In addition to the news in today’s Springfield Republican that Open Pantry Community Services, Inc. will soon relocate its food pantry at a new spot at 721 State Street, there will also be a press conference later this afternoon at 3:00 pm at the food pantry’s former location, Old First Church, on the city’s Court Square.

A brief media alert from Mayor Charles Ryan‘s office mentions little except the names of officials who will be present at today’s announcement regarding the future of the building, including Mayor Ryan, Finance Control Board Executive Director Stephen Lisauskas, Old First Church Moderator Susan Saunders, Chairman of the Old First Church Board of Trustees Robert Walker, and Assistant Chairwoman of the Old First Church Board of Trustees Carol Casartello.

In a report (PDF) recently released by the Boston-ULI District Council, recommending priorities and strategies for revitalizing downtown Springfield, Old First Church received specific mention. “A real risk exists that this central building in the City could also become boarded up and blighted,” the report states. “The Church building may offer a ‘Lead by Example’ opportunity for the City. The Panel recommends investigating whether Old First Church can be subdivided to lease space to City offices. This would preserve a critical building, while simultaneously making an important statement about the City’s dedication to Downtown revitalization.”

Update: The city has announced plans to purchase the church for $900,000.

Urban Compass is on the road, and posts will be scarce for the week. Regular posts will resume Wednesday, January 2. Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and an excellent start to 2008.

The City of Springfield will auction off 24 municipally-owned properties currently in tax-title possession on Thursday, January 17, starting at 6:00 pm at City Hall, 36 Court Street. Registration begins at 5:00 pm.

The ballroom style auction will be conducted by Quincy-based Daniel J. Flynn & Co., Inc., which advises interested parties to research city and public records to learn property details in advance.

A release from the city announced the event states that the property auction portfolio is diverse, and includes a 41,000-square-foot industrial zoned property, several single family homes, a residential condominium, an auto repair shop, retail space, and two large office condominiums. (more…)

A few years now into the Finance Control Board era in Springfield, questions still linger about what the extent of its reach represents in city government, including who has the authority to hire and fire personnel, who deserves remuneration for what types of work, what processes ought to be undertaken for hiring searches, and overall, which processes represent best practices for efficient municipal functioning.

At yesterday’s board meeting, executive director Stephen Lisauskas read aloud portions of a memorandum (text file; also supplied at bottom of post) in a sense summarizing the guidelines of Chapter 169, the 2004 state law establishing the control board’s authority over the city, short of setting in place a sole receiver.

More specifically, however, the memorandum outlines the details of how the control board and the mayor have worked together as a team in executing the business of the city.

Chairman Christopher Gabrieli had requested the drafting of such a document just prior to the last board meeting in November. At that time, Gabrieli described his request for a memorandum as one that would outline the exact powers of the control board, and could be reviewed by the board members and mayor-elect Domenic Sarno.

“We’re all relatively new at this,” Gabrieli said last month.

The memorandum is, in a way, a welcome wagon, olive branch and caution sign for Sarno, all rolled into one document. (more…)

During yesterday’s Springfield Finance Control Board meeting, five members were named to a police commissioner selection committee.

Board members said during the meeting that so far, the search committee has had a “regional focus,” and that there are already at least two applicants coming from senior-level positions in other major US cities. (more…)

Among many items addressed at yesterday’s marathon Springfield Finance Control Board meeting, the city has initiated a process for two significant lawsuits.

One suit represents a major grievance against the city’s sole cable provider, Comcast, for passing on disallowed charges to city customers. The other suit, which has not yet been filed, is against Merrill Lynch (details forthcoming) for mishandling the city’s free cash reserves, investing in illegal securities collateralized by sub-prime mortgages. (more…)

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News broke on the Undercurrents blog late yesterday that the Cotto family’s urban hotspot in Hartford, bookstore café La Paloma Sabanera (pictured), at 405 Capitol Avenue, is planning to close a week from tomorrow.

In comments after the post, co-owner and city councilor-elect Luis Cotto wrote from New Haven, “The main loan of the store is under my sister’s name, with her house as collateral, so I had no say in the choice of whom to sell to. I did, however, push for us to close due to financial reasons, which have been present since day one.” (more…)

The Hartford Civic Center downtown, which is hosting a Hannah Montana show tonight, was officially renamed the XL Center this week.

