Rosalie Tirella

By Rosalie Tirella

… all our kiddies sign up for the city’s Wheels to Water program. The City of Worcester and the Friendly House, as well as some great social service agencies, have come up with a great schedule. Convenient - and kids can even take swimming lessons!

It is important to note that, once again, our colleges have disappointed us. WPI was the only city college to offer their facilities/swimming pool to the kids of Worcester (most of them inner city). Kudos to WPI! Shame on: Assumption College, Becker, Clark University, Holy Cross and Qunisigamond Community College.

Holy Cross is smack dab in the middle of South Worcester! Becker is in the heart of the Elm Park/Piedmont neighborhood. Clark U is in Main South. And state school, Quinsig, well, it gets a ton of taxpayer money - it’s the PEOPLE’S college. QCC should have been obligated to open its heart/swimming pool.

Next year, life will get better (aquatically speaking): The new super duper Crompton Park municipal swimming pool will be open and  CSX is bribing the hell out of the city - which includes earmarking/donating $2 million to repair/reopen two East Side municipal swimming pools (Holmes Field and East Park).  Plus: City Manager Mike O’Brien is hoping to make the Wheels to Water program year ’round. So next summer, with the two state pools open and a spray park here and there, plus our great city beaches, our kids will be … ready for the Olympics. 

Hooray for all the great folks who “pooled” their resources to create Wheels to Water!

“Your comment feature never really was legitimate given the tendency to censor. But the gloves off approach regarding O’Brien appears like you’ve been bought off by Haller.”
- “Worcester Guy”

Rosalie responds:

Not so, Worcester Guy. I am still livid about all the SKY-HIGH salaries that our municipal workers make. My newspaper (ICTimes) has been running all the City of Worcester wage earners. You see line after line of cops, fireman, lawyers making over $140,000. Our WPS grammer school principals make $120,000! Freakin’ crazy!

In the old days, Worcester’s cops actually lived in our blue collar neighborhoods because they were paid blue collar wages! And they were great! My mom still remembers this Irish cop in Green Island (in the 1930s) who used to chat with the kids and give them airplane rides. Everyone knew him and trusted him! (and loved him) Now that was real community policing!

Working for the city or state used to mean two things: lifetime security and good benefits (heath insurance, etc). It did not mean a $120,000 paycheck! It usually meant a slightly below average paycheck. Something is so wrong with the system. O’Brien raises taxes and the money seems to go to pay for … city worker paychecks or the cops’ rising heath insurance costs or more (now that the state has opted out) freaking Quinn Bill payments to the WPD officers. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

So, there we were, last night, my guy and I, at a book reading/signing in a bar. We had been eating crackers, listening to music and talking (believe it or not) about zombies, and then I turned to the booth to my left and saw the real thing: Dianne Williamson!

The Telgram and Gazette’s columnist, Dianne Williamson! Zombie alert!!!

If my readers - or hers - don’t already know: Dianne and I hate each other’s guts. It’s a very genuine feeling - one of the purest I have! Click to continue »

To:
Nicole Apostola
231 Wildwood Ave.
Worcester, MA 01603

From: Rosalie Tirella, editor/publisher
InCity Times
P.O. Box 70222
Worcester, MA 01607

Nicole:

You have violated copyright laws. You have copied and pasted my blog - my writing, my work, my property - into yours rather than providing a “link” to the InCity Times website. You know this is illegal - you have linked to the other writers you discuss in your blog.

If you continue to do this, the next letter you receive will be from my attorney.

Sincerely,

Rosalie Tirella

By Rosalie Tirella

FYI, Dianne Williamson, T & G hack, you lie! Just ask some of the people you have interviewed! (a few of them have given me an earful)

More lies you wrote in your column about me:

* Former Telegram and Gazette Harry Whitin never called me and asked me “politely” to change the article I had written about you. He was nasty, a bully - my anwering machine filled with threats from Whitin (which I kept on my teeny cassettes). I thought: Well, who does this guy think he is? I dug my heels in and thought: Fuck you, Whitin. Like hell will I accommodate you. Take it to the New York Times Co., bup. Let’s make this a bloodbath.

Harry Whitin and the Telegram and Gazette went away.

