WGBH Journal; Our Market

Good evening and welcome to GBH Journal. I'm Greg Fitzgerald. And tonight a new supermarket opens in Dorchester. Normally that's not a major news event but the story behind the opening of our market is a unique one. We'll find out why. Then lawyer John Taylor Williams explains why minorities need to own TV and radio stations as well as to be employed by the DMV today. Where's it going. And third part of our series David Freud Berg asked that question to trolley car drivers. And the question of how cities and towns will deal with a 4 percent tax cab was examined by Louis Lyons. First a look at the local news headlines. The United States Interior Committee today approved a six month ban on federal construction permits for nuclear power plants. The ban will affect the license proceedings for the mammoth pilgrim to power plant in Plymouth. The ban will delay the construction of pilgrim 2 if the plant is given the go ahead by the state. A spokesperson for the Boston Edison Company said Edison had expected a construction license in four or five months three to four hundred million dollars has already been spent or committed to construction of pilgrim 2 according to Addison and it will delay and licensing could hurt

electricity consumers says the utility company. Meanwhile the Boston clamshell coalition announced plans today to rally in favor of the Boston Edison oil fired plant in Weymouth Egger station at four river in Weymouth has been closed by Addison clamshell and mast Perth want Addison to reactivate it if the plant is reopened says clamshell. A second nuclear plant in Plymouth would not be needed. Speaking of utilities the House failed today to ban the phone company from charging customers for directory assistance calls a bill which would have barred the Public Utility Commission from allowing New England telephone to charge for the service was vetoed recently by Governor King. It was King's first veto an attempt was made in the House today to override that veto. But the move failed by three votes. The business agent for striking Western employees said union members would not obey an order by the Western superior court to return to work following the first day of a strike by about 1000 union members. The state Labor Relations Commission ordered both sides in the dispute to the

bargaining table immediately. Richard bull R.J. of the agent of local 495 said the court order will not get workers back to their jobs tomorrow. He claimed that about 1000 of the 800 member union stayed out of work today. Issues in the strike revolve around a union demand for a 10 percent pay hike. The city has offered 5 percent. After agreeing to a 4 percent tax tax cap passed by the legislature Governor King today said that a 400 million dollar property tax reduction is a realistic possibility. King told a news conference that even though the 4 percent bill permits expenses to rise by at least one hundred twenty million dollars this year 400 million should be available for tax relief. He did acknowledge that 500 million which he promised during his campaign could not be met as it was based on a zero cap in spending. King also said that if Congress follows through on its threat to cut state revenue sharing funds by some 72 million dollars. And that too could have an effect on the promised aid. And that's the news.

A new supermarket opened in Codman Square today. Normally that kind of an event does not draw much attraction from reporters and community activists but this supermarket opening was very different. Late last year the first national corporation on is of the finest supermarket chain in a corporate sweep closed a number of markets in the way England. The closing of the finest in Codman Square was particularly devastating as it was the only large food market in the community. A store would serve as a magnet for merchants around the market without the supermarket most community leaders saw a continual decline in Codman Square. Today however our market as it is called opened its doors at 9:00 a.m. Unlike the corporate finest our market will be owned and operated by community interests of the

Codman Square Community Development Corporation supervising its operations. Its employees will also receive a significant share of the market's financial benefits. In a sense it is a community cooperative. The manager of the market is Mohamed Farrakhan who opened its doors today with both anticipation and excitement. I really can't believe it. It's. The customers that you see out here because they're hungry. We had no advertising. Just word of mouth and people came down and when they saw that the plywood for example come off the windows on Monday. It was their first concrete. Confirmation that the store was indeed going to open. And. They still believe it. You know. As we look around the store here what are the differences that are here now as compared to when first national how the store operated. Well number one it's clean. I don't think there's much doubt in anyone's mind that the store is remarkably renovated. The

personnel we have a personnel ethnic make up that reflects the neighborhood. And that wasn't true with first national before. How do people feel about working in the market. Well this is their market. Everyone here is working because they're working for themselves. They know that if the store is. To be successful they have to take care of it and the only way we can guarantee that's going to happen is if they own 50 percent of it. So that's what the Community Development Corporation intends to do. Turn over 50 percent of the stock holdings that they have to be employees in a cooperative. How do you think what seems to be the apparent success of least opening day here is going to affect. Codman Square here. Well I pray to God that this thing is sustained. No man. Not yet. The guy hasn't brought them in. A pretty god that you know what I'm looking at is real. You know the snack on the way with. The first hard times lesson from. The

merchants in the square to a man involved come up to me and offer their assistance. Have all said that they're glad the store is open that they couldn't believe it would happen simply because there was no profit incentive. On the part of the members of the CDC to get it open in the first place. And nobody's making a dime. Personally. To. Make this thing go. And they just couldn't believe it. They were very supportive. Everyone seemed very supportive. You know. Across the street at Dorchester hardware merchants opening at the market and rejoiced at the fact that the market was a community long store juster hardware going to be a plus for everything around here. It is back open again and it certainly does look. A lot better than it looks better.

