"Despite push for more relief, more than $1 billion of federal funds unspent" by Emma Platoff Globe Staff, February 14, 2021
Even as Massachusetts pushes Congress for more federal stimulus funding, new state data show it had spent only half the $2.7 billion it received last year through the federal CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund.
State and local officials say the numbers illustrate some of the logistical challenges associated with obtaining and spending the money, including some uncertainty about how precisely the funds can be spent, and with the pandemic still ongoing, some cities and towns have been trying to reserve portions of the money while they determine how much additional cash they will receive from the federal government and what restrictions those funds may carry.
“There’s a logic to keeping your powder dry,” said Phineas Baxandall, an analyst with the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a think tank. State officials expect all the money to be spent by the deadline at the end of the year.
Let me think about that for a minute.
Meanwhile, Governor Charlie Baker and Representative Richard Neal, Democrat of Springfield, held a joint press conference last week in Boston to promote a new $1.9 trillion relief package moving through Congress. Neal, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, predicted the bill will pass by mid-March.
As of the end of 2020, Massachusetts had spent about $1.4 billion of the relief funds, a quarter of which was spent on salaries payroll for public safety staff.
Specifically, the state allocated $150 million for the Department of Correction, $99 million to the state police, and smaller amounts to local sheriffs’ departments. The funds accounted for nearly one-third of the Department of Correction’s payroll spending last year.
Other major expenses included contact tracing, testing, and grants for small businesses. More than $140 million was spent on helping schools reopen, and a tiny fraction of the money, $35,243, went to the grim task of opening temporary morgues.
Related:
"The Baker administration came under fire Sunday for offering vaccination appointments to staff at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner last month — after rebuffing calls from lawmakers and other officials asking the state to provide shots to funeral home workers. The vaccination appointments for medical examiner staff, which were described in a pair of January e-mails obtained by the Globe, came from Lisa Riccobene, the agency’s chief administrative officer. The Baker administration’s prioritization of medical examiner staff for vaccinations, and not funeral workers, comes after the US Centers for Disease Control issued guidance for essential workers that placed funeral workers with health care and hospital employees for vaccinations. The state’s funeral industry said it has labored at the front lines of the pandemic....."
That name sounds familiar.
All dead and buried now, isn't it?
State officials set aside another $502 million for municipalities, but only $324 million of that has been distributed so far, as some cities and towns have not yet requested the full amount allocated for them, and of the money they have received, much still remains unspent, state figures show.
That’s partly because then-President Trump signed a law on Dec. 27 extending the deadline to spend the CARES Act funds until the end of 2021, giving local officials more time to figure out how best to use the money.
“What you may be seeing in a lot of these municipalities is a reassessment of how they want to use some of this stuff in light of the fact that they have another year to spend it,” said Doug Howgate, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “Everyone involved wants to make sure people spend it on appropriate issues and make sure the money stays in Massachusetts.”
Some cities and towns say they have also faced logistical and administrative obstacles, including sorting through the regulations on how the funds can be used, but state data, while incomplete, show that much of municipal spending has been on administrative expenses, payroll, and improving telework options for public employees. Local leaders also have spent millions of the federal funds on personal protective equipment, food programs, and cleaning efforts.
In other words, it's been WA$TED by $ELF-$ERVING BUREAUCRATS as they SIT ON IT while your livelihood and dreams are destroyed -- all in the name of a MASSIVE and COLOSSAL LIE called COVID!
They have no choice but total tyranny now, seeing as they are all criminals!
While Massachusetts was charged with distributing the bulk of federal relief money to cities and towns, Boston received aid directly from the federal government and Plymouth County insisted on handling distribution of funds to 27 communities within its borders, even though some argued the state was better equipped to dole out the money.
City officials say Boston has already spent the majority of the $121 million it received, with a small amount reserved for emergencies during the rest of the year. Expenses included protective equipment and small business grants. Plymouth County has disbursed $26 million of the $91 million it received, and plans to reimburse another $30 million in claims shortly, said county Treasurer Tom O’Brien.
The CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund was just one small portion of all federal funding allocated to Massachusetts, but it provided relatively flexible funds that officials could use on many unexpected expenses incurred due to the coronavirus pandemic; however, federal officials barred government agencies from using the funds to pay off debt or cover routine expenses, even if governments suffered revenue shortfalls due to business closures and other problems related to COVID-19.....
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What the reader needs to understand, and does, is the CARES Act is simply a way for criminal liars posing as leaders to bribe all the institutions of society and prop up those they wish to keep after the Great Re$et.
"Baker unveils $668 million relief plan to help small businesses" by Janelle Nanos, Travis Andersen and Anissa Gardizy Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, December 23, 2020
As the most tumultuous holiday shopping season in memory comes to a close, Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday rolled out a $668 million relief program to small businesses devastated by the coronavirus shutdowns, a lifeline that depends largely on a new federal stimulus bill that President Trump is threatening to veto.
