Well, That Didn't Work!

Ken O'Brien

About a week ago the signs disappeared.

The "Make Southbridge Home" campaign skulked quietly into oblivion like so many other schemes of the current town administration.

Announced with all the fanfare of a new street sweeper on the front page of the Southbridge Evening News of  March 15, 2011, this was the bone thrown to Southbridge homeowners who wanted to follow the advice of our current council chair. You remember that immortal dictum where she told us that if we didn't like the way things were being done we could sell our homes and move.

Unfortunately, residents found that homes in Southbridge were selling as quickly as loofahs in a leper colony.

Like Mighty Mouse our Economic Development and Planning Office stepped in to save the day.

As reported in the Evening News, "Make Southbridge Home started with Town Manager Christopher Clark and a former Town Hall intern hearing about the Buy Worcester Now and Buy Greater Gardner Now campaigns.

"'Everyone thought they were good campaigns and decided Southbridge should get involved in one,' she [Rose Cournoyer] said. 'Chris asked me to get involved since I work with Economic Development. What we do is promote home ownership in town and find ways for other people to help promote it.' "

Now, I know that there is a local blogger, who shall remain nameless, who would dispute this revisionist history. As things have worked out, however, I suspect that he would now disavow any responsibility for this fiasco.

Granted, the "Make Southbridge Home" logo still appears on the home page of our town website.

If you click on it you still go to the "Make Southbridge Home" website.

In a rare burst of honesty from our town hall, the Evening News article reported, "'It’s true that a lot of it is advertising for banks and real estate companies,' she [Cournoyer] said. 'They are on our website. If they have a site, we have a link to it on ours. It’s really cheap advertising for them, but it benefits the people moving into the town greatly.”

According to the article, among the yet to materialize ambitions for the program were, "... working with local merchants to offer an 'electronic welcome wagon,' where new homeowners in Southbridge will be sent coupons to local businesses welcoming them to the area enticing them to their stores.

Make Southbridge Home is also working on featuring real estate listings on their site, where they will feature 'homes of the month.'”

To be fair, there are several merchants offering "incentives". But, really, am I going to buy a house to get a two for the price of one pizza or a $10 car wash for $5?

A visit to the "Make Southbridge Home" website is, itself, an adventure in uncovering unintended ironies.

Upon going to their homepage the first thing you will read is:

Make Southbridge Home! NOW!

Are you dreaming of owning your own home? The Greater Gardner CDC is holding First-Time Homebuyer Education Programs in November and December. If you would like to attend one of the programs, please print out the Pre-Registration Form. If you need further information, please call 978-630-2975.

You want people to make Southbridge home so you're sending them to Gardner? Isn't that where you said you got the idea for this program? Do you think they're going to be promoting Southbridge at that meeting?

We are also told that participating realtors and financial institutions can feature the "Make Southbridge Home" logo on their site. None of the featured realtors do this and only one bank uses the logo, although another uses its own version of the phrase.

I won't spoil this journey in jingoism for you. But I encourage you to send in additional examples of this kind of incongruity.

With much more help like this from our town administrators, residents who want to escape this gulag will have only one option left, much to the chagrin of insurance companies.