Tammy’s new micro-birtherism initiative
The 'Show Me Your Papers' show comes to Worcester
What’s up Worcester Sucksters—I’m a day late but certifiably not a dollar short. We’ve got a lot of interesting stuff to cover today.
Requisite subscriber pitch:
If you’re already a paying subscriber, thank you so much for allowing me to do this thing I love to do! On that note, thank you also to the folks who had nice things to say about my last piece, “Some smoldering war over meaning,” which was neither local nor news, and a gamble to publish given the subject matter. Really means a lot when I put up a piece in which I’m reaching for something bigger than usual and it lands well with my readers. Love you all!
Anyway, to business:
Micro-birtherism—is the killer graduating?—the last gas station proposal—the Luis Ojeda Show—odds and ends
Tammy’s new micro-birtherism initiative
In the public petition section of the council agenda for next Tuesday, there’s a remarkably ghoulish entry from a member of the Worcester Republican City Committee. It reads this way:
Mary Ann Carroll request … draft documentation required to amend the City Charter to require candidates beginning with the Municipal Election in 2025 to be a citizen of the United States of America to be eligible to hold elected office in the city. Further … include language requiring any candidate not born in or within the jurisdiction of the United States, but has become a naturalized citizen … submit naturalization papers or other legal documents as proof of citizenship to the City Clerk's Office … Failure to submit such authenticated documents shall make the candidate ineligible for local elected office in the city.
Literally just trying to make early Trump-era birtherism city policy. This applies, notably, to only two of the current councilors: Etel Haxhiaj and Thu Nguyen.
I think Haxhiaj put the issue here best in a tweet yesterday:
To be quite honest, I expect this disgusting crap to surface. Councilor Nguyen and I have been attacked over our life journeys before. Asked for our papers to prove how American we are.
But, this hits deep. This hurts. This hurts not just us- it hurts people like (Jermoh Kamara) also a refugee who was elected to School Committee. I can't articulate enough how upset this feels at a time when immigrant and refugee communities are under national attack. I NEVER thought this disgusting vermin rhetoric would make City Council.
It's important we affirm to all our immigrant and refugee communities they are loved and cherished and they can run for office unintimidated by racists.
For such a racist item, I was surprised to see what the petitioner, who goes by Mary Ann McGinness online, looks like....
Just kidding! That’s what they all look like.
As a Townie White from a declining suburb where everyone looks like this, and who is destined to one day look the same, I’m giving myself a pass to be a little racist/sexist here and say this Jan. 6-ass Tammy should be deported back to the Hampton Beach Ballroom and Casino where she belongs. Build the fuckin’ wall.
And if you think that’s a bit harsh, the item as it appears on the agenda has been uhhhh lightly edited for clarity. The actual form that Carroll filed out is in the attachments, and it includes a section on “reasoning.”
Citizens of other countries should not be setting taxation, zoning, housing, infrastructure, and educational policies on American citizens
When opponents see the WRCC's website on the agenda item they will likely go to the site only to see a good portion of it is in Spanish.
Once submitted, local talk radio, voters, and activists can be contacted
This is a good (and FREE) way to get the WRCC name better known.
While bullet point #1 here is self explanatory (racist drivel), points 2-4 are a bit more confusing. The item as written does have a link to the website, and it is, bewilderingly, half in Spanish. Weird to be so pointedly inclusive in service of an idea that’s objectively exclusionary. And who is going to contact the radio exactly? Confusing. Then the transparently self-promotional nature of the order as a dark little kicker.
In any case, it would be great if a bunch of people showed up to council next Tuesday to loudly and clearly say this racist, nativist bullshit will not be humored here. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. on the third floor of city hall and the agenda includes instructions for calling in via phone and Zoom.
Is the killer graduating?
Hard to describe the dread I felt reading this passage of the Telegram’s write-up of the state police graduation ceremony Wednesday—which was still, for some reason, held in Worcester, Enrique Delgado-Garcia’s hometown, while protesters outside demanded justice for the young man whose death was anything but an “accident“ and far more than the “tragedy” officials have taken to calling it.
