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Cruller DaVille
Senior Member
148 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2009 : 05:34:08 AM
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Those particular figures were not from this year that is true. Unfortunately, the mismanagement and rampart corruption of our DPW is infamous, and the figures for the past year are certainly NOT better. The Water Department charging for water meters, the mismanagment of the fleet department, employees doing their own side work, the over payment of favored vendors, the list goes on and onl.....!!!!!! Lets not forget that City Services is where they bury all the bodies and gets the biggest chunk of the budgetary pie. They're the biggest whiners in the world and do the least amount of work. It's absolutely criminal.
I say Privitize the whole damn thing.
Just MY Humble Opinion
"Cruller DaHville"
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Edited by - Cruller DaVille on 06/13/2009 05:44:08 AM |
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carlost everett
Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2009 : 8:33:48 PM
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Cruller, as usual you're point on. That being said, I think that people dont realize that City Services gets a huge part of the budget. Thats why having inadequate administrators down there is so dangerous. Obviously Fire and Police and the School Department are large departments too but City Services is, by far, the largest waste of money.
CarloST Everett |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2009 : 8:40:39 PM
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Cruller, do you have the figures for City Services for the past year? I would like to see them and compare them to other years.
I believe City Services takes the third biggest chunk of the city's budget, with the Police first and Fire being second. That is not taking the School Department into account. It would be helpful to see those figures.
"Deb" |
Edited by - massdee on 06/13/2009 8:46:21 PM |
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Cruller DaVille
Senior Member
148 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2009 : 11:12:36 PM
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MassDee: I believe that the City Clerk has provided a copy of the budget on the city's website. Off the top of my head, I dont have those figures; however, I believe you are accurate in that after the School Department and Police and Fire, the City Services is the largest department.
I believe that this is true for all years. I too saw that article in the Globe North last Thursday and honestly, I wasnt shocked to see the dicrepancy between Everett and other cities. Although it mentioned that those figures were from 2 years ago, I was told that those were the last confirmed figures they could get (made a call after seeing the posting, just to check). I'm sure those are consistent with last year and this year isn't completed yet.
My opinion, and again, that's all this is, is my opinion, is that City Services is filled with mismanagement and waste. The monies spent here are unaccountable monies historically. Think of the vendors that get paid through that department and some of it, like snow removal for example, theres no accounting for the monies in and out until the disbursements are made. Then, least we forget the vendors who work out of city services and blow through their contractural ceilings. Now that there's no one to oversee the candy store you dont think they're using the honor system, do you? lol
I realize there exists a semi-valid arguement for not privitizing when you consider that Zaniboni made substantial purchases for equipment with the Thibeau money from the sale of the city yards; however, I'd love to see the cost benefit analysis sheets for privitization.
I am also a firm believer that we should institute an enterprise fund for the water department. Honestly, I'd like to see that same set up be institued in a couple of other areas as well.
As you can probably tell, I'm not a huge fan of the manner in which City Services is run. Actually, the past ten years is a real issue for me to be honest. But then again, that's my personal viewpoint. I also think that a revamp should have been done and consolidation in many areas down there.
A couple of years ago, I remember alot of rumblings when disturbing revelations came out of that department. That was around the same time when the BOA and CC attacked the bearers of the news and refused to see any validity in them because they either worked there themselves, had relatives working there or friends.
Be that as it may, City Services is a department that has alot of interaction with the general public. People want to see clean streets, nicely groomed recreation areas, etc so there are alot of different considerations to weigh when determining what should be done.
I have many friends in different cities and towns who feel their cities have made the right decision to privitize. Then again, their cities to begin with didn't have 70+ workers in thier individual DPW's.
One thing for sure, it won't happen in this administration, Zaniboni rules this roost.
Just My Humble Opinion
"Cruller DaHville"
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charm
Senior Member
264 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2009 : 07:12:04 AM
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Revere, Everett OK with security cameras
Anticrime cameras trump issue of personal privacy
By Richard Thompson, Globe Correspondent | June 14, 2009
Despite privacy concerns raised in two nearby communities, Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino has an offer for officials in Brookline, who appear likely to pull the plug on a dozen surveillance cameras that were installed there two months ago.
