Tis the season of heightened stress and wackiness, so we should excuse some of the incidents of nonsense that have been passing through the Greater Worcester community lately. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth mentioning, however.
• First of all, city councilor might-have-been Hermis Yanis Jr. should be careful what he wishes for. He recently made a public issue over his exclusion from Common Pathways, a community initiative intended to chart an agenda for the city’s future. He might end up getting himself in — and condemned to hours and hours of agenda-setting and report-writing, followed by the hollow sounds of silence.
• With all due respect to the people involved, the city has seen so many seemingly similar efforts to set agendas and break down barriers that it makes our own institutional head spin. This is Worcester, Worcester 2000, The Worcester Way, Pasos al Futuro, the original city-wide Downtown Charrette, all the subsequent charrettes — and there have been more — all have had as their mission the comprehensive assessment of the state of the city, its responsiveness to its citizens, its delivery of services, and the ways in which citizens can be empowered to accomplish things on their own. Add to this the constant and able contributions of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and the countless tangential citizen committees that seem to spring up like mushrooms, and we have more agenda-setting than any city our size can be expected to handle. So many visions; so little action.
• Yanis and fellow might-have-been counselor William Coleman have sworn to issue a contrarian report, if and when Common Pathways ever issues its own report. Well, you can’t be anti-establishment without knowing where the establishment stands. Then they can look forward to their own hours of position-taking and report-writing, followed by the echo of their own voices in the municipal ether. Don’t we all have more productive things to do?
• In an apparent fit of lay-claim-to-the-entire-region fever, the city’s airport consultants have suggested adding Boston to the airport’s name, adopting the venerable practice first embraced by rock radio station WAAF-FM, which has now abandoned Worcester entirely. This is significantly more ambitious than the usual “Greater Worcester ...” or “Central Massachusetts ... ” monikers and leaves the hopelessly provincial “James D. O’Brien Field” far behind in its jet stream. It’s pretty bold, actually — sort of like the claim that Sanford, Fla., is actually Orlando. City councilors have sworn, appropriately, to keep Worcester in the name. They might look to the Worcester Regional Research Bureau for guidance, as it used to be called the Worcester Municipal Research Bureau but recently announced that it preferred — although only colloquially — to be called The Research Bureau. And then there’s the EcoTarium ....
• And finally, Auburn selectmen voted this week to not allow the placement of six signs directing motorists from the Mass. Pike to, ah, James D. O’Brien Field in Worcester — the reason being the potential increase of 37 additional automobile trips to the current 7,000-per-day load on Oxford Street North. Which just goes to show that you can take the provinciality out of the airport, but you can’t take the airport out of the provinces — or something like that. This is good fodder for future study — preferably by an inclusive committee of community leaders.
