Posted on 10/14/2002 12:31:57 PM PDT by SheLion
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:08:26 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) Mayor Larry Raymond said Monday that he is sorry for any misunderstanding but he doesn't regret writing an open letter to Somali leaders that has drawn national attention and criticism.
Raymond, who met privately Friday with Somali leaders, said his letter asking Somali newcomers to discourage their Somali friends and families from coming to Lewiston has been misinterpreted by some people.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I'm proud of Mayor Raymond for not backing down and apologizing. He spoke only the truth. Enough is ENOUGH!
Your doing great, Mayor Raymond. Many of us are behind you!!
They have been in southern Maine for quite sometime. They want to bring in over a thousand more, and that is why this Mayor is saying "Please! It's time to stop! We can't handle anymore."
This started back in 1999, (guess who was President?), and John Baldacci (who is running in November to be our Governor against Peter Cianchette - God please protect us from Baldacci) and Allen. (Allen is also running again in the election. Both DemocRATS):
BALDACCI AND ALLEN SEEK FEDERAL ASSISTANCE TO ADDRESS INFLUX OF SOMALI IMMIGRANTS
June 6, 2002
Representatives Baldacci and Allen called for $100,000 in funding to enable Catholic Charities of Maine to provide needed services to Somali immigrants in Lewiston and other communities. Catholic Charities provides outreach and assistance to refugees and immigrants.
Maine has a hard time finding work and feeding their own. Yet Baldacci and Allen want an INFLUX of immigrants! What's up with this!
I also found out that the first priority of the Somali's when they reach Maine is to register......you guessed it........DemocRAT! We all know how dirty the Dems are. They will use any tactic they can to insure a vote!
Why is Catholic Charities helping them? Arent't they mostly Muslim? Isn't there a mosque in Lewiston? Why aren't their imams supporting them?
Excuse me? We never lived in Mass. We came up here in 1983 for Loring Air Force Base. My husband is a Viet Nam Vet, if that means anything to you...
HOLYOKE - They have not even left the desolate camp perched on a distant, African plain, yet 300 Somali Bantu refugees have already become the center of a political firestorm in Western Massachusetts.
A year ago, a coalition of religious charities told Holyoke Mayor Michael Sullivan they were seeking nearly $1 million in federal funds to relocate as many as 60 Somali Muslim families over the next three years to this city, one of the state's poorest. Holyoke seemed the perfect fit, the charities said, because of affordable housing, entry-level jobs, and the city's long tradition of absorbing newcomers. Sullivan agreed, but advised the coalition to find more money for education, interpreters, and police training.
Two months ago, the funds came through - $320,000 a year, for three years. But now, city councilors say that even with the grant, Holyoke cannot afford to welcome the refugees. Two weeks ago, the councilors, who said they had just learned of the plan, voted to ask the federal government to take the money back.
''The city does not have the resources to care for, educate, train, house or protect said individuals,'' stated the resolution, which passed by a vote of 12-2. ''We ... do not support the decision to place the refugees in our city.''
The vote, which federal officials said could be unprecedented, is largely symbolic because councilors do not have control over federal funds and can't legally keep people from moving here.
But as the US government prepares to bring over the first group this spring in a migration that could eventually resettle more than 10,000 Somali Bantus across the United States, the topic has sparked controversy and soul-searching in this city of immigrants' children.
''I don't believe we've had an issue that reached this magnitide,'' said Raymond H. Feyre, who has been on Holyoke's City Council for 20 years.
In this city of 40,000, a boarded-up school overlooks Holyoke's main public park. Weeds overtake empty lots just a few blocks from City Hall. Idle paper and linen mills - once engines of growth that attracted waves of Irish, German, and French-Canadian immigrants - line the river.
The low cost of living and the heritage of immigrant struggle are precisely what make Holyoke fit the federal government's criteria for a ''preferred community'' eligible for special funding to resettle refugees. The grant-seekers say that with a population that is 42 percent Latino, a host of entry-level jobs, and more than 700 vacant, multibedroom apartments ready to be rented at $350 per month or less, Holyoke seemed a welcoming site for the new Americans.
But when news of the grant hit the local newspapers, it created an uproar that neither the charities nor the mayor expected.
''It's unfair to the refugees and unfair to our present population to ask us to absorb these difficulties,'' Feyre said, adding that the refugees will cost Holyoke far more than the funds in the grant.
Others point out that the city, already involved in a lawsuit filed because of the high failure rate of Holyoke High School students on the state's comprehensive tests, can't cope with the enrollment of more than 50 children who may never have opened a book, turned on a lightswitch, or picked up a pen.
Still other opponents fear that the refugees would swell the welfare rolls or take jobs away from current residents. Those complaints have surfaced in Lewiston, Maine, a city now home to 1,200 Somalian immigrants. Unlike the Holyoke refugees, those in Lewiston settled there on their own, without federal funding for the transition.
''There are many in the city of Holyoke who believe that our city was chosen precisely because it has social and economic problems,'' Feyre, 50, wrote in a letter published in Springfield's Sunday Republican.
On Oct. 1, two months after the grant was awarded to build a ''newcomer center'' in a Holyoke apartment building where the refugees would live, city councilors voted to ask the federal government to take the money back.
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