Bay State Banner 08/01/2013

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Euromight: A Quest to Capture the AfroEuropean Narrative

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FUEL aids low-income families with college Martin Desmarais Families United in Educational Leadership (FUEL) is batting 100 percent for its graduating class of 2013. All 56 recently graduated high school seniors involved in the nonprofit program, which helps low-income families establish a savings plan for college and also navigate the financial aid process, are registered to attend college this fall.

The families — from Boston, Lynn and Chelsea — each saved an average of $1,200 toward their childrens’ costs for college. In total, the families saved $67,000 and earned more than $40,000 in private and academic scholarships.

In addition, FUEL has a matching program, working with partners, which can provide families as much as a dollar-for-dollar match of money saved.

In other words, if a family saves $1,200 for college through FUEL they could get as much as $1,200 more.

While the cost of college continues to skyrocket, for low-income families $1,200 can make a big difference, according to FUEL Executive Director Gene Miller. However, Miller emphasizes that the biggest benefit of FUEL is that through the program the families learned how to apply for and get the most help they can out of the college financial aid process, which is a notoriously tricky one.

“We incentivize savings,” Miller said. “The families are required to save and learn. … In general we offer a contract with the family saying if you save a certain amount of money we are going to either match it or provide some sort of incentive.

“Whatever we offer to save in any of these processes is what attracts people to the program, but when families are exiting the program they are proud of the savings, saying, ‘Wow, this is the first time we have ever saved,’” Miller added. “The most important part is the information, because there is this buy-in process that comes from saving and seeing your interest build up and getting into that asset-building model. …

What happens is that most of our families get very attractive financial aid packages when they graduate from the program.”

For example, 17 of the students from the class of 2013 will be attending Salem State University this fall and six of those are part of the Compact Scholarship agreement with FUEL, which gives them either a full or partial scholarship, meaning they will graduate with little or no debt. FUEL’s Compact Scholarship program also works with UMass Boston and Bunker Hill Community College.

Miller said that because the families that take part in FUEL are low-income families, there is a lot of financial aid available and

“What happens is that most of our families get very attractive financial aid packages when they graduate from the program.”

— Gene Miller

FUEL, continued to page 9

President Barack Obama meets with Secretary of State John Kerry in the Oval Office on July 29 to discuss ongoing negotiations between Israel and Palestine in an effort to resolve long standing issues. (Photo courtesy of the White House)

Judge Casper: ‘Cool, calm, collected’ during Bulger trial Brian Wright O’Connor The federal courthouse on the waterfront is where New Boston meets Old Boston — and not just geographically.

Inside the brick complex overlooking the refurbished harbor, the Boston Irish Mob stands trial. James M. “Whitey” Bulger, who allegedly ran Southie’s drug and extortion rackets for decades, while serving as an informant for the FBI, is charged in a sweeping racketeering case. The charges include 19 murders, spelled out in grisly detail during testimony over the last few weeks.

Presiding over the case is U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper, who graduated from law

school in 1994 — the year Bulger went on the lam, tipped off by his former FBI handler, John Connolly.

Casper, the first African American female federal judge to sit in Boston, drew an electronic straw to referee the trial of the notorious South Boston gangster after Judge Richard Stearns was removed from the case because of his ties as a former U.S. Attorney in Boston to many of the players in the courtroom drama.

While the 83-year-old defendant is the only one on trial, a whole way of life is on review every day in Courtroom 11 on the fifth floor of the John J. Moakley Courthouse, named for the late South Boston congressman who lived on the opposite side of the peninsula.

A succession of wise guys, drug dealers, rats, leg-breakers and stone killers has paraded through the courtroom, some of them eliciting snarls and f-bombs from the defendant, who wears white sneakers and casual clothes like the retiree he pretended to be while hiding in plain sight for over a decade in a rent-controlled Santa Monica apartment with his moll girlfriend. An underlying issue at trial is the role of the federal government itself in the alleged crimes of the Southie mob boss — its use of Bulger as an informant and its alleged tolerance and even complicity in the murders of witnesses and informants whose whisperings to federal agents got back to Bulger and his lethal henchmen.

Casper, continued to page 17

A long, long way from home: Remembering the life of Richie Havens Kevin J. Aylmer

Mission Hill artist Marilyn Jan Casey’s oil painting “African Americans Introduced to Christianity” is one of the paintings in her exhibit, Modern Spiritual Expressions: Past Present Future, on display at the Parker Hill Library through Sept. 2. See story on page 11. (Photo courtesy of Jan Casey)

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT. . . 12-15

​The prospect of a face-to-face interview with Woodstock icon Richard Pearce Havens was, to a degree, intimidating. Thankfully, it led to illumination, once you got beyond the turquoise rings, the flowing dashiki, the aura of serenity coupled with the avuncular manner of a sidewalk sage. Although Havens stood six-foot-three, he emitted a beatific, Buddha-like grace attuned, it seemed, to some distant music of the spheres.

​Invariably, Havens’ hands caught one’s eye. Huge and enveloping, their dominant feature was the thumb.

This was one of his keys to success, for the largeness of his left thumb was ideally suited to barring chords in open tunings, a technique uncommon in the early ’60s folk music circuit. Here was a signature sound: unique, percussive, an unmistakable soul shakedown, helping to launch a career which began in 1957 with doowop singing on street corners in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Havens, continued to page 2

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2 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Havens

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In a career spanning 72 years — 1941-2013 — as an actor, activist, musician and singer-songwriter, as an educator and spokesperson for peace, love and the environment, Havens matured with one inestimable advantage: along with those of his eight siblings, his childhood was suffused with music and parental love.

His father, of Blackfoot Native American ancestry, crafted Formica tables. “My father was an ear piano man,” Havens recalls, “he could just hear something and play it.” Havens’ mother, employed as a bookbinder, loved to sing. Yet it was his Barbadian-born grandmother who provided the crucial link to roots. Under her tutelage, Havens was immersed in a mixed bag of Caribbean folk music, Jewish folk songs and Irish ballads.

Church Beginnings By age 16, Havens was singing gospel with the McCrea Gospel Singers and doo-wop as a member of The Last Men. Despite these musical forays, “the ‘50s was a flat line,” he claims, an era chilled as much by the Cold War as by Mother Nature, a time when Manhattan beckoned, the island being a spawning ground for folks derisively called beatniks.

Gravitating to Greenwich Village in 1961, the 21-year-old Havens became immersed in a countercultural mecca of social-political-musical ferment. He began to write and perform poetry. For two years,

by daylight, he was a sidewalk portrait painter, “mostly pencil, a little charcoal.” By candlelit nights, however, Havens haunted smoky dens fragranced with sandalwood and patchouli, clubs such as the subterranean Gaslight Café, Café Wha? and Gerde’s Folk City. Sundays the sandal-footed musical apprentice could be found at Washington Square Park. The Village’s countercultural ambience provided the apprentice musician an eclectic range of styles and inspirations, contributing to what would become Havens’ often plaintive trademark sound and introspective delivery. These would alternate with sudden flights of energetic crescendos, propulsive blues or flamenco flourishes with one leg slapping the floor in frenetic rhythms, eyes shut tight in a meditative trance, spirits alight perhaps.

During these early days of Camelot and the New Frontier, beehive hairdos and the occasional leopard skin pillbox hat, Havens forsook childhood dreams of becoming a surgeon. Instead, his schedule became three coffeehouses nightly, playing — and praying — for good tips when the basket was passed after 20-minute sets.

Appropriately enough, Havens’ first recording, Mixed Bag, was released during America’s Summer of Love, in 1967. It was a soulful mélange reflecting an era of experimentation and skepticism — folk, blues, jazz, gospel and rock. Highlighting its militant pacifism and bittersweet realism, “Handsome Johnny” (co-written with Lou Gos-

Richie Havens symbolized folk music during the 1960s with a blend of politics, environmental awareness and showmanship. (Photo courtesy of Live Loud)

sett, Jr.) was counterpoised to John Lennon & Paul McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby” and Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman.” A short time later, this sage of flower power was informing Rolling Stone: “Music is the major form of communication. It’s the commonest vibration, the people’s news broadcast, especially for kids.”

Within the year, these kids would turn out for the greatest love-fest ever seen on planet Earth.

A show in Upstate NY Although now enshrouded in an amber glow of nostalgia, Havens’ opening performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was an unexpected twist of fate. “I opened Woodstock by default,” Havens reminisced late one October night in Stoughton, Mass. “I was supposed to go on as number five, but there wasn’t anyone to go on, so they convinced me to go on first. They had a lot of convincing, too, because the concert was 2 1/2 to three hours late. But they couldn’t get anybody to the field, because the road they had opened to bring the instruments and the amps and the groups was blocked. So I sat around. Eventually, they got hold of a local guy who had a bubble helicopter and since we had the fewest instruments they took my bunch of guys there first.”

“Shortly after that something happened that on one ever talks about. The Army came in. It was Army helicopters that got the bands to the stage. Not too many people know that. But if it wasn’t for the Army, Woodstock would never have happened.”

“After seven encores, I looked out over the audience and realized that this whole generation was looking for freedom and in actuality, at that point, we were exercising the freedom that we thought we needed to have. We were all doing it right there.

So I started strumming my guitar and singing ‘Freedom’ and ‘Motherless Child’ came out, and then part of another song I used to sing when I was in a gospel group when I was about 16, which was ‘I Have a Telephone in My Bosom, and I Can Call Him Up in My Heart.’ And ‘Clap Your Hands.’ That was how ‘Freedom’ was made up.”

In 1969, Johnny Carson invited the loquacious ex-Brooklynite to perform on The Tonight Show.

Havens received such a rapturous, indeed tumultuous, ovation, a bemused Carson invited him to perform the following evening. It was only the second time in the show’s history that a return invitation

After a 2½ hour delay, Richie Havens was the first musician onstage at Woodstock. would be extended. Despite commercial success and critical acclaim, Havens never relinquished a critical eye on “politricks,” a notion he discussed with Jamaica’s The Wailers (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer) in Kingston just prior to his Woodstock appearance.

Brave New World Following Woodstock, Havens’ acoustic alchemy turned to freewheeling interpretations and collaborations tinged with cosmic consciousness and occasional indignation, which, as writer George Sand once observed, is the highest form of love. After his immensely successful rearrangement of George Harrison’s solar benediction, “Here Comes the Sun,” he joined The Who’s stage performances of the world’s first rock opera, Tommy. Three years later, he would play the lead role of Othello in Catch My Soul, a rock-and-roll interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. Havens then co-starred with Richard Pryor in Greased Lightning, the balladeer joining the comedian in retelling the story of Wendell Scott, the first African American to obtain a NASCAR racing license. Inspired

by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s unprecedented visit to Jerusalem in 1978, the ever-flexible social activist released “Shalom, Salaam Aleichum” which became a No. 1 hit in Israel.

For the next three decades, Havens flourished as an Aquarian ambassador in kinetic touch with his Native American ancestry, an awareness that transforms the deceptive simplicity of “The Indian Prayer” on Mixed Bag II into an experience of spiritual transcendence.

This heightened ancestral awareness culminated in his decisive role as a founding member of the Native American Music Awards, the first

of which aired on April 22, 1998.

Thirty years after his inspirational August 15, 1969, helicopter ride over Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, when some 500,000 festival goers below appeared as a dayglo mosaic of humanity, Havens released his autobiography, They Can’t Hide Us Anymore.

For this musical Brahman, traditional indigenous reverence for the environment naturally inspired ecological activism. He became a co-founder of the North Wind Undersea Institute, a hands-on learning center headquartered in a Victorian sea captain’s mansion on City Island in the Bronx. Moving from conversationalist to advocate, Havens explained: “Growing up, I learned that all the things we have labeled as social issues, such as homelessness, hunger, drugs, joblessness, are in fact environmentally based issues. They really are not social issues. The ramifications of being in any of these places is social, but the problem comes from the earth. To me, such issues are part of the environmental awareness that we should have. Today it is called environmental justice.”

Soundtrack For A Revolution, released in 2009, is an invaluable study of the modern Civil Rights Movement. For this video documentary, Havens sings “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” A half-century removed from his youthful stint with the McCrea Gospel Singers of Brooklyn, his rendition underscores commentator Coretta Scott King’s belief in “the indispensable role that songs of rebellion and hope played in helping activists fight against brutality and injustice.”

Legacy of an Activist Four decades later, in 2008, Havens’ last recording, Nobody Left to Crown, reveals a pervasive skepticism and deep unease, resonating as a lover’s ongoing quarrel with America. Selections such as “Fates,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Hurricane Waters,” “Lives in the Balance” and “Zeus’s Anger Roar” comprise an uncompromising indictment of life in an era of inconvenient truths and governmental gridlock.