Small businesses that have been hit the hardest would get priority for the money, including restaurants, bars, gyms, and event venues. About half of the funds are expected to go to those shut out of a previous round of state aid that was massively oversubscribed this fall. Those latter business do not have to apply again to be considered, and Baker said he expects awards to begin sometime next week.
In announcing the program, Baker acknowledged that the restrictions on businesses he’s imposed because of the virus “have consequences and the impact has serious implications on people’s lives. . . .”
Under the program, businesses would receive up to $75,000, or three months of operating expenses, to help cover payroll, mortgages, debt, and other bills to help them through the difficult months ahead. The funds would come in the form of grants, which would not need to be repaid. The money would be distributed by a quasi-state agency, the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corp., which will begin accepting new applications on Dec. 31, for two weeks.
Most of the funds for the state grant program would come from the hard-fought bill approved by Congress this week that would provide $900 billion in COVID-19 relief. The legislation also includes $284 billion for loans from the Paycheck Protection Program to bolster small businesses.
They mean the leftover turkey that is now rancid, but here’s what you needed to know about the newest PPP and state COVID-19 small business grants, but I hope you hurried because the deadline was midnight Friday even as legislators lobbied to add small-business franchisees to the COVID grant program (a polite way of saying bribing $cheme) as Ma$$achu$etts is tops in COVID-related workers’ compensation claims that helped jumpstart the state’s economy.
Btw, did you know Tom Brady received $1 Million in PPP money and that the LA Lakers $tole some SBA loot (they needed it because Super Bowl ratings were down about 9 percent from last year, but that’s actually a nice win for the NFL because it pales in comparison to decreases in other sports: The college football championship was down 27 percent, the World Series was down 30 percent, the NBA Finals 49 percent, the final round of the Masters 58 percent, and the Stanley Cup Final 61 percent. He blames the pandemic, but if anything ratings should have risen with a captive audience at home. What gives?).
This week, Baker lowered capacity limits for most businesses to 25 percent beginning Saturday, a step he said would last for at least two weeks as the state continues to try to curb the spread of the virus, but restrictions imposed all year have devastated many businesses, and a quarter of restaurants in the state have closed during the pandemic, according to the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.
That was with the state in the midst of an alarming second surge, with the total number of tests at more than 10.3 million -- in a state with only 8 million residents, so they are testing allegedly positive people over and over to get the results.
Fortunately, staff did not count toward the capacity totals and a total lockdown isn't necessary — but we need to do more now to weather the latest COVID-19 storm.
Baker expects the recipients of the new grants to include restaurants, bars, caterers, indoor recreation facilities and entertainment venues, gyms and fitness centers, event support services such as videographers and photographers, nail salons and barber shops, and other retailers. Companies would have to still be operating, or plan to reopen as the pandemic eases.
Yeah, some were forwarded the money before the bill was even pa$$ed!
Although state officials did not put a limit on the size of businesses that could apply, they made clear that preference would go to Main Street-sized operations; businesses such as retail chains, liquor and marijuana stores, and real estate enterprises would not be eligible.
The timing was important, as businesses close out the holiday shopping push and head into a slower season.....
The Globe tells small businesses what they need to know about Governor Charlie Baker’s $668 million relief program, the new aid program will be run out of the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, a quasi-public agency(?) that disbursed nearly $51 million in coronavirus-related business aid, but was overwhelmed with requests for 10 times that amount and here is more information on Baker’s $668 million pandemic aid plan as he pulls a rabbit out of his a$$
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Meanwhile, it is still bu$ine$$ as u$ual over on Beacon Hill:
The Globe politely says that the round of pay hikes land at an economically fragile time across Massachusetts, when restaurants, bars, and other businesses are struggling to stay open amid the coronavirus pandemic and the unemployment rate stands at 6.7 percent — more than double what it was a year ago, and only in Massachusetts!
The new speaker didn’t seem to have much to say because most people expect that very little will change, and maybe they’re right. That's why DeLeo abandoned $hip.
At least they got the state’s economic development bill done in time during the unusual end-of-year mad dash on Beacon Hill (actually, that is per usual so WTF is with the lying?) after an extra five months before racing to finish their work before time expires in a chaotic closing session after all the last-minute negotiating.
"These are the highest earners on the Massachusetts state payroll; Two UMass employees each earned more than $1 million in 2020" by Danny McDonald Globe Staff, January 18, 2021
The state payroll last year rose 2 percent to $8.2 billion, even though Massachusetts shed thousands of state employees amid the pandemic, according to data from the Office of the Comptroller.
In 2020, the state employed more than 131,000 employees, down from 138,000 from 2019, according to that office.
Part of the payroll increase, the comptroller’s office said, can be explained by COVID-19 pandemic-related hazard pay provided to frontline workers in legislation passed during the public health crisis. Cost-of-living bumps and increases tethered to collective bargaining agreements also increased payroll, according to the office, but Greg Sullivan, research director for the Pioneer Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank and Boston-based watchdog, attributed most of state payroll rise to collective bargaining agreements.
Are you $ICK of the EXCU$E$ for LOOTING YOU OVER a LIE YET?
I KNOW I AM!!!