Newton-based Northland AEG, which obtained the rights to operate the center earlier this year, and also worked to keep the Hartford Wolf Pack in town, entered into a six-year, seven-figure naming rights agreement with Bermuda-based XL Insurance, which has a Hartford office for its global professional unit.

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Mike Cass, graffiti remediation program manager for the City of Springfield, sent photos this morning of the scene near City Hall last night, after a late-afternoon water main break on East Columbus Avenue at Court Street. A large sink hole was created after the rupture took place. (more…)

Springfield schools superintendent Joseph Burke (pictured, at right) recently announced his selection for a new administrative position in the city, running the International Baccalaureate middle years program at Van Sickle Middle School.

Yesterday’s breaking news blog at the Republican decreed that the person selected for the job, who just happens to be a newly re-elected city councilor, Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty, will be stepping down from her elected position in line with the city charter. The job was apparently posted on October 31; election day was November 6; applications were due by November 13.

By the time the news reached the pages of the paper version of the Republican this morning, included in the article were the qualifying remarks of Finance Control Board executive director Stephen Lisauskas (pictured, at left, with Mayor Charles Ryan), including the idea that the very creation of the position is still subject to review by the board. (more…)

Springfield Mayor Charles Ryan’s office announced today a candlelight vigil planned for this coming Friday, December 21, at Court Square near City Hall, to remember 38 local homeless people who have died during the past year. The event is part of National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day.

The vigil will take place at 4:00 pm, called the Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service. Ryan’s office said that it will be an opportunity for health and service providers, people experiencing homelessness, volunteers, advocates, members of the faith community, and government officials to honor the people who lived on the streets and in the shelters of the Pioneer Valley, and who died in the last year from various diseases, injuries, and suicide. (more…)

Claiming to save the city money and maintain themes of “inclusion and diversity,” Springfield mayor-elect Domenic Sarno announced earlier today that he has appointed both a chief of staff, as well as a civilian oversight coordinator for the still-new community complaint review board for the police department, rolled into one.

Sarno’s transition team co-chair, Denise Jordan (pictured below), who was also prominent in his campaign for mayor, will serve as both his chief of staff and as the oversight coordinator, a recently-created position currently held by former educator Melinda Pellerin-Duck (pictured, at right).

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In a post today at a Washington, DC-based blog on urban issues, author Richard Layman writes about newspapers taking up civic responsibility when the going gets tough (citing a series in the Birmingham News). Layman adds, “I find this [series] important, because it’s not just about leadership, but how leadership works not only to craft a vision, but to engage the broader community in the process of creating and realizing the vision.”

At the Knight Digital Media Center in Los Angeles, a recent weekend seminar called “Total Community Coverage in Cyberspace” attempted to parse some of the ingredients of a successful media role in a community. One workshop of note was offered by Boulder-based Amy Gahran (pictured), sharing ideas about how news organizations can connect with “communities of difference.” Who is considered different?, Gahran asks. There are plenty of categories, and blogs can work to reach them perhaps, but credibility must be earned and sometimes unexpected barriers are still going to be in the way between those who mediate the news and those who “consume” it. Putting highly localized content into its own “ghetto” in the paper or online doesn’t help. (more…)

In anticipation of the heavy snowstorm that crushed through New England yesterday, Hartford public schools were canceled, like many schools across the region. For most of the morning, not a flake could be seen falling from the sky. Then, shortly before 11:00 am, a bit in advance of the meterologic guesses of more like 2:00 or 3:00 pm, snow began to fall in earnest and it piled up quickly. By 8:00 pm it had mostly stopped, leaving somewhere between six and 12 inches of snow on the sidewalk and streets in my vicinity.

Some neighbors, by that time, had already been outside shoveling or snowblowing. We chose to wait until it was all said and done, and then shoveled the walk, leaving the driveway for the next morning. By the time our 90-minute delay for school this morning was up and we were out on the streets, it was impressive to see that just about all the neighbors on my block had their sidewalks cleared, except for just one house a few doors down.

Trudging through thick snow on the way to school is a familiar adventure. In our former Springfield neighborhood it was often the rule rather than the exception to find that people had not cleared the sidewalk in front of their homes. We are very accustomed to having to follow in each other’s footsteps and stamp off all the snow when we finally reach a clear spot. (more…)

This just in from Springfield Mayor Charles Ryan‘s office:

CITY SEEKS DEVELOPER FOR COURT SQUARE REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT

The Springfield Redevelopment Authority, in cooperation with the City of Springfield and the Springfield Finance Control Board, will release a Request for Qualifications, seeking a developer for 13-31 Elm Street and 3-7 Elm Street, known as the Court Square Redevelopment Project. The RFQ will be released on Friday, December 14 at 9 am at the Office of Economic Planning and Development at 70 Tapley Street, and via the web at courtsquarespringfield.com.

