Green Program In Philly To Train Youth – Training Provided By A Child Molestor, Thief And Accused Rapist!

Keep Him Away From Your Kids

The Philadelphia Tribune article sounds so hopeful, put those young people to work spending our stimulus $’s.

Green program bringing youth into environmental picture

The Penn Future Resource Center is using the green movement to help young people find jobs. The newly formed organization, which is a collaboration of the City Wide Youth Leadership Agency and the Pennsylvania Ridge Associates, teaches “greens jobs” that not only affect the environment, but could provide income for the students.

Under a program called the Youth Energy Empowerment, the Penn Future Resource Center teaches landscaping, weatherization, energy conserving insulation, power washing and window insulation.

The organization also has new digs at 1021 Ridge Ave.

Executive director William Mackey stated the green jobs are the wave of the future.

“Under the president’s initiative, one of the main focuses is energy conservation. We believe in the 21st century Africans American and minorities are have to explore energy conservation,” he said.

Mackey said these jobs could be very lucrative.

“These jobs bring in $35 an hour,” he said. “We are not exposed to these jobs in depth. We are only exposed on a baseline level.”

Sounds good right? Until you do a simple internet search on Mackey (emphasis mine).

Philadelphia Tribune, The

05-29-2001

Mackey to appeal sentence

At least 20 parents, colleagues and good friends of William Mackey, former executive director of City Wide Improvement and Planning Agency (CWIPA) were in court with William Macky.

They came last week to testify about his good works and how he has been such an inspiration to young people in North Philadelphia.

But Judge Joseph Bruno still handed down a sentence of three to six months for indecent assault and six to 12 months for corruption of a minor.

Mackey says he plans to appeal, this time asking for a jury trial.

On March 14, Mackey was convicted of indecent assault and attempting to corrupt a 16-year-old participant in the Citywide program. He was freed on $5,000 bail.

The girl alleged the incident, which she said took place last Sept. 6, started when Mackey grabbed her hand during a conversation near CWIPA’s headquarters and tried to guide it towards his private parts, suggesting that when she became old enough he was going to “bust that,” sources said.

Maybe the guy was set up – maybe it was a misunderstanding. Nope, he has a prior record (emphasis mine).

Sources said Mackey has a prior conviction for retail theft, robbery of a gas station in 1991, and was acquitted of rape charges in 1986.

 How is it that the Philadelphia Tribune missed this when they reported on Mackey’s court case in 2001. This is a serious lack of ethical reporting or seriously sloppy.

It gets better (or worse depending on how you look at it). It seems Mackey is involved in 2 youth programs in Philly:

The Philadelphia Daily News lists these programs as:

City Wide Youth Leadership, 910/930 W Cecil B. Moore Ave. Project Reach 2000. M-Sa. 3-6 p.m. Free Mentoring, tutoring, leadership training, career training, community services and intramural sports league. Saturday hours are 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Contact: William Mackey, 215-765-5504. moekennedy@hotmail.com

Project REACH 2000

This program is offered at William Penn High School. Does the school district not run some kind of background check before allowing convicted felons to hang out with the kids after school???????? Most notably someone that has been convicted of molesting a high school age child.

City Wide Youth Agency

The address for this ‘agency’ is 910/930 W Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Just one problem, this address is a vacant lot.

Aerial Overview

910 W Cecil B. Moore

930 W Cecil B. Moore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first thought? This can’t be right……………..However, according to the City of Philadelphia records this is indeed vacant land. I guess we can’t say he’s blowing the budget on office space!

This will not be City Wide Youth Programs’ first dip into government funds. In 2006 the City of Philadelphia gave City Wide a grant for $1 Million dollars to purchase/renovate a building located at 1100-1138 W. Girard in Pennsylvania. The grant monies were meant to create a mini-mall that would house the Citywide Youth Leadership Agency’s alternative school, professional careers school and twilight school.

The property at 1100-1138 was indeed purchased on October 15, 2006 at auction for $3 Million and then sold on November 13, 2007 for $3 Million – where did the million dollars go Mr.  Mackey???

According to public records the City Wide Youth Program has no assets.

Again, where did the money go Mr. Mackey?

And now we’re going to give him more money?

Where’s Sheriff Biden?

