The Bucket Blog

Following up on the death of Jason Swift in February, Rhode Island’s police and mental health communities are responding already. According to these reports on WRNI, the RI Municipal Police Academy, the RI Council of Community Mental Health Organizations, and the RI chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness are finalizing a grant proposal to receive $250,000 from the US Justice Department to bring Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs) to Rhode Island.

The CIT program began in 1988 in Memphis, TN and has grown to include many cities as well as the states of Utah and Ohio. The program puts select police officers through an intensive 40-hour training program. Instructors are police officers from other CIT programs. This compares with a 4-hour general session on mental health that officers receive now.

CITs are specialists in defusing mental health crises, and such a program would likely have resolved the case of Jason Swift non-violently.

The nearest CIT program is in New London, CT, and the New London team has already volunteered to train the Rhode Island force.

All Rhode Islanders should be proud that these parties have acted decisively to develop protocols that protect police, the general public and the mentally ill.

Update: Your Local News Sources Suck (’cept WRNI, natch)

Do I even need to say it? P-Times, is this not worth your effort? Projo, do you care? Phoenix, are you even a newspaper?

Everybody who’s got, support WRNI. They are the closest thing we have to the press.

1 — 50-50, formerly E & A Bar, in now open. Location: the 5 corners just west of the Division St. bridge. I checked it out, and it’s fine. Nothing spectacular, but clean and nice. They offer sandwiches and other pub fare, but I did not try any. More info as it comes to light.

2 — Rode the Blackstone Valley Bike Path yesterday afternoon and am pleased to report virtually zero bug consumption on my part. Recent rains have flooded the lowest riverside ground, so the bugs may be resurgent. Again, more info as it flies into my mouth.

I reckon you all know that I do some consultanty-type work around economic development, and I usually blather about it in the RI section of Urban Planet. I’m always on about the clusters, that is, similar but not identical enterprises located near each other. Rather than competing, clusters tend to support the constituent enterprises.

Restaurants in particular cluster well, creating restaurant districts. Christopher Alexander et al stress this heavily in the municipal-level section of A Pattern Language. A must read for any urbanist or such like animal.

Pawtucket now has such a cluster. In embryo, it’s true. But still a cluster.

The former E & A Bar - which was actually nicer than you think - has been sold, rehabbed, and appears to be open as 50-50, a sports bar. The new owners installed large windows and a full light door in the wall facing Division St and Bridge 550. That should be an interesting place to sit on Friday afternoons over the next several years.

The little ISC (Irish Social Club) plays a key role as an overflow space when the newly-resurgent East Ave Cafe gets too loud. I was in East Ave last week, and I’m proud to report that I was well above the average age. For me in that place, it’s a first.

Cantinho, featured years ago in a National Geographic article, has become the epicenter for Cape Verdean culture in the region with numerous live acts. Sadly, their success has created issues with neighbors. The owners have not made the necessary acoustical installations to use the space as music and dance venue. The whole space is windows. And, like any bar, “things” happen when young men drink.

The Modern Diner now seems out of step with their early hours and cash-only policy. And the enigmatic Jacs Wraps soldiers on.

Only the skeevy Greek Social Club remains from the this neighborhood’s dark and boarded-up recent past.

It’s not lost on me that this neighborhood is growing toward critical mass completely outside the scope of direct or even indirect city support. It’s outside their designated “arts and entertainment zone,” yet it provides the one service around which all others will - what’s the word? - cluster.

I use the technical terminology. The official name is the Narragansett Bay Insurance Company presents the Pawtucket Foundation Prize Exhibition, but that doesn’t make much of a headline.

And really, it’s a pretty big deal. $5,000 in prize money. Four of it goes to 1st prize, so it pays to win.

Regulars know I’m pulling for my erstwhile Grant-mate Joanne Luongo. It seems she’s on a winning streak after winning at Silvermine and showing successfully in New York over the winter. So much so that she needs to get a bigger studio.

