Barbara Haller

editor’s note: District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller has been on inner-city folks’ side for a long time, advocating for all sorts of improvements to our meaner streets. One of her many goals: CLEARLY DEFINED AND FRESHLY PAINTED CROSSWALKS. And (probably more importantly): FINES ($200) for drivers who don’t stop for pedestrians using the crosswalks.

Let’s support her this spring! Here is a press release from Barb and her InCity Times story on pedestrian safety:

From District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller:

SUBJECT: CROSSWALK-SAFETY TASK FORCE ACTION
Date: Monday, April 5
Time: 1:30 pm
Place: Front entrance to Clark University, 950 Main Street

After years of concern about the dangers of crossing Main Street, residents of Webster Square Towers (1050 and 1060 Main Street), Marble Street Apartments (11 Marble Street), and Clark University (950 Main Street) are taking positive action to improve pedestrian and scooter safety at crosswalks.

District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller explains the March 29th event: “Building on the success of the March 17th event at Marble and Main streets, the Crosswalk-Safety Task Force will give an update on its activities. This will be immediately followed by an en mass crossing of Main Street at the front entrance gate to Clark University as a continuing demonstration of its commitment to changing the long-standing culture of ignoring crosswalk regulations.” Click to continue »

By Distrcit 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller

A day rarely goes by without my thinking and remembering Janice Nadeau. Her legacy of public service inspires me to keep plugging to find those windows of opportunity to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative” in our City, and especially Worcester’s District 4.

Janice was an activist long before she was District 4’s first councilor. She knew first hand of the frustration that always seems come with working with elected officials and government administrations. She also knew first hand about financial struggles and the never-ending challenges to raising a family. She knew about blight, job loss, and cars that won’t start. And boy, did she know how to inspire hope and bring people together.

Through her excellent activist work with Fair Share she came to realize, like Tip O’Neil, that all politics is local. For Janice this didn’t mean that hopes for a political career depended on fixing people’s pot holes and sidewalks or getting someone’s kid into a particular school (although she understood this for sure). For Janice this meant that for her agenda of neighborhood respect and protection she (or someone close to her) needed to be elected to government power. Janice realized that access to elected officials and having one or two that would roll up their sleeves and actually work with you - at least on some issues – was critical to real progress. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

It was disappointing to watch Worcester’s new mayor, the exceedingly hoarse Joe O’Brien, at last week’s city council meeting. “Zero gravitas” I told myself, as I watched the guy attempt to run (never mind lead) his first Worcester City Council meeting last Tuesday eve. He was nice enough - but not serious enough. He gave folks their turn to talk - but didn’t do much talking about anything important. He should have. He seemed to have nothing more to offer than a goofy smile when City Councilor Konnie Lukes’ suggested Worcester cap its affordable housing. (By the way, she was much more mayoral than O’Brien. She spoke with confidence. She was articulate. She grabbed that mic and held it - with authority!)

I love Konnie Lukes, but I disagree with Konnie Lukes. Totally. Strongly. Passionately. Shame on O’Brien for not coming to the rescue of the inner-city or inner-city families or inner-city kids (who he wants to make sure get the best urban education in the country). First he lives in Main South and sees the effects of poverty daily. Second: He should know a kid can’t get a first-rate education, if your family is on the run from slumlords or stressed to the MAX paying high bills or scrimping on food or clothing to pay Worcester’s $800 rents. Ya want smart kids, Joe? Then give them safe, clean apartments run by parents/guardians who dodn’t feel the wolf is at the door. ALWAYS! Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

After reading all the pieces on Joe O’Brien’s inauguration day festivities (I wasn’t invited to the ball and InCity Times was emailed no public announcement about it to post in the paper so our readers could attend - unlike two years ago, when Konnie Lukes became mayor and I got ALL the info and a beautiful invitation to boot), I ask: Will things really change in Worcester with Joe at the helm? Will O’Brien really be any different from a pol who rewards his pals and punishes anyone who doesn’t agree with him? More important: Will things really change/improve in the Worcester Public Schools now that Mayor O’Brien says he wants to make the WPS system the best urban school system in America?

Actions speak louder than words, my momma always told me. This is what I have to go on so far: Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

We ask(ed) the good people of Worcester to get out and vote! We ask(ed) the good people of Worcester to cast their ballots for:

* District 4 City Councilor: Barbara Haller

Vote for Barbara Haller!

Spend some time with Barbara Haller, and you’ll quickly realize she has reached a kind of spiritual zenith in (what has become, I think) the dream of her life-time.

Her journey with her beloved District 4 continues, her love for its people still strong and pure. Click to continue »

By District 4 City Councilor Barbara G. Haller

Every day is different in District 4, and yet in many ways each day is similar - mountains of important meetings, lots of contact with city departments for responses to resident and business problems, continual driving around neighborhoods and reporting on quality of life violations, writing letters of support or opposition, attending ribbon cuttings. Near continuous connections to the heartbeat of the City is achieved via my city-supplied handheld computer and my personal cell phone. Many days never seem to end.

I love it!