“The state government has far more freedom to cut positions than to block or limit collectively-bargained pay raises,” he said in a statement. “To the extent that positions are not under collectively-bargained contracts, state government leaders should be foregoing pay raises in order to share the pain of the pandemic recession with hardest-hit economic sectors.”
As usual, the University of Massachusetts system dominated the list of top earners last year, including two employees who earned more than $1 million in total compensation.
The top earner, Michael F. Collins, the chancellor at UMass Medical School, pulled in $1.1 million in 2020. The only other person on the list to crack $1 million, also from that medical school, was Terence R. Flotte, executive deputy chancellor. He made $1.07 million last year.
The third highest earner was the head coach of the UMass Minutemen basketball team, Matt McCall, who made $850,000 last year. The rest of the top 10 are also men who work either directly in academia or athletic coaches at state schools. Marty Meehan, the president of the UMass system, rounds out the top 10, earning $584,000 last year.
He isn't worth it because the team sucks!
The highest-paid non-UMass employee in the state last year was chief medical examiner Mindy Hull, whose $395,000 in pay was good for the No. 31 spot on the list.
That name al$o rings a bell.
The highest paid law enforcement officer on the state payroll was Richard Ball, a lieutenant colonel with the State Police. Ball ranked 64th on the list with $327,000. He was among four members of the State Police to make more than $300,000 and 48 to earn more than $250,000. The head of the agency, Colonel Christopher Mason, made $286,000.
Despite the $candals, nothing has changed as the State Police has found itself at the center of one controversy after another for more than three years -- and to think the whole thing started because the Globe wanted them out of the $eaport.
The state’s executive, Governor Charlie Baker, made $185,000 last year, but most state employees earned far less. The average total pay last year was just over $62,000, according to the comptroller’s data.
The UMass system had the largest slice of the state payroll pie in 2020, with $1.4 billion. The next highest state entity for payroll was the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, at $584 million; followed by the state’s trial court, at $537 million; the state’s Department of Correction, at $458 million; and the State Police, at just shy of $400 million. The State Police payroll included $296 million in base pay, $56 million in overtime, $6.8 million in buyouts, and $39 million in “other” pay, according to state records.
That is no $urpri$e:
"Amid an unprecedented financial crisis, the university has hired at least seven people with connections to state government and politics as administrators with salaries between $81,000 and $222,000 in the past year and a half, records show. The hires include the former head of the state Democratic Party, a former legislative aide, and a former state commissioner of environmental protection. Together, the seven people earn nearly $1 million. A UMass campus spokesman said in a statement that hiring is based on merit, and the hires underscore UMass’s reputation as a place where the politically connected of Beacon Hill can land a job with a single phone call. It’s an attractive place to work in part because the UMass system is part of the state retirement system, so state employees can continue to earn toward their pensions, which are based on their three highest years of pay and their number of years of service, and the campus’s location is for many more appealing than traveling to the other campuses in Lowell, Dartmouth, Worcester, or Amherst."
Do they teach you how they are f**king you at $chool?
Thankfully, the state pension fund soared to new record amid the strong markets in 2020, a “strong shot in the arm” that leaves it all prim and proper under Trotsky(!).
The data includes most full-time and part-time state employees, as well as state contractors, but excludes people who work at independent quasi-state agencies, which use their own separate payroll systems. The total quasi-government payroll in the state for 2020 was $218 million, down from $256 million the year prior.
The que$tion is, WHO is PAYING the "qua$i-$tate agencies" subject to NO OVER$IGHT, and there are HOW MANY of them?!!
Citing state statistics, Sullivan, the research director for the Pioneer Institute, said the government sector of the state economy lost 30,000 jobs from Nov. 2019 to Nov. 20. By comparison, the state’s leisure and hospitality sector lost 132,000 jobs during the same time frame. The state as a whole lost more than 337,000 jobs.
During that period, state monthly income tax revenue was up by 7.3 percent, monthly corporate taxes were up by 33 percent, and monthly sales taxes were up by 5.9 percent. The customer-facing side of the state economy has been hardest-hit by COVID-19, said Sullivan, with the monthly meals revenue down 29 percent and convention center surcharges down 82 percent.
“The pandemic recession in Massachusetts has had a have and have-not effect,” said Sullivan in a statement.
The same pre$$ claims it is all about $olving and $alving the "inequity" problem as it drives the "haves and have-nots" effect, but at least the state is offering Internet access help for the unemployed too help you find a new boss.
That's why state residents support raising taxes on wealthy individuals, and thankfully, they have a king to protect them from the Court that does more to cover up than anything else as they ride shotgun on the train of corruption.
