by @BarryRafkind in Investigative Reports
Posted on May 19, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Last Modified on May 28, 2009 at 8:31 pm
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Somerville by the numbers, our community’s carbon foot-print, and collecting resident immigration stories are just a few of the story ideas generated at last Sunday’s Brainstorming Session. Read on for more suggestions and please leave your ideas and feedback below in the comments. Some of these stories will soon be pitched (in more detail) for funding on the blog!
Government
- Look into the backgrounds, ethics reports, campaign donors, and legislative histories of our local and state elected officials
- Investigate family and professional relationships among city employees
- Study the voting trends in the city along location and demographic factors
- Find out the fiscal health of the city government
- Look into how and why the BOA agreed to have DHS surveillance cameras secretly installed around the city
- Look into how certain local businesses and non-profits acquired earmark money from Rep. Capuano and how that money is being spent
Environment
- Look into Somerville’s carbon foot-print and what the major factors are
- Study the polluted sites around the city and what’s being done to clean them up
- Investigate the possibilities and costs for expanding and improving recycling programs across the city
Interviews
- Interview veterans in Somerville to find out where and how they served, what quality of medical care they received, and what life is like for them now
- Focus on a neighborhood and interview the people living there
Misc
- Perform case studies to check the level of ADA compliance in municipal properties and businesses around the city
- Look into health inspection records of restaurants around the city
- Investigate the costs and benefits of the town-gown relationship between Somerville and Tufts Univ
- Research the background on the Russell waste disposal service, the status of the investigation by the state into alleged abuses by management, the competitiveness of its contract bids, and conduct interviews with employees
- Daily Round-Up of Public Safety, Health, Traffic, etc.
- Weekly “Cheers & Jeers”
-LOCAL FORECLOSURE SITUATION IN DEPTH
-THE GREEN LINE
- changes/consequences/ anticipations
- is gentrification inevitable?
- specific Neighborhood stories, followed over time
-IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY STORIES/COLLABORATIVE
- When, why, how did moms and pops come to America?
- inside gang stories
- teen stories- suicide, deaths, overdoses-
- COLLABORATE w/ CENTRO PRESENTE, TEEN EMPOWERMENT, Matt Mc L.
-COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW/ORGANIZATION OF THE BOA MINUTES:
- what orders were not carried out within the year?
- what orders were repeated from year to year?
- how many orders are given to which city departments each year?
-HOW is COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) FUNDING truly used to improve the economic, environmental and housing conditions for Somerville’s very-low, low and moderate income residents?
- ISOLATED POCKET OF POVERTY IN SOMERVILLE
-WHAT HAPPENS TO COMMUNITY INPUT FROM PUBLIC HEARINGS?
-HOW DO RESIDENTS CONNECT TO SV BLOG?
- how many residents have internet access?
- how many utilize the library computers/internet?
-SOMERVILLE HOUSING AUTHORITY’s CULTURE & PEOPLE
the SHA inventory was updated 9/08. SHA manages/coordinates approximately 3,075 units- 9.5% of the total housing available in Somerville.
(from: http://www.mass.gov/Ehed/docs/dhcd/hd/shi/shiinventory.htm)
– SOMERVILLE-BY-THE-NUMBERS , a.k.a. “The Statistics Project”
- Quantify key government performance indicators
- collaborate with SomerStat staff
- collaborate with local Library Resource Staff
- Weekly Clusters of Info, e.g. how many H.S. drop-outs. how many traffic accidents, how many babies born, how many new school registrants, how many new licenses granted, how many foreclosures, how many home sales
ONGOING STORIES
- School Committee, SHS Council Meeting Summary reports
- Somerville’s Carbon Footprint
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I agree with Sen. Jehlen that grudges are counterproductive; I’m still miffed at Monsignor Norton regarding his answer as to why I was mysteriously blocked from posting (from *both* home and work IPs) to the SN blog around the time of the Sciortino-Trane primary last fall. I’ll promise try to work my way through the grudgitude, how about that.
