the airing of grievances

[Garris]

How is it that I get a call from someone in NEW HAMPSHIRE putting me in touch with the mayor's office? This city has an incredible rich, diverse and deep knowledge base on just about every topic imaginable and such energy and excitement about the future and it amazes me that the city continues to look elsewhere for ideas and information.

[DavidSegal]

New question --

What sort of incentives/penalties might you institute in order to reduce the number of vacant properties and surface parking lots? (Yes, I understand that on the parking lot front it'd help to flood the market with new spaces and lower the take one could expect on existing ones. But besides/in addition to that...?)

David

[Frankie811]

My theory (and you're not going to like this Jen)? It's the anti-change mentality here, the same one fuels the anger and regressivity of many of the neighborhood groups.

I've seriously never seen the kind of anger, the kind of anti-change, the kind of anti-growth, the kind of turn-back-the-clock, the kind of not-in-my-backyard mentality that was on parade, for example, at the Providence Tomorrow events. I've lived in many places in the US in the last 15 years and know people who live in many others. I've been civically involved in all of them, as have the people I know, and I've never seen anything like it elsewhere. There's no "can do," no "let's get it done," no "you dream it, you do it" attitude around here...

- Garris

[runawayjim]

New question --

What sort of incentives/penalties might you institute in order to reduce the number of vacant properties and surface parking lots? (Yes, I understand that on the parking lot front it'd help to flood the market with new spaces and lower the take one could expect on existing ones. But besides/in addition to that...?)

David

[Frankie811]

for starters, you could penalize (and i'm not talking a $500 fine and a slap on the wrist) any developers who tear down a building in preparation for construction of a new building if they let the lot sit vacant (and end up being used as a parking lot) for a given period of time (while i have faith in cornish, grant's block for example or what TPG wanted to do with the fogarty building and old public safety building). tax parking lots for their potential instead of their actual use (manyof the downtown lots are on relatively high profile sites, citizen's, capitol grille, the snow/westminster lots).

[Cotuit]

I agree with you on this 1000 %. I've lived here all my life and you couldn't be more right. This state has always been anti-progressive. And as usual, you have the pulse on the situation. Every time that I look at the mall and convention center I think, " Wow, we actually built them. I still can't believe it ". Years ago when all these projects were just news stories, all I would hear from people is " we don't need that ". Even to this day I hear people complaining about all the condo projects going up downtown. " Who the hell do they think is going to be able to afford to live in those". " Why don't they build low-income housing ". And you'd be surprised as to how many people actually think that the city is somehow involved in building and financing these projects. I've been choaking on the negativity of this states populace for years.

[Bil]

New question --

What sort of incentives/penalties might you institute in order to reduce the number of vacant properties and surface parking lots? (Yes, I understand that on the parking lot front it'd help to flood the market with new spaces and lower the take one could expect on existing ones. But besides/in addition to that...?)

David

[jencoleslaw]

I agree with you on this 1000 %. I've lived here all my life and you couldn't be more right. This state has always been anti-progressive. And as usual, you have the pulse on the situation. Every time that I look at the mall and convention center I think, " Wow, we actually built them. I still can't believe it ". Years ago when all these projects were just news stories, all I would hear from people is " we don't need that ". Even to this day I hear people complaining about all the condo projects going up downtown. " Who the hell do they think is going to be able to afford to live in those". " Why don't they build low-income housing ". And you'd be surprised as to how many people actually think that the city is somehow involved in building and financing these projects. I've been choaking on the negativity of this states populace for years.

[ruchele]

it is more beneficial, tax-wise, to have a vacant lot downtown than it is to have a building on that lot. Thus it's no surprise that we have those vacant lots

[runawayjim]

I agree that the solution has to be in taxation. Undeveloped land (including surface parking) that isn't desegnated as green space should be taxed prohibitively, so it just ends up being a financial burden.

I wonder if there are other ways to approach this, too- like maybe some kind of envirnmental fees for paved land, etc.? This would help the Providence paved yard problem, too.

[DavidSegal]

the paved yard problem will not disappear until the overnight parking ban is lifted. rents will just go up on places with a parking lot in back where the yard used to be unless there's an alternative to parking on the backyard.

[runawayjim]

I agree with you here, RAJ. I want to do something that'd distinguish between the large downtown/commercial lots, and the 6-space residential ones.

[jencoleslaw]

New question --

What sort of incentives/penalties might you institute in order to reduce the number of vacant properties and surface parking lots? (Yes, I understand that on the parking lot front it'd help to flood the market with new spaces and lower the take one could expect on existing ones. But besides/in addition to that...?)

