Month: February 2012

Jimmy writes-

Dear Joey,

I feel like I owe you a favor for all the coverage you’ve given the International Dory Race Committee, so I’m offering you the chance to save your soul. You’ve always claimed to love Gloucester so much, how can you use your blog as a tool to further your own financial interests, knowing it will destroy the Working Waterfront that your father helped build???  Have you no conscience???

Please take a step back and re-evaluate your position before it’s too late. Your invited to the “Annie” next Monday night for a Public Forum. Will you stand with Jim Davis, Sheree DeLorenzo, Mac Bell and Sam Parisi or will you stand for the working people of Gloucester and help save our waterfront!

Still your friend!

Jimmy T.

P.S: Feel free to post this, I am in my documentation of this very important time in Gloucester history.

I will first state that I respect Jimmy T just as I respect Damon Cummings and consider them both quality individuals, great family men and great Gloucester citizens.

However I can not disagree more with them on their stance on Gloucester Harbor.

My response.

My interest in seeing Birdseye prosper is the same as it is for I4-C2, the Paint Factory and the way it was when I supported Gloucester Crossing which had nothing to do with the waterfront but so many of the same people opposed.

I am for jobs for our City.  I am for economic development and more taxes being paid to our City to support strong schools, better roads and better sewer systems along with all the benefits all Gloucester residents will receive when there is money to support our public financial responsibilities.

I am not one of these people who would like to erect a gate at the bridge and only allow people that were born here the right to come here and buy a piece of property and raise a family.  I do not equate people that make money as being the devil.  Are there rich people that are true jerks?  Absolutely, but there are plenty of rich people who are some of the nicest people you would meet just as there are some poor jerks and poor sweethearts.

It isn’t a class war for me 24/7.

If we kept to the way of thinking that we don’t want any other people coming to Gloucester  we wouldn’t have these people-

Carolyn Kirk –Mayor That Balanced our Budget and Raised Our Bond Rating

Dawn Gadow- Director of Art Haven

Ken and Nicole Duckworth- Proprietors of the #1 Zagat Rated Restaurant in The Northeast

Donna Ardizzoni- Founder of The One Hour at a Time Gang

Maggie Rosa- Gloucester Education Foundation and Save City Hall

Marty Luster- GMG Contributor and Photog Extraordinaire

Vickie and Peter Van Ness- Creators of Celebrate Gloucester Music Festival and people who organized The Joe Garland Tribute

Ed Collard- Major Builder of The Lobster Trap Tree and One Hour at A Time gang Member and anywhere there is a community need you see Ed helping out.

Melissa Cox- Ward Councillor and One Hour at a Time Gang Member

John McElhenny- A member of Gloucester’s Open Space and Recreation Committee, board of directors of the Sawyer Free Librar and PR for Gloucester

Frieda Grotjahn- owner Again and Again Sailbags in East Gloucester Square.

and so many more people that came here because they loved it.

You won’t stop these types of people from coming here and quite frankly I hope they don’t stop coming.  Communities change and not all change is bad.

Speaking about Sheree deLorenzo and Jim Davis as if they were the devil is absurd to me.  It baffles me how you could poo poo the generous donation of $500,000 to rebuild Newell Stadium by Jim Davis saying that he should somehow give more???  That sure isn’t chump change to anyone.  Really?  Sheree DeLorenzo at Cruiseport took a derelict property, turned it into hundreds of jobs and supports hundreds of vendors all while maintaining the waterfront at her and Jim Davis’ property for Marine Industrial use. Not one fishing boat was ever asked to leave.  But the rhetoric from the anti folks would have you believe that she is displacing fishing boats or marine industrial activity.  Lies and slander.

Instead of demonizing her I’d think that she and Cruiseport should be celebrated as a model of how marine industrial can coexist alongside and even on the same property.  Cruiseport is living proof.