The opening shindig is this Saturday, May 3rd, at 6pm, then gallery hours run Fridays noon-7 and Saturdays 10-4. The show will hang in a temporary gallery on the first floor of the Main Street wing of the Pawtucket Mutual Insurance building. That nasty white thing across from the Grant.

Update: 5/5/08

I am stunned to be including this link to coverage of the event in AllPawtucket.com.

The Back Story

Once again, I have the opportunity to show our slackin’ local journos how to write a story. Now on the Radler/RI Media Group connection, of course they’re not gonna make a big deal of that. But this is a bona fide story. And it goes a-like so.

NBIC is the juice in this art show, and I expect this to be the first in a series of investments that organization will make in the Pawtucket arts scene, becoming over time the dominant benefactor. “Says you.”

Not for nothin’, but the first words I heard from the NBIC CEO Nick Steffey was “I am an urbanist.” He lives in a local mill conversion, he walks to work, and he believes in the mission of making Pawtucket a center for the creative economy. And to that end, the aforementioned juice behind the competition.

Now, it’s not every company in Pawtucket that feels like giving away 5 grand, but if you just got a capital investment of $200,000,000 you might tip a little better(1).

Whoa. 200 mill? Who’s got that? NBIC, doofus.

It made, like, zero impact a few months ago when this story(2) slunk through the Fishwrap. They casually toss away a name that should set off every journalistic alarm they have: Soros.

George Soros is wikkit rich and wikkit smaat. He got that way by investing in smart people who specialize in turning losers around. Soros Strategic Partners and Pine Brook Partners have made a series of investment in various industries like energy, film production and insurance.

What is Soros Strategic Partners? Mysterious, that’s what. Here’s pretty much everything there is to know. There’s the SEC Info and this blurb from the press releases:

Soros Strategic Partners LP (“SSP”) is a private investment vehicle intended for long-term duration investments primarily for the benefit of Mr. George Soros and members of the Soros family. SSP focuses on capital-intensive start-ups, buyouts, and growth equity transactions, and seeks to acquire world class assets that can generate strong and growing cash flows.

What makes this little insurance company the kind of thing that George Soros would want to back? A brilliant business plan, that’s what. NBIC isn’t just another insurance company. They’re the company that will sell insurance to people that others won’t.

The term is “risk management.” Insurance companies have it all figured out. They have numbers on top of numbers about who gets hurt and who wrecks their cars and whose houses get destroyed by a hurricane. Or at least they thought they had it all figure out.

Then came “climate change” which I’ve heard more aptly described as a “weather amplifier.” Suddenly, a lot of houses that those companies used to insure are no longer “acceptable” risks. Poof, no insurance.

Ask anybody with low-lying property. They used to have private flood insurance, now they have government flood insurance because that’s the only insurance there is. Ask the people in Mississippi. They had insurance until Katrina came to visit. Now they have…questions.

So now the people in this area with property like that have NBIC. It’s a bit buried in the press release(3), but they say they seek to help:

homeowners who have experienced disruption in the marketplace

Or, more specifically:

NBIC is offering consistent coverage in catastrophe prone areas where some competitors have exited.

That’s a nice euphemism for having turned tail and run: exited.

So there’s your story: brilliant, contrarion business plan garners big investment and urbanist CEO generates goodwill with handsome prize for local artists

(1) There is absolutely no connection between the capital investment and this prize. That’s silly. No doubt NBIC view this as a well-placed investment to build goodwill in the community, fulfilling their social responsibility mission. And they’d be right.

(2) Check out the out-dated footer on the archive page. Only shows how little attention they pay to the website which, of course, is the future of their enterprise.

(3) When the company’s press release is better than the local papers biggest business story in 30 years, that’s just sad.

The continuing expansion of the Blackstone Valley Bike Path further supports the notion that this region - finally - has some good, long range planning going on. Over the winter (!) about 2 or 3 more miles were paved, including an outstanding wood-plank bog walk in Valley Falls (green oval on the illustration).