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I suppose you can always escape to New Hampshire, and be sure you head north, not south:
"Governor Charlie Baker and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received the Edward M. Kennedy Institute Award for Inspired Leadership Wednesday evening for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The institute praised both governors, one a Republican, the other a Democrat, for the leadership they showed in their respective states, which were among the hardest hit by first wave of coronavirus in the spring. Anne M. Finucane, vice chair of Bank of America who received the institute’s leadership award last year, spoke during the virtual conference which was starkly different from last year’s 400-person dinner at the institute in Dorchester. “It’s especially noteworthy this year that we are honoring the work of both a Democrat and a Republican,” she said. “The EMK Institute serves as a constant reminder of what inspired leadership, regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on, can accomplish to help ease the burden and improve the lives of Americans.” The two governors famously teamed up to bring respirator masks from China, enlisting use of the New England Patriots plane that touched down in New York and later Boston. In brief remarks, the two governors reflected on their experiences leading each state during the pandemic. “I’ve always thought of Senator Kennedy as one of those people who was able to work both sides and did it on almost every major piece of legislation that he got passed,” Baker said. “In this particular time, finding a way to collaborate and work with others you may not agree with on everything, is in some respects, a science I think is incredibly important.” The award was presented during the institute’s 2020 gala held virtually due to the pandemic. Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy for whom the award honors, and Martin Luther King, III were among the speakers at the hour-long event......"
How criminally di$gu$ting!
They were honoring mass-murderers:
"Governor Andrew Cuomo and his top aides were facing new allegations Friday that they covered up the scope of the death toll in New York’s nursing homes from the coronavirus, after admissions that they withheld data in an effort to forestall potential investigations into state misconduct. The latest revelations came in the wake of private remarks by the governor’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, and a cascading series of reports and court orders that have nearly doubled the state’s official toll of nursing home deaths in the last two weeks. The disclosures have left Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, scrambling to contain the political fallout, as lawmakers of both parties call for censure, including stripping the governor of his emergency powers during the pandemic, federal and state investigations, and resignations of DeRosa and other top officials. In a conversation first reported by the New York Post, DeRosa told a group of top lawmakers Wednesday during a call to address the nursing home situation that “basically, we froze,” after being asked over the summer for information by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice. At the time, the governor’s office was simultaneously facing requests from the state Legislature for similar information. “We were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, and what we start saying, was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” DeRosa told lawmakers, according to a partial transcript obtained by The New York Times. The news of DeRosa’s remarks sparked a flurry of angry denunciations, including from Cuomo’s fellow Democrats. “This is a betrayal of the public trust,” state Senator Andrew Gounardes, D-Brooklyn, said on Twitter. “There needs to be full accountability for what happened.” Condemnation was even louder from Republicans, who have seized on Cuomo’s performance on nursing homes — where more than 10,000 New Yorkers have died during the pandemic, but the state long stalled on releasing full data — as evidence of duplicity or even criminality. “It is time to move past the lies and finally uncover the full truth,” said Representative Tom Reed, a Republican from the state’s Southern Tier, who called for a federal investigation Thursday night. Early Friday, DeRosa, the top nonelected official in the state, sought to clarify the context for her remarks, saying she was trying to explain that “we needed to temporarily set aside the Legislature’s request to deal with the federal request first.” “We informed the houses of this at the time,” she said, referring to the upper and lower chambers of the Legislature. She added that the administration was “comprehensive and transparent in our responses to the DOJ, and then had to immediately focus our resources on the second wave and vaccine rollout.” “As I said on a call with legislators, we could not fulfill their request as quickly as anyone would have liked,” she said. The revelation of DeRosa’s remarks comes two weeks after a damning report from Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, who accused the Cuomo administration of undercounting coronavirus related deaths connected to nursing homes by the thousands. The report forced the state’s health department to make public more than 3,800 previously unreported deaths of residents who died outside a facility, like in a hospital, and had not been included in the state’s official nursing home tally. Since then, the number of deaths connected to New York nursing homes and long-term care facilities has only ballooned, to about 15,000 confirmed and presumed deaths, from 12,743 in late January, as of this week."
Baker also stuffed sick patients into nursing homes in a what seems to be a bipartisan effort to kill our beloved elderly.
Related:
"Almost a year into the pandemic, nursing homes resident and staff remain some of the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. In the latest release of AARP’s Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard, data show that nursing homes continue to be in “crisis mode” despite incremental improvements....."
She is now on her way to Wa$hington!
Also see:
"Indoor dining will once again be barred in New York City restaurants starting Monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday, a significant reversal of the city’s reopening that comes as officials try to halt the escalation of a second wave of the coronavirus. The decision is a crushing blow to the city’s restaurant industry, a vital economic pillar that has been struggling all year in the face of pandemic restrictions and a national recession. For months, New York City’s restaurant owners have warned that their businesses are on the edge of financial collapse. Thousands of employees, many of them low-wage workers, have been laid off since March, and their jobs have yet to fully return. The industry’s anxieties are only mounting as winter approaches and frigid temperatures threaten to deter customers from dining outdoors. Industry groups have called repeatedly for federal or state financial assistance, with restaurant and bar owners watching nervously as stimulus talks drag on in Washington. “Another forced government closure of New York City restaurants will cause an irreversible harm on even countless more small businesses and the hundreds of thousands of workers they employ, especially if it is not coupled with financial relief,” Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, said in a statement Monday. Cuomo’s announcement came after weeks of shifting messages on indoor dining, which resumed in New York City only at the end of September. The scattershot approach, which confused residents and business owners alike, came as Cuomo repeatedly downplayed indoor dining as a source of new infections, and focused his attention on parties and other indoor gatherings instead, but on Monday, Cuomo had warned that he would curb indoor dining in regions where hospitalizations did not stabilize, citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that described eating at indoor restaurants as a “particularly high-risk” activity. Then, on Wednesday, one of the governor’s top aides, Robert Mujica, said during a news conference that restaurants and bars ranked as the fifth or sixth main source of new infections in the state and were the fastest growing category contributing to the virus’s spread. On Friday, Cuomo said contact tracing data showed that 1.43 percent of 46,000 cases between September and November could be linked to restaurants and bars."
