Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

Everyone enjoys a nice neighborhood. No one likes to grow up in squalor and poverty. In the best of cases, the redevelopment of neighborhoods includes a sincere, genuine plan to empower the poor people of a village rather than create a small percentage of affordable housing for some of them while booting out the rest in favor of folks with deeper pockets. At Norwalk's city hall, Mayor Harry Rilling and the departments he supposedly guides and manages has been focused on making Norwalk a more lucrative place amongst the Fairfield County towns. But his idea of growth leaves all the poor people behind and throws in a mega mall as the welcome mat to what could be a city with great character. In its ghetto, which is called Washington Village, the mayor and his Norwalk Redevelopment Agency have big plans. The plan, recently stuck down by the courts was to create an urban apartment complex village to replace the plantation-style brick buildings that currently house a mostly Afri...

"When you perceive the an act done to another is done to yourself, you have understood the great truth." Lao Tzu, about 2,500 years ago, China The first 'thing' that would stand out for Norwalk, Connecticut off of interstate 95 would be a mega mall in what could be a park for families and the people of Norwalk. One of the great attributes of some of the neighboring Fairfield County towns are their green parks. Norwalk needs a mini-Central Park as a welcome sight, instead of a blight like a massive mega mall.  I'm in a continued drive to shake away the entire current administration of the South Norwalk Community Center for its mishandling and prioritization of funds and time that should have been better apportioned so that youth programs could have begun being established. Yet, now after nearly two years, Warren Pena's management of how to serve the community has rested largely on paying a great sum of money for constant interior decoration. Thi...

For a time, injustice will seem to rule the day, yet the ballast in our hearts drive us collectively to shine light into every corner and eventually unjust ways meet an end. Damage can also be done by the hearts and minds of those who look to serve themselves and their agendas over the plight of others. People like this live in heart-poverty and have narrow thinking. They even go as far as to look to enlist others in their doomed mission with persuasion, manipulation, bribery, rewards and coercion. Of all the injustices found, one of the greatest is poverty. Poverty of the mind, of the heart and of the body. It can be inflicted on a whole mass of people and has been used repeatedly as a master weapon against people. Sir Francis Bacon, for example, said that ‘knowledge is power.’ In purposefully keeping people ignorant and disempowered you can exact subtle control, influence and power over them. You can easily divide them, search out their would-be leaders and subjugate ...

It is a tale of two cities. In one city we  have the poor people of South Norwalk. They are African-Americans, they are hispanics (with and without U.S. citizenship) and they are white people, all of which hover around the poverty line, more or less. In this city, opportunity does not pass through the hands of the majority of the people, but rumbles through their streets in fast-paced construction vehicles. In this city, the drug-dealing is out front and center in front of what use to be the heart of the community, the South Norwalk Community Center. Aged men, like Tyrone Campbell, 71, amble by homeless and without a sense of direction. There is no future in store for senior citizens like him. He is not currently productive or desired by anyone, so he just ambles by. He cried to me in a recent conversation and it became hard for me to see his socio-economic state. All I could see was his humanity and want of dignity. I saw my late-maternal grandfather in him. We spoke of th...

What does it mean to manage a center for the community? What is the purpose of its existence? Whom should a community center serve? Over the last few months I have been in hot pursuit in taking action to foment social responsibility awareness of the way the management of the South Norwalk Community Center and its chief executive officer, Warren Pena have orchestrated their affairs towards the community. Efforts to facilitate positive disruptive action have been taken directly onto the streets of South Norwalk, as well as on social media platforms to bring pressure upon what appears to be a improper mishandling of around one million dollars in funds  by Pena's management group. To date, his director has been ousted and a board of advisors member has resigned due to community action in the last twelve weeks. Violence has not been exacted nor is condoned in the campaign to bring the 'powers that be' in the South Norwalk Community Center to do what is right for the l...

updated 1/31/16 I worked the weekend and weathered the storm with #theCowboy.  He did a most excellent job in rocking it to the beat to Queens 'We Will Rock You' and Bruno Mars's 'Uptown Funk.' He also put his shoulder into Johnny Cash's 'I walk the line.' A personal favorite of his. After the storm we were completely snowed in under two feet of snow and we had run out of oatmeal and bananas. There was no way out. There was no orang juice left. Thankfully though Martin, a man of the community, put his shoulder to the electric plow and bull dozed our walkway and area around the stagecoach which #theCowboy rides on. The snow shot out forty feet in the air, and my student, who is on the autism spectrum was simply loving it. We were able to make it to the train station to continue on in our adventure. #ShoulderToThePlow The #Waitress from SoNo who serves the best ‘Atol de Helote' in town told me a story. She told me how she wai...

(updated 12/22/15) How do we go about creating and sustaining awareness? How does a person… a community…foster a ripple effect of social responsibility? How shall I be an agent of positive disruption in my community? Why not? Life is short and the days fly by. The Boss (Springsteen) said that we can’t start something if we are always worried about our own world falling apart. He is right! No time to sit idly by or ‘wallow in the mire.’ No longer content to hang back, it is always the time to put the shoulder to the plow for others, especially those who are needy, disadvantaged or forgotten.  It is a new day. There are diamonds where people see them not and there is apathy where all seems well.  The land is ripe for positive disruption. It is time to band together. I story dance a new song You must also Releasing thought and feeling Channelling hope and pain Making amends where it is needed Doing the right thing first Banding together c...