Our group is growing at lightning speed! Only 3 days ago, Citizens for Positive Change in Gloucester created a petition to support a new hotel on Pavilion Beach, near where a hotel stood for 65 years. (Click here to see that hotel). Our petition has touched a nerve, with over 100 people a day signing up to support the hotel and help Gloucester’s economy grow. Click here to sign our petition and see over 300 people who’ve already signed it.
Gloucester needs to move forward, not backward, and create jobs and a healthy economy that will give our young people a reason to stay and visitors a reason to come here. The hotel will create over 100 new full-time jobs, attract visitors whose spending will strengthen our downtown businesses, and generate revenue for the City from Meals, Rooms, and Property Taxes. Let’s take the tax burden off the homeowner!
It’s time to say “Enough is enough” to those who’ve held Gloucester back. The tide is turning. Positive change is coming to Gloucester!
Join the movement. Visit us at www.WeLoveGloucester.org. You can share the petition with your friends on Facebook by clicking here.
Thanks,
Citizens for Positive Change in Gloucester
Good Morning Gloucester 
This is a pivotal moment in our city’s history. Please become informed if you’re not yet and sign this petition if so inclined. Thank You, ED
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Open letter
TinyIsland Beach Glass
Open Letter to Downtown Businesses and Gloucester Citizens:
I believe that we all are looking for one thing. ~ To improve The City of Gloucester with positive mindful change that will boost our local economy.
I want to ask you a Friendly question.
I realize that a new hotel in downtown Gloucester can help your business as well as mine. The Beauport LLC group is selling the notion that if we rezone our Marine Industrial Harbor that the city is in for a surge in local business. This may or may not be true. It’s not a downtown location hotel we are fighting, it’s the location where they want to develop, the lack of transparency of their plans as well as some misconceptions regarding it ~ not a hotel in downtown Gloucester itself.
The petition that is out there in favor is for blindly rezoning the properties on The Fort without seeing a single plan.
Would you make a blind decision like that for your business? I wouldn’t. I would want to know all the facts first. The Beauport LLC group is trying to convince the citizens of Gloucester that we are fighting a hotel, when in reality we are asking NOT TO REZONE THE FORT where a hotel does not fit in with the current Marine Industrial zoning.
Sheree G DeLorenzo and Jim Davis or even Mac Bell can build a hotel downtown. Just not at The Fort, where the only thing that cannot be approved for development is a hotel or condos. We do want Marine Industry and prosperous business that will create high paying jobs. The hotel business does not do that. Trust me. I worked in hotels for years.
Marine Industrial is the most liberal property for development in our city. A downtown hotel would be great right on Main St, just steps away from Mayor Carolyn Kirk’s new Harbor walk.
With all the attention this issue is getting, this should be a win-win for our beautiful Historic City of Gloucester, Massachusetts ~ AMERICA’S OLDEST & MOST HISTORIC SEAPORT.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. Please share the information. Holding The Fort is an uphill battle. If I can finally see what’s going on, so can you. Please take a deeper look around. For more information please visit our Facebook Page, Hold The Fort, and our website http://www.holdthefortgloucester.org.
Sending out Love and Prosperity to the City I Love,
Tiny Island Beach Glass
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I do not agree with many many of Tiny Island Beach Glass’ statements above but do respect her and the people of the fort many of which have been writing in saying that they do indeed support the rezoning for a Hotel at The Birdseye site.
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I live on The Fort. There is a lot of buzz going on in our community. Some people would call it a war, I call it a game. A game has teams, barriers, a playing field, freedoms goals and barriers. A war is a game, an extremely aberrated game, but a game no less.
The playing field is The Fort. The teams are those that want to develop the Birdseye building and those that want to develop the Birdseye building. “What?” you may ask. Yes, you read correctly. Those that want to develop the Birdseye building and those that want to develop the Birdseye building.
And then there are the spectators, the sheep and the lemmings.
In a game, you have to some kind of difference, red shirts against the blue shirts. The teams comprise of those that want to put in a hotel on the Fort and those that would like to bring in an entity that would be more suitable to the culture of Gloucester such as a research institution or something that would build on Gloucester’s heritage.
An outsider looking out.
Long time readers will know that I grew up in Vermont, moved to LA, spent a good chunk of my live in Colorado, a small chunk of my live in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and now I’m in Gloucester.
I’ve seen these games played across the country, some with success, and some with disastrous results either for the community, the environment or in the displacement of the population.
If you read the paper and/or read the blogs, you will be subjected to a lot of rhetoric. Those that oppose the hotel are “obstructionists” and those that support the hotel are “citizens for positive change”. On the other side they would say that Mac Bell is a this, Jim Davis is a that.
Rhetoric. I’ve lived in a lot of different regions of this country and I’ve seen it all before. The strategy is to dehumanize the opposition.
The people that oppose the hotel have legitimate reasons for doing so. They are the business owners of on the Fort that run marine industrial businesses. I’ve listened to them and like it or not, they have legitimate concerns. They are small business owners that love their businesses, THEY PROVIDE JOBS AND PAY TAXES, too. They realize that their business have an aesthetic that may not be harmonious with a big business hotel and they do not have the deep pockets to defend themselves when their gurry, trucks, dumpsters that are part of their business interfere with the aesthetics of the hotel.
I’ve seen it all before. It’s a game played in every school yard. It the game called, “You’re crazy.” The game is simple, if someone doesn’t agree with you, you just call them crazy. I see this game being played as anonymous comments are left on blogs and on the Gloucester Times. They do not have the intestinal fortitude to put their identity on their comments think it is okay defame and commit libel behind a shield of anonymity. Thus we have an indication of the decadence of our society.
