Go ahead, raise my taxes

I doubt there's a single working person who hasn't looked at his/her paycheck and thought what a difference it would make to be able to take home gross rather than net pay. I know I have.

But I also don't much feel like going door to door, collecting enough money to pay for our police and fire departments, basic human services for my elderly neighbors, and road repair for the state highways.

Taxes are to the business of government as salary is to the business of families. We've got to have them. Massachusetts is nowhere near the most tax-burdened state, just as the U.S. is nowhere near the most tax-burdened country.

That said, I am far from a fan of the House of Representatives' proposed sales tax increase. The Senate Ways and Means budget does not include any new revenue sources and therefore their proposed budget cuts are even more severe than the House's, which passed an increase in sales tax from 5% to 6.5%. I think the Senate is waiting for public outcry to "force their hand" on the same. But sales taxes place a greater burden on working and poor households than on families with more disposable income.

There's a growing consensus in the progressive movement to accept whatever tax increase we can get as a way of eliminating the most devastating budget cuts, and the sales tax seems most likely to pass.

An income tax increase would be far fairer-- if you make more, you pay more. Would I like it? No. But don't worry, folks-- we're not going to get it, because our legislators are too concerned that they wouldn't get re-elected. They know that the public in general does not have the information we need about sources of revenue and that we're going to react in a kneejerk and totally understandable way about having any more taxes taken out of our paychecks.

I had a meeting a month ago with State Rep. Ben Swan about budget line items of particular concern to the elderly. We talked about possible new sources of revenue. When I mentioned an income tax increase, Rep. Swan said that the will (in the Legislature) just wasn't there.

"Remember, next year is an election year," he said.

It wasn't until several days later that it hit me-- given that legislators serve only two years, it's always an election year either this year or next year! (But don't get me wrong, I don't think four year terms would solve this problem.)

Yes, there's waste in government, and we as taxpayers deserve a since effort on our legislators' parts to eliminate it. But it's not going to keep our state from resembling a third world country if we don't find new revenue sources.

Hate crime? Hours after election, black church burns

Sometime after 3 a.m., just hours after Barack Obama was declared the next president of the United States, the fire department in Springfield Massachusetts received an urgent call: the nearly constructed new home of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ was on fire. By 7 a.m. this morning, the building was declared a total loss-- about $2 million in damages. Three firefighters were slightly injured while fighting the blaze.

Pastor of the predominantly African-American church Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr. said that the church was down but not out. "Our belief in God will sustain us. ... Our faith is of such quality and maturity that we will be building." Robinson said. Springfield Republican

There were few reasons for the building to burn, Springfield Fire Department spokesperson Dennis Leger said, because the building was vacant and utilities to the 90%-completed building had not yet been connected. The fire is considered suspicious and by this morning the site was being examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

State Representative Ben Swan, who was on his way to meet with Bishop Robinson when contacted, said that the community would be kept informed of developments. Bishop Robinson is a member of the Black Pastors Council, which held a Get Out the Vote for Obama rally last Saturday. (I was honored to be asked to speak.)

Springfield voters gave 75% of its vote to Barack Obama yesterday but at least a few of the 25% who cast their vote elsewhere suspect Bishop Robinson had the church burned for the insurance money, or that maybe church members went to the church to celebrate and set it on fire with a candle . Bishop Robinson says he's at a loss to understand why anyone would want to harm the church.

Bryant Robinson Jr. was Deputy Superintendent of Springfield Public Schools for many years and in line to become superintendent in 1989 when the when the Springfield School Committee decided to conduct a national search instead. Many Black leaders remain convinced to this day that the search was conducted so that Robinson could be passed over.

Rep. Ben Swan's campaign kicks off/ Mayor should hide his head

My sister and I went down to the Keg Room late Thursday afternoon to go to Ben's first fundraiser of the season. I'd call it a successful event-- maybe a hundred people, a minimum of speeches, and enough food to keep people happy.

I ran into Juan Gerena, director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, and we chatted for a while. I told him I thought it was a good move to cancel the Puerto Rican Festival this year. He said that if people didn't behave at this year's Puerto Rican parade, it would be the last year for the parade, also.

"We've got too much other important business to spend our time and energy on a festival right now," he said.