"We'll take more if they want to get rid of theirs," he said last week. "We'll gladly take them."
He's not alone. "If it was up to me around here, I would try to get some more," said Everett Alderman Jason Marcus, chairman of the city's public safety committee.
Brookline, Everett, and Revere are among nine communities in the Boston area that received the cameras last year as part of a $4.6 million federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security, an effort aimed at aiding in evacuation planning coordinated through the Mayor's Office of Emergency Preparedness in Boston.
Similar grants have distributed tens of millions of dollars in recent years for placing security cameras across the country, from Pittsburgh to St. Paul.
But along the way, the controversial practice has drawn the ire of some privacy rights advocates, spurring concern that the equipment could usher in a "surveillance society," where every aspect of private life is monitored and recorded.
Locally, many cameras were put up on roads, bridges, and buildings in Boston, Chelsea, Everett, and Revere just before the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
In the second phase, plans called for the original group of communities to get additional cameras, including nine devices in Chelsea and Revere. Brookline, Cambridge, Quincy, Somerville, and Winthrop also received equipment during the second phase.
In Somerville, which installed seven cameras last year, mostly along major intersections such as Davis Square, Deputy Police Chief Paul Upton said the department has "had no issues, no complaints" on what he describes as "a very, very functional public safety tool."
"I think it's something new, and I think it's something people haven't quite adjusted to yet," Upton said. "There may be some concerns out there by some individuals, but after they get used to the system, they'll find those concerns really weren't justified."
In Revere, where 16 cameras have been installed with federal funding, Ambrosino said: "I don't think anyone here sees it as a real intrusion in privacy, given that we are basically watching public areas. It would be no different than if we had a police officer on the street, which most people cry out for."
That same sentiment hasn't carried throughout the region. Brookline Town Meeting members passed a resolution earlier this month calling for an end to a one-year trial of the cameras, and in February, the Cambridge City Council halted the activation of eight surveillance cameras in that city.
"I doubt very much that the decision in either case was based on the effectiveness of the surveillance cameras," said Jack Levin, a Northeastern University professor of sociology and criminology and codirector of the Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence.
"More likely, many of the residents became very much concerned about an abridgment of their civil liberties and decided that the cameras were not worth losing those rights."
Thomas Nolan, an associate professor of criminal justice at Boston University, said he is surprised more communities haven't raised similar concerns.
"It is something that people should be very cautious about, and if it's a policy that's going to be adopted, there should be significant levels of meaningful, public discussion on the topic," said Nolan, a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department.
Underlining the different approaches among the nine communities, Chelsea and Somerville officials said public hearings were held on the surveillance cameras, but not in Winthrop, which received nine cameras as part of the grant.
"There's been no public discussion about it whatsoever," said Thomas Reilly, president of Winthrop's Town Council.
"I don't think there was much awareness that this was happening. It wasn't anything that was publicized or made known anywhere, because it was a matter between the federal government and our police department."
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2009 : 07:21:41 AM
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Newburyport gets a trolley, owner gets new beginning
Former officer sees a future in filling a void
By David Filipov
Globe Staff / July 8, 2009
NEWBURYPORT - Michael Vetrano knows what it is like to lose nearly everything. And then to pull through.
Five years ago, he was an Everett police officer and the owner of a uniform business and a sweet contemporary split-level with an in-ground pool. He lost it all to bankruptcy, after treatment of a tumor laid him low for a year. His second venture - a gas station and towing operation for which he took a leave from police work - fell victim last year to the recession.
Vetrano survived all that.
Now he is looking to make it work on try three, in the most difficult of circumstances. He is a small businessman opening shop in the worst economy since the Depression, with an outdoor venture at the soggiest start of summer in memory.
