blog@abn

We now have a Special City Council Committee for the Boston Common. I knew I should get worried. And Mike Ross is the chair. More worried.

At a hearing (which I missed but the Boston Globe reported) on March 19, Toni Pollak, Parks Commissioner, announced that large grass-trampling gatherings should no longer be allowed on Boston Common, but should be held on City Hall Plaza.

Perhaps she is unaware that we citizens no longer own City Hall Plaza, since 1996, when the Boston Redevelopment Authority took it from the City of Boston by eminent domain, free of compensation, on the instructions of Hizzoner, her boss. The BRA is preparing to develop its valuable acreage, which is why Menino keeps talking about moving City Hall to revitalize the waterfront. Yes, the Mayor and our whole City government are being evicted, the latest victims of the BRA's urban renewal bulldozer, just the way the denizens of Scollay Square before us were thrown off their land back in the 1960's to carry out the Government Center Urban Renewal Plan -- which authorized their removal in order to build: yes, a Plaza for the people! As Paul McCann (with the BRA since its genesis in 1956) put it at a City Council hearing held, of course, AFTER the taking was all done: "It didn't work out, so it's now "blighted" and we took it again." This time, the BRA entered into a joint venture with a bunch of developers calling themselves The Trust for City Hall Plaza (remember them?) to build a hotel and garage on the Plaza -- and that, Trust chief Norman Leventhal informed me, "was just the beginning." The upshot: if we make the Plaza our democratic meeting arena, we're at the mercy of the BRA. Think about that.

But it wasn't just the grass. There were complaints about trash and noise that "damage what residents, colleges, and businesses in the area consider to be their front yard." Now NIMBYs won't let the Boston Common be the Common. We really have to teach civics in school again. What is wrong with these people?

Most alarming: For some reason, the discussion seems to have turned from protecting the green to raking in the green, and Councilor Ross opined that "cafés, restaurants, and other commercial ventures might be a good replacement for large-scale events." Of course! Commerce is pretty much the same as democratic assembly, except for the doorman in front and the bill at the end. Customers are citizens -- even better, right? Sure keeps out the poor and homeless, and good riddance, I say! The public realm is no place for 'em! And Ross responded to Tom Kershaw's complaint that he can't make enough money on Common land with his skating business on our Frog Pond, and would now like a liquor license for a night club. The alcohol prohibition on the Common, Ross offered, should be reconsidered, in the service of the restaurant business, and started planning a junket to New York's Central Park to check out the Tavern on the Green.

People, we're sending soldiers into gunfire every day to (reportedly) fight for democracy. The important part of democracy isn't what happens in the voting booth, but what happens when citizens gather, rub elbows with all kinds of their fellow human beings, and talk amongst themselves on common ground.

Let's look at reinforced grass techniques, rotating meeting spaces, or maybe a paved gathering area in the park, Commissioner Pollak, before we evict ourselves from our grassy common ground as we did from our paved one. And let's remember, Councilor Ross, the difference between the public and private realms, and why it matters.

After reading Councilor Mike Flahterty's op-ed in the South End News about towing for street cleaning, I wrote to him and to my District councilor, Mike Ross, suggesting research into cleaning trucks with vacuum hoses to clean around cars, or hiring personnel to do monthly hand-cleaning, to keep the gutters and drains clean without fining and towing our long-suffering residents and visitors. I cc'd ABN members, and got back a message from a North End resident, saying:

"In the North End and a few other neighborhoods, the City collects trash three times a week. Poor trash disposal and collection, I believe, is the main reason we have filthy streets. The tourists are not the problem (or much of it), as many like to think. Current city regulations allow trash to be on the streets from 5:00 PM to 7:00 AM the next day, or longer. Collection crews start pick-up at 7:00 AM. So, trash, including poorly bagged or unbagged, can be on the streets of the North End for up to 14 hours, three times or week, or 42 hours a week. That provides full-time "employment" and a bit of overtime for trash pickers and rodents.

Some of us have proposed limiting the hours, say from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM, with collection starting at 9:00 AM. I believe that would not be a problem for 95% of residents. Others could find someone else or some other means to dispose of their trash. But the City is loathe to go there. City officials try to ignore/avoid the subject at meetings, or they use excuses such as "that would take changing city law, and that could take years." Until we put restrictions and enforcement on the manner and time for trash disposal, I don't believe that hoakies or vacuum equipment will be able to keep up with the mess. Even the mechancial street sweeping's benefit lasts only until the next trash collection day (which could be the very next day!).

One other thing. Street sweeping and parking restrictions have existed in every city and most towns for many years, and they work. They don't work in Boston because we allow our streets to be used for long-term parking. In the North End, it is common for residents to leave their cars in one spot on the street for a week or more. That practice will even greatly hinder hoakie and vacuum efforts. I know, because I have participated in many street cleaning campaigns. It is very tough to remove litter and sand from gutters where cars are parked continuously.

I think the solution lies in a combination of tighter trash disposal regulations and parking restrictions that allow crews to get to the curb."