I think it's going to do well. We don't have any more. We didn't have a market here for a while. And it's going to bring a lot of traffic back. It's going to keep people back. The fact I guess a lot of it is run a very kind of a community way is it can be a plus two. Oh definitely it's the first. You're going to get in it is going to benefit the community and the people that are working there. We need a place close in our neighborhood. We don't have marketing up continually shop out and I don't think it's worth it. Yeah a lot of money for gas and you know my gas is gone I can't afford it with the people shopping here. They were patronize other stores a lot more. I think really really.

Right next door to the market Lloyd Kenneth Gross brother now it's music store. Right next to the market what do you think it's going to do for Americans around here for the community. Folks in the community have expressed a desire you know to buy something new. And this market is like a you know in a way you know I have a business here that people do talk to me in reference to different things that do occur in the community and by market opening as it is that will pick up like it's pick up here you completely you know because they needed something you know sort of gripped it deep into and this was a good thing. There are many other buildings that once house shops and stores along this Codman Square street

they are now boarded up. The hopes of the Community Development Corporation is to spread the success of the market throughout the community so that plywood planks can be taken off shops like the Aspinwall pharmacy Curry's hairstyling salon and Dorchester tropical food. Far should the government go in promoting minority access to the media that's a problem which has been

grappled with by the Federal Communications Commission. The courts and the media alike. There is the question of affirmative action. You know employment of minorities as well as the issue of minority representation in programming. Lawyer John Taylor Williams recently discussed some of these questions with Dr. Bernard Reuben and discussed a number of doctrines protecting minorities. One of the problems I think with with doctrines is of course there's always a counter doctrine against those doctrines that are designed to achieve affirmative action or the doctrines that are designed to achieve. Non-interference with the press in the form of First Amendment protections that was shalt not dictate programming Thou shalt not dictate the way news is gathered and the way news is written and the way news is broadcast and those two sometimes come into conflict. Isaiah Berlin has this philosophy that art and democracy are the antithesis of each other if you will. If you really look at the definitions of both of them and that is in a way the problems with these

doctrines you have one doctrine designed to achieve the most free intellectual discourse possible and at the same time you have the problem that that free intellectual discourse may not be balanced because the people who are engaging in a free intellectual discourse are upper income white males who own control or work in the communications media. And that obviously has to bring a slant. Well one of the things that is obvious is that the number of minority peoples in the mass media especially in positions of executive importance is very very small. There are so few blacks in radio and television stations that a good case can be argued and I've just read a brilliant treatise on this that the so called coon image of blacks. Has come from before our national history was begun and can be

seen in the latest version and some of the programs of the 979 on television. The problem with this goes back to your point about when you start stereotyping in the form of statistics you begin to also stereotype in the form of programming because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy prophecy and you want those people to represent the minorities. Statistics that are assigned to them and then of course they're supposed to perform only as a minority and they're not supposed to perform as as an intellectual broadcaster and so there's a I mean this is what's happened of course in the sense of that of a backlash an affirmative action where you hold spots open in universities and employers for minorities and you give you give a privilege or a special special interest to people who are from minorities and of course the majority says look at should be the best person because they can afford to say that since if the statistics are such that they have a 2 out of 1 chance of getting it but there

is and there is that other. Another end of your problem. But John Williams Let me let me throw this at you. If there is a problem that you suggest in these doctrines and I suggest these doctrines maybe we need not to attack doctrines but we need a new doctrine. In other words I'm saying that it's not so much representation that bothers me as the fact that we're ignoring the the paucity of opportunity to become a person of significance in our mass media society. I think that there should be a lot more sampling of what the community wants as far as program and ownership. And I think ownerships extremely important the court points out in the dissent in bilingual. You can talk all you want about the employees and how many you get from each minority group. But if minorities don't own or have a voice in ownership they really never going to have a great voice in programming because the emphasis is going to be on entertainment not on content. And if they don't get good ratings and that