In May, he left the police force for good and opened an open air trolley service in Newburyport, hoping to cash in on day trippers to the picturesque port under the sandy lee of Plum Island. Bad timing, so far. Before the holiday weekend’s respite of clear weather, few tourists were making the rainy trek to the Clipper City this summer, and to serve those who did come to slog around Newburyport, a duck boat might have been a better choice.
Vetrano laughed off the slow start one waterlogged afternoon last week as he wheeled the crimson trolley he has christened Big Gus into the perilous intersection outside his modest office on Merrimac Street. “I’m 0 for 2, three strikes and I’m out, but this one will succeed,’’ he smiled. “I can feel the difference in this one. I know I’m lucky. That’s why nothing bothers me.’’
It is the kind of upbeat attitude small business owners need to get by these days, and Vetrano has optimism in spades. His website proclaims The Newburyport Trolley Co. “WORLD FAMOUS.’’ One rain-soaked month into his operation, he is already thinking about expanding by getting a second trolley.
Why not? He knows he is lucky.
The doctors found the tumor - a pituitary macroadenoma - by accident when he went for treatment of a shoulder injury following a traffic accident. They told him the operation to remove it could cause blindness. That was when he had the epiphany that ultimately led him to swap his badge for a bus license, his sidearm for a money changer, and his police issue Dodge Charger for Big Gus, which lumbers along at speeds approaching 20 miles per hour.
“I always wanted to be in law enforcement, but after the accident, I realized that life’s too short,’’ Vetrano said Wednesday in a tiny office decorated with pictures of fellow Everett police, a coffee cup inscribed “#1 Police Officer,’’ and a dollar bill proclaiming itself “Mike’s first tip.’’ “I realized I had to find another way to provide for my family.’’
After 11 years on the force, Vetrano took a buy-out in May and put the sum - about $25,000 - toward starting up The Newburyport Trolley Co. He bought Big Gus on eBay. He got local businesses to plaster their ads all over the trolley’s sides. Vetrano got the city, which has no other public transportation, to kick in $12,000 from an economic development grant.
Newburyport has been trying to promote itself as an ideal day trip from Boston - witness the “Newburyport: Love at First Sight’’ ads on MBTA trains - and the town enlisted Vetrano’s trolley service to make pickup stops at the city’s Commuter Rail station Thursdays through Sundays until Labor Day.
“The trolley has been very important to us,’’ said Mayor John Moak.
Over the roar of the biofuel-powered engine that makes Big Gus smell like French fries, Vetrano sang out the prime attractions along Newburyport’s red brick sidewalks and storefronts.
“That’s the best book store in Newburyport,’’ he shouted out as Big Gus rumbled past the Jabberwocky Bookshop at the Tannery.
“People come from all over the world to take pictures of that,’’ Vetrano said, indicating the 200-year-old church of the First Religious Society in Newburyport.
The trolley’s vintage, varnished wooden benches can seat 35 passengers, but Vetrano has only had groups that size when someone has booked the whole trolley. Through July 1, the biggest crowd of passengers off the street had been 15; it happened one Saturday when there were a few minutes of sun. That afternoon last week, the sole passengers were Vetrano’s 12-year-old daughter, Brianna, and his 7-year-old son, Mikey.
If you have been outdoors at all since May, you know the culprit.
“It’s been tough to deal with, this being the start of a company,’’ Vetrano said as he beheld the thick, wet fog cloaking the mouth of the Merrimack River from the deck of Michael’s Harborside Restaurant & Bar, one of his stops. “It’s depressing . . . normally, there’s a blanket of tourists in the street. Now, it’s small clusters.’’
Since the beginning of the holiday weekend, Vetrano said, the flow of passengers has been “nonstop.’’
He said that he has planned for a slow start. Vetrano and his wife, Tracy, have downsized to a small ranch in West Newbury and own a beat-up Toyota Camry instead of two cars. She manages the trolley depot and runs the snack shop inside, where a thin notebook contains the early customer reviews of his venture.
“Dear Michael and Tracy,’’ read an entry from a group of school-aged kids. “Thank you so much for the ride. We had a ton of Fun. From the girl with the frizzy brown hair, Julia.’’
