The following article pretty much tells the story that can be summarized by saying - if your board is in a state where it's consumers are this upset, change should happen. Maybe it's the wrong people on the bus? Maybe its the right people not knowing how to do business? Maybe its both or something else. But whatever the cause by this board, change is required.
SPRINGFIELD — Drama erupted Tuesday on a city sidewalk as tenant protesters attempted to attend a board meeting of Partners for Community over the pending sale of two housing projects in the North End.
The apartment buildings, run by a local property manager on behalf of Brightwood Development Corp., are under an agreement to be sold to Boston-based Peabody Management, Inc., to pay off debt incurred by the New England Farm Workers Council, led by Heriberto “Herbie” Flores.
Flores, who is president of both the Partners for Community and Brightwood boards, defended the planned sales.
“I need a buyer with money and juice,” he said. Before heading to a political fundraiser next door at the Student Prince for Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Flores lamented the protesters’ response to the sale. Flores is also president of the farm workers council board.
Housing advocacy group Neighbor To Neighbor organized a standout outside the Partners for Community offices — a parent corporation of Brightwood Development, a nonprofit — on Hampden Street early Tuesday evening.
In one instance, an unidentified woman yanked an exterior door shut and closed it in the face of organizer Katie Talbot to bar access by the tenants group.
Shortly after that, a man who declined to identify himself to a reporter tried to persuade the group to leave and threatened to call police because Talbot was holding the door open with her foot.
“I’m politely declining,” she responded, as protesters challenged the man loudly and repeatedly about being denied access to the meeting — which was ultimately cancelled.
“The sign on this building says ‘Partners for Community,’ and we are part of this community,” protester Carlos Gonzalez told the man from his seat in a wheelchair.
The properties on the block are the Jefferson Avenue School Apartments and Borinquen Apartments, both subsidized housing complexes owned by Brightwood Development Corp., a nonprofit, but ultimately controlled by Flores, in his role as the president of that board.
Carlos Gonzalez, a tenant at Jefferson Avenue School Apartments, joins other tenants to protest outside of New England Farm Workers Council building on Hampden Street in Springfield Tuesday evening, Sept. 26, 2023. (Hoang ‘Leon’ Nguyen / The Republican
Tenants who live in other Peabody-managed housing complexes in Springfield have questioned the company’s track record on maintaining other properties in the neighborhood.
“They make a lot of beautiful changes for the tenants at Jefferson Street, [who] are elderly and disabled,” he said. ‘Kitchens, new floors, new parking lot. They really care about us,” he said of Kaylee Morgan, the current management.
The cancellation ended the standoff between Talbot and the unidentified bouncer at the door, and the protesters cheered in response.