Barry – I’ve got a couple of ideas for some investigative work, I’d be happy to send them along…or I’d be happy to spill the beans here if you’d like.
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Thanks for that very timely and thoughtful response, Sen. Jehlen! It sounds like you are on the ball and tuned into your constituents’ concerns!
Tricky, I’ll trust your judgement on whether to post your ideas here or email them to us at info(at)somervillevoices.org . Thanks in advance!
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Then why did you vote down the gas tax, Pat? And, you are wrong. Your aides took messages and told me I would get a response somehow. Really, when no one asked for my phone number or email address? Unbelievable. Barry, maybe it is only a select few who get responses. I cannot invest any more time in this Senator. I will vote for whoever runs against her.
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Dear Janine,
1. I voted for increasing the gas tax, and for freezing the corporate tax rate instead of reducing it. I preferred those to the sales tax. The majority of the Senate did not.
2. The aides probably didn’t ask for that information because we already have it. (I’m sending a copy to your yahoo account.) In fact, I sent you — along with several hundred other people who’d contacted us about the budget — an update right before the Senate debate, listing the dilemmas and choices facing us, and asking for responses. The helpful responses were those which recognized the real dilemmas facing us. A few people continued to think that reforms and cuts alone would be sufficient to resolve a $5.5 billion problem. They don’t have to face people who are being laid off, or losing services that keep them alive or their families together. If anyone else on this list didn’t get that post, or would like the next update, please contact me at patsletters@gmail.com.
3. I didn’t mention in my previous post that you had also written a response to my budget update.
4. My staff and I try very hard either to have a conversation, or to write back to everyone who contacts us, although timeliness is sometimes limited by our resources.
Pat Jehlen
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Pat- I am one of the ” few people” who think reform and cuts should have been done. No reform whatsoever was done and in fact I am continuing to pay more for services I receive for my son, James, who was premature and gets early interetion. I am not for cutting programs but feel reform should gave been done before beginning to tax people more. We are a middle class family and it is my opinion you are not taking into any consideration those of us continuing to pay. I am currently pregnant with another child and will give up my job to care for my children. I emailed you once and assume that is how I received a generic invite, the only email I received from you, about a meeting on the budget.
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Janine, you should really look at the votes and read Sen. Jehlen’s newsletter because you are wrong about her voting against the gas tax (she voted for it) and about no reforms being passed. According to the newsletter, Sen. Jehlen explained:
What reforms would you have preferred?
It is a shame that it is so hard for parents to care for infants and afford day care in the U.S. In other countries, publicly funded day cares are available and parents get much longer maternity/paternity leaves. Doing that here would be a big investment, but it would yield such a huge return in terms of worker productivity and quality of life. We also need single payer health care to provide everyone with quality health insurance.
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Barry, these things passed but are not in effect. Thanks to whoever contacted Pat to finally answer some questions. I highly doubt she checks this site for fun. I check her votes each week in the newspaper. She also voted against allowing slot machines, correct? Did she vote for the Powerball though? By the way, what was her vote for continuing the Quinn Bill?
My choice to stay home has nothing to do with affording daycare or maternity leave. I am a lawyer and my husband is a scientist. We can afford a single income for 5 years and are thankful for that. I work with people who cannot. I also live on a street where I see the abuse of these programs by some single mothers/families.
Tell me, why did they vote for the sales tax only to later be corrected by the Senate President who said there would not be enough to cover fixing the transportation systems? Any person who looked at the numbers of all the taxes could have figured that out. Also, does Pat take a per diem to get to work from Somerville? I can probably find this answer up online.
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Barry, she also voted no in abolishing the Quinn Bill and voted no to pay freezes and a hiring freeze.
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Janine, despite the evidence that Sen. Jehlen voted in agreement with some of your interests, you continue to question her record, as if to find something to complain about. If you read her votes each week, then you should know how she voted on other bills. You can always check her voting record online. This thread has already veered far enough off-topic.