Vetrano can live with that kind of feedback.
“This business, I feel it, I love it, it’s me. This is why I know it’s gonna work,’’ he said. “We fill a void. We’re Newburyport’s only public transportation.’’
“We’re gonna weather the storm.’’
David Filipov can be reached at filipov@globe.com.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
 Posted - 07/08/2009 : 8:23:11 PM
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| I'm going to be totally rude and say................. It wouldn't break my heart to see this man go three for three! |
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n/a
deleted
25 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2009 : 8:43:19 PM
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Let him go 3 4 3.
We should get free trolley rides since we paid for it. The story is bull call it like it is. The man was fine and QUIT on his own without notice. He lives in Newburyport which is much past the 10 mile radios that police officers are supposed to live. Mike Vetrano hung a big sign in the police station that said I QUIT. Then when his business venture didn’t work out he ran back for his job. The chief didn’t want him so he cries to his buddy Mayor Bandit who thinks nothing of overstepping two hard working police officers that were next in line for Sergeant and go over that department head’s head and opened us to a potential law suit. Call it like it is.
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2009 : 07:28:03 AM
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Communities face up to cut in state funds
Biggest losers
Ten largest cuts in noneducation local aid:
Municipality FY2009 local aid FY 2010 local aid Reduction
Lowell $31,348,507 $22,192,157 $9,156,350
Lynn $27,865,544 $19,726,507 $8,139,037
Somerville $30,121,429 $22,199,513 $7,921,916
Lawrence $24,436,970 $17,299,359 $7,137,611
Malden $15,614,521 $11,053,793 $4,560,728
Medford $14,746,309 $10,687,177 $4,059,132
Revere $12,802,810 $9,063,334 $3,739,476
Haverhill $12,232,173 $8,659,369 $3,572,804
Chelsea $10,221,702 $7,236,122 $2,985,580
Peabody $8,984,119 $6,360,014 $2,624,105
SOURCE: State of Massachusetts
By Steven Rosenberg
Globe Staff / July 9, 2009
In Revere, the mayor has closed City Hall on Fridays. In Lowell, there are 16 fewer police officers on the street. In Somerville, four librarians have received pink slips. In Lynn City Hall, there are now 40 fewer employees.
With the state reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades, municipal leaders in northeast Massachusetts communities are sorting through the aftermath of a deep cut in state aid. Under Governor Deval Patrick’s new budget for the fiscal year, most are set to receive 29 percent less in state aid in the 2010 fiscal year budget, which began July 1.
“We sort of cobbled together a whole bunch of things,’’ Lowell City Manager Bernard Lynch said, when asked about how the city would operate with $9.16 million less in state aid this year.
Lowell, like other cities that have lost almost a third of their state aid designated for noneducational uses, made deep cuts in its city payroll. In recent months, the city saved $6 million by cutting 123 positions. In addition to losing 16 police, three firefighters, and dozens of other City Hall workers, the city sent pink slips to more than 200 school employees, half of whom are teachers.
“It’s draconian,’’ said Lynn Mayor Edward “Chip’’ Clancy Jr., describing the reduction in state aid. Clancy, who also serves as chairman of the Lynn School Committee, made deep cuts to the school district, eliminating more than 100 positions - including dozens of teachers. Also cut to help balance the budget were 40 City Hall workers.
“It’s going to take longer to get things done,’’ said Clancy, describing the cumulative effect of less state aid. “The personnel isn’t going to be there. We’re looking at a terribly difficult year. There is no money.’’
While some cities, like Somerville, were able to balance their budgets with few layoffs and by using revenue and free cash to plug the deficit, others like Revere and Methuen have instituted a pay cut for employees. Also, some communities, like Methuen have taken smaller, more symbolic steps to cut expenses. This year the city canceled its Independence Day fireworks celebration, saving $35,000.
“The net effect on the amount of services that we’re providing is substantially reduced from what it was a year ago,’’ said Revere Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino, whose city is receiving $3.7 million less in noneducation state aid this year.