They won't be going out to eat this week -- or ever.
"This was not New York’s year from any angle, and real estate was no exception. By the end of September, the volume of Manhattan co-op and condo sales was down 43% year over year, according to a report by Douglas Elliman, as sellers held back from listing their apartments and buyers increasingly gravitated toward the suburbs. Still, looking at the top residential real estate sales of 2020, it seems one demographic—the super rich—has committed to New York for the long haul. Of the top 10 national sales compiled by Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive officer of Miller Samuel appraisers, four were in 220 Central Park South, a new luxury tower on Central Park designed by architects at Robert A.M. Stern. Another trend from this year, namely rich people “fleeing” New York for Florida, didn’t manage to trickle up to the highest tier. Only two of this year’s top 10 sales were in Palm Beach; last year there were three. Even the three Los Angeles entries diverge slightly from conventional 2020 narratives. Yes, the L.A. market is one of the few urban bright lights this year, with sales soaring and inventory hard to come by, but numbers at the very top are down from last year, when it notched four entries in the top 10, totaling $463 million. This year there were three, totaling $358 million. In fact, this year’s top 10 saw an overall decline in value of nearly 29%. The 2019 total was a hefty $1.2 billion; this year it was $850 million....."
Cuomo will cook them dinner and take them out for a drink.
"As Morgan Stanley’s bankers scattered from Manhattan’s Times Square to their home offices during the pandemic, some asked: How are the coffee-cart vendors doing? The answer: terribly. Earnings for New York’s iconic street vendors have plunged as much as 90 percent during the coronavirus outbreak. So the bank is giving $2 million to 2,000 vendors in coordination with the Robin Hood foundation, which is contributing $375,000 more and helping distribute the cash. The funds are aimed at helping the largely minority- and immigrant-run businesses that have been left out of government stimulus programs because they don’t qualify for employee or small-business relief. There are about 20,000 vendors selling food and merchandise on sidewalks throughout New York who embody the city’s image in films and on television."
Look at the "home" they are working from:
"Tenants in bankrupt Manhattan apartment buildings affiliated with Emerald Equity Group are demanding that housing code violations including rat infestations and bed bugs be immediately addressed as part of a Chapter 11 agreement. The residents are seeking an order compelling the debtor, 203 W 107th Street LLC, to use available funds to address outstanding New York City Housing Court orders and make any urgent repairs to the buildings, according to court papers. The buildings were part of a group of apartments controlled by Emerald Equity that filed for bankruptcy last week, blaming tougher housing regulations and a tenant rent strike for their debt troubles. Emerald, led by Isaac Kassirer, pitches itself on its website as a leading real estate firm focused on multifamily rental acquisitions, with about 7,000 units across the United States, including 1,500 ’'in developing areas’' of Manhattan. Tenants living in Apartment LL2 at 230 W. 107th St. reported rats in the walls and ceiling of the whole unit, as well as a cockroach infestation in the kitchen and bathroom. The unit also has no proper fire exit, the papers said. Another renter, living in 6E, said heating pipes didn’t work properly in the kitchen or bathroom, and plumbing regularly overflowed. A tenant in 2E reported ’'rats scratching and clawing’' in the bathroom walls and multiple days without heat."
That sure LOOKS like what they used to call a SLUM!
"Office vacancies in Manhattan jumped to a 21st century record as the COVID-19 pandemic froze new rental deals and sublease openings soared. Last year ended with a 15.1 percent vacancy rate, up from 11.1 percent in 2019 and the highest in data going back to 1999, according to a report by Savills, a commercial-property services firm. That left 68.4 million square feet empty, including 18.6 million square feet of sublease space listed by current tenants looking to downsize."
The talk is there is a record amount of office space available in Manhattan with workers stuck at home and off the $ubway(?).
Doesn't ruin it for the kids, though:
"It’s like getting a peek at Santa’s workshop. A New York City family had a most unusual holiday experience — spending the night at the FAO Schwarz toy store in midtown Manhattan, overlooking the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. The special night came from a collaboration between the well-known toy store and Airbnb, which listed the special event earlier this month. FAO Schwarz set up accommodations in their store, with a living room looking out on the giant tree, as well as a sleeping area and a dining table setup. The lucky family had free run of the store, including the giant step-on keyboard known to many from the movie “Big.” They also got a shopping spree. In a nod to the pandemic, the family had to prove New York City residency so as to avoid any need for travel, and the members had to live in the same household. Airbnb pledged the space would be cleaned according to their protocols."