If you have further concerns about Sen. Jehlen’s voting record after looking into it, I suggest you write them up in a separate post and/or contact her office. Many of your questions about the budget bills are already answered in her newsletter. As she explained, her office has or will respond to every inquiry, but they have a backlog to get through, so I think a delayed response is understandable.
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No Barry, she did not vote in agreement with my interests. That is my issue with her votes. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time and again it seems only certain ideas are allowed on this site.
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Janine, it looks like you’ve made more comments than anyone else on this thread, so it’s hardly reasonable to say that certain ideas are excluded with the implication that your ideas aren’t being allowed here.
Barry is very reasonably suggesting that we’ve all gotten totally off topic here (it was supposed to be “Brainstorming the News”) and if we want to discuss these things further we should start a new post. Which I personally think would be great. I’ve found this discussion fascinating and really appreciate that James Norton and Pat Jehlen chimed in. I would love to see posts from each of them and from the other folks Somerspeak mentioned —and from Somerspeak too, whose comment suggested s/he has information.
In fact, I’d love to see posts on this site from every public official in Somerville on what they vote or advocate for and why, and when there’s a discrepancy between words and actions, why that is. Not campaign statements or platforms, but here is what I did and here’s why. To me that would be real public accountability. Although I am not sure that would even be feasible and am pretty sure it’s not likely, I can still hope!
Anyway, thanks everybody for a stimulating discussion and sorry for my role in getting things off-topic here.
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I have submitted my post. Julia, as you can see from some of the responses, once I make a comment or question something I am told to start a post. And I think you meant ” unreasonable” and not “reasonable.”
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I get regular (or somewhat regular) e-newsletters from Capuano, Jehlen, Gewirtz, and Provost. I wonder if we could put a column on the right of the blog for “Links to Reps’ Newsletters” or something like that so we could access the latest about their goings on anytime we had the time.
Janine, A “Post” is a brand new article on the blog. You have been writing “comments” and you are invited to put your thoughts into one more lengthy piece for others to comment on (in other words, restart the conversation and fill in those who have not been reading up to now). Adding more to this post is off-topic and getting cumbersome (scrolling down). I’m so glad we’re talking though! I think we may be poised to clean out some old wounds. I hope so! I realized that I have some good old/new Somerville stories I’d like to share sometime. (It is that time thing again.)
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Julia, thanks for pointing out that this blog does not exclude “certain ideas”. I love your idea of getting our elected officials to explain their votes and advocacy here! It might not be feasible for every issue, but perhaps at least for the more contentious ones. Linking to officials’ websites and newsletters is a good idea, but I don’t think every official has a website and/or a newsletter. I applaud those that do!
Janine, creating your own post actually gives your ideas greater visibility than if they are buried in a long thread like this. I have approved yours entitled What happened to the “Middle of the Road” Democrats?. Thanks for participating everyone!
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Linda, that’s a good idea. Maybe actually post each update so people can discuss what was or wasnt done.
I get Mike Capuano’s email update and would almost hold that up as a model of what I would like to see. (I recall there was something on here not so long ago about budget earmarks that were not highlighted in Capuano’s newsletters, so maybe not an exact a model.) Overall I think he does a pretty good job of keeping his constituents informed and I am glad to hear that there are similar e-updates out there.
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Julia, I had just listened in to one of Capuano’s phone conversations with his constituents a day or two before Barry’s post about earmarks came out. I was really bummed because I’d thought Capuano was brilliant on the phone, elegantly fielding all kinds of questions, but Barry made good points. I think that allowing earmarks is opening the door to corruption, but I get the idea that that’s the way things work in Washington. I agree it should be changed but admit that I’d rather see someone else called out on the carpet about it.
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The e-updates are great and I would also wish for more direct interaction between readers and elected officials (or at least their staff), like we saw with Sen. Jehlen in this thread. For instance, it would be wonderful if Capuano would respond to my post about his earmarks (I did send the link to his office through his website).
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Oh come on now Senator. A little bit of selective memory don’t cha think?
Newman, care to help the Senator and refresh her memory about the long, long ago published articles? Something about Koty, Donald Norton, and some other up and comers I think.
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