march the team down field into field goal range where our rookie kicker Stephen Gostkowski would kick the game winning 3 pointer. Mission accomplished.

Gostkowski's Winning Kick

Another memorable performance from the Patriots, now, one game away from the Super Bowl. Next week, the Indianapolis Colts.

Posted at 1:23 PM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Drive-by on Doyle

I wish that we could begin the week with some good news out of Mt. Hope, but Channel 10 reported this story last night and the Providence Journal reported it this morning.

Man shot on East Side

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, December 17, 2006

PROVIDENCE — The police were investigating a drive-by shooting of a man walking on Doyle Avenue on the city’s East Side about 6 p.m. yesterday.

The man, who was not immediately identified, was unable to provide the police with a description of his assailant or the car from which the shots were fired, according to detectives. He was taken to Miriam Hospital with a bullet wound to the arm that the that the police did not believe was life-threatening.

I guess the man quoted in the post of the 17th, Drive-by shootings and . . ., from a letter he wrote to the East Side Monthly that cruelly characterized the Camp Street area (as he called it) as rife with these types of problems, as unkind as his characterization is, seems to be right on the money.

A Sunday evening incident of this kind, that took place in front of the subsidized housing between Doyle and Pleasant where activity that looks a lot like drug dealing can often be observed, does nothing to dispel Mt. Hope's reputation as a dangerous neighborhood that is still controlled by drugs, criminals, and the ever present threat of violence.

Posted at 11:15 AM | Issues | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Kevin Jackson the Enabler

It has long been the worst kept secret in Mt. Hope that Councilman Kevin Jackson is the greatest enabler of drug dealing in Mt. Hope.

Without K.J., drug dealing would have disapeared long ago. He may as well stand down at the Crossroads, the corner of Camp & Cypress, and pedal drugs himself for all he has done to enable the drug dealers in Mt. Hope.

He leans on the police to go easy, to not enforce the law in Mt. Hope. He never hesitates to play the race card and to accuse the police of racial profiling. The drug dealers know of his liberal, knee-jerk leanings and run to him with stories of racist police action whenever a minority drug dealer is arrested for selling drugs on the streets of Mt. Hope.

That is the main reason why the police seem to be hamstrung in Mt. Hope. They are loath to take on a City Councilman when he opposes them enforcing the law. Who wishes to commit political suicide?

How would you like to be the District 8 Commander and have the Ward Councilman tell you to "leave them alone"?

He crows about being one of the first, avid supporters of our new mayor. How complicit is Mayor Ciciline for going along to get along?

We, the law abiding, property tax paying citizens of Mt. Hope pay for these politicians pandering to the scum who deal drugs on Mt. Hope streets.

For what?

Because the drug dealers are minorities?

You guessed it.

If Kevin Jackson opposed drug dealing in Mt. Hope, and actively represented the property owners in Mt. Hope, as well as all the law abiding, market-priced renters, family's, and working people in Mt. Hope, drug dealers would not be controlling the streets in Mt. Hope. In fact drug dealing would have long ago ceased to exist in Mt. Hope.

It is a shame that Jackson usually runs unopposed and that people do not realize what destruction he has wreaked on Mt. hope through his pandering.

The Summit is also victim to his pandering for Mt. Hope exports crime to the Summit neighborhood. Yet he wins them over with money for landscaping and "bump outs".

What a joke!!!

No more fear!

Even if you are a policeman, hamstrung and frustrated by the situation, or just a citizen,

VOICE YOUR OPINION HERE,

YOU WILL BE KEPT ANONYMOUS!

opinion

Posted at 7:18 AM | Community | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Drive-by Shootings and Crack Houses

This, from a letter to the East Side Monthly from a constituent of Kevin Jackson, a constituent who is not afraid to tell it like it is.

"Perhaps you should pull your head out from the clouds and realize that as we in the Summit Neighborhood congratulate ourselves on supposedly reduced crime rates, just across Rochambeau in the Camp St. neighborhood you have drive-by shootings and crack houses. In the Fox Point neighborhood, a place that desperately NEEDS a branch library, the Fox Point Branch is slated to close. In the meantime, we get new sidewalks no one actually needs, and traffic bumpouts that actually obstruct and interfere with pedestrian and vehicular safety."

At least there is one honest person in the Ward and in District 8 who recognizes Mt. Hope for what it is: a place where the City, and Kevin Jackson, Councilman, enables and allows the drug trade to prey on Mt. Hope residents and to export crime to adjacent neighborhoods such as the Summit, once known as "Hope".

