Now there's a headline you won't see most places

 I had to darkly laugh when I saw this headline in the T&G last week:

headline reads
"City Council passes 90-day parking ban near Worcester elementary school"

...I mean, do you like being an elected official?

But of course, in Worcester, where the years that the City Council passes a budget that meets the legally mandated minimum for education is the exception rather than the rule, there are not the repercussions there would be most places in doing something that so clearly is going to infuriate a lot of parents. 

...which of course this did: 

headline reads:
"Study in frustration: Trial parking ban gets F from Roosevelt School parents"

The Council, of course, has been quick to tout the additional parking lot--has any parking lot gotten a bigger splash than this one? It had a ribbon cutting with a press release!--that was added, a solution that the Council decided was the answer, purchasing the land and pretty much requiring that this be bumped to the top of the list of the capital projects of the school department. 

Have we added sidewalks on Sunderland Road?
Nope.

Has the Council ensured the schools have as much funding as they could possibly need to get kids onto school buses?
Nope.<sup>1

Have we, in short, done anything on anything that's actual under the purview of the City Council that might make getting kids to and from Roosevelt both safer and use fewer private cars?
Nope.</sup>

But it's okay, because the district councilor thinks "it will be a success."

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¹in fact, this is why the school budget keeps being underfunded: the city refuses to recognize the increases in the transportation budget, which doesn't count towards net school spending