blog@abn

While the little Safety Net group keeps its tiny brave finger in the huge biolab dike of Boston, bioterror labs are springing up all over the country. A Newsweek report last December, and this week in the Seattle PI, tell an alarming story of this epidemic of research labs and the accidents emanating from them. We are increasingly victims of our own fears.

So, is this the best we can do? The Boston Globe reports that Mayor Menino is wildly popular, especially among women. He gets high marks for trash pick-up and keeping the streets and parks clean; but a lot of that work is done by frustrated residents, who join his community clean-up brigades, or just hire private companies to clean up around their block. He attributes his popularity to his work on health issues (??) and, amazingly, on the public schools, which are still, after 15 years of his reign, marked by seriously uneven and racially skewed quality -- even with all the private money he lures into them for after-school and other special programs.

He knows that he gets a lot of mileage just by showing up, getting around, meeting folks, talking to them. But he talks to people he wants to talk to; he doesn't necessarily meet with people who want to meet with him. The Safety Net group fighting the bioterror lab has tried for six years.

I've tried too, last time in 2004 when he was ordering his departments to allow the unlawful tear-down of the historic Gaiety Theatre. I was at the front desk begging the secretary for an emergency meeting to tell him the demolition scaffolding was up, and he should halt the work because a community development group wanted to rehab the Theatre and build housing above. He happened to come out of his office, and I told him. He smirked, "Really? The scaffolding is up?" and walked away. The secretary told me to send in a letter requesting a meeting; the waiting time was six months. The Gaiety's graveyard is still a rubble-filled pit; no theater, no housing, no taxes, no jobs -- all of which would have been achieved by the proposed community project. When I later put in a Public Record Request to get information on his relationship with the property owner, he ignored the Request totally; not even a NO. This is the real Mayor Menino.

When I get to ask him questions in public, he never faces the problem head-on, but says what he wants to say and moves on. He won't debate during elections; he doesn't have press conferences; he doesn't appear at community meetings where people are contesting controversial issues, like development or institutional expansion -- he uses the BRA as a shield for that. He's been "negotiating" with the police and fire departments for 15 years, and finally the FBI has to come in to investigate. I'm wondering what it takes to interest the FBI...

He won't talk about unfair property taxes; he won't admit that he gives away our capital budget to the BRA by giving it valuable City land.

I don't ask to meet with him any more, because it's a one-way conversation in each direction. Either he doesn't understand, or he knows but doesn't care.

I once asked a group of black community residents why they support Menino, since their neighborhoods and schools are treated so shabbily. They answered that they are used to getting so little from politicians that the bit of attention he shows them is enough to get their votes. Maybe that's true of most other people, too.

The way to cook a frog, the saying goes, is to put it in cold water and turn up the heat very gradually. It seems that a whole lot more damage can be done before Bostonians, right here in the cradle of democracy, will jump out of the pot and make better use of their power.

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.

A few weeks ago, the Boston Globe reported that the Boston delegation recently visiting Shanghai were alarmed to hear government officials, accompanied by loud martial music, talk about deciding on a development plan for an area and saying that "the plan is law."  They don't need to go to Shanghai to hear such talk.  The BRA (together with the perma-mayor) decides to make developers' proposals the law all the time.  The BRA has four mechanisms to do it that provide no legal recourse for the public: Institutional Master Plans, Urban Renewal Areas, Planned Development Areas, Chapter 121A agreements (which also waives taxes).   If none of those apply to specific projects, it simply changes existing laws to match the proposals.   The BRA writes our zoning law, and takes the liberty of rearranging or dispensing with it as it wishes.  It calls this approach "dynamic zoning."

The BRA's director of planning is quoted as commenting that Boston could take a lesson from China's "quick and decisive action."  On the contrary, the Chinese should come here for autocracy lessons.  The main difference is that we don't play music.

Tom Keane asks this question. His reasons for a "no" answer ignore many of the real powers the mayor has, powers over taxes and development, whom to subsidize, whom to serve, whom to hire. In fact, City Hall is full of non-Civil Service hacks, hired as "temporary" or "provisional" employees at his constant whim. The departing library director cited Menino's hiring pressure.

Keane says that politics is passe, and Menino's staying power is thanks to his efficiency, his good housekeeping, which is all people care about. Do you agree?

The real question is: Does Boston need THIS mayor? What do you think? Should we dispense with the election charade and just hire a manager? Will that muck out the stables?