I wonder how the child feels that this creep molested? Parents that supported this man, I’m all for giving people a second chance. But, NEVER at the cost of a child. If there is even a chance that this child was telling the truth (and considering that he was found guilty, I would assume there is a chance) the ONLY person that should have been supported was the child. Not to mention the fact that this man had already been accused of rape previously. This is not a man with a sterling reputation that was suddenly accused of something, he had been previously accused. That is never a coincidence. There is no after school or training program that is worth taking a risk with your children.

  

Redefining The Stimulus

Now that we’ve figured out that this boondoggle of a Stimulus Package is not working, they’ve spent the last week trying to re-spin it. The newest spin comes from Mr. Stimulus himself, Sheriff Biden. 

Sheriff Biden had an opinion piece in one the Obama administrations journalism partners, New York Times today.

Notwithstanding this progress, the nature of the Recovery Act remains misunderstood by many, and misconstrued by others: critics have suggested that the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet programs. As the person leading the administration’s efforts to put the Recovery Act into effect, I want to set the record straight.

Translation. The stimulus is not working as quickly as we told you it would, so we need to start a new story line.

95 percent of working Americans have seen their taxes go down as a result of the act.

Yes, we have all received our $13 a week and we’ve been working hard to stimulate the economy with our stipend.

The second-largest part — just under a third — is direct relief to state governments and individuals. The money is allowing state governments to avoid laying off teachers (14,000 in New York City alone), firefighters and police officers and preventing states’ budget gaps from growing wider.

Yup, we’re still “saving” jobs and you’re just going to have to trust us on the numbers as we cannot prove it.

And those hardest hit by the recession are getting extended unemployment insurance, health coverage and other help to get through these tough times.

It’s amusing that Joe has decided to bring up the extended unemployment benefits that we part of the stimulus package. These extended benefits were for an additional 13 weeks of benefits. Most of our unemployed exhausted these benefits as of July 10th and received their last checks this past week. No worries, we have lots of ham and cheese sandwiches to get them through.

Even with such care being taken, we have already committed more than one-fourth of the Recovery Act’s total funds, and we are on track to meet the deadline set when the act was passed in February — spending 70 percent by the end of September 2010.

Take a look at the wording. They’ve committed 1/4 of the total funds, this money has not been spent. They just know what they intend to spend it on. As far as the 70% by September 2010, same problem. The money will have been committed or sent to State Governments, will not be spent.

We know they’ve actually only spent about 10% of the stimulus.

We have experienced ten recessions from 1946 through 2006. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the current recession is said to have began in December 2007. Previous recessions have averaged 6-18 months depending on the research you choose.

So, if we say this is one of the worst recessions we’ve seen then we should expect recovery to begin in July. If we use the stock market as a gauge, we just had a great week and it looks like there’s some recovery beginning to happen. Before most of the money has been spent.

My take.

The Stimulus Package did lessen the pain with extended unemployment payments and aid to lower income families. This is a good thing. However, the financial cycle seems to be working and we should stop the spending and interference. Get out of the way and business owners will bring the economy back, not the government.

 

 

Your Stimulus Dollars At Work At Chico Unified School District

According to Contra Costa Times (emphasis mine):

The Chico Unified School District will use a portion of its federal stimulus dollars to retain the equivalent of 40 full-time positions.

The district planned on using $4.4 million of about $8.5 million in stimulus to reduce further budget cuts. On Wednesday, the board approved a plan to direct the money to eight programs, and retain about 40 teaching and staff positions.

Stimulus funds could have been used to re-hire 58 teachers who were laid off which had the impact of increasing class sizes of kindergarten through third grades. Returning to 30 students per teacher.

Instead.

Assistant superintendent Jan Combes said the district decided to use the stimulus dollars toward categorical programs that weren’t swept up in earlier cuts.

Trustee Rick Rees said the stimulus needed to be something to help the economy.

So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. They decided to ‘save’ 40 jobs ($100,000 per job – teachers and staff) instead of  ‘create’  58 jobs ($75,862 per job – all teachers); hire staff instead of teachers; thereby disregarding the needs of hundreds of children to focus on eight programs that will impact fewer children.

Yup, that just about covers it. The interesting thing is their choice of a couple of programs that they’ve chosen to support instead of the kids.

