What Is Wrong With Southbridge?

Ken O’Brien

Southbridge has struggled for over a decade with underperforming schools.

Southbridge has witnessed a continuing relative decline in property values.

Southbridge has experienced a steady decline in the number and variety of businesses in the community. 

Now, by a significant margin, we know that Southbridge has the highest rate of unemployment in Worcester County. 

Town Manager's FY 2016 Budget Proposal

Southbridge Town Council Meeting - March 23, 2015

Southbridge School Committee Meeting - March 24, 2015

The Southbridge Community Supports Our Students

Charges Against Dr. O’Leary, Dismissed, To Be Re-filed

Ken O’Brien

Earlier this week charges against Dr. Thomas O’Leary in connection with slapping a 6-year old  patient in October of 2013 were dismissed in East Brookfield District Court.

However, according to Timothy Connolly, a spokesman for Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early, Judge Maura McCarthy did so without prejudice.

The charges stemmed from an October 2013 office visit to Harrington Physician Services, where O'Leary worked at the time. According to the Telegram & Gazette, O'Leary was with the boy, being treated for ADHD, and his father, when the boy removed his shirt to throw it at the father. 

Tourism Funds Targeted By Baker Budget

Center Of Hope Also Targeted (see below)

Gov. Charlie Baker is proposing an $8 million cut to state funding for the Office of Travel and Tourism and would come close to eliminating state funding for regional tourism councils.

Officials from the tourism councils say the money is an investment, which is paid back many times to the commonwealth through increased tax revenue and spending by tourists. The Democratic-controlled Legislature has restored governors' proposed cuts to tourism in past years and is likely to do so again. 

MTA President Madeloni on Governor Baker’s Proposed Budget

Governor Baker’s proposed budget is troubling for its lack of vision and absence of meaningful investments in education and other vital community services. Although some of the governor’s ideas appear positive, his budget is ultimately a proposal that shortchanges students, families and our cities and towns by including cuts to kindergarten expansion programs and providing inadequate funding for our public schools, colleges and universities.

While keeping school districts at foundation levels, as is constitutionally required, Governor Baker’s proposed spending plan fails to address the fact that many of our communities already face significant shortfalls in the resources they need to provide children with the schools they deserve. Public education is the center of our democracy and the heart of our future, and the Commonwealth’s spending priorities must recognize that. 

Teacher Survey Recommends PARCC Over MCAS

Ken O’Brien

A group of Massachusetts teachers told the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Tuesday that the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test outperforms the MCAS test, and they recommended the board adopt the new test statewide.

Twenty-three teachers who are participating in the Teach Plus Massachusetts Policy Fellowship presented a report to the board that included feedback from 351 classroom teachers in 74 school districts who looked at the PARCC test. Teach Plus is a national non-profit focused on policy.

Southbridge Has Highest Unemployment In Worcester County

The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD) released preliminary February 2015 estimates that show the Massachusetts total unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent from the January rate of 5.1 percent, a 0.2 of a percentage point decrease. Over the year, the unemployment rate fell by 1.1 percent from 6.0 percent in February 2014.

Southbridge, however, experienced little of the good news in the report. Compared to its immediate neighbors, Southbridge experienced chronically high unemployment.

National Grid Files For Electric Rate Reduction

Ken O’Brien

National Grid electric customers could see lower bills this spring.

The company has asked the state’s Department of Public Utilities to allow them to change the the Basic Service charge from the current price of over 16 cents a kilowatt hour to just over 9 cents per kilowatt hour.

The decrease, National Grid explains, is primarily due to fluctuations in the wholesale electricity market prices, which are costs the company does not control. 

A Goldmine Of Muni Fines

"Money we are spending on athletics...borders on the obscene" - Abrahamson

Video By Bill Bishop

Southbridge School Committee Meeting Of The Whole - March 18, 2015

Video By Bill Bishop

How The Republican Budget Screws The Middle Class

Ken O’Brien

“The simplest way to understand these budgets is surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact, actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer,” wrote Paul Krugman, The New York Times ‘columnist and Noble Prize-winning economist. “We’re looking at an enormous, destructive con job, and you should be very, very angry.” 

The GOP-controlled House and Senate budgets drastically cut spending on education, retirement, environment, road and bridges, climate change, immigration, job creation, Obamacare, food stamps, and other social welfare programs. At the same time it gives the Pentagon a blank check, and includes tax cuts for the rich and corporations while raising taxes for lower-income Americans. That’s the analysis by the National Priorities Project (NPP), not just Krugman, and they make an even more disturbing point.