In April, the city cut nine police officers after the state announced midyear local aid cuts. Those officers will not be rehired now, said Ambrosino. In addition, to help plug the gap, another 24 vacant positions will not be filled. Also, City Hall workers are taking a 10 percent pay cut and no longer work on Fridays.
“As of this week, City Hall is officially closed every Friday,’’ said Ambrosino.
In Malden, the city used layoffs and one-time revenue to make up for a $4.5 million reduction in local aid. On June 30, the city closed its municipally owned nursing home, McFadden Manor, and laid off 57 of the facility’s employees - saving $3 million. Also, the city will save another $5.5 million this fiscal year with revenue from its trash program, and with savings accrued through 51 school layoffs and another 41 cuts - made through additional layoffs, early retirements, and not filling vacancies.
In Medford, the city is also not filling vacancies and has frozen salaries, renegotiated utility contracts, raised permit fees, cut police overtime, and reorganized some departments for efficiency.
In Chelsea, City Manager Jay Ash anticipated the shortfall and submitted a budget that calls for $3 million less than last year. Still, the city is running a $1 million deficit as it enters the new fiscal year, and Ash is meeting with unions to seek concessions.
“We need to have a solution by September as to how to close the gap. Otherwise I’m
going to need to lay off 20 employees,’’ said Ash.
Ash has also cut a couple of perks associated with his job. In addition to taking a 1.5 percent raise instead of a 2.5 percent increase, he’s no longer using a city car and switched to his wife’s health insurance, moves that he says will save the city $17,000.
Other towns have looked at cutting projects and reducing workers’ hours. The Tewksbury Town Hall and Senior Center are now closed to the public on Fridays, and the town has cut the Fire Department’s budget $100,000 to make up for $1 million less in state aid this year.
Wakefield, which will receive $1.2 million less in state aid, has put off a number of repair projects. It will save $200,000 by delaying a drainage project and repairs to local schools, and will not spend $200,000 in information technology purchases.
“We’re choosing between new fire hoses and gym ceiling resurfacing. This isn’t a lot of fluff,’’ said Wakefield Town Manager Stephen Maio.
Globe correspondent Brian Benson contributed to this report. Steven Rosenberg can be reached at srosenberg@globe.com.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2009 : 08:03:50 AM
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After doing a little research on the state web site, it appears that Everett came pretty close to making the list in the Globe article. Below are links to Everett's Cherry Sheet data for FY09 and FY10:
You must be logged in to see this link.
You must be logged in to see this link.
The numbers that the Globe article is comparing in FY09 would be the sum of Lottery, Beano & Charity Games, General Fund Supplemental to Hold Harmless Lottery and Additional Assistance categories. In FY10, those three appear to all be rolled into Unrestricted Government Aid. So in FY09, the sum of the three numbers would be $8,598,371, the corresponding number for FY10 is $6,086,937 and that translates to a reduction of $2,511,434. It is also fair to note that there has been a reduction in all other non-education receipt categories with the exception of veteran's benefits and that most non-education assesment categories have seen an increase as well.
What does this all mean? It's hard to say without knowing what figures that the city used in determining how close to the tax levy limit that the city will be. But since this information wasn't shared with the general public as apart of the budget process, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. If I had to hazard a guess though, I'd predict that there will probably be "interesting" times ahead of us. |
Edited by - tetris on 07/09/2009 08:07:14 AM |
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Cruller DaVille
Senior Member
148 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2009 : 6:05:32 PM
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Well, one thing is clear Tet, the 940,000 or so figure that they utilized for the transfer to save positions would have brought them over the tax levy. That was the exact arguement we bantered back and forth during the budget discussions. Sadly, none of our city fathers could muster a set to debate this. Two years ago, when we weren't in half the problem we are now, they couldn't be shut up but then again, they weren't being paid off or threatened.