For an artist so closely identified with an unrelenting ecological consciousness, it is ironic that this beloved troubadour passed away on Earth Day, April 22. On August 18 at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, “A Day of Song and Remembrance” will witness the scattering of Havens’ ashes at Max Yasgur’s farm.

As an exemplar of evolved consciousness and a model for future generations, Havens represents a vital part of the American character: a conviction that the most radical idea in America is the long memory.

Kevin J. Aylmer currently teaches American and world history at Roxbury Community College and formerly served as the reggae, African and world music consultant to the original House of Blues in Cambridge, Mass.

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 3

4 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Established 1965

Lift the cap on charter schools School bells will soon be ringing and parents will once again be concerned with the quality of education for their children. This is not a problem for the affluent, who can afford the expense of private schools, but for others the choice is limited.

Now the evidence is in. According to a scientifically sound study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, charter school students in Massachusetts have generally outperformed public school students. It is no wonder then that waiting lists for charter school enrollment have become unreasonably long.

The number of charter schools that can be established in any district is limited by law. Education reformers want to lift that cap in low-performing districts. There is no rational reason to deny students an opportunity for academic success where public schools have failed.

The proposed education budget for Boston for the 2013-2014 school year is $934.4 million of taxpayers’ money. Citizens have the right to demand that their funds be spent in the most effective manner. Clearly that would include the development of more charter schools.

Opposition to Zimmerman’s acquittal triggers conservative attacks The sympathetic reaction across the country to the death of Trayvon Martin created a political problem for conservatives. Those who supported the acquittal of George Zimmerman found themselves cast as racists. An aggressive reaction was to be expected.

The first line of attack was to point out the extraordinarily high rate of murders of young black men and the general lack of concern about those deaths. An analysis of homicide data found that more than half of the nation’s murder victims are black, mostly young men, although blacks account for only 13 percent of the nation’s population.

The second line of attack was to emphasize that most of the murders of young black men are committed by other blacks. According to the U.S. Justice Department, from 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by other blacks and only 6 percent by whites. However, 14 percent of white homicide victims were killed by blacks. All of these crimes, conservatives assert, are a result of convenience and proximity and not race.

Conservatives then demean the concept of deterring black-on-black crime. This attitude demonstrates their insensitivity to the efforts of African Americans to influence the conduct of troublesome community residents.

Black urban neighborhoods developed decades ago as havens for their residents, much like

enclaves for other ethnic groups. Each developed its own character, such as the Harlem Renaissance literary and art productions and the higher education achievement in Boston. One thing they shared in common was the relative protection from racial assaults from outsiders.

At first there was little crime within these black neighborhoods. People felt safe in the streets and they did not always worry about locking their doors. But as time went on crime increased. The concept of an aversion to blackon-black crime was meant essentially to shame perpetrators away from inflicting greater suffering on their neighbors, who already had to cope with a sometimes hostile white society.

Today, blacks of the older generation have a special disdain for criminals operating within their neighborhoods. They also have a keen memory of the times when white racists victimized blacks. The killing of Trayvon Martin aroused that woeful memory. None of this has any relevance to black-on-black crime, the mention of which was a diversionary tactic used by conservatives to emphasize the high rate of homicides by blacks against those of the same group.

Nothing conservatives do to rationalize Zimmerman’s acquittal can overcome the reality that Trayvon died with a bag of Skittles in his hand.

Boston is an increasingly diverse city.

Boston Public Schools students are over 85 percent students of color. The diversity of the city and the schools, however, is not reflected in the teaching force, where less than 40 percent are teachers of color. Despite School Committee policies committing the district to diversity and an outstanding federal court order mandating teacher desegregation, the percentage of teachers of color is actually decreasing yearly.

The Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts (BEAM) has been receiving complaints from members and others about the rehiring and hiring of new teachers for the 2013-2014 school year. The retention of teachers of color has been a continuing problem for Boston Public Schools. Last fall the City of Boston School Department reported that it hired fewer teachers of color than it had lost from the previous year. How can the district improve teacher diversity if it is losing more teachers of color than

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Several years ago, Boston Public Schools surpassed the minimum requirements for teacher desegregation under the federal court order, a very low threshold of 25 percent black and 10 percent other teachers of color. The School Department made the investments, implemented the processes and monitored results necessary for compliance.

The district is now in non-compliance with minimal black teacher hiring, declining from 26 percent to 21 percent with the probability that it will drop fur-

ther this upcoming school year. The district has refused to implement steps that have proven successful in the past. Also of note is that the decline in black teacher hiring and retention is occurring at the same time that Boston has adopted a new home-based student assignment plan that reduces black students’ access to the highest performing schools.

Nora L. Toney President Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts (BEAM)

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 5

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Opinion Why Zimmerman Juror B29 Believed in His Guilt But Still Voted to Acquit Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The lone Latina juror in the George Zimmerman murder trial flatly said that she thought Zimmerman was guilty.

Yet juror B29 still voted to acquit. She gave out mixed signals as to why she did. The first reason was that the evidence wasn’t there. But she also quickly added that she held out for a few hours trying to hang the jury presumably because she felt the evidence really wasn’t there for a clean acquittal.

This second signal is far more revealing as to why a juror that believes one thing, in this case that Zimmerman is guilty, but still went along with the majority, the white jurors, and voted to acquit him. The key to understanding why she did can be summed up in two words: juror pressure. This is far different from juror intimidation.

That’s a crime and is severely punished.

Juror pressure is far more subtle and amorphous but poses an even bigger challenge to getting a just and fair verdict in a trial than outright intimidation, which can be documented in only a tiny number of cases.

The problem of juror pressure on a dissenting juror has long been known by defense attorneys and prosecutors. In a study as part of the National Center for State Courts project on hung juries, researchers conducted post-trial surveys that covered 367 trials, all of which resulted in unanimous decisions, and surveyed nearly 4,000 jurors in several states.

They found that in nearly 40 percent of the cases there was at least one juror who thought that the defendant was either innocent or guilty but still went along with the majority and made the jury verdict unanimous.

The researchers went further and tossed in cases where the jurors were faced with multiple charges against a defendant. The number of juries with jurors who wanted to convict or acquit on one or more of the charges, particularly the lesser charge, leapt to more than half of the juries that brought back unanimous verdicts on all counts. And since studies have shown that few trials wind The certainty though up with hung juries, the disturbing is that decisions conclusion is that there are a lot of made when jurors jurors that simply cave to the maare browbeaten to jority in a lot of trials.

The Zimmerman trial then was reach a verdict that no aberration and fit the pattern in which a juror that truly believed they don’t agree with that he was guilty but could go pollute the judicial along with the pack anyway. Her process. rationale that the evidence wasn’t there doesn’t square with research that shows that dissenting jurors often go along with the majority not because they are convinced about points of evidence but because they bow to what’s been called “normative pressure.”

Put simply that means that a juror who stands as the lone holdout is under relentless and harsh pressure from other jurors to knuckle under.

The pressure from the push for speed, verbal battering and the threat of social ostracism is virtually impossible to resist.

The problem is made worse by the notion in many trials that it’s virtually impossible for a dissenting juror to say with absolute certainty whether the position of the majority for the guilt or innocence of the defendant is the right one, and whether the verdict would do horrible legal damage or be an unpardonable injustice.

The certainty though is that decisions made when jurors are browbeaten to reach a verdict that they don’t agree with pollute the judicial process. They make a mockery of the notion that jurors reach verdicts in trials solely because the prosecution has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, or because the defense has shredded the prosecution’s case to the point where it appears the defendant is either outright innocent or at the very least deserves to be acquitted based on the lack of evidence.

A defendant then is entitled to a verdict that reflects a juror’s genuine belief about their innocence or guilt and not a verdict that’s based on pressure or simple expediency.

Judges play a big part in how juries ultimately decide a case by simply making it clear in their charge to the jury that a juror should not vote for a verdict that he or she does not truly believe is correct, and that a juror is under no obligation to go along with a decision just because a majority of jurors agree on a position. How forcefully that admonition is conveyed to jurors is subject to huge question, and the Zimmerman trial is no exception to that.

Zimmerman got several benefits in his trial. One was that he was found innocent. The other was that the prosecution did not prove its case. But the biggest benefit was that even when juror B29 thought he was guilty and should have been convicted she still voted to acquit.

In the end, juror B29 was no different from countless other dissenting jurors in countless other trials who succumbed to juror pressure. The pity is that she succumbed in this trial.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst.

The Banner welcomes your opinion. Email Op-Ed submissions to:

hmanly@bannerpub.com ­Letters must be signed. Names may be withheld upon request.

Why do you think so many voters are undecided about which candidate to support for mayor?

Probably because so many politicians make promises they can’t keep, it’s hard for people to figure out which candidates are for real.

It’s not surprising because of the number of candidates in the field.

After the field narrows, people will take interest.

I’m undecided. Menino’s been in office so long and people are looking for someone to compare to him.

Vanessa Loud

William Howard, III

Darryl Thompson

People are confused. It’s hard to tell what the candidates stand for and there are so many of them.

People don’t know who the 12 candiates are. I think it’s unfortunate

Many people are not informed.

Candidates haven’t been accessible to the black community.

Michael

Phillip Franklin

VanNessa Jemmott

Artist Roxbury

Disabled Hyde Park

Retired Roxbury

Roxbury

Outreach Worker Roxbury

Group Leader Dorchester

INthe news

Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan The Boston Foundation recently named two new members to its board of directors. Paul W. Lee, a partner at Goodwin Procter LLP, and Myechia Minter-Jordan, M.D., the president and CEO of the Dimock Center, joined the board effective July 1.

Dr. Jordan earned both her undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University.

After graduation, she joined Johns Hopkins as an attending physician and instructor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

During her tenure, she completed her Master of Business Administration with a focus on the business of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Professional Studies in Business and Education.

In 2007, Jordan moved to Boston to become chief medical officer for the Dimock Community Health Center. She became president and CEO of Dimock on July 1.

At Goodwin Procter LLP in Boston, Paul Lee concentrates

on corporate and securities law and represents high technology and financial services companies.

Lee is a graduate of Columbia University, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in elec-

trical engineering and computer science. He received his Juris Doctor cum laude from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell International Law Journal.

6 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

The low minimum wage undermines U.S. economy Jon Cooper As a business owner who runs a manufacturing company with 150 employees, I strongly support increasing the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at just $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009.

It will provide concrete benefits to businesses and will strengthen our overall economy.

Fair wages are part of the formula for success at my company, Spectronics Corp., the world’s leading manufacturer of ultraviolet equipment and fluorescent

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327 WEST BROADWAY SOUTH BOSTON, MA, 02127 617-464-2600 12/31/2013.

materials. Raising the minimum wage will help America succeed as well.

Consumer spending drives about 70 percent of our nation’s economy. And wages drive consumer spending.

The single biggest problem faced by small businesses today is weak consumer demand. Increasing the minimum wage is a great way to spur economic growth by jump-starting consumer spending. It will allow workers to buy essentials they can’t afford now, and most of the money they spend will go right back into local businesses.

That is also good for our tax base.

A higher minimum wage will also result in lower employee turnover. Turnover costs money, and reducing turnover means lower costs for hiring and training new workers. In addition, higher wages bring increased productivity. Employers who invest in their workforce have employees who are more invested in the company and in satisfying its customers.

At my company, nearly 71 percent of employees have been with us for over 10 years. Compare that to low-paying chains with continual turnover or the local retail store where one of my daughters worked for a year. She and many of her co-workers were paid minimum wage, and she saw that the biggest problem they faced was high turnover. Much time and effort was spent training the constant flow of

new employees, which adversely impacted customer service since they made more mistakes due to their inexperience.

Raising the minimum wage encourages better business practices. An inadequate minimum wage fits the old adage, “Penny wise and pound foolish.”

Fortunately, most business owners are already paying employees more than minimum wage. Those companies that do pay their workers poverty wages at or near $7.25 are in effect being subsidized by other businesses

by the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment published in the Review of Economics and Statistics in November 2010 compared every pair of neighboring U.S. counties that had differing minimum wage levels at any time between 1990 and 2006. It found no adverse employment effects from higher minimum wages.

The $7.25 minimum wage comes to just $15,080 a year for full-time workers. That’s too low to live on and it’s undermining our economy.

An inadequate minimum wage fits the old adage, “Penny wise and pound foolish.” and taxpayers, since low-wage employees are far more likely to turn to government assistance programs to get by. That’s simply not fair.

Companies like mine, Costco and In N Out Burger, for example, which thrive with fair wages, show every day that companies like Walmart and McDonald’s are choosing to take advantage of the low minimum wage and shortchange their workers — and our nation.

Whenever we talk about raising the minimum wage, critics claim that it will cause increased unemployment. But this assertion has been carefully refuted in an extensive series of studies of the impact of actual minimum wage increases. For example, a study

If the minimum wage had been automatically adjusted for the cost of living since the 1960s, businesses would be paying $10.74 today. The Fair Minimum Wage Act would gradually increase the minimum wage to $10.10 over three years, and then adjust it annually for inflation. These provisions are fair and reasonable.