I've also heard many complaints about the disposal by the trash trucks of materials carefully put out for recycling.

Let's collect some recommendations for this whole trash/recycling/street-cleaning issue so we can have a productive Council hearing. Anyone know a better way that other cities handle these services? Policies? Equipment?

Mayor Menino and his School Committee have succeeded in abdicating from their obligation for public education. Where the new gentry are moving in, they just raise their own money, and let the City off the hook. And now, the donors are worrying about diversity -- alas, they can't seem to recruit enough poor families of color into the school!

What's going to happen to schools in neighborhoods that can't raise millions of dollars by making generous donations and tapping their professional contacts? They will be third-world holding pens for the economically doomed.

We are recreating (reinforcing, actually) the urban-surburban split right here, within the city limits. No need for white flight; move the private money around and the people will follow.

This is what will happen to all our public services, if our elected officials have their way. It's already happening in parks -- see previous blog. If you can afford a decent community, make one. The rest of you will get what you obviously deserve....

But .....where do our huge property tax payments go, as the City provides less and less...?

I attended a Civic Parks Alliance conference on October 21 titled, "Partners in Parks: Building a Movement." As a landscape architect, I was happy to see all those dedicated advocates for public open space.

But there was, as usual, a basic assumption that we shouldn't expect to get enough government support for parks. We've all heard the excuses: Public budgets are too tight. Park maintenance is too expensive and government can only do "the basics" so we'll have to fund-raise privately for anything more. Parks are abandoned by the government because people and public officials see parks as "frills."

So, we focus on figuring out how to get private resources to support our public realm -- corporate donations, foundations, private philanthropy, "Friends groups," fundraising, user fees and volunteer work.

This is exactly what politicians want us to do: Resign ourselves to losing what we're entitled to as taxpayers and citizens, or step in and pay for things ourselves if we care about them -- and can afford it. It's a false choice, and we shouldn't accept it.

Don't let them off the hook!

If we do, we're headed for a two-tier public realm: Pretty and neat where businesses benefit financially from "good corporate citizenship" and where wealthy residents can afford to protect their safety, aesthetics, environment and property values. Shabby and neglected where there are no tourists to embarrass the politicians, no corporations looking for "good-will" marketing, and people are too busy wrestling with issues of survival, like living wages, education, medical expenses, drugs and crime.

People keep saying that the private sector has to step in and protect our parks, because the public officials won't. Well, they certainly won't if they see that we will.

They've already learned that they can ignore services for poor and powerless people and still stay in office.

And now they're learning that they can ignore services for the new urban gentry, who don't need to spend time begging officials for services; they can just buy their own.

Amazingly, Steve Burrington, Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, said that, after years of neglected parks in urban areas, the "unaffordability of housing in cities" is actually "promising for parks." Translation: Gentrification is the way to get good parks. Displacement of low-income people, who can't make up for government negligence, is an acceptable trade-off.

Look around: it's not only about parks. Parents and teachers are having to pay out-of-pocket for school supplies, activity fees, bus fees -- the City even has a website where teachers can beg for donations! Trash removal and street clean-up are increasingly becoming the responsibility of residents and businesses expected clean up and to “adopt” City trash cans. Transit -- for a select few -- is being privatized by institutions' shuttle bus systems. Even planning is privatized in Boston; the BRA has developers funding their own planning studies!

If we ever want to get our parks properly funded as public domain, we have to ally with advocates for other services to hold our politicians accountable. Let’s not compete with each other for a public pie that’s being shrunk on us.

We can't keep "chasing a receding tide," as one of the conference speakers described private efforts to cover the gap as public investment slides away. We have turn the tide.

The problem is not lack of money; the government isn't impoverished and incompetent -- the myth that politicians use to excuse their abdication. They have the money and can hire the expertise -- just as private friends and conservancies do.

But they choose to create a shortage, a "strategic deficit," as the Reaganite neo-cons call it, by giving away the treasury in corporate welfare, "business incentives," patronage and cronyistic deals, no-bid contracts, and other "waste, fraud and abuse" that is hard for us to find out about.

We have to make it our business to expose those leaks. ABN is now working on a comprehensive inventory. If you have any tips, send them in. We’ll check them out.

We have to tell the mayor and the governor that they owe us our public services, and we won't take a shrug and turned-out pockets for an answer any more. We can only do that if we can confront them with our knowledge of where our money is really going.

A recent letter in the South End News reveals a City strategy to privatize our trashcanization -- Mayor Menino is gradually removing many City trash cans unless somebody is willing to adopt them.

He's assuming that residents and businesses will get fed up enough with the City's negligence to just pay for services themselves -- this while our property taxes soar.

This has also been happening with parks:

Parks officials are doing more with less, something Commissioner Antonia Pollak calls creative management. She has been forced to rely more heavily on the private sector and the good will of committed residents to take over stewardship of neighborhood parks. The number of volunteer parks groups has grown from 60 to 87 during the past five years.

Have you noticed any removals of trash cans? Have you had to adopt any? What does it cost you?

What should we do about this hidden tax increase?