“Revitalization of the Elm Street properties is an extremely significant project as the city continues its forward progression,” said Mayor Charles V. Ryan. These properties hold tremendous potential, which I suspect savvy developers will recognize, and I expect a robust and healthy competition for the Court Square Redevelopment Project.” (more…)

Western New England College in Springfield is hosting its fifth annual day-long communications conference on Wednesday, January 9, from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. A variety of panelists will discuss topics such as basic design techniques, how to get regional media coverage, copyright law and how to promote Springfield (with mayor-elect Domenic Sarno, among others).

As in the past, the event appears to be preparing to ignore the impact of independent blogging on the regional mediasphere, except for a panel at 11:15, “What are Blogs and How to Start One at No Cost,” with a single presenter, WNEC librarian Deb Levheim.

Hopefully, panelists for the 1:45 “alternative” media roundtable, including Tom Vannah of the Valley Advocate and Ed Kubosiak of MassLive.com, will at least give a nod to the efforts they’ve made to integrate very low-cost or no-cost blogs into their online offerings.

Others on that panel, according to a brochure (PDF), include former Republican reporter Natalia Muñoz of the Spanish-language La Prensa, Janine Fondon of Unity First, Pari Hoxha of the Russian-language Predvestnik, and Charlie Bennett of the Wilbraham-Hampden Times. (more…)

An advisory issued late yesterday by Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez‘s office issues an invitation to the January 7 inaugural swearing-in ceremony of the mayor, members of the Court of Common Council, and the city treasurer.

The event will take place at 7:00 pm in the atrium of City Hall, 550 Main Street. Refreshments will be served. The ceremony will air live on government channel 21 as well as online at hartford.gov.

Along with this important news, the advisory offers some unnecessary and unpalatable editorializing that breeds disenchantment even while it’s meant to inspire and galvanize. (more…)

I’ve often thought that raising kids in cities is stimulating, challenging and overall good for development. But this story in New York magazine about 14-year-old Alex Goldberg growing up in Manhattan is a rather extreme version of the notion. From the article, by Geoffrey Gray:

The street is the one place where Alex does not get bored. He darts between the old Italian-meat-market crowd and the Chinese vendors hawking pashminas and the tourists puttering around what’s left of Little Italy. How, I ask Alex, has his neighborhood changed?

“I don’t know,” he says, cutting across the street. “I don’t remember anything.”

He keeps on moving, calling out to strangers we pass, never stopping for a response. “Hey, what’s my fortune?” he asks a gypsy. “Hey, can I sit on your bike?” he asks a Hells Angels type. When we make it to his coffee spot, Ferrara, on Grand, he orders a decaf cappuccino. “They make the best coffee here,” he says. “The best.”

Link via the CEOs for Cities blog.

The Hartford Courant has agreed to plans to sell the Valley Advocate to Concord, New Hampshire-based Newspapers of New England, which also owns the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton as well as Greenfield’s Recorder, among other papers. From Editor & Publisher:

“This is a good acquisition for Newspapers of New England because the talented people at the Valley Advocate will help strengthen the company’s footprint in their market,” Steve Carver, president and publisher of the Courant, said in a statement. …

“The information and advertising in the Valley Advocate reaches a different audience than our other publications,” Aaron Julien, publisher of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, said in a statement. “We currently complement each other and that is a strength we want to keep and build on.”

About two years ago when NNE was preparing to purchase the Gazette, a blogger, “Mike,” evidently working for the Concord Monitor (also NNE property), wrote a post assuring people that the purchase was a good thing. He wrote:

In a time when newspapers, including ours, are struggling to grow circulation and ad revenue, the expansion of Newspapers of New England is good news. It is evidence that the financial health of the company is strong. You don’t go into the marketplace and make a significant purchase if you are struggling.

The purchase is also a victory for the forces of community journalism. Profit is vital to any company’s stability, but Newspapers of New England is not a bottom-line chain. It’s not a chain at all, really—it allows its papers great autonomy and retains the best traits of family newspaper ownership.

Folks at the Valley Advocate have seemed frustrated by the Connecticut-focused aspects of the other Courant properties. Now they can move on to a focus closer to home.