Employers who pretend they cannot pay a minimum wage equivalent to what their counterparts paid in the 1960s should be ashamed of themselves.

Raising the minimum wage is an overdue investment in our economy.

Jon Cooper is the owner and president of Spectronics Corp., based in Westbury, N.Y. He is also a member of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage.

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 7

Don’t let auto dealership markups take you for a ride

CFPB warns dealers to comply with fair lending law Charlene Crowell The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently issued a warning to banks, finance companies and credit unions that these institutions will be held accountable for discrimination in auto lending. In announcing its intention to hold auto lenders accountable for illegal, discriminatory markups, CFPB also published a bulletin detailing ways lenders should incorporate practices designed to honor fair lending laws.

At the crux of CFPB’s concern is a practice known as “dealer reserve” or “dealer participation.”

Both are synonyms for a markup on financing cost that is typically hidden from the consumer.

These fees add more cost to the consumer and more profit for the dealer. The fact that consumers are unaware of the additional interest makes it difficult to negotiate prices fairly and with full information.

For consumers, the issuance of the warning is an important action. Rather than waiting for discrimination to occur, CFPB’s oversight intends to stop biased pricing before it happens. It should also be welcome news

for consumers with problematic credit. The potential buyers at the greatest risk are those who lack other financing options.

Adding vehicle financing to an auto purchase enables dealers to raise the loan’s interest rate and keep some or all of the difference as commission. As a result, these

with $10 billion in assets. This supervision applies whether the lender is a bank, a credit union or an affiliate. In 2012, 15.7 million auto loans contributed to $783 billion in consumer debt. Car notes are also the third largest source of household debts, after mortgages and student loans.

Keep in mind that interest rate markups occur at the dealers’ discretion and many times have no relation to actual credit risk.

Financial exploitation is a form of discrimination. consumers typically receive the worst deals.

Keep in mind that interest rate markups occur at the dealers’ discretion and many times have no relation to actual credit risk. Financial exploitation is a form of discrimination.

The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act gave CFPB the authority to supervise more than 150 of the nation’s largest financial institutions, including those

Discriminatory actions will persist in the absence of strict enforcement. Just as HUD oversees the Fair Housing Act, communities of color are legally protected from discriminatory practices through the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). The ECOA makes it illegal for a creditor to discriminate in any aspect of a credit transaction on the baseis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, marital

CommunityVoices status or age.

Despite these laws, some lenders continue to ignore the spirit, if not the letter of the law. Research by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) released in 2011 found that discriminatory auto lending pricing was evident.

A series of class action lawsuits challenged the practice of giving interest rate markups more frequently and to a greater degree to African Americans and Latinos than to their similarly situated white counterparts.

Through an analysis of 25 auto finance companies that together accounted for 1.7 million vehicle finance accounts by the end of 2009, CRL discovered that although vehicle sales declined by 20 percent from 2007 to 2009, the amount consumers paid in interest rate markups over the lives of their loans during this same period grew 24 percent from $20.8 billion to about $25.8 billion. Beyond higher markups, poor credit ratings can lock consumers into finance rates so high that repossessions become the norm rather than the exception.

Now, thanks to the CFPB’s watchdog role, if or when finan-

cial violations occur dealers are assured that swift enforcement will be taken.

It just makes sense for consumers to shop for the best auto lending rates, just as consumers are encouraged to shop for the best mortgage rate for a home. Most importantly, consumers should be keenly aware that the convenience of buying and financing a vehicle from a dealer will likely be more costly than if financing and sales were handled separately.

Shopping for financing first enables consumers to learn their credit scores, current competitive rates on loans and how much of a loan is affordable in comparison to their other expenses and debts.

Deciding up front the household comfort zone for new debt and how long it should last would lead to loans that are better managed and affordable.

Just as the historic Brown v.

Board of Education decision held that in education separate was inherently unequal, the same can be said of lending: let it be equal.

Charlene Crowell is a communications manager with the Center for Responsible Lending.

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subscriptions are availabe through our website baystatebanner.com or by calling 617-261-4600

8 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

New liquor store approved near Dorchester schools Martin Desmarais Though a number of people spoke out against a new proposed liquor store on Dorchester Avenue in Dorchester — including Boston City Councillor At-Large John Connolly — the plan was approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals last week.

The new liquor store will be at 1445 Dorchester Ave and, according to the approved plans filed with the Zoning Board, will be a 1,445-square-foot retail space that combines several smaller stores

business growth and a way to fill retail space that is currently empty, as well as an improvement over a very small and run-down liquor store in the area that will make way for the new, larger one.

The opposition is mostly concerned about the proximity of the new liquor store to The Grover Cleveland Building at 11 Charles Street, which houses the Harbor Middle School, the Community Academy of Science and Health High School and a community center. These schools are only several hundred feet from the new

the proposed new liquor store.

He voiced his objection at the Zoning Board of Appeals hearing for the proposal on July 23, but the project was approved.

Councillor Connolly gave The Bay State Banner a statement about his position.

“My office spoke in opposition to the proposed liquor store after

teachers from the Harbor School and the Community Academy of Science and Health (CASH) reached out to me with their serious concerns about its proximity to the school. I’ve worked closely with parents and teachers at the Harbor School and CASH in the past, and I was happy to support the school communities again,” Councillor Connolly said.

Boston Public Schools teacher Andrea Doremus has been a voice for the teachers, parents and neighbors concerned about the new liquor store. “It seems like putting a liquor store at the exact crossroads of Adams and Dorchester streets should be turned down based on

the obvious additional traffic stress alone,” Doremus stated. “But there is a larger question here. Isn’t it the job of adults to protect children?

Since we don’t have a ‘village,’ isn’t that the role of adults in the government and schools?

“I just don’t understand how some of the powers that be are not opposed to it,” she added.

While the new liquor store has been approved, the opposition is hopeful that some suggestions, such as a viable parking and traffic plan, better lighting in the nearby park and increased Boston Police support in the area can be considered to help ease any negative impact.

“I just don’t understand how some of the powers that be are not opposed to it.”

— Andrea Doremus at the same location by knocking down walls currently separating them. The proposal was approved for “conditional use” to change the legal occupancy to restaurant/bar and liquor store.

The proposal, which was filed by local businesswoman Gina Amico, estimates construction costs of less than $100,000.

Supporters of the liquor store proposal are touting the project as

liquor store location. In addition, concerns have been voiced about potential drinking in a small park, which is also near the proposed liquor store location, and an increase in traffic to an adjacent parking lot that school staff uses to park.

Councillor Connolly said that he received a number of calls from concerned teachers and parents and he cited this as his reason for being against

Two new warthogs, sisters Alani and Kananu, have moved into an exhibit space next to Serengeti Crossing at the Franklin Park Zoo. The sisters are the first warthogs on display at the zoo since 2010, when the last warthog, Priscilla, died at the age of 18. (Photo courtesy of the Franklin Park Zoo)

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 9

(L-R): Yiming Shuang, FUEL Education senior manager of program operations; Ouma Autar family; and Melissa Martins, coordinator of the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester. The Neighborhood House Charter School is one of the partners for FUEL, which helps families save for college and apply for financial aid. (Photos courtesy of FUEL) contributions from the FUEL at higher rate than Boston Public program have no real impact on Schools. Since 2009, when FUEL financial aid. was started, 100 students have “Because of the economic graduated from the program and continued from page 1 status of our families, we don’t gone on to college. 89 percent of the money saved helps cover the get into that kind of issue,” Miller them stayed in college past their financial gap that may exist be- said. “The savings are not that big first year, which compares to a tween the financial aid received a number to move the expected rate of only 61 percent for all and the cost of the school. family contribution. … When Boston Public School students One of FUEL’s main educa- you are very low income you tend who enrolled in college, accordtional goals is to help families to have very significant opportu- ing to a recent study. successfully complete the Free nities for financial aid based on Founded by Robert Hildreth, Application for Federal Student FAFSA. a banker and social entrepreneur, Aid (FAFSA) and also determine “The $1,200 saved for most FUEL is headquartered in Boston the expected family contribution of our families will not impact and has sites in Boston, Chelsea and (EFC) for college. The EFC is a EFC in a measurable way,” Miller Lynn. All told, $375,000 has been critical factor for financial aid be- added. saved so far by families to support cause this number is what will not In fact, the FUEL program over 600 students for college. be covered by financial aid and is released numbers that say 50 perThe 56 students that graduwhat the savings are needed for. cent of the families sending stu- ated from the FUEL program While middle-income fami- dents to college this year reported this year, aside from those attendlies often have to walk a tightrope an EFC of $0 to $5,000 for their ing Salem State, will be attending between financial aid, savings children’s first year of college. and EFC, Miller says that with In addition, the FUEL prolow-income families the EFC is gram is getting students off to often zero and the savings and college and keeping them there

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schools such as Boston University, Howard University, Northeastern University, UMass Amherst and other state and local colleges.

“FUEL definitely made a difference in my life while I was in high school,” said Jasmin Matos, a third-year student at Northeastern who was part of FUEL while she attended high school in Lynn.

“They helped my parents, who helped me through the application process. [Because of FUEL] my parents were much more prepared. They didn’t go to college so without FUEL they were not going to be able to put me through the process.”

In fact, Matos’ older sister did graduate from high school and go off to a two-year college, but she did not take part in FUEL and struggled to make it happen. “Her process was a lot more difficult.

She thinks that she would have had more opportunities [if she was part of FUEL],” Matos said. “My parents were not that involved in her process, they did not know that much about the deadlines or anything about the process. My sister did it all on her own.”

Jasmin Matos’ mother Illuminada Matos agrees.

“There was a big difference because with my first daughter I didn’t have the knowledge to support her through the college application process. With Jasmin, I would go every month to a parent meeting and would learn about the college application process and what I could do to support her,” she said. “FUEL helped me learn the importance of saving money and putting aside funds for the education of my daughters. The way I save money has changed.”

Illuminada Matos also said

that FUEL has given her family the confidence that affording college is possible. “I think the best thing is for the kids to have good grades and for parents to be able to support them financially.

I think that the price of going to college is high. It is expensive but it is worth it because in the end the student and the student’s family see the difference in lifestyle,” she said.

She also pointed out that she is very happy to see Jasmin successful and happy at Northeastern. “I am very proud of Jasmin.

I am happy that she is working to accomplish her dreams,” she said.

“I am thankful of the opportunity she has been given and that she is working hard and taking advantage of it.”

According to Jasmin Matos, who majors in communications and minors in business administration and law and public policy, she is thrilled to get the opportunity to attend a college like Northeastern.

“I absolutely love Northeastern,” she said. “I wake up every day in my dorm and I still can’t believe I go to Northeastern and I still can’t believe I am a college student.”

Matos has also begun to work some with FUEL and other high school students to help them fulfill their college dreams as she has done. She credits the program for supporting the other students’ dreams, just as it did for her.

“They are more poised to go to college than the other students who are not getting the same help.

They are more aware of what is going on and they know what they have to do to go to college,” she said. “They are nervous but they are excited for the process.”

10 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 11

Artist follows her passion through a shooting injury Kassmin Williams Mission Hill artist Marilyn Jan Casey came close to losing the use of her right hand, but that wouldn’t have stopped her from drawing and painting.

The 57-year-old artist said she would’ve learned to draw and paint with her teeth if she had to.

After being shot in the back at 34 by a former boyfriend, Casey has been forced to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair due to a spinal cord injury.

But the disability didn’t stop Casey from earning a degree at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2008 and it didn’t stop her from working to have her art displayed in multiple solo exhibitions in Boston.

“I valued life more after I got hurt because I could’ve been gone,” Casey said. “I was grateful for God saving my life so I decided to share my gift that he gave me.”

Casey’s most recent exhibit is on display at the Parker Hill Library in Mission Hill, where a crowd gathered last month for her artist’s reception.

Casey was able to display her work through her membership in the Mission Hill Artists Collective (MHAC). MHAC focuses on providing opportunities for artists to display their work in the community.

The exhibit, Modern Spiritual Expressions: Past Present Future, will run until Sept. 2 and features 24 colorful paintings and black, white and gray drawings inspired by Casey’s family and black history.

“I don’t think we have enough [artwork covering black history].

When I was going to college, they would send me to the museum, but I never [saw] black art, so I decided to do black art,” Casey said.

Casey described her work as “filled with love,” and said she hoped the crowd could feel that love as they viewed her work at the Parker Hill Library.

Eleven pieces, including one divided into two images showing two females as children and then adults, hang in the front desk area.

These images represent the theme of past, present and future and tell individual stories, Casey said.

The 13 drawings in the adult room take viewers through a history lesson from pre-slavery to post-slavery.

The story starts with two images of members of an African tribe and ends with a painting of Casey’s family, including her parents, twin brothers and twin sister.

