Article by Nick K in the newspaper today.

On the blog we have been begging the City for four years to put an RFP out on the entire airport to either 1) long-term lease or 2) outright sell ORH. In fact I meant with then Chairman of the Airport Commission some three (or was it four) years ago to explain privatization and he asked me to submit a letter to the board, which I did. It was blown off because IMG said that there would be no suitors. How they knew that without ever putting out an RFP never made sense to me.

Councilor Petty the bid on Chicago Midway is not the first example of airport privatization. In 1999, Stewart Airport in Newburgh was leased out for 99 years to National Express, a Eurpoean company, at an up front cost of $35 and a percentage of the annual sales. National Express has completely turned the airport around and has resold the remaining years of the lease to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

MassPort has been a great partner and savior for ORH the past ten years, but 18 months we have been negotiating this sale. Maybe we need to open up the process to all buyers, like Avports who have already expressed an interest, by condusting an RFP. That said, why do we need to hire someone to do the RFP.

In closing, this is good news but it should have started five years ago.

These were pulled three or four months back, when will this reappear. Anyone know ?

Good story today in the newspaper Nick K. How can the City Manager possibly recommend the addition of two positions to Neighborhood Services when he:

• Forced retirees to go on Medicare, which I agree with
• the Beattle Invasion
• the cost of the sewerage upgrade by the EPA
• collections by the Commonwealth are below expectations
• Question 1
• credit crunch

There is no other way to look at this decision then simply being bad management. The hidden cost of two employees, benefits etc, can not be overlooked and kudos to the City Councilors to insist that we make these contracted positions.

Through September, click here

Look at the bottom. Projected collections from increased sales tax is running 8 million behind

Very silent up on the hill. Not Direct Air's fault either, but I can not imagine ticket sales can be that good right now? July 14th board minutes still the most recent on-line.

I try not to do this too much but here is a must read, click here.

Our Chamber of Commerce is very weak and does nothing to support business in the City of Worcester. Our Chamber of Commerce does three things per year:

• business after hours
• once per year regarding the dual taxes
• promoting our sports teams (Tordanoes and Sharks)

These three things are not bad things, but a strong Chamber of Commerce should be doing a whole lot more then that. Can I ask readers of this blog it they are members, why? If they are not, why not. We personally are not..

Anyone hear anything from Destination Worcester or Choose Worcester? My business is one block from all three of these organizations, I have no idea who they are, what they do or what they do for businesses in the City of Worcester.

Imagine if all of these groups were effective as the Research Bureau?

Versus talking about new ordinances, maybe we better dust this one off. In the past two weeks I can think of two fires in abandoned houses and there were some before this. Remember this bill was passed after the Cold Storage Fire.

Did any of these buildings have a "Certificate of Building Closure" as required by the ordinance? All empty buildings are suppose to have one. If they are out of compliance the fine is $300 per day.

Jahn, who should pay for the damage to these sidewalks you or the developer?

With the prospect of a viable airport in the air, will the powers that be see the reality of cooperation and giving, or will they, as rumors already have it, get greedy and penny pinch? I’m talking about the parking fees that are being tossed around. We now have a delicate situation that should be nurtured, not squandered. Let’s be grateful for the one airline we have and try to attract more.

One way to do this is to offer free parking, or a minimum charge of $2 a day, just to pay for security. Wouldn’t the half million people who live within 25 miles of the Worcester Regional Airport rather pay $2 than $20 to $30 a day in Boston, or $10 to $15 a day in Providence or Hartford? We have the space, let’s open it up to attract people and in turn attract more airlines. In the future, when we have four, five or six airlines fighting to come here, then we can talk about parking fees.


Let’s be sensible, and give the public a reason to come here, rather than go to some other airport.

RAYMOND A. LEVINE Worcester

Today is September 30th, most recent agenda on-line July 14th.

Click here

About six months I contacted Avports, an airport management company, to see if they would be interested in leasing ORH long-term. They asked me for a bunch of financial information which I passed on to the airport, who said they would take care of. The other day I sent Avports an e-mail to see how it was going. Here is their response, read from the bottom up.



Bill

Spoke with a rep from the airport who appeared reluctant to collect and make available to us the materials and data we had requested. He indicated that everything we were looking to review would be contained in the master plan update. He asked me to refer to their web site to gain access to the master plan files which were recently posted in final draft. We are looking at the numbers now. Will let you how we'd like to proceed.John

Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

From: Bill Randell Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:56:50 -0400To: Subject: Worcester Airport

Just checking in to see if you ever got the information from our airport and did you guys see any potential?Bill

Thanks Paulie for being such a great host:

• Great getting to meet many of you "silly' bloggers
• pictures on Jeff's website
• Great food
• Great Music
• Special guest appearance by Dwight Evans (pictured above with Casey Jones)
• Not one single pol
• Mike Allard Madaus was great on the drums
• No Robert Z Nemeth?

Again thanks Paul.

September 27, 2008
2:00 - 8:00 P.M
224 1/2 Chandler Street * Worcester, MA

-rain or shine

What can I say on this blog other then see you tomorrow and bring your rain gear.

Today is September 27th. Most recent minutes on-line July 14th.

I am happy that commercial air service is back and I hope it leads to another annoucement shortly. That said, these people at Direct Air could pay better attention to detail? From their website today here is there route map:

Assume a CDC built the same duplex:

• the 18,000 of fees would be waived
• sidewalks would be paid
• they would most likely get at least 100,000 in grants
• if they could still not sell the property, they would get even more grants

Then when the project was done, the occupants of the said building would have to be low to moderate income. Just what we need, more low to moderate income property owners.

Remember in the event these new low to moderate property owners default during the "affordability" period and a non-low to moderate income person becomes the owner, the City is on the hook for the HOME funds.

Bottom line, we are actually driving private developers out of the City of Worcester while encouraging the development of more low to mod income housing, that we do not need, while tying the City of Worcester into the risk if the "affordabilty" period is violated.

When will will learn that the recommendations of RKG in the 100,000 study from 5 years ago was correct? In the end, we wonder why there is not more private development monies invested in Worcester?