Juan asked how come I wasn't at Springfield's legislatively-sponsored hearing about Gov. Patrick's proposed bill for Springfield. (I was in Boston all day for my job.) The bill, which will take the form of a binding referendum on November 4th's election ballot, proposes an extension of our $52 million loan from the state to twelve years from our current five. Unfortunately, that proposal comes with three conditions, which come as close to blackmail as anything I can think of: a raise for the mayor, the establishment of a new position, a Chief Financial Officer, AND an extension of the mayor's term of office from two years to four years. I imagine most of the citizens of this city feels the same sense of disgust at this proposal that I do. Nobody likes being strong-armed.

(Another bizarre aspect of the governor's proposal, that only a few people recognize, is how very different the voter approval path for this referendum is than the one we ward rep advocates had to take. Among other things, this question is going on the ballot in an even numbered year that is usually reserved only for state and federal elections. Juan said Rep. Cheryl Rivera brought this up at the budget hearing.))

I've said I wasn't opposed to the idea of four year terms for mayor in general, but Juan pointed out something that has made me change my mind. Think, he said, of the size of the war chest a four year mayor could build up over that time period-- it would make him pretty damn unbeatable. Oops! Hadn't thought of that one. He's right.

No one seems to be very clear yet on whether this four year term measure, if passed, would automatically extend the current Mayor Sarno's term from two to four years. If it does, I'd say that's the kiss of death for the Governor's proposal.

About an hour into Ben's fundraiser, Domenic Sarno stopped in. He said a few kind words about Ben and then said he was off to a School Committee meeting. I could hardly even look at the guy. Rarely have I seen a new administration get off to such a bumbling and heavy-handed start. The trash fee, of course, is a prime though not sole example. If Sarno had brought the community in on decision-making about the trash fee, he could have won our support. Of course, a lot of people who voted for Sarno did so thinking that they were involved in making a decision about the trash fee, and that decision was to eliminate it.

Liz and I left after about an hour, my tolerance for political people in a bar having come to an end.

I will work on Ben's campaign; just give me a stack of flyers to distribute and I'll go door to door.I'd rather be a foot soldier than a general when it comes to getting a candidate elected-- even one I like.

Meanwhile, the Sarno saga has only just begun.

Is Chelan Brown unfair to the Swan family?

Who tampered with Chelan Brown's campaign for state representative website?

She certainly doesn't seem in any hurry to find out, or to share anything she knows with the rest of us.

Her website was barely up a week from last Sunday when on MassLive posters identified huge chunks of the website actually came from the websites of other candidates for state rep around the country.

Earlier this week, Rev. Talbert Swan, incumbent State Rep. Ben Swan's nephew, called upon Chelan to investigate the tampering of her website, which she has said she does not intend to do. Meanwhile, anonymous posters on MassLive who are clearly supporters of Chelan's candidacy, have accused various members of Ben Swan's family of the tampering.

I think Chelan owes it to the Swan family to investigate this alleged tampering so blame may fall on right person or persons.

Chelan Brown/ Three days of no blogging

Feels very strange, now, to go three days without posting-- three unusual days, Boston once, trip to the vets twice, not good news on the dog front, plus work, a meeting at Arise, and lots of emotionally charged contact with lots of people. I did get garden plants and I did (with my nephew's help) get four wheelbarrows of earth from my old garden to my new garden so I'll do some planting this weekend, rain or not.

In ways I can't completely explain, I've found myself deeply upset about the current controversy with State Rep candidate Chelan Brown ever since the news broke on Wednesday that her campaign website had (at that time) large chunks of text taken from state rep candidates from around the country!

I say the news broke and yet actually the first tip came from a poster on MassLive who recognized a graphic on Chelan's website as a picture of the state of Washington.. (her website had only been up since Sunday, but it was the first many of us knew of it.) Within two hours, other MassLive posters had researched text and found much of it not original . Fellow bloggers Bill Dusty, Heather Brandon and Greg Saulman at LocalBuzz have done an excellent job of following up on this story, but in a nutshell, by Thursday the website was down and replaced by a wait page that said: The site: Elect Chelan Brown for State Representative has been pulled due to unauthorized tempering. We will be back online soon!

Thursday afternoon, Chelan and her supporters held a press conference on City Hall steps. Chelan announced that someone had tampered with her website to make it appear she had plagiarized other websites. She also said that she hasn't filed any complaints yet because the Springfield police are too busy. Peter Goonan, Springfield Republican.