MHAC member Luanne Witkowski liked the idea of having paintings and drawings that tell sto-

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ries hang in a space filled with books.

“It’s perfect,” Witkowski said.

For Cecilia Mendez, director of Massart’s Center for Art and Community Partnerships (CACP), Casey’s use of color to offset tense moments in black history was impressive.

Some of Casey’s images seem lighthearted, like the one that depicts three giggling girls at a sleepover. Others present heavy topics, like the image of three women picking cotton.

The image of the women picking cotton is one of Casey’s favorites. It’s on display in her bedroom and is usually the first thing she sees in the morning.

“Every morning I look at it and

it brightens my day,” Casey said.

“It gets me motivated and wanting to do more art.”

The exhibit covers more than a decade of work from Casey, who said she was satisfied with the turnout at the reception and excited to have another opportunity to share her work with the public.

MHAC partnered with number of community organizations to execute the exhibition, including the CACP, which curated the exhibit.

CACP program coordinator Elena White echoed Casey’s enthusiasm about the exhibit.

“This is by far one of the biggest and extensive solo shows we’ve ever been a part of,” White said.

The work of Mission Hill artist Marilyn Jan Casey is on display at the Parker Hill Library until Sept. 2. (Photo courtesy of Jan Casey)

12 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Olive Vassell

Euromight: A Quest to Capture the Afro-European Narrative

Khalil Abdullah In March 2012, the British Library — the equivalent of America’s Library of Congress — announced its decision to include Euromight.com in its archive of websites that contribute to the understanding of British society.

The website, which was selected from among hundreds of thousands of websites in the country, records the history and ongoing evolution of Afro-Brits and the emergence in other European countries of an African diaspora still struggling to define its identities. The site’s founder and managing editor, London-born Olive Vassell, called the honor “a huge boost, an external recognition of the work that we’re doing.”

Research by Dr. Allison Blakely, the leading scholar on the black presence in Europe, shows that England’s identifiable 1.5 million people of black or African descent is second only to France’s 2.5 million. In most countries, the percentages are small, with populations numbering in the thousands.

However, gathering accurate data on the African presence in European countries is complicated by differing census classification systems. Does “African” include someone from Morocco

or refer only to the Sub-Sahara? Additionally, as Blakely has pointed out, the discourse on immigration and other contemporary social issues has somewhat obscured the rise of black European identities — a rise similar, in some ways, to the path of self-definition still being trod by African Americans.

Vassell spoke with New America Media’s Khalil Abdullah about Europe’s ever expanding multicultural landscape and her vision for Euromight.com.

What was your initial motivation for founding Euromight.com?

I spent a lot of time in and around Europe and I was fascinated with people who were from different places in the world in terms of origin but living in Europe. I would see people like me, but speaking another language. I began to realize there were groups of people from the colonies, from other colonies all over Europe. Why isn’t somebody telling this story? I had all the skills to do it. So I said, “I’m just going to get down to it. I’m going to create the forum.” By then, the Internet was really well-developed and allowed me access to the information I needed to create Euromight.

When did your family come to London?

After the Second World War. Essentially, Britain put out a call for people in its colonies to come to the Motherland, to England, to help the country rebuild. There were some people who were there during the war to fight, but many came afterward, mainly to rebuild.

My family came from Jamaica, but there were those from other parts of the Caribbean and Africa going to the U.K. as well. Large communities of black immigrants settled in London, Birmingham, and Manchester. Those in Liverpool came during the 1600s and 1700s; they’re the oldest community.

Growing up, we had a very, very strong black community in the United Kingdom, and it was the second largest in Europe.

Only France’s was larger.

You mentioned Andrea Levy’s book Small Island, about the arrival of African and Caribbean immigrants in England. How was that an accurate depiction of the post-World War II era?

It talks about the lives of people of color arriving and being confronted by signs, “No Coloreds Here” — you know, the

usual. And these were people coming to what they thought would be a welcoming place, a place they had read about, a place that they learned about in schools in the Caribbean and in Africa as if it was their backyards. But when they arrived, they were at best ignored and at worst abused. Their credentials weren’t recognized.

Some who were teachers in their birthplace, for example, had to work menial jobs.

What makes Euromight.com a distinctive site?

We s t a r t e d w o r k i n g o n the concept in early 2009 and launched later that year in September. I wanted to attract a cross-section of people on all levels, from people who were interested in hard news and politics to those who were just interested in the Ghanaian guy who won the Italian version of America’s Got Talent, Italy’s Got Talent.

I wanted to be able to have this hub, this repository, this living positive information for people.

The site has a section called “People Watch,” which features various political figures in different countries. We have an Afrocentric City Guide to many capital cities in Europe that you’d never think of as having an Afrocentric component.

What is an example of a European capital city you feel the world sees through only a Eurocentric lens?

Rome. We just put the new City Guide on the site. There are areas in Rome where a lot of African people live. There are restaurants, there are bookstores, there are traders. You’d never know unless you had some kind of information — information that we have.

Paris is well known. Obviously there are a lot of places in Paris, markets where there are African, Caribbean people, and there are whole neighborhoods. I found a hotel in Paris, owned by a Jamaican woman, where I stay whenever I go.

The adventure is really finding what the contribution is on every level. And I know when I go to a city in Europe, I want to know where people of color live. That’s part of my experience. We wanted to be able to do that work and, of course, it’s fun. I get to have this thrill. I get information; I’m learning as I go. One of our contributors might discover an Afro-Belgian writer I’ve never heard of, or somebody doing a TV show who is Afro-German. It’s mind-boggling, our contribution and our invisibility — not only to Euromight, continued to page 13

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 13

Euromight continued from page 12

the world outside of Europe but also to each other.

Why did you select Euromight as the name for your site?

I wanted to convey two ideas: one, the European connection.

The other one was “might,” which I thought dealt with two things: the power and also the possibility of the collective.

I think it’s only now beginning to dawn on us that we can talk to each other. If the European Union, as a whole, talks to each other with all these differences, all these languages, why shouldn’t we? There are often commonalities that we face, oppression, being on the bottom of the social pile — I mean things that we face en masse, similar to what black people in America face. We’re beginning to understand.

What has changed in Europe since your childhood?

The ability to move around Europe freely and live in Europe. I mean, I can live anywhere in Europe, being part of the EU. I can literally say, “Tomorrow, I want to live in Rome.” That never used to happen.

In addition to travel, how is the Internet fostering communication throughout Europe?

I’ve presented papers about the impact of the Internet, including a presentation in Spain on how the Internet is beginning to revolutionize the Afro-European story and the connections between Afro-Europeans, because now we can literally talk to each other in ways we couldn’t before. We have blogs from all over Europe by people of African origin who are living in Germany, in Spain, in Sweden, you name it.

And they tell their story online of what their lives are like. The Internet has had a profound effect.

Are you still teaching journalism at the University of the District of Columbia?

Yes, I live a truly transatlantic life. I teach at University of the District of Columbia during the school year and have included UDC students in my work. Some have contributed to Euromight.

When I’m not teaching, I head back to Europe to visit as many countries as possible and I focus

on specific countries. I find contributors there because they need to be able to write or contribute in their own language. We can translate into English, but there needs to be a network within their own communities. I mean, I can’t write from outside. I don’t understand their communities and their issues quite the way they do, what their stories are.

We also aggregate, so we link other sites.

There are so many stories that sometimes I am dazzled by the information. People are living these lives, generation after generation, with no recognition and no knowledge of them outside of their immediate community.

Do you have formal training as a journalist?

I had studied languages as an undergrad and intended to be an interpreter and work for the United Nations or the EU, but I went to BBC radio. I became smitten with journalism while in Egypt and then went on to journalism school at the City University London. I was in one of their first cohorts of the international journalism program there. We had hands-on experience with top reporters and editors from all over the world. With that degree in my tool belt, I said, “I’m good to go.”

How did you get to America?

I had a pen pal whom I met in France. She moved to South Carolina and then to Washington, D.C. She used to walk past The Washington Afro-American Newspaper’s office on the way to work every day. I was coming to visit and she said, “Why don’t you see if they want any volunteers over there?” It was through that lens at The Afro that I learned about Washington, about America — the real America — not the America I had read in the books from thousands of miles away. That America wasn’t glamorized really, but it was idealistic. It was the iconic, larger-than-life America.

From what country does most of the Internet traffic to Euromight originate?

Most of the traffic comes from the United States, and I’ll tell you why. We have found that people of color in the United States, African Americans, are interested in black people everywhere. And they’ve got very distinct definitions of what is black and of what needs to be done. In Europe, it’s a lot trickier, and this is part of the scholarship that’s going on.

There [are] all these thoughts and theories about whether an Afro-European even exists and how you would define them. Who would be an Afro-European?

For example, in France last year they had the first Miss Black France competition, the first ever. There was a big controversy, both in the general community and within the black community. The school of thought for some people was, “We’re French.

We’re not black French, so why do we need a Miss Black France?”

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This sounds like the old debate about the concept of Négritude advocated by Léopold Senghor in the 1930s.

BAYSTATEBANNER.COM

Exactly. And every country in Europe has a slightly different version of that. “Am I Italian or am I Afro-Italian?” “Am I British, English,” or as they like to call people in the U.K., “Afro-Caribbean,” which has no “British” in it — nothing to do with the country where you are. They are literally called Afro-Caribbean. That’s how you talk about somebody who is a black British person.

So, it’s enough to complicate what I’m doing because, obviously, the debate is still out on how we should define ourselves.

Are you talking about people who have been there since the 1700s versus recent immigrants? Are they the same group of people?

Do they have the same interests?

Do they have the same connections? So our story is very, very complicated and defined by the fact that we were colonized by so many different people with different philosophies.

Remember, the French did not do what the English did. They didn’t make African immigrants “other” in the same way. They intermarried, and were “French,” even though in reality they weren’t necessarily treated in the same way other French were, but that’s made it very difficult for Afro-French people, French people of color, to raise the debate about discrimination, because, “What are you talking about? You’re French. What’s the problem?”

So, trust me, this is why this is going to be a lifelong work.

There are so many pieces of it.

As a scholar, I address some of them. As a journalist, I address other pieces, and then as a person of African descent from Europe, I had to jump in and begin to tell my story, our story. My contribution is to make sure that we are a part of the story, part of history.

I’ve found my raison d’être.

14 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 15

Memorializing Boston’s Black Civil War Heroes A life-size statue commemorates the heroic contributions of one of the most outstanding military units of the 19th century Sheldon Cheek Situated on Boston’s Beacon Hill opposite the State House, the Shaw Memorial evokes a moving combination of intimacy of subject and grandeur of design. The life-size figures emerging from the surface of the relief commemorate the heroic contributions of one of the most outstanding military units of the Civil War. Although it bears the name of its white leader, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, the monument bears equal witness to the black soldiers who served under him in the 54th Massachusetts (Colored) Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The effect produced is of a large body of men on the march, their numbers extending far beyond the left edge of the relief. The line of advancing soldiers was inspired by an actual event, the grand public sendoff of the unit as it marched to war from this very spot on May 28, 1863.

The initial impulse to formally honor the regiment came in 1865 from one of its veterans, Joshua Benton Smith, who proposed that a fitting memorial be set up in his commander’s hometown of

Boston. Smith had worked for the Shaws during Robert’s childhood.

He desired to “commemorate the great event, wherein he [Shaw] was a leader, by which the title of colored men as citizen-soldiers was fixed beyond recall.”

In his conception of the project, the emphasis was as much on the role of blacks in the fortune of their country as it was on their white leader.

The undertaking languished for nearly 20 years before the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to produce the monument. The artist was wellknown for his striking blend of naturalism of detail and ideal conception of subject. To enhance his portrayal of the soldiers, SaintGaudens hired black laboring men near his studio in New York to pose as models. Sixteen of the 23 faces in the relief are based on these studies.

On the one hand, the memorial is a disarmingly vivid representation of the martial cadence of war, while on the other it pays homage to the individuals who sacrificed their lives for a supreme cause. A female allegory of vic-

tory flying watchfully overhead elevates the mood of the relief to one of reverent, timeless contemplation. She holds an olive branch -- the symbol of peace -- and poppies, signifying sleep, death and remembrance.

Even when the relief was cast in bronze and officially dedicated in 1897, the sculptor’s attachment to the project continued. The work illustrated here is actually a slightly later version in colored plaster, produced in 1900 and displayed to great acclaim at the Paris Universal Exposition the same year.

Only the Latin inscription, Omnia relinquit servare rempublicam (“He gave up everything to serve the public good”), appears on the front of the memorial. The back of the stone arch framing the relief originally bore the names of the other white officers who had died with Shaw at Fort Wagner.

Only in 1982 were the names of the black soldiers who also fell with them added to theirs.

