Future shock

Part 3

by Carolyn Given

Although Mariano considers this council "fairly effective," many city councilors themselves are critical of the board's debating style and its failure to develop a visionary, long-term plan for Worcester.

"We're finishing things that were started without a plan for the next stage, which is jobs," says Councilor Patton. "We need to have a development plan that brings in private investment. We don't have it, and we need it."

Mariano, in part, echoes Patton's concerns, specifically noting that city council is a body that, by Worcester's charter, disposes of matters given to it by the city manager. "Frankly, we haven't had enough from the top-down," he says.

John Anderson, who has sat on the board since 1975, would like the council to better chart Worcester's future.

"What kind of city would we like to be in 10 years?" he muses, noting that the city manager's strategic plan includes the goal of becoming the "most livable medium-sized city in the Northeast."

"If I'm in another place like New Haven and someone said, `What do you think of Worcester?' I'd want to hear, `It's a safe, clean city where people get along -- a livable city,'" Anderson says.

First, Anderson says, city leaders need to overcome the perception that outside industry is given handouts while longtime business owners and homeowners are ignored. "When you read that company A, big or small, got a tax concession, the guy who just got his tax bill looks on that and says, `They're giving it away to somebody, and I have to pay full freight.'"

But Councilor Lukes says little will change in Worcester without more public involvement. Since she was voted onto city council eight years ago, she says, the level of public participation has visibly decreased. "I think government is poorer as a result," she says.

What does she think caused the decline in public involvement?

"I think we have a vacuum of power where organized constituencies and the Chamber of Commerce and the newspaper can dictate the interests of the city, and vested interests of public-employees unions can dictate it," she says. Without a balance of power, Lukes sees little chance for taxpayers' interests, residents, and small businesses to be heard.

Lukes is an outspoken advocate for the development of a citizens' watchdog organization to oversee city council to provide checks and balances. "We don't have any checks and balances. There's no way you can be balanced: there's the union, the Chamber, the newspaper. There's talk about the mega projects being solutions to city problems and directing the future development of the city -- but the constituencies pushing these projects are not directly impacted by them. These are projects we're funding, and they're not profitable when they're intended to be. We hear about spin-off and we start to shudder, because we know there is no spin-off.

"Unless we get more involvement and decision-making from people whose daily lives are affected by decision-makers -- and make them the decision-makers and plan from the bottom up -- I don't see where we'll get significant changes in the city."

"We should be deciding now as a community," says Levy, "where Worcester will be in 15 or 20 years. There's no debate, no vision, and the fuse is leading to TNT."

A look at what city council should be debating