So what color was the family anyway?
"As the effort to vaccinate the United States against COVID-19 runs well behind schedule, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City set an ambitious goal for the coming year, pledging on Thursday to vastly accelerate the city’s efforts to immunize residents. “The most important New Year’s resolution I could possibly offer you: In the month of January 2021, we will vaccinate a million New Yorkers,” he said at a news conference. So far, only 88,000 people have received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the city in the last three weeks, de Blasio said. They are front-line health care workers, emergency medical workers, and nursing home employees and residents who are deemed at high risk of exposure. To achieve de Blasio’s goal, the city, which has more than 8 million residents, will set up new vaccination hubs at public places such as school gymnasiums, officials said. Workers at city-run testing sites will begin to give the vaccine, they said, and the city will partner with churches and community centers to provide immunizations there. De Blasio’s resolution follows a devastating year for New York City. During the first major surge in the spring, the city was a center of the pandemic, its hospitals overflowing with virus patients and hundreds of people dying each day."
Even with the allegedly overflowing hospitals, at least 30 percent of health care workers said no to the shot in the first round, and get the f**k out of the City while you still can!
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Just don't head toward Rhode Island:
"In Rhode Island, a record number of drug overdose deaths; The state is trying to distribute 10,000 naloxone kits as the COVID-19 pandemic makes another public health crisis — deaths linked to fentanyl and other drugs — worse" by Edward Fitzpatrick Globe Staff, February 12, 2021
PROVIDENCE — He welcomed the pair of new warm socks, explaining that his old socks were soaked and frozen and he’d just spent the night sleeping in an ATM vestibule, and he gladly accepted a two-pack of naloxone nasal spray, saying he’d recently used the medication to save a man from an overdose at Merino Park.
“I’ve seen five people overdose this year,” Cesar Gomez said Thursday as Rhode Island Communities for Addiction Recovery Efforts (RICARES) program manager Diego Arene-Morley distributed naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, and basic supplies outside McAuley House. He said one of those five men was later found dead outside soon after an overdose.
Gomez, 22, of Providence, said he is on methadone and not using drugs, “but I know a lot of people who are using,” he said. “So I have Narcan with me — just in case.”
In 2020, accidental overdose deaths reached record levels in Rhode Island. While it’s still awaiting toxicology reports and final tallies for October, November, and December, the state Department of Health had already recorded 359 accidental overdose deaths through September of last year — surpassing the previous record of 336 set in 2016.
Jennifer Koziol, the Health Department’s drug overdose prevention program administrator, said health officials don’t know for certain why accidental overdoses have increased, but said it may be in part from the increasing toxicity of the drug supply. She said a wider variety of drugs are now laced with fentanyl, an extremely potent narcotic that can prove fatal in smaller doses than other opiates.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and associated widespread loss of jobs is likely also a factor, Koziol said.
“It is definitely exacerbating substance use disorders,” she said. “A lot of people who have been in long-term recovery, feeling solid in their recovery, are relapsing because of everything that is happening.”
More low-hanging, unproductive fruit to be culled.
That's how our "leaders" see it.
Koziol said that between COVID-19 and the overdose crisis, Rhode Island finds itself in a “syndemic,” which she defined as “two or more crises impacting a population simultaneously.”
“You can’t address one without acknowledging the other,” she said.
Thankfully, there is no flu this year.
As part of its response, Rhode Island is using federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to distribute 10,000 kits of naloxone, the overdose reversal medicine, through community organizations such as RICARES. Each kit contains two doses.
It's a reactive $olution that doesn't address the root of the problem!
Governor Gina M. Raimondo’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force launched Rhode Island’s 10,000 Chances Project earlier this month.
“We are trying to saturate the community with naloxone,” Koziol said. “We are hoping we will see a reduction in overdose fatalities.”
The state is also working with community nonprofits to increase street outreach work with certified peer recovery workers, she said.
Community groups are targeting the state’s hardest hit areas, including Providence, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket, Koziol said, and they’re trying to get naloxone to vulnerable populations, such as people experiencing homelessness, and to the family members and friends of people with substance abuse disorders, she said.
Any Rhode Island resident can get free naloxone delivered to them by going to the preventoverdoseri.org website. Naloxone is safe to use and only works if a person has opioids in their body. If you give naloxone to someone who is overdosing, you are protected by the state’s Good Samaritan Law and cannot be arrested, the website says.
On Thursday, Arene-Morley parked a 2006 Subaru Outback next to McAuley House, the Elmwood Avenue meal site and community center sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, and he began distributing supplies from the rear hatch.
After picking up food at McAuley House, people formed a line behind the Subaru to receive draw-string bags filled with a pair of socks, a granola bar, and a face mask, along with naloxone kits and fentanyl test strips.
Arene-Morley said he has seen the toll taken by accidental overdose deaths up close.