The monument has served as a touchstone for the state of race matters from the outset. SaintGaudens himself was greatly

moved by the sight of the veterans of the 54th as they passed by on parade during the inauguration ceremonies. Addressing the crowd, the notable scholar and Harvard professor William James extolled the vivid representation of the black soldiers in the relief: “There on foot go the dark outcasts, so true to nature that one can almost hear them breathing as they march.”

Yet the solemn dedication of the monument took place just a year after the Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which affirmed the manifestly unfair doctrine of separate but equal. Other observers of the new monument looked past its ideal-

ism to remark that the work of the soldiers commemorated there had only just begun.

The Boston poet Robert Lowell, writing his “For the Union Dead” during the civil rights movement well over 60 years later, saw the work as a persistent call to account for the failure of the country to promote true equality for all of its citizens.

To underscore his admonitory tone, Lowell changed the third person of the Latin inscription on the monument from the singular to the plural to serve as his opening epigram: “They gave up everything to serve the republic.”

The Root

August at the Coffeehouse!

Thurs Aug 1 6p-7p 7p-10p

Video TribuTe To 80’s r & b Fulani Haynes and THe JaZZ CollaboraTiVe

Thurs Aug 8 6p-7p 7p-9p

Video TribuTe To disCo Game niGHT hosted by Rachel Jean Marie…

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Thurs Aug 15 6p-7p 7p-9p

Video TribuTe To old sCHool r & b real TalK… Interviews with participants and

graduates of Haley House’s Transitional Employment Program, past present and future… Hosted

by Mo Barbosa of Health Resources In Action

Thurs Aug 22 6p-7p 7p-10p

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CoffeeHouse featuring DJ Jose Masso of It Bees That Entertainment with guest performers DPR Dance Crew and many more!!!

Join us every saturday night at 5pm for Community Tables, a Pay-what-you-wish dinner AND August 17th at 5pm we will host a special Community Tables Out-Of-Doors under the stars in our parking lot.

Mark your calendars today!

12 Dade Street, Roxbury, MA 02119 617-445-0900 www.haleyhouse.org/cafe

16 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Community Calendar Thursday

Sunday

Roslindale Concert Series The Boston Parks and Recreation Department’s ParkARTS p ro g r a m i s p l e a s e d t o h o s t the Roslindale Thursday Evening Series at Adams Park. Five Thursday night concerts and a movie are scheduled, all free of charge and presented in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events and Roslindale Village Main Streets. The 6pm concert series Jack Colombo + Friends on August 1, and acoustic duo Chris Mathison and Nick Leydon on August 8. The series closes August 15 with an 8 p.m. outdoor movie featuring “Madagascar 3.” Adams Park is located at 4225 Washington St. in Roslindale. All ParkARTS neighborhood performances are free and made possible through leadership support from Bank of America. For more information or a full schedule of events, please call please call 617-635-4505 or visit the Parks Department online at www.cityofboston/parks or w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / b o s t o n parksdepartment.

ParkARTS Citywide Neighborhood Concert Series The Boston Parks and Recreation Department is proud to announce the ParkARTS Citywide Neighborhood Concert Series.

At 5pm on Sunday August 4 at Marcella Park, 260 Highland St., Roxbury, with Jazz at the Fort featuring Diane Richardson and Friends sponsored in part

by Berklee College of Music and family activities presented by Boston Children’s Museum The Big Cake Tour. All ParkARTS neighborhood performances are free of charge. For more information or a full schedule of events, please call please call 617-6354505 or visit the Parks Department online at www.cityofboston/ parks or www.facebook.com/ bostonparksdepartment.

Mayor Menino’s Wednesday Night Concerts Mayor Menino’s Wednesday Night Concerts continue with Strictly Sinatra featuring Michael Dutra on August 7, Charlie Thomas and the Drifters on August 21, and the series finale featuring Roberta Flack on August 28. All shows begin at 7pm at City Hall Plaza. For more information, please call the Boston Parks and Recreation Department at 617-635-4505, visit www.facebook.com/boston parksdepartment, or go to www. cityofboston.gov/parks.

Monday

Upcoming

August 1

BOOMTOWN Festival At the Centanni Park adjacent to the center. With a focus on free activities and performances for kids and adults, the BOOMTOWN Festival features a series of interactive events structured to educate, entertain and promote creativity. Activities include outdoor music concerts, interactive dance performances, a movie screening, chalk art, re-cycle art workshops and more. Events will take place at Centanni Park (if it shines) or indoors at the Multicultural Arts Center (if it rains.) This year’s theme is “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” with visual and performing arts events to spark excitement in audiences of all ages. Centanni Park is a City of Cambridge public park, and is handicap accessible.

For more information, check out www.multiculturalartscenter.org/ events or call 617-577-1400.

Friday

August 2 Fuller Craft Museum presents Free Fun Friday Come to Fuller Craft Museum on Friday, 10am - 5pm for a day filled with hands-on activities, craft demos, new exhibitions, and fun! Free admission. Thanks to the Highland Street Foundation, Fuller Craft Museum will offer free admission to all visitors on Friday.

This will be an exciting day of discovery and fun! Free Fun Fridays is an annual 10-week summer program that opens the doors to some of the best cultural institutions in Massachusetts at no cost to visitors. For more information about the Highland Street Foundation and the Free Fun Friday program, please visit: www. highlandstreet.org. Fuller Craft Museum, 455 Oak St., Brockton.

August 4

August 5

The Emancipated Century: Readings of August Wilson’s 10-Play Cycle The Performing Arts Department and the Trotter Institute at UMass Boston present The Emancipated Century: Readings of August Wilson’s 10-Play Cycle. August 5-December 16. All performances begin at 7pm. August 5 — Gem of the Ocean — UMass Boston, McCormack Theatre, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston. August 19 — Joe Turner’s Come and Gone — The Strand Theatre, 543 Columbia Rd., Dorchester. For more information, please visit our Facebook page: Emancipated Century: August Wilson Readings.

Menino’s Movie Nights Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Movie Nights, part of the Boston Parks and Recreation Departm e n t ’s P a r k A R T S p r o g r a m sponsored by Bank of America, will give residents and visitors plenty of chances to enjoy popular films under the night skies in city parks. All shows begin at dusk. Free popcorn will be provided by AMC Loews Theatres and Skinny Pop Popcorn. Bring your blankets and chairs and make yourself comfortable. In addition, the Boston’s Children’s Museum’s “The Big Cake Tour” will host fun family activities before each Monday night movie beginning at 7pm. Dates, locations, and films are as follows: Monday, August 5 ​— Medal of Honor Park, 775 East First St., South Boston, “Miracle”; Monday, August 12 — Blackstone Square, 1535 Washington St., South End, “ParaNorman”; Thursday, August 15 ​— Adams P a r k , 4 2 2 5 Wa s h i n g t o n S t . , Roslindale, “Madagascar 3”; Monday, August 19​— Billings Field, 369 LaGrange St., West Roxbury, “We Are Marshall”; Monday, August 26 — Iacono Park, 150 Readville St., Hyde Park, “E.T. The Extraterrestrial.”

For more information please call 617-635-4505 or visit the Boston Parks and Recreation Department online on Facebook or at www.cityofboston.gov/parks.

Wednesday August 7

LSO’s 28th Annual Free Concert Join the LSO for its 28th annual free concert at the DCR Hatch Shell on the Charles River E s p l a n a d e . O n We d n e s d a y, August 14 at 7pm, LSO Music Director Ronald Feldman will lead a program of music by Beethoven and Dvoák, including Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring a young soloist from the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Summer Music Program. This concert is presented as part of Boston Landmarks Orchestra’s Landmarks Festival at the Shell.

Fifth annual Boston Book Festival Award-winning novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie will present the 2013 keynote address at a 7:30pm appearance at Old South Church (645 Boylston St., Boston) on Friday, October 18.

Rushdie’s novels include The Satanic Verses and the Booker Prize-winning Midnight’s Children. Rushdie’s most recent work is Joseph Anton: A Memoir, which, according to the New York Times, “reminds us of his fecund gift for language and his talent for explicating the psychological complexities of family and identity.”

Tickets for Rushdie’s October 18 presentation and conversation with Harvard’s Homi Bhabha are available on the Boston Book Festival website (www.boston bookfest.org) for $10.

Ongoing Love, Loss, and What I Wore Proving that great entertainment never goes out of style, Hub Theatre Company of Boston, Inc., will continue its debut season with the Boston premier production of Love, Loss and What I Wore by award-winning screenwriters and authors Nora & Delia Ephron (based on the book by Ilene Beckerman). Like a long heart-to-heart with your best friend, this intimate

and engaging collection of stories meanders from musings over wedding-day attire to a rant about loathing the need to carry a purse and everything in between. With odes to first bras, cowboy boots and outfits that made our mothers cringe, Love, Loss and What I Wore evokes funny memories and poignant stories about tyrannical dressing rooms, painful heels, comfy Birkenstocks and having to choose between the two! Love, Loss and What I Wore through Saturday, August 3 at The First Church in Boston located at 66 Marlborough St., Boston. Readily accessible by public transportation. In order to cultivate a diverse audience spanning all ages and backgrounds, all tickets are Pay-What-You-Can and may be purchased via www. hubtheatreboston.ticketleap.com.

Storymobile from 1:15-2pm on Wednesdays (July 10-August 14), a special activity for 3-10 year olds and their caregivers. Roxbury’s Marcella Park (corner of Highland and Marcella Street in Roxbury). Contact: Samantha: hyccroxbury@hotmail.com; 617427-0613.

Children’s Science Festival Mayor Thomas M. Menino invites the public to free science education events in the parks.

On Tuesday, August 20, from 10am - 2pm a children’s science festival will be held at Franklin Park with exhibits and experiments offered by several groups, including, The Boston Children’s Museum, Mass Horticulture, Science From Scientists, and the Franklin Park Zoo. ParkSCIENCE events are made possible in part with funding from a Green Parks — Green Kids Grant resulting from a partnership between the National Recreation and Park Association and the National Recreation Foundation.

Paul Revere House This summer at the Paul Revere House 19 North Square in Boston learn 18th c. crafts in August.

Most events are free with museum admission: adults $3.50, seniors and college students $3.00, children 5-17 $1. Members and North End residents admitted free at all times. In summer, the Revere House is open daily, 9:30-5:15.

Summer Scene at Roxbury’s Marcella Park Through August 30. Hawthorne Community Center invites 5-21 year olds and adults to Roxbury’s Marcella Park for free evening programs. The lineup includes: Mondays: Tennis (6-12 year olds from 5-6 pm; 13-18 year olds from 6-7pm; adults from 7-8pm). Tuesdays and Thursdays: 5:30-6:30-Jazzy Dance for 6-18 year olds; 6:30-8:00-Soccer/Rox for 5-18 year olds; Wednesdays: 5:30-6:30-Double Dutch for 5-18 year olds; 6:45-7:45-Junior Basketball Fridays: 5:30-6:30-Double Dutch; 6:45-7:45 Teen Basketball for 13-16 year olds. And Hawthorne hosts the ReadBoston

Concerts in the Courtyard One of Boston’s most beautiful spaces will be filled with music in a free, lunchtime concert series on Fridays in August. The courtyard at the Central Library in Copley Square will feature music that ranges from jazz to classical and from blues to Broadway. All concerts begin at 12:30pm. The complete schedule is available at www.bpl. org/concerts.

Re-membering Egypt: In Search of Osiris The Multicultural Arts Center presents Re-membering Egypt: In Search of Osiris, a new photographic exhibition by artist Hakim Raquib, on view in the Upper Gallery until October 18. In capturing the photographic images of Egypt Raquib refers to the allegory of the myth of Osiris, an Egyptian God that has been dismembered by his brother and scattered throughout the land. The Exhibition attempts to “assemble” Egypt highlighting the physical natural beauty of its people and the landscape. Artist Reception will be held on Thursday, September 19, 6-8pm. Multicultural Arts Center, Upper Gallery, 41 2nd St., Cambridge. Gallery website: www.multiculturalartscenter.org/ galleries/. FREE and open to the public. Regular Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 10:30am - 6pm, galleries are also open 1 hour prior to all performances in the Theater.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 17

Casper

continued from page 1

Another wrinkle is the occasional reference to Boston political figures, most notably former Massachusetts Senate President William M. “Billy” Bulger, brother of the defendant, who represented South Boston and ruled the upper chamber on Beacon Hill while his brother allegedly ran the Southie rackets.

The reputation of Boston as a cozy place to conduct crime, with Hibernian mobsters and G-men who grew up together in the Southie projects still working hand-in-glove, is on full display, day after day.

That a black judge sits in judgment over a crime boss whose home precincts formed the hotbed of opposition to racial integration of the Boston schools is an irony lost on very few.

