Hello Ward 3 and Westfield:
First I would like to congratulate Stefan Czaporowski on his being sworn in our new Superintendent of Schools on July 1. I have worked with him for several years and know him to be high energy, creative, and knowledgeable. I he can do as much for our school system as he has done for our Technical Academy we are going to have an exciting and very positive and constructive term in office.
While I am being positive, Councilor Dan Allie, I hope you are sitting down when you read this, but I totally agree with you regarding how DOT dictates a cookie cutter plan as to how our streets and roads are to be developed. In Ward 3 I have a lot of concerns on how some of the Gas Light District will work. Cities are all different, even neighborhoods are different in the same city. Granted they provide the Chapter 90 funding BUT, what works and does not work varies, and the will and the needs of the people that live there must come first. You can get up now. Sometimes us old Holyokers have to agree.
Next, as campaign season is coming up, beware Staples may not be the place to get your flyers printed. They did, as residents of Ward 3 can attest, a terrible job on my last minute flyer; all blurry, and then blamed it on the original that they printed, and I heard similar reports from others as well. There went $900 down the drain (including postage, as it had to go out.) I want to praise Pet Care at the Little River Plaza for their help in locating a med for Ollie, my dog. They ran out, and called around for me to locate an alternative seller. How many businesses do that for you these days? I want to thank them and encourage going there as a real people and animal serving business.
As well, I want to thank all of those who turned out for Nick Cocchi’s stand out. When I was a substitute teacher I had Nick in classes for 3 year or so. He was a good kid, and as my friend Sheriff Ashe has said, he is the best to replace him as our next Sheriff. One of the things that I do not like in this campaign is the efforts of one of the candidates to undermine the work of Sheriff Ashe, and to obstruct his projects in Springfield. Sheriff Ashe is not only recognized across Ma., for his achievements but across the country. To do that against a man who has serve the people of Hampden County so long and so well, tells you something, not so good, about that candidate.
Lastly, I was not there, but, I guess I got some flack from my last editorial at the last City Council meeting. I guess the good Councilor from Ward 3 took some objection to my remarks, especially in that I was not there. His contention was that my considering his opposition to ¾ of one penny meal tax as foolish, was why I was not re-elected. Again, he does not know what he is talking about. As I have eluded in a couple of public discloses, I had to retire from the State under coercion by co-workers; who for almost 2 years did everything to undermine, bullied, and even threatened so I would quit, so she could get my job, and she did had. Along with the agency’s view of direct care workers as socially inferior, due to their institutionally conditioned perception of us as inferiors, though obviously publicly denied. But, when someone says “it is not that we can’t trust you…” that usually means: they don’t. And, when one of us stands up for client Rights, well too often the writing was on the wall. This lead to depression and stress that I thought would abate in time. But, it did not and by the summer of 2015 I was broke, and with other converging negatives, I figured it was time to quit trying. That is why he won, no competition. But, also in that comment was the suggestion that I do not know what it means to be working poor, and do not care about the working poor. He uses the word class, I don’t like it; is too Old World, not New World American. Our revolution was a rejection of such. Americans work, are the government, the economy, the judicial, the security, and the community developers of the institutions to enable us to do all of that, or at least we were.
But, here again he is wrong. I grew up in a factory working family in South Holyoke. I had a single mom who worked the mills since she left junior high. I first lived in a cold water flat along with my grandmother, so we could afford it. At age 6 mom re-married to an airman, no big income there. We moved to 1950’s Delaware, where my life was threatened when I tried to make friends with a Black kid. Also, dad, arrested for killing a guy in a DUI; back to Holyoke, live with family till out of jail. To California, abuse continued, and in the not so Liberal California, we were chattel, where the only Right was to leave. We packed up what we could carry, and took a bus funded by my aunt back to Holyoke to start all over again from scratch. My mom continued to try to work, but the discrepancy in income to women, along with bad health had her go on welfare. We had welfare food for meals: try the fried bologna and welfare cheese sandwiches for a meal. So, NO, I guess I don’t know what it means to be working poor! But, what I did know was my responsibility to do all I can to make things better. And, at times taxes is a part of it. Who is going to pay for the conditions needed to get out of and stay out of poverty? We have given billionaires so many breaks, subsidized them, deregulated them to a point of being lawless, where we almost don’t even have a middle class anymore. Alexander Hamilton said in the Federalist Papers that those who have prospered the most, were able to do so because of the hard work, struggle, and sacrifice of the many less affluent, that they owe it, to pay it back in their taxes. (Not a quote, but to any who actually read the Federalist Papers, it is there.)
Sorry again for the preaching, but sometimes the ignorance in action of others calls for it. Your feedback is wanted and appreciated…Brian Hoose, [email protected]