OK, it turns out that we don't have our constitutional right to free speech and assembly unless the Mayor says it's ok. Since he's unlikely to smile upon permits for public demonstrations at his annual State of the City address, we have to create our own forum for "virtual demonstration."

Here it is.

Get yourself an anonymous free e-mail account at yahoo.com or hotmail.com, and let's hear what you think the State of the City is these days! Remember -- anonymous means you're safe: NO ONE WILL KNOW YOUR NAME. And you can get multiple free accounts and write under any number of names or codewords.
Speak up -- or prepare for a fifth Menino term.

City Council President Maureen Feeney was the central enabler in a state-city collusion that pushed two (and possible a third) unqualified applicants for firefighter jobs to the top of the list, as reported by the Boston Globe. This meta-nepotism, an insider favor within the great family of Dorchester, is despicable for several reasons, including racial discrimination against better-scoring candidates, and endangering the public safety with incompetent first responders. This is exactly what the civil service hiring process was invented to prevent.

Even Councilor Mike Flaherty and Mayor Tom Menino thought it stank -- at first; but Madame President got it passed, and they both signed on. State Senate President Therese Murray was apparently the initial instigator, and the erstwhile Rep. Brian Wallace sponsored in the House, enlisting the help of some rookie Rep. from Everett who was just trying to build up credits on a sure thing, for future trades.

This nefarious piece of legislation became law in only six weeks; there are worthwhile bills languishing in the Council and the state legislature for months and years. It's reassuring to see that our electeds all have their priorities straight.

Most depressing is Governor Deval Patrick's collaboration. Here was our great hope for good government, with yet another flunk in the ethics report card.

It's bad enough that family members are given priority for hiring in the fire department, where merit alone should govern a decision affecting life and death. Now we get a glimpse of the inside game played by our elected officials. Apparently, public safety, life and death, aren't as important as family favors for our politicians at all levels.

Remember this next election time, people.

Re: Mayor Menino's alleged hiring of cronies for library jobs, as reported in the Globe:

I've heard similar allegations from staff of other City departments, although I didn't see any proof. If you know of any such, please post here.

So, the Boston Police Department is proposing a program -- "Safe Homes" -- for Dorchester and Roxbury, which would let them go into people's homes, based on rumors, and do searches for guns their kids may be harboring. With any luck, they'll run into some drugs or other evidence of criminality -- after all, we're talking black people in Dorchester and Roxubury, right? -- and get to lock those young rascals up for a good long time.

I wonder if this would also work for nice white areas, like the towns where all those inexplicable mass student killings are going on -- where people are shocked, SHOCKED at such violence, violence that's so...so "urban," as they say. Let's also be sure to make Safe Home programs for all those areas where the white buyers of those "ghetto"-bought drugs live, out in the 'burbs; we gotta save them from themselves, too, right? And Southie, what about Southie, drugs and havoc: more warrant-less searches!

Oh, no, I guess not.

This initiative (together with Councilor Rob Consalvo's bullet-direction detectors) is a perfect use of public money, which might otherwise be wasted educating these youngsters, cleaning up their neighborhoods, giving their parents credit to start up local businesses (instead of subsidizing millionaire developers building luxury enclaves for billionaire clients) and otherwise giving them hope of a decent, productive life as an alternative to gang activity. Excellent work, Mayor Menino. Great public policy to deal with those people. You are truly the "neighborhood mayor"!

Low voter turn-out isn't due to apathy, contentment, or complacency. It's due to resignation and helplessnes and frustration.

We need:

--Elimination of the BRA, which stole the City Council's legislative role and then legislated away citizens' legal recourse, and cannibalizes our tax base and our capital assets; fifty years of black-box government is more than enough.

--Term limits, because the incumbent advantage costs us more in fresh talent than it yields in wise elder-statesmen

--Charter reform, which chisels away the few remaining Council powers

--More elected offices and fewer mayorally appointed positions; there's one person stacking all the boards, committees, etc.

All powers are now in the executive branch, which uses the BRA's ill-gotten legislative powers to make everything that's illegal, legal. Absent two of the three branches of government, we do not have a democracy. We desperately need diffusion of power -- and that would be true even with a more capable mayor.

Voters feel it. There is no hopeful, energetic civic life; there is only "politics as usual," an insider game played by a permanent oligarchy, funded by all-powerful real estate and other corporate interests.

The media are complicit, in their obsequious support of a deeply flawed mayor and their blind-eye endorsements of city councilors who do nothing. There is plenty to reveal about all our officials, and about the way City Hall works; but there is no one to do it.