David

[Cotuit]

We also need to stop the development of new surface lots, our minimum parking restrictions in zoning can make the creation of new surface parking a necessity. Shared parking is one way to reduce this need. An arrangement whereby nearby developments can share parking allotments so one project with extra parking can share that parking with a nearby development that does not have enough. Or multiple developments can pool resources to build off site parking structures. This issue can be illustrated on Valley Street where SBE&R projects are having problems meeting minimum requirements for parking do to the layout of the mill building sites. Parking get shoehorned into all available land on site.

[basachs]

Here is my grievance today:

A car in front of me this morning drove right through a red light in front of the new Hilton. Not a "yellow turning red light", but a solid red light. He applied the briefest amount of brake and then just sped through.

i was able to catch up to the car just as they were parking illegally in front of the Biltmore. As I pulled up alongside, all ready to yell something smart alecky at them, the person got out and I recgonized him as one of our local politicians. I was kinda stunned enough not to say anything right away, and then someone honked at me from behind, so I just pulled away without saying anything.

In my rearview I noticed him running into Starbucks for what I am sure was a very important, red light running justfied meeting.

[ruchele]

Most of you have read my gripes about this kind of thing before, but it continues to baffle and outrage me.

There are currently 6 cop cars, including 2 SUVs and at least one unmarked detective's car parked in front of the house next to me, several of them blocking traffic and one parked in my driveway. There are 5 cops standing around shooting the sh*t in the street. According to the neighbor, this is because an old boyfriend showed up, despite a restraining order. I'm so annoyed at the behavior of cops in this neighborhood that I think I have lost perspective. Does the police response seem appropriate and proportionate? Do they need to park all over the damned street? Why are they in my driveway? Why have they been standing around chewing the fat for the past 45 minutes?

Maybe that many police cars is an appropriate response, and my perceptions have just been colored by situations like the following scenario my husband observed about two weeks ago:

There was a pretty bad car accident at the corner of Sycamore and Westminster. One car was badly damaged and towed away, and the driver, a middle aged woman, was sitting on the curb, crying with all her posessions around her. She looked very possibly mentally ill and like she maybe lived in the car. Two cop cars are parked across the street, and the cops are not only not helping the woman, they are AUDIBLY LAUGHING AT HER and making fun of her thong underwear that is hanging out of her luggage. No one is offering her any assistance. My husband, who had just walked to the corner to drop something at the mailbox, ended up asking her if he could help, calling a cab for her, and helping her load her stuff into the cab once it came. Meanwhile, he keeps looking at the cops incredulously. One of them finally pulls a U-turn in the middle of Westminster and slows down to give MY HUSBAND the stink-eye before booping his siren and pulling away.

Seriously, what the hell are the police supposed to do, if not help someone in need? How is it in any way appropriate or professional to laugh at someone's misfortune? Who would have helped this woman, if my husband, Mr. Anonymous Nice Guy, hadn't happened along?

I'm not one of those people with some big chip on my shoulder about cops- in fact, I have a friendly working relationship with some officers in other neighborhoods, and I think Esserman has been doing a pretty good job. But I've never seen behavior like the above anywhere else I've lived. We've been living in Providence for about 2 1/2 years now, and I'm having a hell of a time convincing my husband to stay when he keeps seeing public servants behave like this (or even running red lights, like described above).

[runawayjim]

not all that long ago (i actually posted about it i think, in the lil rhody lounge), the guy living with the woman below me was arrested. my fiancee adn i were watching tv and i had gotten up and noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was a cop car in front of the house. so i went to the window and looked and counted 3 or 4 regular police cars and 1 detective/unmarked car. we watched because this is a very quiet neighborhood (apparently the only people who cause problems are the idiots below me). there were a couple cops just chatting on the sidewalk outside my house and then they took the guy living downstairs out (he had a bag) and led him to the back seat of one of the cop cars.

now i can understand 2, maybe 3, cops involved, but 5? i have no idea why he was arrested, my guess is child support payments (and they could've had a feeling he might try to run or cause problems).

[JJK5]

Better safe than sorry I suppose. My father was a state trooper in NH and he'd end up in way out of the way places with no radio contact to HQ. Domestics were by far the most common and always potentially dangerous, because you're probably the only trooper out there and the guy's drunk and ready to fight. If there's spare cops not covering anything else, why not bring them along? Some people don't surrender to arrest without a fight. What's the officer turnover rate in PVD? Maybe some of them are trainees just riding along.

[basachs]

Most of you have read my gripes about this kind of thing before, but it continues to baffle and outrage me.