The bigger and more "in your face" problem we have here is that since that time, people have been hired, monies are being spent, vendors are being given sweeheart deals with no rhyme or reason for available monies. This administration obviously has no respect for the "staying within" the budget guidelines that other effective administrations adhere to. That being said, I believe we heard in one of the last budget hearings, that until such time as the proper paperwork is submitted to DOR, there is effectively no free cash to draw from or monies to transfer to or from. The city is virtually at a stand still until September, October when the tax rate is actually set.
It it so obvious that the tough questions have not been asked and, more frustratively, won't be asked either. Who would DARE? They would be blackballed and would get nothing.
Everyone is waiting for "T Miracle"!!!!!! You cannot sit around and wait for a windfall development plan to be the answer to our plans. Ineffective, foolhearty and unproductive is what THAT policy is!!!!! A long term plan which includes all our listed needs with the intention to answer the "how do we do this" question, takes time, patience, and real experience. A group of professional public administrators who put their heads together and come up with a comprehensive, well thought out, forward thinking plan for the future. Besides, when you do it the other way, what you get is a developer who gets EXACTLY what he/she wants (boy, does that sound familiar) and a desperate city,left holding the ahem bag...
Unfortunately, if we put each and every collective "DeMaria head" presently assembled up there together, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a consensus on the purchase of a value meal at McDonalds.
You say "interesting" Tets.... I'm just pure scared and have a feeling of impending doom.
If you had ever told me that within 18 months, we would have blown through the huge free cash left us, without doing anything truly positive, had neglected to make any contribution to stabiliztion, and worse of all, find ourselves today substantially worst off....... I would have called you a liar. Yet here we sit.
Just MY Humble Opinion....
"Cruller DaHville"
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socks
Member
39 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2009 : 7:27:49 PM
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Just think Cruller, on the positive side, we will have a new stadium! I figure when I lose my house, I can sleep on the new bleachers.
Perhaps the Mayor can hold another townhall meeting at City Hall and the general public can ask the tough questions. I am also scared. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2009 : 10:46:13 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by socks
Just think Cruller, on the positive side, we will have a new stadium! I figure when I lose my house, I can sleep on the new bleachers.
Perhaps the Mayor can hold another townhall meeting at City Hall and the general public can ask the tough questions. I am also scared.
I think everyone is scared, especially about the future with this crazy spending that will only add to our taxes. There's an elderly woman that lived on Dyer Ave who worked her life and paid off her mortgage. She could no longer afford the taxes and she was thrown on the street on January 13, 2009. Even the electric company has compassion and will not shut your electricity until April 1st. I don't want to see this happen to anyone and I hope these people that vote on this frivolous spending never find themselves in that situation. Such a shame. But your right, lets look on the bright side, we will have brand new bleachers....hip hip hooray! |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2009 : 12:11:09 AM
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BOARD VACANCY TO WAIT - The Board of Aldermen seat vacated by the recent resignation of Frank Nuzzo will likely remain empty until after the November election. Nuzzo, who held the Ward 1 seat for 31 years, resigned to accept an appointment by Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. as the city’s new code enforcement director. City Clerk Michael Matarazzo said aldermen are expected to leave the seat vacant until the election. The board would then appoint whoever wins the seat to fill the position through January, when the person would be sworn in for their elective term.
- John Laidler |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 08:17:01 AM
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Eunice Kennedy Shriver
HYANNIS, Mass. (AP) — President John F. Kennedy's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who carried on the family's public service tradition by founding the Special Olympics and championing the rights of the mentally disabled, died Tuesday morning, her family said in a statement. She was 88.
Shriver had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and died at 2 a.m. at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. The hospital is near the Kennedy family compound, where her sole surviving brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, has been battling a brain tumor.
As celebrity, social worker and activist, Shriver was credited with transforming America's view of the mentally disabled from institutionalized patients to friends, neighbors and athletes. Her efforts were inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary.
Peter Collier, author of "The Kennedys, an American Drama," called Eunice Shriver the "moral force" of the Kennedy family.
"We have always been honored to share our mother with people of good will the world over who believe, as she did, that there is no limit to the human spirit," her family members said in the statement.