I can't imagine how we will make Boston, the cradle of democracy become a banana republic, a democracy again. Another revolution, perhaps.

Mayor Menino has whizzed through the legislature his bill to block the Governor's two-year tax relief proposal (see previous blog entry). Now it's up to the Governor to stop it and demand an amendment, to include his relief plan. Since the tax issue is so complicated for ordinary residents to appreciate, and he's probably under a lot of pressure from big commercial owners, he may just give up and sign it. If YOU want tax relief next year, call Menino (617-635-4500), and call Patrick (617-725-4005), and tell them you won't be fleeced again to cut big businesses' property taxes.

A story is appearing in many local newspapers, titled “Report warns of higher tax rate.” As written, the story would lead residents to think Mayor Menino is trying to give homeowners tax relief. It is important for residents to understand that this is not entirely accurate – and that we have an opportunity to get some relief now, but only if we take action immediately.

To fill our property tax levy every year, residents must pay whatever commercial property owners don’t pay. So if commercial taxes fall, the amount of the shortfall shifts to homeowners and renters.

The recent recession sharply reduced commercial property assessments, especially on office towers. To prevent an impending 40% jump in residential taxes, a law was passed in 2004 to raise the existing cap on the commercial tax rate, which was 175% of the basic rate, to 200%, to increase the commercial tax yield. Although officials wanted a permanent increase, the business interests forced a “deal” – a temporary increase, rolling the commercial tax cap back down to 175% by 2008, thus raising residential taxes each year. In fact, residential taxes have risen by 78% since 2003, while most commercial properties will be paying less in 2008, after inflation, than they did seven years ago, and the commercial tax rate is the lowest since 1991.

To give residents some relief from the falling commercial tax rate, Governor Deval Patrick has filed legislation to freeze the commercial tax rate at its current level, 183%, for two more years, instead of letting it continue to roll back to 175% next year as slated by the 2004 law. Menino is trying to deprive homeowners of Patrick’s two-year tax relief, which would save residents an estimated $70 to $90 million, 8% a year, in taxes.

Menino filed a bill (House 3119) to repeal the 2004 law. His bill is backed by the Municipal Research Bureau, which is a powerful corporate lobby, not a city government watchdog as commonly believed, nor a “Boston-based research company” as the story describes them. The 2004 law would drop the tax cap back to 175% next year, but his repeal would require that drop and keep it down, precluding Patrick’s two-year freeze. The Bureau’s director, Sam Tyler, admits in one of the versions of the story: “The urgency of passing the [Mayor’s] legislation …is that there are the bills pending that would keep it up at 183%.” It is urgent -- for the big businesses, who don’t want pay more, at 183%, to give residents some relief.

Menino’s bill would help residents in one way: it would repeal two harmful “dirty tricks” slipped into the 2004 legislation by business interests after the original “deal” was set. The first trick drops the commercial tax rate down to 170% in 2009 – lower than the pre-existing 175% -- permanently shifting more of the city’s tax burden from businesses to residents. The second, and far more devastating to residents, permanently prevents the mandatory residential portion of the tax burden from ever going back down from its highest level, no matter how low housing prices go or how high commercial values go. This portion used to be 30% of the total levy; it is already up at 42%.

This second provision was worded very ambiguously, so the meaning has just become evident as several municipalities were prevented from lowering their residential taxes despite rising commercial assessments. Many officials are angry that business interests used the residential relief law to take advantage of residents – who are already exploited by our lopsided tax system.

With the dirty tricks exposed, the businesses are offering to repeal them -- if they can also block Patrick’s residential relief by repealing the rest of the 2004 law. That’s the new “deal.”

Menino need not squash Patrick’s two-year tax relief to repeal the dirty tricks. He could easily write his bill to accomplish both. But the business lobby is strong, while residents don’t understand enough to fight back. So the Mayor can safely save the business interests millions of dollars at residents’ expense by blocking the Governor’s relief, while courting residents’ support for the bill as a repeal of the dirty tricks – which should never have been enacted in the first place.

Why isn’t he doing his best for the over-burdened home taxpayers?

Contact Mayor Menino (617-635-4500) (mayor@ci.boston.ma.us) and tell him you want the dirty tricks repealed AND the 183% two-year commercial tax freeze enacted.

Then, tell him you want what he promised -- a total “overhaul” of the tax system -- not a “band-aid,” as he called the 2004 law when he testified for it, so that all property owners pay their fair share. Residents shouldn’t have to carry the tax load for everyone else.