This hotel is being touted as the panacea for Gloucester’s problems. It’s going to produce 100 jobs, it going to solve crime and our children are going to be smarter. It’s going to fill our restaurants. The hotel will be near where there was a hotel before. (Well, that hotel couldn’t make a go of it, but shhh…). Actually, it was a resort hotel located where The Tavern is, as an outsider I haven’t been able to figure The Tavern out. It has a sign outside that says its professional building and it seems to have an event space. I’ve only seen one or two functions there since I’ve lived here and the parking lot is always empty. I don’t see any professional’s shingle on it. Like I say, it is a big, empty event space.
Why not a hotel?
Here is what is needed and wanted. When I interviewed for my job in Gloucester, I was put up in a hotel down in Danvers. A regional hotel will be good for the area. But a hotel with 100 staff? Just how many beds are rooms need to be filled on a continuing basis to keep 100 people employed? And what is going to happen to when this is not accomplished and the jobs go away for 9 months out of the year when the hotel is empty? Or are these claims just rhetorical?
On Ocean Research.
Everyone in Gloucester knows that Gloucester Harbor is a unique, deep water port. The Birdseye building doesn’t have access to this by pier or dock, as it is on a beach. A marine research institution is not a bad idea as it has close proximity to slips and docks.
Now, the comments will come in, “Oh, research institutions don’t pay taxes, they are a drain on the community, they buy up all the property”…listen, I’ve lived in no less than three university towns and one government research town. These towns ARE ALL PROSPEROUS. Done properly, research and educational institutions provide STABLE, long-term employment. They are less prone to the ups and downs of the economy. The people that work at these institutions live in the region, eat at the restaurants, buy gas, well you get the picture. They provide professional, administrative, service, skilled and unskilled jobs that are not seasonal or are not subject to swings on Wall Street.
“The Birdseye building is abandoned and falling apart.” Yes, this is true. It’s part of the game that a developer plays. It’s nothing to get excited about. I wouldn’t put money into a building I’m going to bulldoze, would you? Heck, this tactic can be so obvious that it is laughable. There was a chunk of wetland out side of Long Beach, California. It was classified as a wetland because it was in a flood plane and it got mud puddles when it rained. The developer ran harrows over the entire property a few months before the land was surveyed for environmental impact and proclaimed it to be a waste land.
The xenophobic Fort
“The people on the Fort resist outsiders.” That is just nonsense and is not founded on any basis of reality. My wife and I have been made very welcome on the Fort. We’re not Italian, we’re not fishermen. We came in with Colorado plates.
The neighborhood on the Fort is made up of businessmen, machinist, engineers, technicians, health care providers, accountants, mothers, fathers, children, grandparents and people in the fishing industry too.
“The People on the Fort are waiting for the rebound of the fishing industry.” They know that the days of thousands of pounds of flakes drying in the sun are gone. No one believes that there will be the tonnage coming into Gloucester as before. They know that change is here. They want to be able to guide it along so that the people that have prosperous businesses on the Fort can continue as the present zoning allows and that they can continue to have a say in now their neighborhood is allowed to evolve.
I’ve seen all these tactics before. The hired guns to run the political spin, the puppets, the big money, the politicians with one eye on the pot and the other eye on the polls. Let’s not forget the “unbiased” media fanning the flames.
Ya’ know what?
Now, call me crazy but I think the Cruise Port is a good thing and I like the new Cape Ann Brewery. The new fish landing business beside Lat 43 is doing what should be doing on our waterfront. Intershell has been a shot in the arm for the Fort. The Chamber of Commerce building is well utilized. I don’t hear any objections on the Fort regarding these businesses.
There’s been some revitalization of downtown. These are all good things. But I keep getting hung up on the rhetoric. Why is there so much smack talk? It makes me stop and wonder why there is so much spin. What is going on behind the scenes that there is a need for all of the name calling, the posturing and all the games? Hmm…is it because the Fort is a tiny neighborhood and there are not that many votes and therefore easy to overrun? If the good of the neighborhood was the real objective, then there would be no need for the bamboozlement.
There isn’t one problem on this planet that cannot be solved with communication between the parties. Both sides are doing what they think is best. There isn’t a 100% right or 100% wrong in this game.
The rhetoric is superfluous to the issue. The people of Gloucester, no matter which side of the issue they may be, are not that obtuse.
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Steve,
Thank you for responding to both sides, That is why I’m involed. I can understand the enticement of having a hotel on the beach. But when you put all the facts together it doesn’t make sense for Gloucester as a whole. I just want to help open people’s eyes and I think you said it all pretty much. Thank you.
Denise Olympia Scola Palazzola Foley
aka Schmoopie (yes, people know me by that name so I’m not really annonymous) 🙂 Cheers to communication!!!
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Mr. Davis has the means and the opportunity to do something for the City of Gloucester. He has the means and the opportunity that could could provide long standing support for the community.He could support a business that is in keeping with marine uses. He could support a business that provides decent paying jobs, advancement opportunities and benefits.He could restore the Birdseye building.It is another Gloucester landmark. He could support a business that does not threaten long standing and beautiful traditions; does not threaten the fishing industry and the companies that support the fishing industry.He has chosen the wrong location for a hotel. Hotels provide minimum wage jobs and many jobs do not even pay the minimum wage with a strong possibility of no benefits. What a legacy he wants to leave!
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Where’s the open dialogue? Does anybody care enough to voice their opinions? Joey opened this up by allowing this post. Lets talk Gloucester. Peace.
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I’d actually prefer folks to take it to http://www.capeannonline.com. I don’t want to have to moderate and chances are it will all devolve. I try to keep politics out of GMG as much as possible and Cape Ann Online is a great forum to share ideas.
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