Inside the ceremony, during a moment of silence for Delgado-Garcia, as well as for all the police and military personnel in “our great Commonwealth and beyond” who have given their lives in the line of duty, a recorded message from Delgado-Garcia played on the jumbotron.
“Hello, my name is Enrique Delgado-Garcia from Worcester, Mass. Prior to the academy, I worked at the Worcester D.A.’s office in Victim Witness Advocate. The reason why I stayed is because I wanted to be there for them on their worst days and make that bad day even better.”
Jesus. To use Delgado-Garcia’s likeness in such a way—as a commercial for the institution that killed him—isn’t just abhorrent. It’s craven. An out-and-out death cult would think twice.
Since Delgado-Garcia’s death, 100 recruits have quit the State Police Training Academy, as report after report comes out about the brutal conditions within. WCVB with one of the latest:
Now, a former trainee from a previous class is sharing the same concerns.
"It's just morning, noon and night of pure hell and torture," the man, who did not want to be identified, told 5 Investigates.
"I get discipline. I get the whole aspect. But not hazing. Not making somebody feel like a piece of scum," he said. "You're not just weeding out the weak people. You're weeding out the good people."
WCVB notes that a total of 450 of the 1,476 state police trainees since 2020 have quit, a dropout rate of 30 percent.
Going further down the dread hole, I checked out the livestream of the event and this comment right here....
Like... is he? Are they? We don’t know of course. We don’t know anything about what happened in that boxing ring, despite knowing there’s video of it. And still, we have no idea. We may never will. I chewed on this thought while watching the cadets march along the floor of the DCU Center in processions that appeared straight out of a 1940s propaganda reel.
The ceremony saw effusive speeches from Governor Maura Healey, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, newly appointed State Police Superintendent Geoffrey Noble, and member of the graduating class Mitchell DeAmbrose.
I still need to watch the whole 2.5 hour thing. As it happens, I’ve been sitting on a half-written essay about Delgado-Garcia’s death and the subsequent fallout, and the graduation ceremony will complete it nicely.
That’s the post for Sunday, I think!
The last gas station proposal
Local government did some actual governing this week! I know, I know—I’m surprised too.
A proposal to put the city’s 68th gas station1 at the Hope Ave roundabout was withdrawn at the Zoning Board of Appeals Monday after ZBA members made it clear the pitch would not get the votes it needed—nor would any other such pitch in the future.
In front of a packed room, two members said they’d vote to continue the discussion, but three said they were prepared to vote it down that night. Rather than take that losing vote, the applicant withdrew, leaving them the option to submit the proposal again.
The proposal is for a Garrett’s Family Market gas station/convenience store. Garrett’s is a relatively small chain but they’re nearly identical to Cumbies. For more background, peep the first story I wrote about this a few weeks ago: “Garrett’s get out of here.” It would have replaced a lot currently home to Giovanni’s Bakery and a barbershop, as well as a few empty retail spaces that used to house a liquor store and donut shop run by the property owners.
The withdrawal came after a long discussion, which saw dozens of neighbors in ardent and animated opposition. It culminated in an impassioned statement of opposition from member Nate Sabo. The board’s chairman, Russell Karlstad, was about to do the usual thing that city hall does when the public is mad: “continue the hearing.” But Sabo butted in, saying he intended to close it right then and there. He explained why, and it’s worth sharing in full, with some commentary to break it up. Sabo:
I want to point out a couple things I heard tonight. One of the concerns was that the owner wanted to make the site safe and efficient. They also mentioned that they owned the site for 40-plus years. They’ve had plenty of opportunities over 40-plus years to do that. This isn’t a family market, it’s a gas station proposed for the site. The green washing, the other things that were proposed, it’s a gas station, right? The Chamber of Commerce is here in support of it because they’re funded by the oil and gas industry at the national level.
Applause from the room. Earlier, Pat Baliva, a member of the Chamber of Commerce board and an employee of Saint-Gobain Abrasives, spoke in favor of the proposal. Patronizingly, he said, “Progress is difficult. It’s emotional. It’s scary. It’s going to incite deep memories of times past. I can also tell you that progress is fresh, healthy, and exciting.” That’s how this representative of the Chamber of Commerce and employee of a dramatically downsizing industrial manufacturer chose to describe a run-of-the-mill gas station. Back to Sabo:
That’s like Exxon or Shell coming here and telling us the gas station is a good idea.