But things change. Alongside the courthouse, the rusting Northern Avenue pedestrian bridge stands as a monument to Boston’s industrial past. The courthouse’s soaring glass atrium windows face the harbor, while its brick back is turned to Fort Point Channel — the heart of Boston’s new “Innovation District”— and the three-deckers and condos of the changing South Boston beyond.

Casper, 45, a former federal and state prosecutor, donned the black robes of the federal judiciary less than three years ago. She was born in 1968, close to a decade after Bulger walked out of Alcatraz, his last confinement before his arrest in California after 16 years on the run. Casper grew up in East Patchogue, a quiet hamlet on the south shore of Long Island halfway between Queens and Montauk, and attended Wesleyan University and Harvard Law School.

Her husband, Marc Casper, is the chief executive officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. They have twin sons.

When she steps into the courtroom and gavels the day’s proceedings to begin, every seat is taken.

Media from across the world pack the press gallery. Family members of victims sit in reserved rows. Public spectators, many of whom started queuing up before dawn, sit in their few spots while hundreds of others watch the unfolding drama on TV monitors set up in other courtrooms.

In the view of seasoned court-watchers, Casper has handled the textured challenges of the trial with both compassion and discipline. She has tolerated emotional outbursts from victims’ families, reined in attorneys who have attempted to talk over her and handed down nuanced rulings.

“I’m very impressed with her balance and demeanor as a federal judge,” said Harvard Law School

professor Charles Ogletree of his former student. “She’s able to keep a firm hand on what’s going on in a very difficult case. I’m convinced that Judge Casper is the right person at the right time to preside over such a trial.”

“The hallmark of Denise is the balanced and measured approach she brings to a case,” said former Middlesex County District Attorney Gerald Leone, who worked with her in the U.S. Attorney’s office and later made her one of his top deputies in the county prosecutor’s office. Leone, now in private practice with Nixon Peabody, describes Casper as “poised, polished, professional, and always prepared” — and just as importantly, “deeply compassionate.”

“There’s such a human element to her handling. She has given witnesses and lawyers room to present the full human story of the case without compromising its integrity.”

“I’m very impressed with her balance and demeanor as a federal judge.”

— Charles Ogletree Reporter David Boeri, who has specialized in courtroom coverage during a long career in TV and radio, finds fault with a court system dominated by former prosecutors who he says often bend over backward to accommodate the government’s case.

“I think it’s an unfair situation she’s been put in,” said the WBUR-FM reporter. “She’s the least experienced judge presiding over the most complicated case in the courtroom’s history. Like many new judges, she tends to give more leeway to the prosecution.”

Prime among Boeri’s evidence for his claim is Casper’s ruling denying Bulger’s bid to present an immunity defense to the jury — in other words, an argument that his actions were covered by immunity offered by the government.

“She took away his defense,” he said. “That was not very surprising, given her experience and background.” Noting that eight of the 13 district court judges in Boston previously served as prosecutors, Boeri added, “It’s important to have diversity of color and gender on the bench, but it’s also important to have diversity in the approach to the law.”

Charles Walker, a state administrative judge, called Casper “cool, calm, and collected” and her rulings “deliberate and fair.”

“Whatever happens in this trial,” he said, “it will have nothing to do with the way the judge handled the case.”

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18 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

Bankruptcy judge asked to release First District AME Howard Manly Among the issues being weighed

by U.S. bankruptcy Judge Frank Bailey, none are as critical as the request by Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church attorneys to release the AME’s First District from its financial responsibilities

associated with co-signing a $3.6 million loan with OneUnited Bank on behalf of its member church.

In exchange for such a release, church attorneys argue, the First District would donate $1.5 million to complete the Roxbury Renaissance Center, the proposed 22,000-squarefoot community center on church-

owned land near Grove Hall featuring a grand ballroom, multi-purpose meeting space, conference rooms, prayer and meditation space and sound proof musical practice rooms.

Once completed, the church attorneys argue, the church would be able rent out space for weddings, community meetings and other events and begin repaying more than $6 million in outstanding debt.

As it stands now, Charles Street owes the significant chunk to OneUnited, the nation’s largest black-owned bank, which gave the church a $3.6 million construction loan and another loan of $1.1 million to consolidate the church’s debt at the time.

In addition to OneUnited, Charles Street owes about $630,000 to Thomas Construction Company, the Dorchester firm hired to build its proposed community center. Another $450,000 is owed to Tremont Credit Union for a loan to repair the church’s roof, and an unspecified amount is owed to “no more than 20” other creditors.

These figures do not include more than $825,000 in Lilly Foundation grant funds that were used by the church despite the funds’ designation as restricted for use only to pay for the church Pastoral Residency program. Groover admitted during the trial that use of that money for church expenses was wrong and that he intended to repay “every penny.”

Based on court testimony, as of May 31, Charles St. had $5,434 in cash and is losing an estimated $20,000 per month.

Church attorneys stated in court documents that the release of the First District and its $1.5 million donation is “critical.”

“By transforming an unfinished single-purpose property into a fully operational community center, this donation will create value for OneUnited by improving collateral value, Thomas Construction by facilitating … future work, and Tremont by enhancing the ability of the Church to pay debt service,” church attorneys stated. “The district $1.5 million donation is the sole reason the Church can com-

OneUnited has already sued both Charles Street and the First District in Suffolk Superior Court for breach of contract. plete construction of the RRC … which along with the restructuring of the terms of various debt, is the centerpiece of the plan.”

Quite naturally, as with almost everything else in this often embarrassing case that has dragged on for the last 18 months, OneUnited attorneys strongly disagreed with releasing the First District from its financial obligations. In fact, OneUnited has already sued both Charles Street and the First District in Suffolk Superior Court for breach of contract.

Those court proceedings have been delayed until after Bailey

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renders a decision in the bankruptcy case.

Bank attorneys argue that OneUnited based their original loans on the strength of the First District’s financial statements that were submitted as part of the loan application.

On those documents, the First District claimed it had more than $23 million in cash and another $500 million in assets.

In addition, bank attorneys argue, the First District assured OneUnited officials that it would step up if its member church faltered. Its chief financial officer at the time, Clarence Fleming, wrote a memo to Amanda Feng, OneUnited’s vice president for asset management supporting this.

“As discussed with you today,” Fleming wrote on Feb. 9, 2009, “the First Episcopal District does not track loan guarantees. The reason is that our practice is to rescue any one of the churches that is troubled, for that reason, we view each church as having a built-in guarantee.”

None of that happened.

Bank attorneys blamed First District for allowing the loans to go bad and characterized their inactions as “bad faith” and undeserving of equity in the final bankruptcy decision.

“Evidence at trial,” bank attorneys wrote, “demonstrates that the First District submitted a financial statement to OneUnited that fraudulently and grossly misrepresented [its] assets. Additionally, since the fall of 2012, the Bishop of the First District has known of … Charles Street’s intentionally false financial disclosures yet failed to come forward or otherwise take any action.

“Finally,” bank attorneys concluded, “it bears repeating that a release constitutes nothing more than an attempt by the First District to exploit the bankruptcy remedy without submitting itself and all of its assets to the bankruptcy process. …

It is manifest bad faith.”

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 19

Mandela’s illness illustrates lack of end-of-life planning Viji Sundaram For weeks now, the media has been pouring out news about former South African President Nelson Mandela’s illness and repeated hospital stays.

Meanwhile, the South African government has been saying for days that Mandela — who turned 95 last week — is in “critical but stable condition,” possibly suggesting he is on life-support machines.

According to South African legal experts, it is very difficult for someone as visible as this global

advocates, social workers and chaplains about the availability of palliative care and the importance of letting a friend or family member know the answers to these and related questions well ahead of time. They also learned about forms people can fill out and revise at any time if they changed their minds.

During the educational program, the reporters learned the difference between hospice care and palliative care. Palliative care — which includes hospice — focuses on relieving symptoms re-

“It would have been much better if we had been in palliative care sooner.”

— Carla Reeves icon to do advance care planning for the end of his life. Yet planning ahead with written forms is just what more and more people will have to do in an era of high-tech medicine and potentially unnatural life prolongation.

No information is currently available as to whether the human rights icon ever wrote a so-called “advance directive,” or chose a health care proxy — someone to make medical decisions for him if he became incapacitated.

Few Americans Have Written Wishes

A large majority of Americans have not written an advance directive or even told a loved one what they do or don’t want done medically at the end of their lives. That’s mostly because they don’t know they can, say experts in palliative care and related hospice care.

Do they want a feeding tube?

Do they want to be hooked up to a ventilator? Do they want more surgery, even if the benefits may be questionable?

At a New America Media training program for ethnic media reporters at the Stanford University Medical Center July 11-12, sponsored by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), journalists heard from doctors, caregivers, health-care

lated to severe chronic illnesses.

Hospice care is provided in the last six months of terminal illness, when curative medical treatment is no longer beneficial.

“Hospice care and palliative care may be terms many people are not familiar with,” noted Emma Dugas of CHCF, which has developed and funded extensive studies on palliative care.

While African Americans tend to have a “trust issue” with the medical profession, they are more likely to trust a healthcare professional who is there with them during prayers, she said.

Victoria Layton of the Office of Decedent Affairs at the Palo Alto VA Hospital echoed Jackson’s views. If patients don’t see a “spiritual base” in their caregivers, “they shut down,” she said.

There is no one-size-fits-all method for the way physicians should approach patients about end-of-life issues, said V.J. Periyakoil, MD, director of Stanford’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship program, which educates and trains doctors.

Periyakoil has produced extensive health education media on palliative care for multi-cultural older adults. She showed a video she developed dramatizing an actual case at the clinic in which the daughter of an elderly Chinese patient was reluctant to have her father’s cancer physician discuss his “bad news” directly with him. Often in Chinese and other cultures, patients prefer to learn of distressing health news about themselves from a family member.

In this case, the doctor, a white woman, carefully discussed the father’s advanced cancer with his

daughter in another room. But the oncologist also got the daughter to agree to include her dad’s voice in expressing how he wanted to get the news. It turned out that while the daughter feared her father’s reaction, her dad said he went along with his family’s wishes so they would experience less distress in accepting his terminal condition.

That sort of attitude is not uncommon among other Asian communities, Periyakoil said, but some patients are more open.

She noted, “You cannot assume a family is a certain way.”

Start Palliative Care Earlier At the briefing, three elderly patients and family caregivers talked about how palliative care has eased their pain, enabling them to cope better and enjoy improved quality of life.

“It would have been much better if we had been in palliative care sooner,” said Carla Reeves, caregiver for Warren Atkins, age 94. “We could have controlled his symptoms better.”

Periyakoil dispelled the fear surrounding the term “palliative care” and disassociated it from the idea of approaching death.

She noted that palliative care’s well-managed combination of comfort care and medical intervention when needed has relieved both patients and family members so much that both on average actually live longer than those not benefiting from palliative treatment.

San Jose Mercury News science and health reporter Lisa Krieger explained how she had failed to talk with her father

“about stuff that really mattered.”

That led to his experiencing enormous pain and suffering as doctors fought to keep him alive in the hospital before he died at age 88. At the time, she said, “I didn’t know to ask for palliative care.”

“I was totally blindsided when this happened to me,” said Krieger, who drew material from her experience for her award-winning 2012 series, The Cost of Dying.

Because the “silver-brown tsunami” of aging that increasingly ethnic baby boomers face is fast approaching, health professionals should engage in “good end-of-life conversations” with diverse populations, said Susan Enguidanos, who teaches at the Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Many ethnic elders have limited health literacy, she noted. Ethnic communities are also generally uncomfortable about openly discussing death and dying, she said.

“I personally think that hospice is a wonderful philosophy, but how [would] you convey it to someone who doesn’t know what it is?” asked Tino Plank, a nurse at Sutter Care at Home-Hospice.

People increasingly have the option of putting their wishes down in writing through advanced directives, as well as Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) forms signed by both a doctor and patient. But people need to know that they can and should revisit these on occasion “because patients change their mind all the time,” said Dr. Rebecca Sudore, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

No Culture Wants Futile Medical Measures

The CHCF survey also shows that a majority of people in all ethnic groups prefer that doctors not take futile, heroic measures to keep them alive. But there was a significant gap between the 75 percent of white non-Latinos who said they do not want such invasive procedures and smaller majorities in other groups (58 percent of African Americans, 60 percent of Latinos and 67 percent of Asian and Pacific Islanders).

Three out of four African Americans surveyed led the other ethnic groups in saying that being “at peace spiritually” in their final days is “extremely important.” Latinos were close behind at 71 percent.

“We rely heavily on our faith; we rely on the power of prayer,” said Virginia Jackson, chief of chaplaincy in the palliative care clinic at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s “Cool Down” event was a hit at Howes Playground in Roxbury on July 16. Residents enjoyed free ice cream from the Boston Police Department, played chess at a workshop hosted by the Boston Parks Department, and ran in and out of the water spray. Posing for this photo were Elio Lopes, Jaiveon Gonsalves, Treyvon Wilder, and Justin Barrow. (Photo courtesy of the Mayor’s Office)

20 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

The3PointFoundation’s basketball program scores Lauren Magnuson If young athletes are going to succeed, they need to complement their success on the court with success in the classroom.

