Category: Chickity check it!

From Ron Gilson’s “The Gloucester I Love”

FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2011

Development is Fort Solution, Not Problem

Finally, "Sam" Parisi, a Commercial Street resident, is speaking out.

A Fort waterfront property owner, businessman, and former fisherman, Parisi, is telling it like it is (Letters, the Times, June 28), and in a few short paragraphs to the Times, Parisi lays out the dire plight of his industry and the neighborhood he resides in.

The day after his 1960 G.H.S. graduation he was on the deck of his family’s dragger, F/V St. Rosalie. He brings to the table eight generations of Parisi family involvement in the fishing industry.

In my lifetime, the Parisi’s have built, skippered, invested, and crewed at least a dozen large commercial vessels. They have owned several waterfront properties, hired hundreds of fellow crewmen, and landed millions of pounds of fish over these years. "Sam", his brother "Mike" and their wives, continue to eke out a living on the waterfront while our own federal government commit felonies, break into our fish auction, and routinely fine and regulate our harbor out of existence….that’s the reality.

Entering Commercial Street and the Fort area, we are greeted with a "For Lease" sign on the upper floor of the Chamber of Commerce building. Across the street is a new wharf and building, for years begging for a tenant. The Birdseye plant and acreage cries out for development. The Amero property (formerly Cape Ann Fisheries) languishes, while the former Producer’s wharf property is now owned by the city for $78,000 in back taxes, and is reduced to storing lobster traps, for free!

Parisi’s property offers 33,000 square feet of class A building space but only 20% is rented! Because of increasingly more stringent government regulations, Parisi has lost three of his four tenants years ago and they haven’t been replaced. Contrary to frequent activist "spin", business investors are not lining up for Parisi’s waterfront space, even at a reduced rate!

In 1964, "Tony" Parco and partner "Ed" McCollum opened Ocean Crest Seafood. At the Open House festivities, I counted no less than 32 floral tributes sent by fishing vessel owners, soon to be their suppliers.

Now, all those boats are gone and have not been replaced. The founder’s siblings labor on. The company has reinvented itself. They have representatives sitting daily at the fish auction and have established a successful fertilizer division, Neptune’s Harvest. They continue streamlining their operation. Yet Ocean Crest Seafood survives while struggling with diminished product availability as more and more fish is processed out of town and away from the local waterfront.

Next door at Cape Pond Ice Co., management has rewritten its business plan. Their boat customers are few, they now market bagged ice cubes, create specialty ice products, and actively promote and sell Perfect Storm inspired "T" shirts, etc. The ice company has reinvented itself with new products and creative merchandising. They, too, are hanging on!

The Fort business community has changed. Companies once totally water dependent are now only water related!

Finally, "Sam" Parisi, a Commercial Street resident, is speaking out.

A Fort waterfront property owner, businessman, and former fisherman, Parisi, is telling it like it is (Letters, the Times, June 28). And in a few short paragraphs to the Times, Parisi lays out the dire plight of his industry and the neighborhood he resides in.

To read the rest visit his blog-

The Gloucester I Love Written By Ron Gilson

or his Gloucester Daily Times Opinion story