* Advertisers are never “enablers,” Dianne. If anyone should know this, it’s you and the rest of the T & G staff. Look how few ads grace the pages of the Telegram and Gazette! Sometimes there are three itty bitty ones on an entire page! Which is why the Telegram and Gazette has stopped publishing all its editions (down to one wretched edition which tells you nothing about Worcester!); 2. there have two huge rounds of layoffs at the Telegram and Gazette; 3. the Telegram and Gazette newsroom has only a handfull of reporters to cover New England’s second largest city; Click to continue »

By Coffeepunk 76

I think I am going to try and read the InCity Times more often.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I am in a union, and the Telegram and Gazette is notorious for its prejudice against unions. The Telegram and Gazette produces more hate speech towards unions than any other “paper” I have ever read.

Dianne Williamson, the same “journalist” who attacked the InCity Times, wrote “an article” (if you can call it that) on May 9, 2010, about putting her mother in ‘a home.’ This ‘reporter’ turned one sentence, “my mother has dementia, and I’m putting her into a home,” into a whole article. Click to continue »

editor’s note: Mr. Bailey, the T & G did run the news in a local column.

By Joseph Bailey

I must say I’m appalled about what I am reading. I cannot believe that the City of Worcester would allow a man such as this to be working for the city [Worcester Fire Dept. District Chief Frank DiLiddo].

By Rosalie Tirella

What a great day to own a dog! To ride with my new dog Jett in my car - he feeling full of himself (finally!) - me having a blast watching a once abused dog grow more confident. (In Kentucky, where Jett’s originally from, the men treated him rough.) Which is why I don’t make Jett heel - he can lead me anywhere on our walks! I feed him apple slices, too, and carress his little chest while cooing: “Oh, you’re a brave little man!”

I take Jett everywhere and he meets everyone! He is so tentative, but I know he will come around … .

“Here,” I tell a friend, giving her a dog treat, “give Jett a cookie!” And Jett gets his cookie! (she must throw it at his paws and look away the first time. A few times later and Jett walks up tp her and takes the treat from her hand)

“Look! Here’s a Worcester park! Let’s go!” I say to Jett, and I open the car door and out Jett pops, and we play tag in the park! Jett is running circles around me; I am pretending I wanna catch him! When I tire and sit on a park bench my little pal stops running, walks over and stares at me, as if to say: “Why are you sitting this game out?” Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

We will see if this bullshit continues at tonight’s Worcester City Council meeting: the not-so-latent attempt to pull the rug out from under the sturdy feet of Dr. Melinda Boone, Worcester’s new school superintendent.

We know that City Counilor Frederick Rushton was a big fan of “connected” school superintendent candidate Steve Mills (now working in some Boston suburb), and that he wanted his boy to get the superintendent job big time. Infact, last year Rushton was the city council member who was most vocal in his opposition to Boone. And he pushed for Mills, who thought he was a shoe in because he worked on Tim Murray’s first political campaign and all that crap.

But, hey, Rushton was powerless and then Worcester Mayor konnie Lukes wasn’t. As then-chair of the Worcester School Committee (as is for all of Wormtown’s mayors), Konnie created a professional search committee comprised of community intelligent non-biased community folks who would look at all super candidates. The search committee recommended the best candidate - Dr. Melinda Boone, a female, Black educator from Norfolk, Virginia. Our school committee OK’d the recommendation and - voila! Worcester actually looked smart, cool and progressive. … Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

Some how the Worcester Public Schools teachers’ union has got it all upside down: Last City Council meeting teacher union head Cheryl DelSignore stood before the Worcester City Council and whined. 124 WPS teachers are getting their pink slips! she announced to our city leaders! Mon Dieu! No art for the kiddies! No extras!

Bull shit.

What concerns this union rep most - and I guess the teachers themselves - is the fact that some of these newly laid off teachers have been in the WPS system for years!

“Twenty three years in the system,” Delsignore gasped to the city council.

This made me think: the teachers’ union is getting nervous. Now, instead of laying off the young, just hired teachers, like they used to when they went toe to toe with the city over contract negotiations, the teachers’ union is starting to lose the “connected” old timers, the people and hacks who have been sucking up precious space in the WPS system for two decades, but maybe hung around because they knew their seniority would be protected. WPS teachers who thought they would never see the day because … the young neophyte teachers would be the first to be let go by the Worcester Public School system. Click to continue »