“Almost everyone that I talk to, almost everyone in Rhode Island — whether they are a Brown University grad student or whether they are part of this (McAuley House) ministry — they know someone who has been lost,” he said, “and at RICARES we have plenty of close friends who we don’t have anymore.”
The majority of the RICARES staff and board members are in long-term recovery from substance use disorder, he said.
“We know that addiction is not really just an issue of the drug, it’s an issue of childhood trauma, an issue of the undiagnosed mental illness, an issue of systemic oppression in the criminal justice system that keeps people from getting to that next step,” he said. “So as people with lived experience, we help people go from step to step.”
Enabling them with excuses and not personal responsibility doesn't help!
That help could be as simple as providing someone with a bus pass or as crucial as connecting people with a recovery program or primary-care doctor, he said.
Arene-Morley said overdose deaths had been rising even before the pandemic, but COVID-19 is making matters worse. People are losing their jobs, getting behind on the rent, and growing more anxious, he said. “All of those are factors that are not helping,” he said.
Also, he said fentanyl is being found not only in opioids but in cocaine, methamphetamines, and counterfeit benzodiazepines like Xanax. “It is in almost every drug that people can buy on the street,” he said. “So that person may not have ‘a problem,’ but they may still be in danger.”
That’s why RICARES is distributing fentanyl test kits and naloxone.
“No one thinks, ‘I’m going to need the naloxone tonight,’ ” Arene-Morley said. “But people think ‘Well, I’ll test it, and give me the naloxone, why not?’ So it’s not a silver bullet, but it gets a foot in the door.”
He said that about half of the people that he gave naloxone kits to on Thursday told him they’d used the medication before to save someone from an overdose.
Arene-Morley called for Rhode Island to adopt a more long-term solution by opening “overdose prevention sites” where people could use drugs under the supervision of health professionals.
Insane.
Why not just legalize it all and get law enforcement out of it then?
Senate Health and Human Services Committee chairman Joshua Miller, a Cranston Democrat, has introduced a bill that would create an advisory committee and pilot program to establish such “harm reduction centers,” and Representative John G. Edwards, a Tiverton Democrat, has introduced a similar bill.
Arene-Morley said similar programs have proven successful in Canada and Europe. “This is not a fringe thing,” he said. “We know that this is the way to reduce overdose deaths.”
He also called for passing legislation to expand the Good Samaritan Law; meanwhile, the focus is on keeping people alive amid the twin threats of the pandemic and the overdose crisis.
On Thursday, McAuley House case manager Shannon Rivers made sure that Gomez walked away with some food, a new pair of boots, and a tent, and Arene-Morley made sure Gomez left with a naloxone kit. He said RICARES hands out naloxone and basic supplies at McAuley House at lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and at the Mathewson Street Methodist Church in Providence on Sunday mornings.
With the overdose death toll rising in Rhode Island, it is crucial to get naloxone into as many hands as possible, Arene-Morley said.
“It’s like a face mask now,” he said. “We all need to have it.”
Now SMILE!
Of course, everyone knows there is no $ilver bullet to solving the $courge of addiction that imprisons you.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Now off to school with you:
"‘Learning pods’ taking root in Black, Latino neighborhoods; New community collaborative offers a free service to fill an education gap exacerbated by the pandemic" by Meghan E. Irons Globe Staff, February 14, 2021
When school buildings abruptly closed last spring, many wealthy families quickly pooled their resources to pay for private teachers, academic coaches, and art instructors to supplement their children’s at-home schooling in small groups, or “learning pods,” but most low-income parents, like Luisanna Amaya of South Boston, were faced with the impossible task of juggling work with the needs of young children trying to learn online.
Her 5-year-old son Jahdian had trouble sitting still and struggled to use the online platform where his teacher at Russell Elementary School put his assignments. He also needed help recording himself sounding out syllables, counting, and taking pictures of words he had been practicing.
Amaya had to help him and his 7-year-old brother, Osmany, while doing her own work as an assistant property manager at the Villa Victoria housing development in the South End.
“When I say they were failing, I am not exaggerating,” Amaya said. “If they got nine assignments, they only got to one.”
Have you gotten your call from the DCF yet?
Amaya eventually signed her sons up in a learning pod for low-income families. Almost immediately things improved.
The boys’ learning pod, in the gleaming basement of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End, is one of more than a dozen free pods opened in the fall by Community Learning Collaborative, a fusion of four organizations run by Black and Latino nonprofit leaders serving primarily low-income Black and Latino children.
The organizations are the YMCA of Greater Boston; Latinos for Education; The BASE, which supports student athletes; and Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, which advocates for low-income families in Boston.
“Learning pods have popped all across the country and it was mostly well-to-do families that decided to use their resources,” said Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, executive director of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, or IBA. “We came together thinking we need to do something similar for our children.”
What will you public $chool teachers do now that you have to hustle and audition for a job, huh?