There are currently 6 cop cars, including 2 SUVs and at least one unmarked detective's car parked in front of the house next to me, several of them blocking traffic and one parked in my driveway. There are 5 cops standing around shooting the sh*t in the street. According to the neighbor, this is because an old boyfriend showed up, despite a restraining order. I'm so annoyed at the behavior of cops in this neighborhood that I think I have lost perspective. Does the police response seem appropriate and proportionate? Do they need to park all over the damned street? Why are they in my driveway? Why have they been standing around chewing the fat for the past 45 minutes?

Maybe that many police cars is an appropriate response, and my perceptions have just been colored by situations like the following scenario my husband observed about two weeks ago:

There was a pretty bad car accident at the corner of Sycamore and Westminster. One car was badly damaged and towed away, and the driver, a middle aged woman, was sitting on the curb, crying with all her posessions around her. She looked very possibly mentally ill and like she maybe lived in the car. Two cop cars are parked across the street, and the cops are not only not helping the woman, they are AUDIBLY LAUGHING AT HER and making fun of her thong underwear that is hanging out of her luggage. No one is offering her any assistance. My husband, who had just walked to the corner to drop something at the mailbox, ended up asking her if he could help, calling a cab for her, and helping her load her stuff into the cab once it came. Meanwhile, he keeps looking at the cops incredulously. One of them finally pulls a U-turn in the middle of Westminster and slows down to give MY HUSBAND the stink-eye before booping his siren and pulling away.

Seriously, what the hell are the police supposed to do, if not help someone in need? How is it in any way appropriate or professional to laugh at someone's misfortune? Who would have helped this woman, if my husband, Mr. Anonymous Nice Guy, hadn't happened along?

I'm not one of those people with some big chip on my shoulder about cops- in fact, I have a friendly working relationship with some officers in other neighborhoods, and I think Esserman has been doing a pretty good job. But I've never seen behavior like the above anywhere else I've lived. We've been living in Providence for about 2 1/2 years now, and I'm having a hell of a time convincing my husband to stay when he keeps seeing public servants behave like this (or even running red lights, like described above).

[eltron]

The other thing I can suggest, although not as anonymous, is bringing it up at the next neighborhood action meeting at the WBNA. Lt Day regularly attends these. While not necessarily a crime, this does affect the public perception of the police in our neghborhood and may prevent someoe from reporting a real crime to the police becasue they feel nothing will get done. Lt Day is truly committed to community policing and I cant imagine she would not be interested in learning about this.

[basachs]

Much like every other department in the city, the heads of departments seem committed and willing to help out and innovate when necessary. The rank and file however, 75% of the time, are unwilling or unable to do simple things the rest of us seem to be able to do on a daily basis - THINK! Its maddening...

[jencoleslaw]

i wonder if there was something going around today--a AAA truck BUMPED a car at the intersection of NMS and 3rd. There were three AAA tow trucks, three police officers, a fire truck and an ambulance. I think also someone from Miriam Security came by. No one was hurt, the car was FINE, the truck was FINE and there was at least an hour of fooling around on the street, completely blocking access to my office, the intersection, the TB Clinic, and 3rd street in general.

[Frankie811]

Here is my grievance today:

A car in front of me this morning drove right through a red light in front of the new Hilton. Not a "yellow turning red light", but a solid red light. He applied the briefest amount of brake and then just sped through.

i was able to catch up to the car just as they were parking illegally in front of the Biltmore. As I pulled up alongside, all ready to yell something smart alecky at them, the person got out and I recgonized him as one of our local politicians. I was kinda stunned enough not to say anything right away, and then someone honked at me from behind, so I just pulled away without saying anything.

[JJK5]

It's been a weird day on the roads for sure. Almost just witnessed an accident between a tow truck and an SUV on 95. OH and I almost forgot, this morning there was a woman STANDING in the left most lane of 95 south (just after the 195 split). Literally standing, looking like she didn't know where she was, she had moved to having her toes right on the white line as traffic creeped by her. It was surreal. It looked like one driver was stopping to see what the fudge she was doing in the road, hopefully she got some help.

[Liamlunchtray]

not all that long ago (i actually posted about it i think, in the lil rhody lounge), the guy living with the woman below me was arrested. my fiancee adn i were watching tv and i had gotten up and noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was a cop car in front of the house. so i went to the window and looked and counted 3 or 4 regular police cars and 1 detective/unmarked car. we watched because this is a very quiet neighborhood (apparently the only people who cause problems are the idiots below me). there were a couple cops just chatting on the sidewalk outside my house and then they took the guy living downstairs out (he had a bag) and led him to the back seat of one of the cop cars.

now i can understand 2, maybe 3, cops involved, but 5? i have no idea why he was arrested, my guess is child support payments (and they could've had a feeling he might try to run or cause problems).