show goes off and if if if you lose black nose and get the Jeffersons basically which is I think the way all broadcasting is going is becoming it's becoming an entertainment media as opposed to an information media. And I think that's why public television news and public radio and all of these forms of information communications are becoming more and more popular and they're not having the trouble they had originally getting the funding as people are fed up with a communications media that is completely oriented to entertainment. Attorney John Taylor Williams discussing affirmative action in the FCC with Dr. Bernard Reuben. This week we've been examining the MBA TANF alternatives to automobile travel in

an era when the short supply of gasoline may force new lifestyles on energy consumers. Last night we heard from citizens who travel by public transit. Tonight our series listens to the drivers about 2000 operators are employed by the NPT. Some work and glass booths on Rapid Transit trains others must collect fares answer questions and of course navigate through traffic. Here's part three of David Friedberg report public transportation. Where is it going. The front line of our public transit system is the men and women who actually operate the buses subways and trolleys. When your ride comes late all you see is the driver and not the thousands of support staff or the frustrating congested traffic and equipment failures that have slowed down travel. The MBT drivers are among the highest paid in the industry but they work often long hours under pressured conditions bearing the responsibility for transporting crowds safely and quickly. Among the toughest jobs at the T is operating surface

lines the trolleys and buses that maneuver through automobile traffic while serving commuters. I talked with drivers in between runs at the end of the arbor way line in Jamaica Plain. One of the main crashes is the ballad a worker because he is very low. Due to the circumstances. Which possibly management and situation. It's the public they're frustrated because of lack of equipment again because the lack of equipment. And they sort of take it out on the. Bottom of the management makes no effort to collect fares. The new operators are told in the instruction school not to try to don't try to collect fares you're

going to get your check Wednesday and we don't want you because you get assaulted we're going to have to pay you compensation. That wasn't a way that wasn't a way it was when I hired out in 1040 tool. I mean it was fierce and you had to get the fares on the bus or trolley didn't move. But today this exact fare is a joke and we have a man on compensation. John Kennedy tells the operators when they're being interviewed to come on work the first thing he tells them don't come crying to me if you get assaulted for collecting fares. I rest my case. Over 99 percent of the public are fantastic people. They they appreciate us. But it only takes one Nick Wedd to get in and call you a derogatory remark and then which they get some of them back from certain operators including me. That is they have no right to abuse a bus driver because they had a way 20 minutes for a bus or a street guy. Or whatever. Let them go in town an abuse management who is running this

country not us. You got lines out here. They sent me out on the line one morning on the liberal channel and they hadn't had service for 45 minutes not as they didn't have the help on the service. You can't blame the office here because they just do they keep that what this also and it was bitterly cold the mean going on my bus on Wall Street. He was purple He was so cold. It's a disgrace it is not the fault of this office. It's the fault of management. Downtown downtown it's basically past minutes buying buses. They stand buying Bice's for years after their due and by the time they get them there seven years later they stand a buy and streak as 10 years after they should have been replaced and the PCCs they and they buy by the three guys and they're still not right and they're blaming them in a night station for having a derailment that the same street guy was the real six times previous. How can you blame a man for

something like that. They've had one hundred sixty five hundred seventy. The real much on these are Ivy's. It's a defect of a piece of piece of equipment it's not engine in and designed properly or some of the drivers frightened of having to ride on something like the incident we don't know because they come out of another band and I tell you this much I would not drive one. I stay over here with the junk I've been driving for about 10 years and the pressures I feel when I first come on the job they used to give you enough time to do trips where now they've got you going as fast as you can to get to one end because when you get there usually almost late you turn around and come back and the equipment isn't working with you and equipments against you as far as mechanically they'll send you out with buses that the brakes actually aren't good enough to stop an empty bus let alone when you fill up 100 people in the time schedules the way they cut the time schedules down there trying to get trying to make some money on trying to produce revenue by cutting down the manpower and have you do more work which is good but this company is a

transportation company isn't in the business to make money it's in the business to move people. I feel you should be given the service that they require. If they have a five minute headway on lines in the rush hour. If a bus breaks down they don't try to cover it like they did some years back now they just say well absorb it make it a 10 minute headway and if it becomes a 15 minute headway they say the Eventually the people go home they don't really care. If you find this a frustrating job. I find it's very frustrating almost every night you go home you're very keyed up and it probably takes the average operator and half an hour to an hour to unwind when he does get home. If you get a person who is going to buses thank you very much for the room you know. Nice write thank you. Think to start with the reality that is the only fringe benefit you get. Drivers at the MBT Arbor way terminal in Jamaica Plain speaking recently during a break. Tomorrow night our series takes you for an earwitness visit to a mysterious MBT a office called central