I must say that my heart sunk. If someone hacked into Chelan's site in an effort to discredit her, then it is absolutely essential that there be an investigation and that the truth come out. We simply can't afford to let the cynicism in this city deepen any further.

A poster on MassLive tonight said that Chelan is a forgiving person and that's why she's not pursuing a complaint. She can be forgiving all she wants, but we need the truth. If, for example, someone working against her hacked into her site, we need to know that to put doubts to rest. Another scenario: if someone on her campaign designed the website and borrowed text that seemed to represent what he/she thinks Chelan stands for, it was a terrible mistake, and Chelan could announce it as an unauthorized mistake and move on from there. But her solutions provides no answers to anybody, does us a disservice, and won't satisfy anybody except Chelan's core circle. In the most pragmatic terms, it is not a winning strategy.

For local readers, I want to say here that I decided some months ago that I was going to work on State Rep Ben Swan's re-election campaign. I lived in Ben's district for thirty years and had many opportunities to work with him. I had my cross moments with him last year when I wanted more help from him in pushing ward representation through the Legislature, but overall I couldn't be more satisfied. I also respect his long history as a civil rights activist. Again, another poster on MassLive pointed out all the connections between Ben Swan, his relatives and in-laws who work in various agencies, and funding he has helped secure for them and others . As I've written before about others, I don't think that is a bad thing per se-- it shows a whole family committed to public service-- but it does bear extra scrutiny on the part of the public and extra meticulousness on the part of the public official.

I didn't decide to support Ben because I dislike his opponents, Lorenzo Gaines and Chelan Brown. I've seen them both as up and coming Afican-American young people with the potential to contribute a great deal to Springfield. But Ben has incredible experience and if he has the energy and will to run again, then I support him. (I also think that for two young people who have never held elected office, starting at state rep is more the kind of thing you do to build recognition than to win. I'd prefer to see both of them prove their ability to serve in a smaller venue first.)

Lorenzo I don't know well yet but Chelan I've known since she first ran for mayor at 19. I wrote a story about her-- I think it was for the Advocate-- and passed out some of her literature. My organization, Arise for Social Justice, brought her in to some of our early work, including planning a major criminal justice conference and being a plaintiff in our first ward representation lawsuit. We promoted and supported her boycott of Eastfield Mall after she was arrested there for refusing to leave a food court. I admit it was a disappointment that after she started her own organization, AWAKE, she didn't follow up on other chances for our organizations to work together. But at no time have I ever wished her less than well.

I will say again: we in this city, even in our most cynical and despairing moments, do want to believe in change, do want to believe we can have leaders with integrity. (Otherwise we wouldn't be fooled so many times!) We deserve answers and I think the Chelan Brown campaign should do everything possible to make sure we get them.

Ward Representation - will we even have a chance to vote for it?

What a frustrating day yesterday was. I returned a call from Candace Lopes, Sen. Buoniconti's aide, and I knew was bad news even before I called.

No, the Senate had not voted on the home rule legislation for ward representation-- in fact, the House hadn't even finished voting. And even after the legislation is passed, it still has to be signed by the Governor-- all before what I believe to be the deadline for getting a question on the ballot-- next Monday, October 1. Candace said the rumor was that a House member from Western Mass-- no identity known-- was holding the legislation up.

I called Rep. Ben Swan, a longtime ward rep supporter, who said he hoped it would finish being voted on this Thursday, but that it really wasn't up to him, it was up to the House leadership-- that means Speaker of the House Salvatore DiMasi. So I called his office and talked (of course) to an aide.

Then I called the Governor's office to make sure he was going to be in town to sign the legislation, should it pass both houses of the Legislature. Of course that's like trying to talk to God, but I did speak to his legislative director who said that getting the Governor to sign was not that simple-- that it often took 30 days or more while the Governor did "due diligence" on the legislation.

During the day other ward rep supporters called their state representatives. The responses ranged from pretty clueless to informed and ready to vote favorably; everyone denied being "the one" to hold the bill up.

Then I called Mayor Ryan's office, for the fourth time since August, to ask him the same thing-- PLEASE be in touch with the Western Mass. legislators and tell them to move the home rule petition forward. Later in the day I was told by a mayor's aide that Mayor Ryan was, that very day, writing a letter to the reps-- too little, too late for a mayor who is supposed to be a ward rep supporter (as is his mayoral opposition, Domenic Sarno, at least for the last couple years).