Shriver was also the sister of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the wife of 1972 vice presidential candidate and former Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver, and the mother-in-law of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. With Eunice Shriver's death, Jean Kennedy Smith becomes the last surviving Kennedy daughter.
A 1960 Chicago Tribune profile of the women in then-candidate JFK's family said Shriver was "generally credited with being the most intellectual and politically minded of all the Kennedy women."
When her brother was in the White House, she pressed for efforts to help troubled young people and the mentally disabled. And in 1968, she started what would become the world's largest athletic competition for mentally disabled children and adults. Now, more than 1 million athletes in more than 160 countries participate in Special Olympics meets each year.
"When the full judgment on the Kennedy legacy is made — including JFK's Peace Corps and Alliance for Progress, Robert Kennedy's passion for civil rights and Ted Kennedy's efforts on health care, work place reform and refugees — the changes wrought by Eunice Shriver may well be seen as the most consequential," Harrison Rainie, author of "Growing Up Kennedy," wrote in U.S. News & World Report in 1993.
It was Shriver who revealed the condition of her sister Rosemary to the nation during her brother's presidency.
"Early in life Rosemary was different," she wrote in a 1962 article for the Saturday Evening Post. "She was slower to crawl, slower to walk and speak. ... Rosemary was mentally retarded." Rosemary Kennedy underwent a lobotomy when she was 23, though that wasn't mentioned in the article. She lived most of her life in an institution in Wisconsin and died in 2005 at age 86.
The roots of the Special Olympics go back to a summer camp Shriver ran in Maryland in 1963. Shriver would "get right in the pool with the kids; she'd toss the ball," said a niece, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who volunteered at the camp as a teen. "It's that hands-on, gritty approach that awakened her to the kids' needs."
Realizing the children were far more capable of sports than experts said, Shriver organized the first Special Olympics in 1968 in Chicago. The two-day event drew more than 1,000 participants from 26 states and Canada.
By 2003, the Special Olympics World Summer Games, held that year in Dublin, Ireland, involved more than 6,500 athletes from 150 countries. The games are held every four years.
Well into her 70s, Shriver remained a daily presence at the Special Olympics headquarters in Washington.
Juvenile delinquency was another issue that interested Shriver and spurred her to action. In his 1991 book "The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America," author Nicholas Lemann said the Kennedy administration's juvenile delinquency commission, "a pet project that had been created to placate Eunice," became the precursor of the vast federal effort to improve the lot of urban blacks.
After he took office, President Lyndon B. Johnson tapped R. Sargent Shriver to lead his War on Poverty.
Eunice Shriver was the recipient of numerous honors, including the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she received in 1984. In May, the National Portrait Gallery installed a painting of her — the first portrait commissioned by the museum of someone who had not been a president or first lady.
Shriver was born in Brookline, Mass., the fifth of nine children to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. She earned a sociology degree from Stanford University in 1943 after graduating from a British boarding school while her father served as ambassador to England.
She was a social worker at a women's prison in Alderson, W.Va., and worked with the juvenile court in Chicago in the 1950s before taking over the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation with the goal of improving the treatment of the mentally disabled. The foundation was named for her oldest brother, Joseph Jr., who was killed in World War II.
In 1953, she married Shriver. He became JFK's first director of the Peace Corps, was George McGovern's vice-presidential running mate in 1972, and ran for president himself briefly in 1976.
Survivors include her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003, and the couple's five children: former NBC newswoman Maria Shriver, who is married to Schwarzenegger; Robert, a city councilman in Santa Monica, Calif.; Timothy, chairman of Special Olympics; Mark, an executive at the charity Save the Children; and Anthony, founder and chairman of Best Buddies International, a volunteer organization for the mentally disabled.
Mark Shriver once said his parents' actions, not just words, influenced their children.
"In the course of our upbringing, they stressed the importance of giving back," he said. "But we didn't sit around having family discussions about it. We learned by what she and my father were doing."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Pres
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BOSTON GLOBE 2009