The long-term shift to electric vehicles and the current ongoing trend of increased fuel efficiency will lead to mass closures of gas stations that will create toxic brown sites across the country. As gas stations disappear, these poison plots will present an environmental problem of monumental proportions. Every new gas station we add today is another future brown site contributing to this problem.
This future brown site is also right next to a waterway. Along the southern edge of the site (pictured on the top in the site plan below) runs Leesville Pond and a dam taking water from the pond to nearby Curtis Pond, which then runs into the Middle River.
Absent any new gas station on its edge, Leesville Pond is already cause for environmental concern, so much so the town of Auburn, (in which the majority of the pond lies), got a state grant for environmental clean-up in 2020. Of particular concern is runoff from nearby properties. Back to Sabo:
Many of the folks mentioned a lack of demand. Gas consumption peaked in 2016 due to increased fuel efficiency and the increased adoption of hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. Automakers are planning to spend more money to make this possible in the future. Gas stations negatively impact housing prices. We’ve mentioned numerous times this is a residential area. It will have a negative impact on housing prices. It also effectively prevents the development of a site that may have had a positive impact. It was a real head-scratcher for me to hear a city councilor say that a gas station is a higher and better use for the site than housing.
That is precisely what Councilor Moe Bergman said earlier in the meeting. “I believe the benefits outweigh the negatives, and certainly outweigh the unknown, which could be far more problematic for a neighborhood that’s looking for more businesses,” he said, not stating which other uses would be worse, but leaving it prominently between the lines. He was the only councilor on Monday night to speak in favor of the gas station, and dismissed the environmental concerns as unwarranted because the city has permitting and inspection processes. But back to Sabo:
We sit here every night and hear proposals to put seven-story buildings on a postage stamp. I’m sure there’s a developer that’s willing to buy this site and put housing there.
The lot is zoned for business and residential, and could see a housing complex up to three stories high per the city’s current zoning laws. We need more housing much more than we need our 68th gas station. This gets at one of the most curious features of the deal: The property owner, Bill Kasper, says his family is done with managing the property. “We want out,” he’s often said. But, despite that, they aren’t willing to sell the property outright. The deal with Garrett is a long-term lease. A housing developer is much less likely to build on property it doesn’t own outright. A gas station, however, might find such an arrangement preferable. Easier to break the lease than it is to excavate a leaking underground gas tank, I have to imagine. Back to Sabo:
Now let’s talk about the environmental contamination. Small spills and leaks every day add 70 to 100 gallons of spilled gasoline to every million gallons sold. An average station sells 1.2 million gallons a year. A 10 gallon spill would contaminate 12 million gallons of groundwater. The project is adjacent to runoff, but that would have to be heard by the conservation commission.
Let’s talk about health concerns. Gasoline vapors emitted during pumping contain benzene, a known carcinogen linked to a number of disorders. The World Health Organization maintains there is no safe level of benzene exposure. This application contains an outside seating area, which would increase the benzene exposure for anyone at this location. It’s very near residences. Children living near a gas station are at eight times higher risk of developing leukemia. A recent study of fuel vapors emitted from a gas station found that benzene levels from underground storage tanks were at unsafe levels up to 150 meters from a gas station. Many of the people we’ve heard from today live within that distance from a gas station.
I’d like to add just a couple more things: In addition to the public safety and economic considerations, there’s no way this could go forward. The construction and operation of gas stations contribute to pollution and greenhouse gas emission that exacerbate climate change. This goes against the Green Worcester Initiative that our city is committed to.
I move to close this discussion and ask that all my fellow board members vote no on this application, to send a message to this applicant and all future applicants that any proposed new gas station provides no public benefit and as such will not be approved.
Cue rapturous applause from the gallery. Watching the tape, I was struck by how unusual it was to see a local official decisively take action based on the morality of it, without hedging in any way or speaking in the strange, vague code of municipal government. He said what he meant with clarity. Wild.