control for GBH Journal. I'm David Friedberg. Looks like a 4 percent tax cap on spending is what Massachusetts cities and towns are going to live with. Now that's a fact a fact of life. Local governments around the state can begin to plan their budgets. More lines take a look at the process. The Bruins hockey game and Governor King's tax cap between them caused many town meetings to postpone their final sessions last night. Lack of a quorum was ascribed to the Bruins game in Hannover in Abington Marshfield and postponed its meeting to avoid the conflict. Native had to put off a vote on settling back pay for the police Hollington is meeting in port in three hours discussing a redevelopment

plan before adjourning for lack of a quorum to vote on appropriations. Reading limited its appropriations at three hundred fifty dollars for care and upkeep of the town clock putting off all of the money out of calls pending decision on Governor King's 40 percent cap. In most towns the closest votes were on cuts their finance committees recommended to me cap. It took five votes in and of or for the two thirds needed to exceed the 4 percent cap on a 5 percent increase in its school budget. Mansfield turned down its finance committees move to cut the school budget. Westwood stayed within the cap by such frugality as rejecting a proposal for a full time assessor. Riley vetoed the Finance Committee proposal for no increase in salaries of elected officers when Gesta found its first town meeting session had already appropriated more than the 4 percent cap. It will seek a two thirds vote to cover appropriation totals when complete Braintree refused to cut out trash collection for recycling.

But Lexington defeated proposals for a recycling program resenting binding arbitration that forced 7 percent raises for police and firemen. Many towns accompanied it with raises in excess of 4 percent to the nonunion employees. Still voters were upset to learn from that town council that services they had cut out in an earlier session required by state law. They voted to send Governor Kaine a letter of complaint about the state mandated program. These variations in public action might have been accounted for by a talk at Parsons who died of a stroke yesterday in Munich at 76. Professor Parsons all embracing theory of human activity so influenced three generations of sociology students in his 46 years of Harvard that some believe his profound thoughts encompassed all knowledge. Historians hold that the last man of whom that could be said died in the 16th century. Professor Parsons created the first department of social relations at Harvard

and incorporated anthropology economics medicine biology psychodynamics in attempt to unify knowledge for understanding human behavior. His students revered the expense of his learning even when they didn't understand it. Another obit brings an echo history composer of Happy Days Are Here Again and she sweet died Monday at 85. Ain't She Sweet celebrated the birth of his first child Shana Alexander distinguished journalist today. That song is held on better than Happy days. Naturally I'm now considering a long famine and anything much to be happy about. The ecstatic debut of Happy Days came about by accident. The men at the 1932 Democratic convention wanted to play anchors away at the nomination of Franklin Roosevelt. This in recognition of his naval interests but they didn't have a score for it

in the musical vacuum the promoter of a new song stepped up with sheets of Happy Days. It so caught on with the delegates that they went home singing it and made it the theme song of the Democratic Party not only for that campaign but through the new deal yesterday in denying the claim of confidentiality to a priest. The New York Court of Appeals cited the Supreme Court's holding against a journalist. Like the press the priest claim was an absolute absolute confidentiality but the court ruled it does not apply outside his spiritual communication with the penitent. So the priest Reverend Louis XI ganti of New York is held in contempt for refusing to tell the grand jury about his conversation with the state corrections board in the interest of an organized crime figure. Then in jail the priest was also a chaplain of the Italian American Civil Rights League and a former city council. This dual

or triple role could complicate the priest's expected appeal to the Supreme Court. It would seem to fit Justice Holmes dictum great cases like hard cases make bad law. This was Tom's description of the celebrated Northern Securities Company case of 1004. It's better remembered for the anecdote It gave rise to. Holmes voted against President there are Roosevelt's position on the case when the homesite attended the president's dinner to the court. He made such an uncomfortable comment about the court's division that as the Justice reported it Mrs. Holmes said she'd be damned if we'd ever go there again. Commentator Louis life. And that's to be a journal for tonight tomorrow night part four of public transportation. Where is it going. The producer and director for GBH journalist Marcia Hirtz tonight we had assistance from

Becky ROR and Shelley Roth our engineer William music. I break which Harold could not.