It is a tremendous privilege to participate in the richness of this City - and especially District 4. I am awed by the diversity of our talents and skills and the resiliency of our hopes for a better city, even as we are frustrated and worried that progress is elusive and things will only get worse. As I look back over my past 8 years as District 4’s local city councilor I see important progress despite persistent barriers (see sidebars). Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

One day District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller got a call from a constituent. The person lived in Main South and was annoyed as hell. There was a cleaning company across the street power washing/vacuuming the wall-to-wall carpeting in the apartment building across the street. Trouble was the power vacuum’s big hose was being run up the side of the building - not taken inside to do the job - so all the vacuuming (and crap being sucked up) was whooshing and brrr-brr-ing in the middle of the neighborhood - for everybody to hear.

Haller went to check it out. God! What a racket! The truck and its machine were loud. Haller could see why the neighbors were so upset. Then she made the classic Barbara Haller move - she went up to the truck, poked her head inside its window and yanked the plug out. The noise stopped; the machine stopped. The neighborhood was peaceful again. “I didn’t know I was going to do that until I got there,” Haller says.

The guys running the machinery ran out to see what was going one - and got miffed at hands-on Haller. Haller called Building and Code on her mobile phone - and after some negotiating, the City of Worcester made the company install mufflers on its giant vacuum cleaner. Thank you, Building and Code. Thank you, Barbara Haller.

One autumn day Haller sees a guy - obviously drunk - sprawled out on a Piedmont neighborhood street. He is scrawny, unshaved and sporting an unhealthy complexion. Haller, a dumpling shaped 60 year old, parks her little SUV by the curb and jumps out. She walks up to the guy, looks down on him. The guy - even in his drunken stupor - recognizes Haller. With a sigh he acknowledges this apparition. In an exasperated tone of voice he says, “I’m fine, Barbara Haller. I’m fine.” He waves her away. Haller is uncomfortable with this. But the guy tells her he can stay on the curb if he wants. He is annoyed. “Barbara Haller,” he says again and then falls back on the sidewalk again.

Seems everyone in District 4 knows their city councilor. Click to continue »

By Peggy Middaugh
Resident, Castle Park Neighborhood

Basketball pickup games; kids on swings; soccer tournaments; families picnicking; mothers with strollers ; handball games. All of these are familiar scenes these days in Castle Park, a little known gem located in the heart of Main South. One block off Main Street, it is a peaceful four acre oasis of green, open space and recreational space enjoyed by local residents.

But it hasn’t always been like this. In the early 1990s, Castle Park was an overgrown, trash strewn, abandoned lot. It was well known for illegal drug activities, and needles and drug paraphernalia were everywhere.

But Barbara Haller had a vision. What a crime, she thought, to have such an historical treasure go to waste – and especially in a neighborhood bereft of green open spaces. She was determined to bring it back to reflect its former glory, Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

I got my hands on some police union minutes - juicy stuff, when it comes to pols and which political candidates the police unions are backing.  The minutes of a recent meeting of IBPO Local 504 have the cops deciding to hell with District 4 City Counilor Barabara Haller who has worked with them to make Main South and the rest of the inner-city safer - to hell with her and onwards and upwards for Grace Ross, Haller’s opponent. becaise Ross will fund the Quinn Bill and more. The minutes (which are several pages long) state: “Grace Ross is running in District 4. She is totally pro-labor … .” Barbara Haller, according to the police union minutes, “filed an order requesting that the City Manager provide the [City] Council report explaining the steps necessary for the City Council to revise its 1987 vote [editor's note, more like 2006!] relative to the Quinn Bill. President Cummings said that this means only one thing - that Barbara Haller has taken a posititon in direct opposition to our best interests. We need to work in the upcoming election to see that she is defeated.” Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

How typically Worcester! How stupidly Worcester! Here we go again! Shooting ourselves in the foot (and ankle, knee cap, hip joint, rib cage, etc, etc) - AGAIN! This is why our downtown is a freaking wasteland! This is why most people in the state think we’re a joke! This is why the young leave our seven hills in droves! The brohaha over the proposed swimming pool for Crompton Park has all the earmarks of a classic Worcester shit-storm: Yes, we want a pool at Crompton Park! No, we don’t want a pool in Crompton Park! Shove it up your tight butthole! NO! You shove it up your even tighter butthole! Worcester City Counilors (except for Barbara Haller) not doing their jobs (they had more than two years to decide what to do with our decrepit city pools!), then Worcester City Councilors grandstanding and bitching that they weren’t allowed to do their jobs! Well meaning community folks (mostly from the inner city) who have been disenfranchised for so long that they are totally inflexible on the issue just so they can feel like they matter to City Hall. Yup! Let’s all bite our noses to spite our faces!

And in the meantime, while our shitstorm blinds us, the $2.5 million that Worcester City Manager Mike O’Brien has set aside for the building of a cool, cool new pool at Crompton Park in Green Island - the digging and construction was supposed to begin THIS FALL/MAYBE EVEN THIS MONTH, if we weren’t so busy attacking each other! - could disappear. The $2.5 million could go to pay for other things … like the $150,000+ salaries of regular ol’ Worcester cops (don’t get me started - just see our Top 150 Municipal Wage Earners of Worcester, to the left.) Now that would be a tragedy. Click to continue »