That is the idea behind a boys’ program founded in March 2012, The3PointFoundation.

Intended for urban boys participating in leading inner-city basketball programs, the nonprofit mentors Boston’s youth in both a summer and a year-long program focusing on both academics and character development.

“We’re really looking to help young boys improve themselves,” said Andrew Mirken, co-founder and CEO of the foundation, who has coached basketball for over 20 years at programs in and around Boston.

Mirken said the concept was to be able to help young boys with their character, education and basketball skills in a single program, with the goal of creating four-year college graduates who are positive citizens in their community.

Starting with about 20 fourth-graders in their after school program, Mirken said they hope to have about 200 participants in the next five to seven years.

The after-school program partners with Chyten, the tutoring and test preparation company that designed The3PointFoundation’s curriculum. Participants work on homework and reading, writing

and mathematics twice a week at the Reggie Lewis Center.

The boys also have two basketball sessions each week, one led by Bobby Martin, a former NBA player, and the other run

by No Books No Ball (NBNB), a 23-year-old community basketball program from which Mirken recruited most of his inaugural group this year.

Tony Richards, NBNB founder and executive director, began his program as a way to show youth the important link between athletic and academic achievement, much like The3PointFoundation.

“When I evaluate kids that need that extra assistance,” Richards said, “I’ll recommend that these kids get assistance from [them].”

Richards has seen those boys change since they’ve joined the new program.

“Just seeing kids engaged and involved, just seeing their commitment in the classroom ... I’ve seen a difference in their commitment to get better,” Richards said.

The foundation also relies on a staff of coaches and mentors like program coordinator Kyle Casey, who helps run classes and assists students with both their homework and basketball skills.

“I took this year off from school,” said the rising senior and basketball player at Harvard University. “I have to work. I was looking for something to do and give back to the community,”

Casey said.

“You see them learning and also enjoying it so its a good feeling to see them succeed. ... It’s a different way to give back rather than just a camp or a clinic. It’s a

way to impact these kids’ lives on a more real level,” Casey said.

One of those kids is Preston Stephens, who began in The3PointFoundation’s summer camp program last July and has continued on through the school year. His father, also Preston Stephens, said their near goal is to enroll Preston in a private school for seventh grade.

“His attitude has been great.

It’s broadening his horizons. He really looks forward to going,” Stephens said.

Stephens said that while his son always enjoyed schoolwork, he has seen an improvement in his maturity as well.

“I just think it’s an excellent program, and I just hope that people take advantage of it,” he said.

Mirken says he has hopes to eventually expand the foundation across the state, the region and even the country.

“Basketball ... teaches so many principles that are applicable for life,” Mirken said. “We want to help them achieve their goals.”

On July 27, Mayor Thomas Menino helped the staff of the brand new restaurant Zaz cut the opening ribbon on River St. in Hyde Park. (Photo courtesy of the Mayor’s Office)

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 21

LEGALS PUBLIC NOTICE Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) Proposed Overall Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Goal for Fiscal Years 2014-2016 Massport has established an overall 14 percent DBE goal for all Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – assisted airport improvement projects at Boston Logan International Airport, L.G. Hanscom Field, and Worcester Regional Airport for Federal fiscal years 2014-2016, in accordance with requirements of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), 49 CFR Part 26.

The proposed methodology and its rationale used to determine the level of DBE participation will be available for public review for 30 calendar days from the date of this notice from 8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Written comments on this goal will be accepted for 45 days from the date of this notice. Comments are for informational purposes and may be sent to Donald N. Mayes, Jr., Manager, DBE and ACDBE Compliance, Massport’s Logan Office Center, One Harborside Drive, East Boston, MA 02128, or submitted to dmayes@massport.com.

MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY Thomas P. Glynn CEO AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

LEGALS

LEGALS

(2) geographic location and availability of the Project Manager, resident inspectors and other key personnel to be assigned to the project, (3) experience and expertise of subconsultants,

(5) demonstrated ability to perform work with minimal disruption to facility operations,

INFORMAL PROBATE PUBLICATION NOTICE

(6) familiarity with MGL, including filed sub-bid experience, (7) cost management and scheduling capabilities, (8) M/W/DBE and affirmative action efforts; please indicate the proposed % of M/W/DBE participation (9) past performance and current level of work with the Authority, (10) experience with sustainable design concepts The selection shall involve a two-step process including the shortlisting of a minimum of three firms based on an evaluation of the Statements of Qualifications received in response to this solicitation, followed immediately by a final selection of the consultant(s) by the Authority.

By responding to this solicitation, consultants agree to accept the terms and conditions of Massport’s standard work order agreement, a copy of the Authority’s standard agreement can be found on the Authority’s web page at www.massport.com. The Consultant shall specify in its cover letter that it has the ability to obtain requisite insurance coverage.

(1) an SF 330 including the appropriate number of Part IIs, (2 resumes of key individuals only each limited to one (1) page under SF 330, Section E, (3) no more than ten (10) projects each limited to one (1) page under SF 330, Section F,

A mandatory site walkthrough of the proposed project space will be required, and complete Proposal Responses shall be due by August 30th, 2013.”

This submission, including the litigation and legal proceedings history in a separate sealed envelope as required shall be addressed to Houssam H. Sleiman, PE, CCM, Director of Capital Programs and Environmental Affairs and received no later than 12:00 Noon on Thursday, August 29 at the Massachusetts Port Authority, Logan Office Center, One Harborside Drive, Suite 209S, Logan International Airport, East Boston, MA 02128-2909. Any submission which is not received in a timely manner shall be rejected by the Authority as non-responsive. Any information provided to the Authority in any Proposal or other written or oral communication between the Proposer and the Authority will not be, or deemed to have been, proprietary or confidential, although the Authority will use reasonable efforts not to disclose such information to persons who are not employees or consultants retained by the Authority except as may be required by M.G.L. c.66.

The MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY (Authority) is soliciting professional consulting services for MPA CONTRACT NO. A302-D6, FY14-16 ARCHITECTURAL/ENGINEERING SERVICES. The Authority is seeking a qualified multidiscipline consulting firm or team, with an emphasis on architectural design and proven experience to provide professional services including planning, design, and construction related services including resident inspection, on an on-call, as needed basis. These services are expected to be provided at Logan Airport and other Massport facilities. The projects may range from small and simple to relatively large and complex. The Consultant must be able to work closely with the Authority and other interested parties in order to provide such services in a timely and effective manner.

The consultant shall demonstrate experience in several disciplines including but not limited to Architectural, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Civil, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire Protection, Geotechnical, Vertical Transportation, Code Compliance, Cost Estimating, Construction Phasing, and Sustainable Design.

The scope of work shall include, but not be limited to the following:

New construction, alterations or additions to various facilities such as airline terminals, maintenance facilities, garages, sheds, warehouses, electrical substations, pump houses, elevators, escalators, and security systems. Services may include but shall not be limited to conceptual or schematic drawings and outline specifications, preparation of a BIM model, design development and construction drawings and specifications, construction services, resident inspection services, cost estimates and analyses, investigations, reports, value engineering, and energy audits. Consultant may also be required to manage commissioning of systems and closeout of construction contracts.

Abatement of hazardous or contaminated materials is not included in the scope of work for this agreement. Services associated with airfield design (e.g., runway and taxiway design) is also not included in the scope of work for this agreement.

The Authority expects to select one (1) consultant. However, the Authority reserves the right to select a different number if it is deemed in its best interest to do so. Each consultant shall be issued a contract in an amount not to exceed one million dollars ($1,000,000). The services shall be authorized on a work order basis.

Each submission shall include a Statement of Qualifications that provides detailed information in response to the evaluation criteria set forth below and include Architect/Engineer & Related Services questionnaires SF 330 (www. gsa.gov/portal/forms/download/116486) with the appropriate number of Part IIs. M/W/DBE certification of the prime and subconsultants shall be current at the time of submittal and the Consultant shall provide a copy of the M/W/DBE certification letter from the Supplier Diversity Office, formerly known as State Office of Minority and Women Business Assistance (SOMWBA) within its submittal. The Consultant shall also provide an original and fourteen copies of litigation and legal proceedings information, signed under the pains and penalties of perjury, in a separate sealed envelope entitled “Litigation and Legal Proceedings”.

See www.massport.com/doing-business/Pages/CapitalProgramsResource Center.aspx for more details on litigation and legal proceedings history submittal requirements.

In order to be eligible for selection, all aspects of Chapter 7C Section 44 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shall be satisfied including the majority of the firm’s Board of Directors or ownership shall be registered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in accordance with the applicable provisions of the statute. Consultants shall furnish professional registration status of the firm’s board of directors or ownership. All individuals responsible for technical disciplines shall, upon commencement of the project, be registered Architects or Engineers, in that discipline, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Authority may reject any application if any of the required information is not provided: Cover Letter, Insurance Requirements, Litigation and Legal proceedings, Registration of the Board of Director as defined in MGL Chapter 7C Section 44, Proposed M/W/DBE, SF330 Part IIs for the Prime and every sub-consultant.

The submission shall be evaluated on basis of: (1) current level of experience and knowledge of the team for similar projects, particularly the Project Manager,

Docket No. SU13P1663 Estate of Elizabeth B. Strickland Date of Death March 1, 2013

“As a recent recipient of $5M through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 - Capital Development - Building Capacity (CD-BC) Grant Program, The Dimock Community Health Center. (DCHC) the Owner and the Project OPM Seth A. Ravitz Assoc. Inc (SAR+) currently seek proposals for General Contractors were the basis of a contract will be that of a Stipulated Lump Sum. The project consists of Shell Space Fit-Out and Occupied Facility Renovations of an existing Community Health Center in Boston (Roxbury), Massachusetts. To request a copy of the formal Request for Proposal/ Qualifications, interested parties should contact the project OPM Gary Walker at the following email address”: gwalker@sarplus.com

LEGAL NOTICE REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS

SUFFOLK Division

(4) experience in implementing BIM in all design and construction phases.

Submissions shall be printed on both sides of the sheet (8 1/2” x 11”), no acetate covers. Fifteen (15) copies of a bound document and one PDF version on a disc each limited to: The Dimock Community Health Center and SAR+ Search for Qualified Applicants to submit proposals for new Renovations to the Dimock Community Health Center

Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Trial Court Probate and Family Court Department

(4) no more than 3 sheets (6 pages) of information contained under SF 330 Section H addressing the evaluation items (except for the litigation and legal proceedings history), and (5) no more than 2 sheets (4 pages) of other relevant material not including a 2 page (max.) cover letter, SDO certification letters, covers, dividers, and other required information.

The procurement process for these services will proceed according to the following anticipated schedule:

To all persons interested in the above captioned estate, by Petition of Petitioner Shirley D. Strickland of Dorchester, MA. The estate is being administered under informal procedure by the Personal Representative under the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code without supervision by the Court. Inventory and accounts are not required to be filed with the Court, but interested parties are entitled to notice regarding the administration from the Personal Representative and can petition the Court in any matter relating to the estate, including distribution of assets and expenses of administration. Interested parties are entitled to petition the Court to institute formal proceedings and to obtain orders terminating or restricting the powers of Personal Representatives appointed under informal procedure. A copy of the Petition and Will, if any, can be obtained from the Petitioner.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Trial Court Probate and Family Court Department Docket No. SU13D1241DR

SUFFOLK Division

Divorce Summons by Publication and Mailing Mery Davis

vs.

Leonardo Welcome

To the Defendant: The Plaintiff has filed a Complaint for Divorce requesting that the Court grant a divorce for irretrievable breakdown of the marriage pursuant to G.L. c. 208, Section 1 B. The Complaint is on file at the Court.

An Automatic Restraining Order has been entered in this matter preventing you from taking any action which would negatively impact the current financial status of either party. SEE Supplemental Probate Court Rule 411.

You are hereby summoned and required to serve upon: Andrew Willems Esq., 36 West Street, #1, Malden, MA 02148 your answer, if any, on or before 08/22/2013. If you fail to do so, the court will proceed to the hearing and adjudication of this action. You are also required to file a copy of your answer, if any, in the office of the Register of this Court.

Witness, Hon. Joan P. Armstrong, First Justice of this Court.

Date: June 14, 2013 Patricia M. Campatelli Register of Probate Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Trial Court Probate and Family Court Department Docket No. SU13P1679EA

SUFFOLK Division

Estate of Anne P. Gumbs Also Known As Anne Gumbs Date of Death December 27, 2012

EVENT DATE/TIME Solicitation: Release Date

July 31, 2013

Deadline for submission of written questions

August 8, 2013 by 12 Noon

Official answers published (Estimated)

August 16, 2013 – 5 PM

To all persons interested in the above captioned estate, by Petition of Petitioner Frank A. Gumbs of Roxbury, MA a will has been admitted to informal probate.

