Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Town seeks 750K grant for Woolson Block project

The Woolson Block, which towers over Main and Park streets, may remind residents of a problem familiar to many Vermont towns that were once home to a proud industry gone defunct. Now, the Springfield Housing Authority and Housing Vermont are seeking to harness the historic building's potential.

   

11 comments :

  1. I thought the building was purchased.

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  2. I thought they had already obtained 2 mil in various grants etc. Get on with it already.

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  3. Recognize fleecing taxpayers when you see it in plain sight. This doesn't stop until someone or the system stops it. Not going to happen anytime soon. Too much money is there for the picking.

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  4. Is there no end to Springfield's stupidity in allowing the housing authority to litter the downtown with a minagerie of maladies that will almost certainly destroy any chance for renewing Main Street as a viable mercantile venue?

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  5. chuck gregory7/15/17, 8:16 PM

    Wal-Mart has pretty well killed the chances of any town within 20 miles of reviving its Main Street as a mercantile venue. Springfield has to think differently.

    One thing researchers have found out is that average income in a town rises with the percentage of residents with college degrees. (They are the ones who don't have to settle for cheap plastic goods from China, among other things.) So, we should consider how to attract such. To this end, we should determine what Springfield has that will lure them from places like Atlanta, Silicon Valley, Omaha, Phoenix, Albuquerque and Houston, etc. Any suggestions?

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    Replies
    1. Chuck, we could grant these potential residents honorary college degrees just for showing up and promising to be liberals. Its pretty much what most colleges do today and we would save them the cost of tuition. Once degreed they could share in your Utopia of higher incomes and free stuff because of degrees and they could spend their way into your imagined Main Street boom.

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  6. RE: "we should determine what Springfield has....."

    Here's what Springfield has, a disproportionate amount of low income housing that's yielded a demographic that prohibits prosperity. No retail enterprise can flourish here. A critical mass of selfish parasites that vote thru anything that remotely benefits them resulting in one of, if not the highest property tax rates in the state. A verified, failed school system so bad administrators acknowledge talented teachers can not be recruited. No labor pool exists to support tech industry. Bank and gas station armed robberies so common they're no longer news worthy. Drug fueled gun fights and murders on the streets. An accelerating heroine epidemic so intense syringes are more common than empty beer bottles. A financially insolvent medical system due to a legion of uninsured addicts. A bumbling development agency that does NOTHING to attract and support bio medical and high technology firms. Social service agencies and a flop house that openly coach low lifes on how to scam disability.

    Chuck, no one with a choice would subject themselves to living here. Once we absorbed a critical mass of parasites, the prognosis was irrefutable. Springfield is a dead town and no amount of turd polishing will resurrect it. A college degree in a technology field is a ticket out of here. Not a future to be squandered subsidizing under achieving liberals.

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  7. chuck gregory7/18/17, 10:40 AM

    9:36, here's something you can use to flesh out your opinion:

    The town of Springfield, Vermont, in Windsor County, has 9,367 residents. There are four public schools that serve a total of 1,380 students grades K through 12. The average student/teacher ratio is 9.1. NECAP test results, compared to surrounding districts, for 10 scholastic skills showed Springfield 11th grade students scored highest in reading ability and scored lowest in none. State data show that the school on-time completion rate is 87.5% (state average,87.46%), and the grades 9-12 dropout rate is 6.99% (state, 2.9%). The level of education completed by residents is: High school or higher: 94.1%, Bachelor's degree or higher: 16.3%, Graduate or professional degree: 7.6%.

    41% of the residents have lived in Springfield 9 years or less; 22%, fifteen years or more; 16%, 25 years or more; and 15%, longer than 35 years. While unemployment is only 3%, the 2011 median household income is $48,678 (national, $54,267), while the median income for all workers is $28,196. 16.1% of individuals live below poverty level; 9.8% of them are 50% below the poverty level. The unemployment rate is 3.0%.

    There are 623 single-parent households; about 45 of them are “at-risk” parents: women without a high school degree who had their first child before the age of 20. Smoking rates for pregnant women are above the state average: 26.8% of pregnant women smoked before pregnancy (state, 20.4%); but 24.7% of Springfield women who smoked quit during their pregnancy (state average, 23%). Low birthweight babies— an accepted indicator for prenatal smoking, malnutrition and substance abuse— were 7.2% of all births (state average, 6.9%).
    25% of the population is in the Springfield Prevention Coalition’s targeted demographic age range of 5 to 25 years of age. 15% are 65 or older and 7% are under the age of 5. Racial diversity for Springfield is minimal, with 95% being white, 0.6% black, 1.5% Hispanic/Latino, 0.8% Asian, and 0.2% other.

    FBI data on reportable crimes in 2012, with 48 Vermont towns reported, shows Springfield ranked in the highest quartile in crime rate per capita for eight of the ten categories: 9th in forcible rape; 5th in robbery; 5th in aggravated assault; 12th in property crimes; 7th in motor vehicle theft; 5th in violent crime; 7th in murder and non-negligent homicide; and 8th in arson. The self-report rate of Springfield youth who use marijuana before age 13 is higher than the state average.

    Springfield has a regional vocational technical center, the state government district office, Health Care and Rehabilitation Services district office, the Springfield Development Corporation, Springfield Medical Care Systems and Hospital, an art gallery, art center, an historical society, a seasonal open-air Community Market, a Town Recreation Department, an airport a theater repertory group, a citizen- initiated walking path, a movie theater, a Parent-Child center, a town library, a recreation center with an indoor pool, five major civic organizations and 9 churches united in an interfaith association.

    So, you have a choice: use the data to help create a solution, or you can continue to suffer the problem.

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    1. Say what, Chuck? When you can't battle in the arena of the obvious, seek to baffle them with bullcrap, eh! You will go to your grave never acknowledging or apologizing for the carnage and destruction that the leftist's failed social engineering has wrought on a formerly good and decent town.

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  8. chuck gregory7/27/17, 1:42 PM

    8:46, Those are the data. If you want things to improve, you base your plans for positive change on the reality of the data. If you only want to complain, you can ignore or discount them.

    As for the source of the "carnage and destruction," thank you. It was really hard, but I managed to get the leftist cabal that runs Wall Street to perform the rape of Precision Valley, which deprived us of $140,000,000 in payroll incomes and forced us to raise property taxes 247%.

    They're still in power there, too: Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein . . . and some of them have infiltrated our Leader's staff in the White House.

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    1. If only I had a brain...

      I could while away the hours
      Conferrin' with the flowers
      Consultin' with the rain
      And my head I'd be scratchin'
      While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
      If I only had a brain

      I'd unravel every riddle
      For any individ'le
      In trouble or in pain

      [Dorothy]
      With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
      You could be another Lincoln
      If you only had a brain


      Oh, I would tell you why
      The ocean's near the shore
      I could think of things I never thunk before
      And then I'd sit and think some more

      I would not be just a nuffin'
      My head all full of stuffin'
      My heart all full of pain
      I would dance and be merry
      Life would be a ding-a-derry
      If I only had a brain

      Gosh, it would be awful pleasin'
      To reason out the reason
      For things I can't explain

      Then perhaps I'll deserve ya
      And be even worthy of ya
      If I only had a brain

      Delete


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