As Springfield awaits the inauguration of mayor-elect Domenic Sarno, Business West contributes to the brief period of post-election reflection with an article and an editorial in the current issue that set the stage somewhat for the coming months.

The cover feature is an interview with Finance Control Board member and Springfield resident James Morton, currently the president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Springfield.

The interview took place one day after the last control board meeting on November 29, during which Morton was conceivably the deciding vote between the outright hiring of Deputy Chief William Fitchet as the city’s new police commissioner, and the delay of such a decision until after a brief nationwide search has taken place. Morton opted for the latter. (more…)

An exhibit currently on display at the Hartt School’s Lincoln Theater lobby (part of the University of Hartford), “Cities and Skies,” showcases images of at least six cities taken by avid traveler and Aliquant Corporation CEO Faisal Saleh.

The collection of 40 works, which look gorgeous according to an accompanying poster (pictured), portrays the landscapes of London, Paris, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Portland (Oregon), and New Haven as seen from high above.

The theater is located at 220 Bloomfield Avenue in West Hartford. Lobby hours are 10 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday, unless a performance is in progress.

Also making news today is the unleashing of Google’s “street view” feature in Boston and eight other cities, a feature already available in about 15 additional cities. A Boston Globe article on the subject by Robert Weisman captures a bit of the range of opinion about the 360-degree, crisp, frank, unfettered and seemingly random images of city streets now available at the click of a button. (more…)

Thanks to the transcription work of Springfield resident Sheila McElwaine, below are transcripts of both the October 16, 2007 and November 29, 2007 public comment sessions, accompanied by photos, that took place before the Springfield Finance Control Board. Full transcripts of the October and November meetings are available online courtesy of McElwaine and the Forest Park Civic Association.

The next meeting of the board is scheduled for Thursday, December 20, at City Hall Room 220. A public comment session will start at 12:30 pm, followed by the regular meeting at 1:00 pm, anticipated to include the setting of the city’s tax rate.

Public Comment, November 29

Lois Smith: Thank you for letting me be here this morning. Good morning, gentlemen. We’re very grateful for what you do, and Mayor [Charles] Ryan, I want to tell you personally how much everyone in this community appreciates the quiet way in which you’ve gone about setting the city back on its path, and you’ve done a great job.

And what is our most critical issue now is our schools, and they are failing, and we can’t afford to risk continuing with the current superintendent. We have to make [unintelligible] and I know your date was set for December 1 to review it. The financial control board is the only assurance that we can take this abysmal situation apart and make changes from top to bottom. I implore you to form a small—and I emphasize a small—group not connected in any way to the establishment. (more…)

An article in today’s Springfield Republican describes an upcoming City Council vote tonight for a 55-and-up condominium project in the Outer Belt neighborhood. The city’s planning experts have all given this project a green light, but residents have protested based on some environmental and traffic concerns.

Those invested or otherwise interested may like to read the Springfield Office of Planning and Economic Development‘s two analyses on the project: one on the zone change request (PDF), and one on the special permit request (PDF), both of which were recommended for approval. The latter includes extensive documentation from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection regarding wetlands, as well as site plans from Bukowski Construction, LLC.

In Hartford, there is the unfortunate news that the city has been found in contempt of court over a matter that reaches back decades to complaints about how the police department has handled citizens’ concerns. Such challenges are alive today in a variety of respects.

Tonight there will be a planned protest of the recent Immigrant and Customs Enforcement raids in the city’s Parkville neighborhood. Jerimarie Liesegang at Undercurrents reports that people will gather starting at 4:30 pm at South Green Park, at Park and Main Streets, and from there, march to the ICE headquarters at 450 Main Street for a 5:00 pm rally. (more…)

Pioneer Valley blogger Tony Mateus, who has been capturing beautiful sunsets lately, along with chronicling various local shopping excursions, paid a visit yesterday to downtown Springfield’s Tower Square to have a gander at the final day of this year’s annual Festival of Trees, which benefits the Springfield Boys & Girls Club.

Mateus shared some observations about parking under I-91 and taking the elevated, covered walkway (pictured, left and right) across East Columbus Avenue over to the Sheraton Hotel and Monarch Place.

