Community policing --by institutions?
Oct 28, 2006 17:49
From Kathleen
Devine, Fenway resident:
Earlier this week, I was walking my beagle along The Fenway while thinking about our new police chief, Ed Davis, and his stated commitment to community policing. Community policing likely means different things for different Boston neighborhoods.
While pondering what it might mean for the Fenway, I came upon what was formerly a public alley between Hemenway Street and The Fenway, now blocked off by bright blue steel and concrete bollards and a substantial swinging metal gate, all locked up with a “Northeastern University Police” wooden blockade to complete the picture. The concept of institutional expansion has taken on an entirely new aspect. In addition to gobbling up real estate, the institutions are now creating their own, private municipal infrastructure.
The citizens of Boston now pay for both an under-manned city police force, while also subsidizing the private police forces of tax exempt institutions.
How is it that Northeastern University Police has become the “community police force” in my neighborhood? How did they acquire the right to patrol the streets of the Fenway and block off neighborhood alleys? Over the past ten years Boston’s public parks have become virtually privatized by the City’s failure to fund Parks and Recreation. Will the same process of de-funding now privatize public safety?
In the streets of the East Fenway (Massachusetts Avenue to The Fenway and Boylston Street to Huntington Avenue), if your sleep is being disrupted by a rowdy party at 3 AM on Saturday, a call to Boston Police Area D-4 will bring you to someone who will tell you to call Northeastern Police. A call to NU Police will direct you back to D-4. The Boston Police will tell a caller that they don’t have sufficient manpower to send a patrol car out. The NU Police will claim they don’t have jurisdiction.
The only entity with great clarity in this matter is the Assessor’s Office. They KNOW they want your property tax bill to be paid no matter how little policing you receive in return.
And what about those bright blue bollards? I checked with the City of Boston’s Assessing On-Line. Northeastern University owns the adjacent Melvin Hall, which they describe on their website as a “quiet dorm, with an emphasis on healthy living.” The opposite side of the alley entrance is a private apartment building. The Assessor’s on line map shows the blocked off entrance as a public way. So why is it that Northeastern has taken over control of the access?
This will mean a trip to the City’s Public Improvement Commission Office at City Hall and some further investigation into how this “privatization” of a public way came to be. You can rest assured that there will be no repercussions for NU if it turns out that they acted without permission. The motto of most local institutions is “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
Witness the taking of 15,000 square feet of City park land by the Forsyth Institute and the transformation of that land into paved parking. The penalty for that misdeed was the approval by Parks and Recreation to just give it to them. You pave it; it’s yours, I guess. And perhaps that will be the same with “community policing”. You put your patrol cars on the streets and the streets are yours for the taking.
Earlier this week, I was walking my beagle along The Fenway while thinking about our new police chief, Ed Davis, and his stated commitment to community policing. Community policing likely means different things for different Boston neighborhoods.
While pondering what it might mean for the Fenway, I came upon what was formerly a public alley between Hemenway Street and The Fenway, now blocked off by bright blue steel and concrete bollards and a substantial swinging metal gate, all locked up with a “Northeastern University Police” wooden blockade to complete the picture. The concept of institutional expansion has taken on an entirely new aspect. In addition to gobbling up real estate, the institutions are now creating their own, private municipal infrastructure.
The citizens of Boston now pay for both an under-manned city police force, while also subsidizing the private police forces of tax exempt institutions.
How is it that Northeastern University Police has become the “community police force” in my neighborhood? How did they acquire the right to patrol the streets of the Fenway and block off neighborhood alleys? Over the past ten years Boston’s public parks have become virtually privatized by the City’s failure to fund Parks and Recreation. Will the same process of de-funding now privatize public safety?
In the streets of the East Fenway (Massachusetts Avenue to The Fenway and Boylston Street to Huntington Avenue), if your sleep is being disrupted by a rowdy party at 3 AM on Saturday, a call to Boston Police Area D-4 will bring you to someone who will tell you to call Northeastern Police. A call to NU Police will direct you back to D-4. The Boston Police will tell a caller that they don’t have sufficient manpower to send a patrol car out. The NU Police will claim they don’t have jurisdiction.
The only entity with great clarity in this matter is the Assessor’s Office. They KNOW they want your property tax bill to be paid no matter how little policing you receive in return.
And what about those bright blue bollards? I checked with the City of Boston’s Assessing On-Line. Northeastern University owns the adjacent Melvin Hall, which they describe on their website as a “quiet dorm, with an emphasis on healthy living.” The opposite side of the alley entrance is a private apartment building. The Assessor’s on line map shows the blocked off entrance as a public way. So why is it that Northeastern has taken over control of the access?
This will mean a trip to the City’s Public Improvement Commission Office at City Hall and some further investigation into how this “privatization” of a public way came to be. You can rest assured that there will be no repercussions for NU if it turns out that they acted without permission. The motto of most local institutions is “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
Witness the taking of 15,000 square feet of City park land by the Forsyth Institute and the transformation of that land into paved parking. The penalty for that misdeed was the approval by Parks and Recreation to just give it to them. You pave it; it’s yours, I guess. And perhaps that will be the same with “community policing”. You put your patrol cars on the streets and the streets are yours for the taking.
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