Pods, also known as learning hubs or study halls, have been slower to arrive in low-income communities, but in the last six months they have increasingly popped up in churches, libraries, and recreational facilities to provide safe spaces for students to do their remote learning. Usually they are funded through a combination of nonprofits, private donations, and discounted family tuition, and some of their leaders believe that even after the pandemic abates, the increased investment by community organizations in children’s learning will remain.
You are NEVER GOING BACK, kids, despite the FALSE PROMISES of AUTHORITY and MEDIA!
Besides the Community Learning Collaborative, more than 1,900 students attend more than a hundred free full-day, in-person learning pods in an assortment of community centers in Dorchester, East Boston, Chinatown, and other parts of the city, according to Chris Smith, who runs Boston After School & Beyond, a network of out-of-school programs and services.
Most of the students attend public schools in Boston; nearly 70 percent of those in the pods are Black and Latino students, according to school district figures.
Other new pods operate with a sliding scale for fees.
The Rev. David Wright, executive director of BMA Ten Point Coalition, an alliance of 30 predominantly Black churches, said the alliance transformed its Victory Generations afterschool program into full-day learning pods at two of its churches, in Roxbury and Dorchester. Together they serve nearly two dozen kindergarten through sixth-grade students, whose families pay a little more than $200 weekly for staffing and other costs, said Rochelle Jones, the director.
That’s what some low-income families receive as a weekly state subsidy for education or afterschool care for school-age children. Church officials have raised funds to help families who don’t have a subsidy and can’t afford the fee, Jones said. “The need is so great‚’’ she added.
Wright and other leaders said many Black churches and community groups, already strained financially, do not have the capacity, infrastructure, or resources to establish their own learning pods.
“It’s not something you can just sort of muscle your way through,” Wright said. “It takes a lot of intensive, intentional planning to make something happen, and I don’t think the resources are there.”
The Community Learning Collaborative, supported by funders, now offers 13 pods, each with eight to 12 students in elementary to high school. The staff, some of whom are licensed teachers, have experience supporting youth both inside and outside of school, officials said.
“It’s a needed service,” said Robert Lewis Jr., founder of The BASE. “Parents know that they can continue working during the pandemic knowing that their kids have a place to be every day, five days a week.”
James Morton, president of the YMCA of Greater Boston, which also offers separate learning centers, said the organizations are sharing expertise, staff, and resources, and helping to “reimagine” the role of community organizations in the education of young people.
He and others believe that virtual learning will remain a significant part of students’ educational experience for years to come — and that community organizations will continue to play a greater role in supporting kids’ learning.
“Because of the pandemic and . . . [equity] issues that have been exacerbated as a result, we can never go back to education as it was,” added Amanda Fernández, cofounder of Latinos for Education.
I can't make it any clearer.
Damarri Sanford, a first-grader at Murphy K-8 School, fidgeted in his chair in one of the Community Learning Collaborative’s pods in the basement of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross last month, but the 6-year-old kept his hands on small squares of paper he had cut out, each with a letter of the alphabet.
“The students that need the most assistance are the ones in kindergarten or in the first grade,” said the site director, Ana Montes Diaz, a former public school educator. “Some of them have never been in school before. This is their first school experience being with their peers in a structured setting.”
Mask-clad students sat around tables separated by partitions, some of them adorned with their own artwork.
Instead of calming a student with a gentle hug or touch on the arm, teachers sometimes take them on walks or bring them to a quiet space.
Montes Diaz said pictures of her dogs work wonders to settle down students.
Porshia Sanford, Damarri’s mother, said she has noticed a positive change in her son, who has autism and sometimes acts out when he’s in a new environment. He had been inside his Murphy Elementary School building for only four days in October when a rise in coronavirus cases temporarily closed its doors. Now that he’s at the pod, he has really settled down, Sanford said.
He's a product of 37+ vaccinations!
When Damarri got fidgety at his table recently, an instructor moved him to face the window and allowed him to kneel on his chair while he worked.
Karina Velez, of Dorchester, said her two younger children, a second-grader and a seventh-grader, are thriving. On a recent visit, Wilmary, the second-grader, was engrossed in creating her own book about owls, while James, the seventh-grader, reviewed work in a separate classroom — or pod — for older students.
“I’m happy because it’s not a big group,” she said. “They get supervised, and they are learning.”
Luisanna Amaya, the South Boston mother who struggled to supervise her sons’ learning while working full time, has witnessed steady progress in the pod.
One January morning, 5-year-old Jahdian held a paper owl that he had made earlier that morning while trying to get through the lessons his teacher at the Russell School had assigned.
“Airplane,” said a voice from his computer. “Turtle.”
Jahdian quietly repeated each word.
The boys no longer miss assignments — and their overall performance has soared. “It’s the best thing that could have happened to them,” Amaya said.
I'm speechless.
Nevertheless, the state plans to go ahead with MCAS tests this year as state education officials contend that the state’s standardized tests, which were canceled last spring due to the pandemic, are necessary this year to gauge how much learning loss has occurred since the widespread shutdown of schools 10 months ago.
No Spring Break this year!
UPDATE:
Sorry for the marathon session. I should be driving fa$ter.