Finally I called Mike Plaisance, reporter at the Springfield Republican, to fill him in on what was (not) happening. He called me later and said he'd been told by the city's Election office that the question could go on the Springfield ballot as late as October 19. Now that's not what I was told by the Election office, (and not one of the city councilors, state reps or city lawyers that I've talked to over the last several months have challenged that date-- maybe they just don't know) so my job today is to clarify what the real deadline is.

If it's October 19, terrific. Of course that gives us grassroots folks even less time to campaign among the city's registered voters. However, even that date probably doesn't guarantee that the Legislature will finish doing it's job.

And they wonder why people are cynical about voting and politics.

Ward Representation

My sister Liz and I went to a Ward Four Democratic Committee event yesterday at the Cozy Cafe. The event was a forum for candidates for City Council and School Committee. Each candidate was asked his or her position on ward representation, which most likely will appear on the November 6 municipal ballot.

Seven of the nine current city councilors voted in favor of ward representation last October, with Bud Williams and Tim Rooke dissenting. Yesterday's forum gave some of the incumbents a chance to reiterate their support. All but one of yesterday's non-incumbents supported ward representation, although some wished the version-- eight from wards, five at large--was stronger-- Bob Underwood, Vera O'Connor, Jacob Bennett, Lorenzo Gaines, Chris Collins, Clodo Concepcion, Mo Jones, Pat Markey, Orlando Santiago, Hamilton Wray, Gloria DiPhillipo. Karen Powell was the sole "No" vote of those present. Mayoral candidate Dom Sarno reminded us he voted in favor in October.

After twelve years of fighting for ward representation (that's just Arise, some have been fighting much longer), we are finally close to success.

I looked around the forum yesterday and saw a number of excellent candidates for office. Most of them don't have a snowman's chance in hell to be elected. In two years, everything could be different.

Oliverio Designs updated a map showing where elected city councilors have lived for the past 10 years, and it pretty much speaks for itself.

The most common argument against ward representation usually starts with "those people." If "those people" worked harder, came out to vote, etc., people from the un- or underrepresented wards could get candidates elected. But whether it's true or not is not the point. If we can bring down the barrier that makes so many people feel that voting is a pointless exercise, let's do it! Giving more people a greater stake in our city's well-being can only benefit all of us.

Racism comes full circle in Springfield,MA

Poor Mayor Ryan.

I doubt he had any idea that today, when he announced the city was ready to begin diversity training of its employees, that eight of those employees would be announcing a racial discrimination lawsuit at nearly the same time!

Irony of ironies, the fellow he announced would be doing the training, Tom Belton, was one of the eight (plus attorney Devin Moriarty) standing on the steps of City Hall as they talked about decades of being passed over for promotions, not receiving raises, and being subjected to insensitive remarks by white co-workers.

Mayor Ryan is still trying to handle the fallout from the February resignation of his Chief of Staff Michelle Webber. Webber resigned after Rep. Cheryl Rivera went public with accusations of racism against Webber, accusations that Webber denied at the same time she apologized to anyone she might have offended.

Of course discrimination at City Hall didn't start with Mayor Ryan, and it looks like it won't end with him, either.

I remember a former city councilor of color telling me I just had no idea what it was really like for people of color during the Albano administration, and why that councilor was choosing to support former state representative Paul Caron for mayor instead.

And lest we forget, this is Ryan's second go-around as mayor of Springfield. In his first term, Ryan called in the National Guard to make mass arrests at a peaceful demonstration of African-Americans at Court Square. They were there to protest the arrests of African-Americans who had been clubbing at the Octagon Lounge. One of those arrested is our current State Rep Ben Swan.

Ryan also ushered in the "Strong Mayor, All At-Large City Council and School Committee" election system which has resulted in only six people of color being elected to city council in forty-five years.

In another irony, Rep. Rivera's accusations against Michelle Webber in Ryan's second time in office were part of the trial affidavits we submitted in our federal lawsuit against the City of Springfield to challenge Springfield's all at-large voting system-- Arise for Social Justice, Oiste, the NE Chapter of the NAACP and a number of individual plaintiffs.

A binding question to change to an "8 ward,5 at-large" system will finally be on the ballot this November.

Thus we come almost full circle.

I know that as a group, we white people don't understand how much our well-being is bound to the well-being of people of color. Social injustice skews our reality like a funhouse mirror. But we can change. I see it all the time.

Right now we need to support the eight courageous people who today said: Enough is enough.