The clear plexiglas was marred in a couple of places by what appeared to be bullet holes, to Mateus’s eye. If not bullets, perhaps the marks were caused by aggressive hail or pebbles thrown by very strong, errant children. In any case the jaunt on foot from the shelter of the under-the-highway parking garage to the shelter of the downtown shopping mall was made warmer and somehow more noteworthy thanks to the shelter of the walkway. (more…)

The cities of Hartford and Springfield are acknowledging the holiday season with some political events intended to offer a little schmoozing and socializing as well as possibly doing a bit of good in the process.

First up is a Springfield City Council open house on Wednesday, December 19, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm at City Hall downtown, 36 Court Street. Light refreshments will be served and an RSVP is requested at the City Council office, (413) 787-6170. Food donations for Open Pantry Community Services, Inc. will be accepted at the event. (Consider finding out what’s needed before making purchases.) (more…)

Edward Glaeser (pictured), director of Harvard University’s Rappaport Institute and professor of economics at Harvard, wrote a brief opinion piece for today’s Boston Globe focusing on Springfield’s “almost bright” future, if the city can take advantage of a few things in its favor. From the article:

While older, colder cities with a strong skill base switched from making goods to making ideas, only 16 percent of Springfield’s adults have a college degree. The city hasn’t been able to reinvent itself. Today, one-fifth of Springfield’s families are poor. …

The Springfield region has a chance for rebirth by focusing on the quality-of-life policies that attract smart, entrepreneurial people. But urban revitalization is far less important than a brighter future for Springfield’s children. If we can deliver that brighter future, even if those children eventually move far from Springfield, then we shouldn’t worry if the city itself keeps shrinking.

Glaeser also takes a shot at the proposed New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail line: “Some people see salvation in a light rail line between Hartford and Springfield. But the era in which rail can make a city is long past. Today, the Springfield region’s modest densities make new rail lines inappropriate. Can it possibly make sense to spend hundreds of millions of dollars—money that could go toward Springfield’s children—on a rail line?”

If a rail line is doomed to fail, someone better tell the Franklin Regional Transit Authority.

Glaeser also mentions that one reason Springfield’s future looks “almost bright” is that Boston’s housing stock prices probably can’t compete. He writes that one tactic to attract a middle class might be to “turn Springfield into a consumer city that will attract entrepreneurs who want to live there. Springfield should follow the Providence model: attract well-educated people who are tired of high Boston prices.”

A press release yesterday from Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez‘s office dramatically announced that the blue onion-domed Coltsville Historic District “cleared a major hurdle on the road to its rightful place in American history.” Governor Jodi Rell and presidential candidate Senator Chris Dodd also chimed in with releases yesterday.

“In a quick, decisive, and unanimous decision,” Perez added, “the advisory committee of the National Park Service said, ‘Yes.’ This is the critical step that had eluded us in the past. Now Coltsville is on the path to receive recognition as a National Historic Landmark.”

Decisive decisions are always the best. (more…)

While cars in front of my Hartford house continue to do the new dance known locally as “the speed bump,” cars near my old Springfield house will soon be doing a different, local version of this known as “the workaround.”

An article by Mike Plaisance in yesterday’s Republican notes that historic enclave Bellevue Avenue and Marengo Park, just a block or so away from my old stomping grounds (pictured) on the more bedraggled but much beloved Euclid Avenue, will soon be partially closed off to public traffic for six months as an experimental safety measure. CBS3 also reported on this yesterday.

Greg Saulmon, editor of the free weekly Local Buzz, is all over this subject in his blog, having even stopped by the streets himself late yesterday to get a first-hand look at the situation, with pictures. (more…)

At the October 16 Springfield Finance Control Board meeting (full transcript here), topics included the assembly of a parcel of land downtown at 31 Elm Street (pictured), also known as the Court Square Building, a significant vacant, available piece of property.

Last year, a national Urban Land Institute panel identified the building as key in spurring downtown development, among other important efforts and strategies, and set it as a top priority for the city’s undertakings, which could otherwise conceivably be spread out among too many simultaneous projects. Zimmerman/Volk Associates later produced a study focusing on the potential for market-rate housing downtown, with an eye on 31 Elm Street. My curiosity about the L-shaped building was kindled by the ULI highlighting the building, which I knew had been considered for a possible (and possibly untenable) boutique hotel plan that had fallen through. At this time last year, on a very cold December morning, I toured portions of 31 Elm Street with city representatives. A slideshow of images is available here.

I was not allowed above the second floor because of safety concerns, nor did I tour the mysterious underground passageway. I could not get inside the former Bar Association social club beyond the doorway because of concerns of imminent collapse. (more…)