Want more proof?  Look at the Giacalone’s Fisherman’s Wharf which is directly next to Latitude 43’s outdoor restaurant deck and the Gloucester House.    By your way of thinking you would be reading about police reports on a daily basis because they can’t coexist.  But THEY DO AND HAVE!

More?  Brown’s Yacht Yard next to International Lobster.  OMG how do they do it?  I’m surprised they don’t have daily riots over there because they simply can’t coexist!  Guess what?  They have.  For decades.

The people that would have nothing happen here would have told Sam Park to screw and every family of Gloucester would be paying at least $2500 a year more in grocery bills because we were at the mercy of Stop and Shop and Shaws who were RAPING US.

I4-C2 did not have a single bidder for that property after it went out for bid from the City.   Not one.    That speaks volumes.  As they say, put up…

I’d like to see one example where Sheree or Mac Bell twisted someone’s arm to sell their property.  I hear people use the words “Forced to sell”  When???  Show me when.

Talking about selling my soul?

I’d say you have a chance Jimmy to not sell your soul because change is going to happen and we can have a say in it instead of blocking it and blocking it and blocking it and coming up with places like I4-C2 vacant instead of providing jobs and taxes.  Every year that goes by is a year that taxes could have been collected to pay for better schools or to keep our Fire Stations Open.  The Paint Factory, still vacant unless a magical 10 million drops into the laps of Ocean Alliance.

I’m not sure how people could not want money to pay for better schools and take care of the City Infrastructure and how the disconnect between responsible economic development with the increase in taxes and jobs pays for these needs to support our City.

I’d say selling your soul would be to not embrace change by recognizing that you don’t have to displace fishing boats to allow uses that create jobs on the upland parts of these properties.  Selling your soul would be to accept anything less.

I think that as long as we don’t displace fishing boats from their berths that there is plenty of waterfront to offload the incredibly consolidated fishing fleet and to not recognize that the fleet has been radically consolidated is to misrepresent the situation.

If you don’t want these people from out of town to come here any more you should rail against The Downtown Block Parties, Rail Against our Beautiful Beaches, Rail against all of the Awesome Community Events we have, Rail against the Art Scene, Rail against the Farmer’s Market.  These are the fantastic things that are bringing people here.   People love it here and aren’t going to stop coming.  Communities change, communities evolve.

The biggest crime against our community IMO is not supporting initiatives for jobs and to better our schools and public safety through an increased tax base.  That my friend would be selling out by not wanting opportunities for the best schools and public safety for our community.

So saying I’m a sell out and don’t want what is best for our community is not the way I see it at all.   I say that the people that are living with the best views in the city on the Fort and not paying what normal waterfront residential taxpayers pay makes it harder to support our school system.  It makes it harder to fill in the potholes and it makes it more difficult to pay to keep the outlaying fire stations open.  So you’re calling me selfish?  Allowing for responsible development would provide the jobs and provide the tax base so that the tax burden on residents around the entire city wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of it.  Yeah, I won’t be at the witch hunt at The Annie.  I can only imagine what kind of shit show that’s going to be.  You know how I feel as I’ve never waivered.

Jim I know you are passionate about your feelings and I know you are a quality person through and through, I just completely disagree with you just like most of the fishermen that I speak to on a daily basis tell me.  That they don’t see a problem with it as long as their boats are not being displaced.

Jim, Gloucester isn’t just filled with Tarantinos, Ciaramitaros, Favazzas, Palazolas, Frontieros, Aeillos and Novellos any more.

It’s Filled with Tarantinos, Kirks, Favazzas, Duckworths, Frontieros, Cox’, Aiellos, Rosas, Novellos, Van Ness’, Ciaramitaros, Collards, Interrantes, Gadows, Palazolas, Grotjahns and more and to be honest I like the new Gloucester and all of it’s diversity and energy.

Oh and BTW Clarence Birdseye- Born In Brooklyn NY.  God bless yet another out of towner.