Sabo didn’t get all of his fellow board members, but he got enough! After some hemming and hawing about the legality of closing the hearing and taking a vote, the chair called for a “straw poll” of how members would be voting.
Jordan Berg Powers said he intended to vote no, adding “the city’s reliance on gas stations is disturbing.” And that adding any more is “really bad planning for the future.” Similarly, member Anthony Dell’Aera said the site is zoned for practically any business and “a gas station need not be part of the equation.” Member Shannon Campaniello simply said she wouldn’t be voting in favor of it.
Only member Eric Torkornoo and board chair Karlstad said they’d be in favor of another meeting on the matter. But they didn’t say they’d support it outright. After this “straw poll,” a representative of the city asked the applicant if they’d like to withdraw the application before a vote and they did so after a half-hearted defense from the Bowditch & Dewey lawyer they retained. “My client is a very good corporate citizen,” he said.
This is, essentially, the ZBA stepping up to do what the city council wouldn’t. In early 2022, the council narrowly struck down a proposed moratorium on new gas station construction. Remember that? Mayor Joe Petty was the deciding vote against the idea, joining Moe Bergman, Donna Colorio, Candy Mero-Carlson, George Russell, and Kate Toomey. As I wrote at the time, it was a decisive crank victory, as was tradition back then.
Now, given the way this vote went down, it seems fairly safe to say the council has rendered itself irrelevant. Moratorium or no, gas stations have to pass through the ZBA and this week the ZBA said in no uncertain terms that we have enough.
The Luis Ojeda Show
I don’t know what happened to precipitate it but District 4 Councilor Luis Ojeda has been having a whole-ass week. He was the center of at least three very goofy moments. It’s uhhh a different shade of the man than we’ve seen so far, I think, making it worth documenting.
First, at the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Monday, before the gas station drama, the board was evaluating a housing proposal at 10 Grosvenor’s Way, in the Green Island neighborhood. A woman who lives in the neighborhood got up to speak against it. Part of her argument had to do with the homeless residents of the neighborhood. “Is the building going to be secured,” she asked. “I don't think people are going to be paying a good amount of rent and want to be walking over homeless people on their doorstep.”
Gross!
Ojeda was next to speak. Toward the end of a three-minute airing of “neighborhood concerns” he said:
And then on the bigger picture, some of this can become a safety issue. Like one of the residents was talking about. The safety and security there. There’s a lot of issues already going on in that neighborhood. I’m not asking them to take full responsibility, but have they done their due diligence? What will they do if something happens?
Incredibly vague, but, in context, obvious: He’s describing unhoused people as a security issue the ZBA must mandate that the developer mitigate in some way. There was only one resident who spoke before him, and she spoke about the security concerns posed by the homeless. She didn’t talk about safety or security in any other context.
When it came time for board members to speak, Jordan Berg Powers kept his comments brief: “I’m just trying not to let my brain melt from my city councilor saying we shouldn't have housing because there’s homeless people,” he said.
Member Nato Sabo echoed the sentiment. “It’s not up to our developers to solve the issues in our city” like homelessness.
When Chairman Russell Karlstad attempted to move on to the next item, Ojeda got back on the mic, interrupting him with an unprompted “Thank you, Mr. Chair,” which took Karlstad by surprise. But he let Ojeda speak. And what followed can only be described as a “full blown hissy fit.”
I do want to address Berg’s comment about the homeless and me not thinking about that. I did not mention homeless in here. And my concern, again, it’s the second time I’m here, representing residents as a councilor, and I’m—
He rapped his hand on the mic stand, causing loud thuds on the broadcast.
—I feel like I’m being disrespected again because that was not even mentioned. All the residents turned their head and said ‘where did that come from?’
Hmmm I don’t know maybe the resident who, directly before you, called homeless people a safety issue? The one you specifically mentioned when you said “like one of the residents was talking about” before citing “the safety and security” as a concern?
I’m here to represent residents. I’m not here to disrespect anyone, but I don’t wanna leave here feeling like my word is not being heard or I’m being disrespected. I think that was unfair of him.
The chairman responded: “The board apologizes to you, councilor. One of the residents did mention homeless. It wasn't you though.”