International Baccalaureate – read this one (emphasis mine)!

It is suggested that schools approach the topics of the IB community theme through guiding questions, pitched to the level of students, for example:

• What do we mean by poverty?
• What are the causes of poverty?
• Does it matter that some people are much poorer than others?
• Why do countries fight?
• How do conflicts arise?
• How are conflicts resolved?
• What can we learn from our everyday experience of resolving conflicts within our own lives?
• Can we apply our experience of resolving conflicts within our own lives to resolving large-scale conflicts (for instance, between countries or warring groups within countries)?
• What is terrorism?
• Terrorist or freedom-fighter – is there a real difference between the two or is it just perception?
• Is education for all a right?
• Does improved education help to remove people from poverty?
• What are the implications of uneven access to digital technology?
• Is a “natural disaster” only a disaster if it affects people?
• How can the effects of natural disasters be mitigated?
• What are the links between disease and poverty?
• Why are some diseases common in some parts of the world and eradicated elsewhere?
• What actions are being taken to address the global issues of the theme?
• What can we do, individually, to play our part in responding to these issues?

This site has been developed to help schools to integrate activities around this theme into school life … and to share results, successes and stories with the global IB community.

Academy For Change

Academy for Change (AFC) is the community day school serving Chico Unified School District. AFC enrolls students in the following categories:

Other special program

• Expulsion from another school
• Probation referral
• Student Attendance Review Board (SARB) referral

Safe Schools

Provides training, resources and technical assistance to establish a school/community environment which is physically and emotionally safe, well disciplined, and conducive to learning.

Pupil Retention Promotion Block Grant

 The Pupil Retention Block Grant (PRBG) combines funding for the following programs that target pupils who require additional assistance to succeed in school: Elementary School Intensive Reading, Intensive Algebra Instruction Academies, Continuation High School Foundation, High Risk Youth Education and Public Safety, Tenth Grade Counseling, District Opportunity Classes and Programs, Dropout Prevention and Recovery, Early Intervention for School Success, and At-Risk Youth for Los Angeles Unified School District.

So, this is the way If you are a kindergarten through third grade student at Chico Unified that is a good kid, studies hard and hasn’t been expelled, etc. – you’re out of luck. However, you will know how to perform an earthquake drill – thank goodness!

As far as the International Baccalaureate – are you kidding me – “Terrorist or freedom-fighter – is there a real difference between the two or is it just perception?”

OUR Stimulus $’s At Work – Making Sure The Homeless In San Franciso Are Comfortable

Why can’t we just send them to Nancy Pelosi’s house?

At first I thought this must be a joke email – but NO…………..The San Franciso Sentinel is prouding reporting:

SAN FRANCISCO RECEIVES $8.75 MILLION GRANT FOR HOMELESSNESS MITIGATION

Mayor Newsom today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has granted San Francisco $8.75 million as part of their Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Looks like we can add The San Francisco Sentinel to the list of Obama partners.

This IS NOT what this program was meant for – at least not what it was sold to us as – more snake oil:

These funds will allow San Francisco to:

· Provide short term rent subsidies for homeless San Franciscans

· Expand eviction prevention funding/programs

· Improve outreach to those at risk of eviction with particular attention to low-income neighborhoods and special needs populations

· Provide housing counseling assistance to renters who are victims of eviction or are at risk of eviction

· Provide services (e.g. case management, financial management) to renters who are victims of eviction or are at risk of eviction

· Provide legal services to renters who are victims of eviction or are at risk of eviction

Has anyone else noticed that these articles touting the Stimulus have all but stopped mentioning the creation of jobs????????????

$6.2 million in Federal Stimulus funds go to GE – surprised?

O.K., I exaggerated a little. But not really.

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that federal funds will be released to go towards Energy Star appliance rebates. Yes, I know there are other manufacturers of Energy Star appliances however a bulk of this money will end up in the GE coffers.

After all only has until 2012 until GE falls off the cliff again, he needs to make as much profit as he can and he’s right on target.

Remember, Jeffrey Immelt is in favor of Globalization and against Buy American. He also feels that the government as a partner, as a financier, as a collaborator will not end for a generation and he’s o.k. with that; “The fact is it’s going to happen“, so why not take advantage of it – right? 

Then of course there’s still the GE – ACORN connection.