Like other bike paths, this follows train tracks for much of its length. But unlike any others in this region, a good chunk is sandwiched between the river and the canal. Substantial lengths run directly beside the river. But best of all, there is almost zero interaction with cars. Those three orange boxes show where the only traffic crossings are. Three crossings over about nine miles of track.

(The graphic is kinda big, and it will look better if you open it in its own window/tab. For you super geeks, the Google Earth path is attached. Go nuts!)

BV Bike Path/Google Earth File

Location of Parking Lot

BTW, let’s PLEEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEE get some services in the parking lots. You know, a cart with bevs and snacks? There is nowhere to get more fluids. Litter? Make cart licensees responsible. Litter = immediate loss of license.

Everybody get out there and use it. Remember — walk on the left, facing the bicycle traffic.

At long last, I have imported all the old Bucket Blog posts and comments from the old site. If you’re new to The Bucket Blog, check out some of the earlier posts.

Regular readers know I drink too much to give any real competition to our local daily. But former P-Times journo Doug Hadden thinks he has the experience and contacts to give it a go.

Herb Weiss was in The Grant and cued me into Hadden’s latest effort, AllPawtucket.com. Apparently, they aim to deliver more and better local news coverage, and, according to Weiss, there’s a connection to the Backyard weekly newspaper.

Unfortunately, I can’t say much more because I can’t find any info. The website doesn’t have much of what we in the business call the “thing qua thing.” That is, there’s no About page, no Contact page, no phone number, no email, no this-is-what-we’re-about of any kind.

That, on its own, gives you an indication how far the gap is between those for whom the Internet is a primary medium and those for whom it is not.

Bottom line: if they whipped the website into shape (i.e., made it a blog with lots and lots of user uploads, etc. you know, that whole Web 2 thing or whatever they call it), they could tap into Pawtucket’s growing population of young, creative, educated, upwardly mobile, progressive, tech savvy, engaged people.

But who’d be interest in those kinda people?

For our part, The Bucket Blog welcomes the competition, and we’d be happy to advise the fledglings in their new endeavor.

Just don’t ask me to lay of the sauce. Ain’t gonna happen.

Two little items. First, it was great to see City workers clearing the couple of inches of decomposing leaves that covered the entire sidewalk on the bottom Pleasant Street, my daily walk. The big retaining wall creates an eddy for westerly winds, so stuff just piles up there. To be honest, I can’t remember if they did this last year or not, but I’m thinking that once a year is not often enough.

Now on this other item, the headline is tongue-in-cheek. Here in The Grant, we refer to the central lounge as The Living Room. There’s sofas, a coffee table and some interesting magazine and such. One of these, Art New England, featured a great photo on the cover. An alterna-punk woman is approaching a Hasidic Jew, who is trying not to look like he’s averting his eyes, which he clearly is. Great shot.

The other day as I walked past it, I noticed that the Hasidim’s hat now reads, “SEAZ.” Longtime readers know of my fondness for graffiti, and for the work of Seaz in particular. I’m not sure why this individual was in the Grant, but I’d love to make the acquaintance. I’m in #8, Seaz, or here via email.

It’s true. I’ve been unfaithful. But, secretly, you’ve known it all along. I’m just not a one-blog kind of guy.

Bucket Blog parent company Very Small Enterprises recently spun off the Real Advertising brand, and we replaced the lame HTML site with, duh, a blog. Also, Real Advertising has developed a strategic partner relationship with the think tank New Commons and, along with it, another blog.

As part of this partnership, your Frymaster is presenting his Web 2 for Businesses class. Next session is this Wed, April 4 at 8:30 AM. Any Bucketeers interested in complimentary registration should email frymaster@thebucketblog.com.

But that’s not all. I’ve been Twittering quite a bit. I know it’s not a blog, but it’s pretty close. And I’ve been hanging around some new blogs like Infectious Greed, scripting.com and Confused of Calcutta.

There. I feel better.

Chachi, Chris, Amy - I don’t know why it took so long for your comments to show up. If anybody has concerns, email me at speck twenty two AT gmail DOT com.