It was him, though. It’s very silly to try to deny that. Here you can watch for yourself:
Berg-Powers chimed in to correct the record: “He also mentioned it, to be clear.” The chair responded “Jordan, we don’t need any talk back.”
The next day, at city council, an otherwise light agenda was dominated by a series of orders from Ojeda. He asked for a report on the city’s plan for winter homeless shelter, a report on banning nicotine sales in the city, a procedural item related to an honorary street name change, a traffic study of Green Island, and a request to have the city create an Instagram for kids. All in a row!
Considering his comments at the ZBA the day prior, his homeless order was particularly interesting. “We need to start worrying about the winter,” he said, “to provide a safe space that is warm and,” he paused, adjusting his collar uncomfortably, “has food and other resources.”
A security concern one day, the next a worthy cause.
This goofy order—the people who actually deal with homelessness do not start thinking about emergency winter shelter in October—caused Mayor Joe Petty to take the mic and embarrass himself as well. “This has been an issue every year,” he said. Water, wet. Then he made a formal motion that the city develop a “short-term and long-term” strategic plan on homelessness, apparently unaware of the five-year homelessness master plan filed with the council over the summer—on an agenda he supposedly, as mayor, has a hand in putting together.
Then we moved on to Ojeda’s order to ban tobacco. He spoke on it for more than six straight minutes, a gallery of angry convenience store owners watching him. And he was a bit hostile, I have to say, both to the convenience store owners—“I find it interesting... these people up in arms now”—and to the city manager—“I was told ‘that’s gonna be more for us to work on, more on my plate.’”
After he was done, Kate Toomey immediately motioned to file it without saying why. The rest of the board voted with her. Ojeda was the sole vote against filing it.
Then, the goofiest: his order on Instagram.
Per his proposal, the city will create an account that targets kids who “flip through Instagram all day long” to “educate youth” on “the benefits of physical activity, the benefits of focusing on their mental health, better eating habits, and what types of foods are best for them.”
The Instagram would be run by the Health and Human Services Department, he suggests.
“If we can establish some type of Instagram that allows our kids to get it within their algorithms, they will always see an opportunity,” he said.
No one spoke at all on that one. It went to the city manager—the one Ojeda previously mocked for having “too much on his plate”—where it will surely sit in a file cabinet in perpetuity.
My question remains: What made him so heated and weird this week? In the past, he’s been relatively quiet and agreeable. We’re seeing a whole other side now: a councilor quick to take personal offense, and increasingly comfortable pontificating on the floor without really saying much of anything, as some of the more entrenched, cranky councilors do.
It looks an awful lot like he’s learning how to be a councilor from the worst of them. A shame.
Odds and ends
Thanks for reading, everyone!!
WPI is one of eight private colleges in Massachusetts and 40 around the country named in a new class action lawsuit over price fixing and financial aid packages. Will have to get the court documents and dig into that for a future post. Hedge funds gunna hedge fund!
Worcester’s rolling out the first phase of its Vision Zero initiative, including the 25 mph speed limit change.
Apparently the school committee meeting last night was a bit testy. Same old story: Maureen Binienda thrashing the district in her pursuit of petty revenge.
Just finished Rejection, a new novel by Tony Tulathimutte, and I’d recommend it to anyone who feels a bit “too online.” Brilliant satire of “internet culture” and the miserable people who comprise it. This line was a gut punch: “Discourse is loneliness disguised as war.”
Makes it my 22nd book of the year, baby. As a slow reader, this has been a banner year for me.
Got four or five in the queue but always happy to hear some recommendations!
Ok, talk Sunday!
68 by ZBA member Jordan Berg Powers’ count. Several years ago he put together a full survey of the city, totaling 66, then another was approved after he did that. I was able personally to verify 60 gas stations in Worcester via a quick search of Google Maps last night. The 68th or the 61st, the point stands.
1) Making that pudding of a woman’s giant head the thumbnail of this article is a great piece of visual terrorism.
2) I believe that Donut Express place is still open, although word was that they had fallen off recently.
Awful to see Mary Ann file this garbage. I would hope all city councilors will agree.