Solicitation: Close Date / Submission Deadline

August 29, 2013 by 12 Noon

Frank A. Gumbs of Roxbury, MA has been informally appointed as the Personal Representative of the estate to serve without surety on the bond.

Times are Eastern Standard Time (US).

Questions may be sent via email to CPBidQuestions@massport.com subject to the deadline for receipt stated in the timetable above. In the subject lines of your email, please reference the MPA Project Name and Number.

Questions and their responses will be posted on Capital Bid Opportunities webpage of Massport http://www.massport.com/doing-business/_layouts/ CapitalPrograms/default.aspx as an attachment to the original Legal Notice and on Comm-PASS (www.comm-pass.com) in the listings for this project.

MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY THOMAS P. GLYNN CEO AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY TRANSPORTATION BUILDING 10 PARK PLAZA BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02116-3975

INFORMAL PROBATE PUBLICATION NOTICE

The estate is being administered under informal procedure by the Personal Representative under the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code without supervision by the Court. Inventory and accounts are not required to be filed with the Court, but interested parties are entitled to notice regarding the administration from the Personal Representative and can petition the Court in any matter relating to the estate, including distribution of assets and expenses of administration. Interested parties are entitled to petition the Court to institute formal proceedings and to obtain orders terminating or restricting the powers of Personal Representatives appointed under informal procedure. A copy of the Petition and Will, if any, can be obtained from the Petitioner.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Trial Court Probate and Family Court Department Docket No. SU13P1680EA

SUFFOLK Division

NOTICE TO BIDDERS

Citation on Petition for Formal Adjudication

Sealed bids for MBTA Contract No. S03CN03, NEW INTERMODAL CENTER – PHASE 1, HINGHAM, MA, (CLASS 7, BUILDINGS AND PROJECT VALUE $6,286,080.00) will be received by the Director of Contract Administration at the Contract Administration Office, 6th Floor, Room 6720, Transportation Building, 10 Park Plaza, Boston, Massachusetts, 02116-3975, until two o’clock (2:00 p.m.) on Thursday, August 29, 2013. Immediately thereafter, in a designated room, the Bids will be opened and read publicly.

Estate of Jeanine Therese Lacombe Also known as Jeanine Lacombe Date of Death: 02/23/2013

Work consists of: construction of a two story intermodal transportation center at 45 Shipyard Drive in Hingham MA. The new intermodal building is approximately 8,400 square feet in area. The project also includes site improvements and utility work.

Please note this contract will require the bidder to prepare both a paper copy as well as an electronic form bid. Please refer to Section 00200, Paragraph 1.5.E. Bid Submission Format.

The DBE Goal is 17%. This Contract is subject to a financial assistance Contract between the MBTA and the Federal Transit Administration of U.S. Department of Transportation. FTA Participation 80% percent.

Additional information and instructions on how to submit a bid are available at http://www.mbta.com/business_center/bidding_solicitations/current_solicitations/ On behalf of the MBTA, thank you for your time and interest in responding to this Notice to Bidders Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Beverly A. Scott, Ph.D. MBTA General Manager and Rail and Transit Administrator Richard A. Davey MassDOT Secretary and CEO

To all interested persons: A petition has been filed by Garry Lacombe of Dorchester, MA requesting that the Court enter a formal Decree and Order of testacy and for such other relief as requested in the Petition. And also requesting that Garry Lacombe of Dorchester, MA be appointed as Personal Representative(s) of said estate to serve Without Surety on the bond.

You have the right to obtain a copy of the Petition from the Petitioner or at the Court. You have a right to object to this proceeding. To do so, you or your attorney must file a written appearance and objection at this Court before 10:00 a.m. on 08/22/2013. This is NOT a hearing date, but a deadline by which you must file a written appearance and objection if you object to this proceeding. If you fail to file a timely written appearance and objection followed by an Affidavit of Objections within thirty (30) days of the return date, action may be taken without further notice to you.

The estate is being administered under formal procedure by the Personal Representative under the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code without supervision by the Court. Inventory and accounts are not required to be filed with the Court, but recipients are entitled to notice regarding the administration from the Personal Representative and can petition the Court in any matter relating to the estate, including distribution of assets and expenses of administration.

WITNESS, HON. Joan P. Armstrong, First Justice of this Court.

Date: July 18, 2013 Patricia M. Campatelli Register of Probate

22 • Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER

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CITY OF MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

Housing Development Specialist The City of Medford, Office of Community Development is seeking qualified applicants for the position of Housing Development Specialist. The successful candidate shall possess a Master’s Degree in Planning or a related field with five years experience in affordable housing or a Bachelor’s Degree in a related field and a minimum of eight years professional work experience in federal and state housing activities including a working knowledge of HOME, CDBG and State LIP/LAU program requirements.

The primary responsibility of the position is to increase the supply of affordable housing. The position will work under the direction of the Director of the Office of Community Development. The position is funded by a federal grant. The salary range is $59,122-$66,433.

A full job description is available at http://www.medford.org/Pages/MedfordMA_Personnel/index or by contacting Ms. Addie DiPaola at 781-393-2406.

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Please submit a cover letter and resume to Ms. Stephanie Burke, Director of Personnel, Room 204, Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford, MA 02155, no later than 8/16/13 or email A.Dipaola@medford.org. AA/EEO

Thursday, August 1, 2013 • BAY STATE BANNER • 23

ASSISTANT PROPERTY MANAGER BOSTON

Must be computer literate and proficient in all aspects of property management; COS certification and Tax Credit experience is a plus; must have the ability to establish and maintain effective communication both oral and written with employees and clients - bilingual English/Spanish is a plus. Transportation is a must.

Send resumes no later than August 9, 2013 United Housing Management LLC, 530 Warren Street, Dorchester, MA 02121 – Fax: 617-442-7231.

No phone calls please!

United Housing Management LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT BOSTON

Busy Management Office seeks full time administrative assistant with excellent communication and organizational skills; clerical and computer skills and ability to multi –task are required. Duties include answering telephone, greeting clients, collecting rents, data entry, filing. Applicant shall be energetic and display a strong desire to succeed. Must have HS Diploma/GED- bilingual English/Spanish is a plus.

CITY OF MEDFORD

DIRECTOR OF ELDER AFFAIRS Acts as the primary advocate for Medford elders on local, state and federal levels. Oversees all functions, activities and programs offered through and by the Medford Council on Aging and the Medford Senior Center. Develops the agency’s budget and prepare all budgetary documents. Develops and maintains partnerships and cooperative agreements with other area agencies and programs that service elders and persons with disabilities. Provides strategic planning and oversight in keeping with changing populations and needs. 35 hr work week/benefits. Some weekends and nights required.

Minimum qualifications: Master’s degree in Social Work or Nursing preferred. Must have three years’ experience in a comparable position, or five years if not a social worker or nurse. Salary range $1,309.70$1,533.22 weekly.

PROPERTY MANAGER

Please send resume and references to: North Cottage Program Inc. 69 East Main Street, Norton, MA 02766

E-Mail resume to: lisajo@northcottage.com Fax resume to: 508-285-4771

Need Skills & Experience?

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Must be proficient in all aspects of resident certification process with three years of experience as a Property Manager – Tax Credit and COS certifications are required. Must have the ability to establish and maintain effective communication both oral and written with employees and clients – bilingual English/Spanish is a plus. Transportation is a must.

Register today for a briefing that will outline all of Operation ABLE’s training programs, and to answer all of your questions.

Send resumes no later than August 9, 2013 United Housing Management LLC, 530 Warren Street, Dorchester, MA 02121 – Fax: 617-442-7231.

No phone calls please!

PART-TIME COOK

Experienced cook wanted to work in Substance Abuse Treatment Facility preparing meals for large numbers. Must be Certified Food Safety Handler, experience, restaurant or institutional required. Part-time (30 hour position). Must be willing and able to work at a start time of 4:00am and flexible shifts. AA/EOE Employer.

For a full job description visit http://www.medford.org/Pages/MedfordMA_Personnel/index Send cover letter and resume to Ms. Stephanie Burke, Director Budget/Personnel, Room 204, Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford, MA 02155, no later than 8/16/13 or email A.Dipaola@medford.org.

AA/EEO

Send resumes no later than August 9, 2013 United Housing Management LLC, 530 Warren Street, Dorchester, MA 02121 – Fax: 617-442-7231. No phone calls please!

United Housing Management LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer

North Cottage Program

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617-542-4180 Tuition funding may be available Operation A.B.L.E. of Greater Boston

31030 2x7

United Housing Management LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) seeks a development assistant to provide critical support to CLF’s comprehensive development program. Candidates should have some experience in development and/or with providing administrative support in an office setting. This is a full time non-exempt position based in Boston, MA. To Apply Send your resume titled “your last name-first initial-resume” (e.g. “SMITH J RESUME”) and a detailed cover letter titled “your last name-first initial-cover” (e.g. “SMITH J COVER”) to careers@clf.org. No phone calls please.

Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) protects New England’s environment for the benefit of all people. CLF works with communities of color, and also communities that are economically or otherwise disadvantaged, which often suffer disproportionately the impacts of environmental degradation. CLF is committed to representing New England’s diversity in our staff, volunteers, boards and membership and creating a positive, inclusive workplace culture where all can thrive.

http://www.clf.org/about-clf/employment-opportunities/ COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SPECIALIST

We Help People Get and Succeed at Good Jobs Free job-search and career development help: • Most people who complete our 60hour job-search workshop qualify for free, individual job-search help.

• We refer people to jobs that pay $20,000 — $30,000 and offer benefits.

• We mentor people who accept jobs through our referrals for two years.

If you are a low-income adult who is: • Looking for a full-time permanent job; • Willing to participate in our two-year mentoring program; • Age 22 to 55; • Legal to work in the U.S.; • Able to succeed in an English-speaking workplace, then…

Orientation Every Thursday, 1:00 PM. Call us to see if you qualify at (617) 424-6616.

• You will need to bring your résumé • If you do not have a résumé, bring a list of: 4 Jobs and military service since high school; 4 Education and training.

4 Be sure to include month and year; be sure that all dates are correct.

We look forward to working with you!

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency for Metro Boston, seeks a Community Engagement Specialist to help achieve the goals of its long-range smart growth regional plan, MetroFuture. For further details on MAPC and MetroFuture please visit www.mapc.org.

The Community Engagement Specialist will play a supportive role in local and regional place-based projects that require coordinated communication with community groups, coalitions, local officials, and businesses. These activities support efforts to remove local and state-level policy barriers, create incentives for smart growth, and advance regional equity. Duties include: developing and implementing community organizing and engagement strategies; sharing information about MetroFuture and other MAPC programs; coordinating briefings, workshops, and various events. Qualifications include BA in relevant field, such as communications, education, planning, public policy, or management; a proven track record working with diverse, urban constituencies; and at least two year’s job experience, with evidence of progressive responsibility. Full time position with excellent state employee benefits package. Salary dependent upon qualifications (range $40,000 to $47,000).

All candidates must have a valid driver’s license and/or the ability to arrange transportation to meetings in different parts of the region and legal authorization (citizenship or visa) to work in the USA. Position open until filled. Review of applications to begin immediately.

PLEASE SEE COMPLETE JOB AD AT WWW.MAPC.ORG AND APPLY ONLINE AT LINK SHOWN THERE, and please attach cover letter and resume.

MAPC is an EOE/ AA employer. Diverse candidates are encouraged to apply. Posted 7/26/13.

Thomas E. Hauenstein, Manager of Human Resources.

Reward...

YOURSELF WITH TWO CAREER OPPORTUNITIES AS AN ADMINISTRATIVE AND BOOKKEEPING PROFESSIONAL

Do you need to upgrade your skills? Ready for a new career?

ADMINSTRATIVE AND BOOKKEEPING PROFESSIONALS PROGRAM ONE PROGRAM…TWO CAREER CHOICES… MORE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES The Administrative and Bookkeeping Professionals Program uses a combination of hands on classroom instruction and online learning experiences designed to give you employer ready skills, and the self confidence from achieving new, professional level skills for today’s economy.

The Administrative and Bookkeeping Professionals Program offers: • Introductory and advance levels of computer skills training using Microsoft Office 2010 (MS Word, Excel, Outlook) • Bookkeeping essentials and procedures for office professionals • Opportunities to create professional business documents using digital, social media and internet technologies • Computerized bookkeeping using QuickBooks • Procedures for recording, managing and securing client/ customer financial and non-financial data

Training Grants available to qualifying applicants.

Contact: Mr. Royal Bolling, Computer Learning Resources Phone: 617-506-1505 Email: clr2paths@gmail.com

Licensed by the Massachusetts Division Professional Licensure Office of Private Occupational School Education