They've distanced themselves from that moniker: I wonder why.

Read the entire letter, below.

Reaching the Summit
To the editor:

I would like to share with your readers the following letter that was written in response to an article encouraging residents of the Summit neighborhood to avoid putting vinyl siding on their houses in the hope of achieving “historical neighborhood” status.
Dear SNA:
I am writing in response to the column titled “Vinyl is not Historic” on page 2 of the Fall 2006 edition of the Summit News. First of all, I want to express my deep resentment at the shallow, self-righteous elitism implicit in this article. To suggest that “my neighbor’s homes in the Elmgrove Gardens…” are “not so different” from my own and therefore someday my “home could be in a historic district” makes the presumption that this is something I would desire.
But let me express another perspective here. I see my home, and my neighborhood, not as a museum piece or picturesque tribute to someone’s idea of “quaintness”, but a living, breathing neighborhood filled with children, energy, and LIFE! I would rather look forward to the future, doing the things that best preserve the structural integrity of my home and doing so with an architectural aesthetic that is not mired in someone else’s notion of “historical”.
For me, history started in the 1950’s – a period that reflected new textures, new materials, and (god forbid!) a variety of color schemes. Beyond the elitism of your anti-vinyl propaganda, there are the real-world economics of raising a family in the Summit Neighborhood. Perhaps I cannot afford to repaint my house in historically-correct colors every 10 – 15 years. Perhaps vinyl (dare I say it… even ALUMINUM!)is a more cost effective solution for me, and would far outweigh the benefits of any tax credit.
But beyond this, I find the implicit intrusion into my rights as a property owner to be an unforgivable affront. Believe me, SNA, if I decide to cloak my house in day-glo orange aluminum siding I will do so, and I will oppose to the death any movement to prevent me or anyone else in my neighborhood from doing the same.
Perhaps you should pull your head out from the clouds and realize that as we in the Summit Neighborhood congratulate ourselves on supposedly reduced crime rates, just across Rochambeau in the Camp St. neighborhood you have drive-by shootings and crack houses. In the Fox Point neighborhood, a place that desperately NEEDS a branch library, the Fox Point Branch is slated to close. In the meantime, we get new sidewalks no one actually needs, and traffic bumpouts that actually obstruct and interfere with pedestrian and vehicular safety.
Please keep your elitist propaganda to yourself. Don’t assume “East Side” to mean “upscale” – we are a varied people from all economic strata and with a range of background, tastes, and aesthetics that reflect the plurality that makes us strong. When I want to experience the Victorian era, I’ll go to the museum. But I don’t want to live there.

Maurice Methot
50 Summit Ave.
Providence

Posted at 4:45 AM | Community | Comments (0)

Laferte's Folly

On Catch-23 Redoux and Katie Laferte's allegations

“Mount Hope doesn't need fifteen organizations fighting each other. We're talking about twenty blocks here.”

“ . . . rather than staking out territory and duking it out like the kids are doing in their ridiculous ‘gangs . . . ”

I’ve learned to have a sense of humor in dealing with Mt. Hope's unselfish, though ambitious and thoroughly ambivalent citizen activists, because, well, a sense of humor is definitely needed in order to keep one's sanity -- otherwise one would rue the day they ever became active in neighborhood politics.

I think our illogical commenter, Ms Laferte, got caught a little bit off base in her mini-rant mini-skirt, about Mt. Hope neighborhood organizations, and here, she gets picked off base, to use a baseball metaphor.

I’ve been involved in community work in Mt. Hope and with GCCC for many years, and I have experienced no conflict with any other Mt. Hope organizations. The Mt. Hope organizations I know of have separate missions which do not overlap.

For instance, the Ministries do community outreach to poor people using government funds, and the MHNA uses government funds to provide after school programs, while the GCCC uses only member dues to do their work, which focuses on quality of life issues.

Our Catch23 writer says that, “

“Mount Hope doesn't need fifteen organizations fighting each other. We're talking about twenty blocks here.”

And even earlier, in a related statement, she compares Mt. Hope organizations to teenage gangs fighting over turf.

“ . . . rather than staking out territory and duking it out like the kids are doing in their ridiculous ‘gangs’.”

Who are these 15 organizations, Ms. Katie Laferte; which ones are duking it out; and what are they duking it out about?

I, myself, want you to inform me as I’m a long time member and leader of one of the organizations (GCCC).

And I assure you, Katie, the "kids" don't in any way see their gangs as "ridiculous" -- they see them as deadly serious, as you should, too, as we all should. How many have died?