I guess that's what Deval Patrick meant. We can continue to give away $500 million in loopholes, and who knows how many millions in pointless tax breaks to corporations, and then call for saving our crumbling roads and bridges by taking over the vice businesses. Like the ghetto guys that turn to selling drugs because we've exported, or de-educated them out of, any viable means of self-support, politicans have given away our own honest revenues and now, fearing another taxpayer backlash, are exploiting the poor, who can't try to get ahead of their lot by gambling at stocks and bonds so they gamble at slots and cards, with much worse odds, and no Federal Reserve to bail them out. Hey, it's voluntary, so why not cash in? Our Great White (um, Black) Father is now setting us up in the racket; he just has to beat those other colored folks, the Indians, to the punch. The proud Indian tribes, whose restitution for almost complete decimation at white hands is to do for white society what is considered unclean but unavoidable.

It would be one thing if our officials decided to decriminalize and regulate gambling for the protection of those who need it and to take the crime out of it (as they should do with drugs), and to impose ordinary taxes on casinos, as businesses who have to pay their fair share for public services. It's a totally different thing for the government to become an investor in gambling, to have an incentive to increase it and entice people to do it -- the lottery spends a lot of money on advertising. Why not become equity partners in drugs, tobacco, alcohol, guns, prostitution -- these are all things people will keep on buying, legal or not, and why not grow the business here, so we can use the loot to pay for our schoolchildren's education, and our roads, and our ...whatever's the next victim of public neglect. Our public officials will be meta-pushers, the end will justify the means, and we can set aside some of the money to "repair" the resulting damage -- broken homes, spouse and child abuse, destitution and bankruptcy. That seems fair, right?

This is not what I was expecting when I voted for Deval Patrick, and encouraged others to do so. I was duped, I admit it. The gambling decision is the last straw, after many development policy disappointments, conflict-of-interest revelations, closed-door deliberations, expanded corporate tax giveaways, etc. I tuned back into politics because I believed in him. I told him: the "triumph of hope over experience."

Never mind.

Neither the Boston Globe nor the Boston Herald thought it newsworthy that hundreds of people packed Faneuil Hall last Thursday night to express their views on the biolab worst-case risk assessment ordered by the court -- an assessment that hadn't been done even though the funding was awarded, the project was approved, and the building is almost entirely built. Fortunately, the South End News covered it.

NIH, which made the award, also prepared the assessment report -- a clear conflict of interest. The cover letter and introduction are unprofessionally biased, praising the lab and stating the need for it. An objective scientific report doesn't do that. NIH presented computer modeling of fictional scenarios that conclude there was no more danger from escaped pathogens if the lab is in a densely populated area than in exurban locations -- although all the other biolabs were sited in sparsely populated areas.

An independent scientific panel should have been established to prepare this risk assessment. My testimony was that it still should be. I think independent scientists might come up with a different result. There is too much at stake to take a chance; the court ordered a worst-case risk assessment, and I think the community should demand one.

Write Klare Allen at safetynetrox@yahoo.com for more information. Comments to NIH must be e-mailed (nihnepa@nih.gov) or postmarked in mail (Valerie Nottingham, HIH, Building 13, Room 2S11, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892) by Nov. 12, 2007. You can also request a copy of the report.

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?

CRITICAL BIOLAB OPEN HEARING

On Thursday September 20 at 7 PM at Faneuil Hall there will be a hearing on the State Court's mandated restudy by NIH of the Biocontainment Lab 4 in Boston.

You may testify if you wish, so be there early - but it is not necessary to testify.

The NIH report is over 300 pages long, but there will be a flyer with summary and talking points at the door.

While NIH's siting criteria for BSL4 labs include the absence of substantial community opposition, they have been ignoring the community response to this lab for almost five years.

Senators Clinton and Schumer in New York have just announced their opposition to siting a BSL4 lab on Plum Island in Long Island Sound. Their reason: it's too close to New York City! It's time our Senators defended our right to be safe and secure in our community. It's time for NIH to acknowledge and respond to our opposition.

If Deval Patrick makes it a YES on gambling, he should announce it in a public school classroom, to the lucky beneficiaries of the government's gambling business.

"Hi, kids, I've done my homework, and I've decided to bring in more gambling -- yes, on top of the lottery! -- so we can pay for your books and teachers, "slots for tots," as they say, because it's way easier than cutting out the billions of dollars in tax breaks and loopholes for big fat corporations. Hey, anyone here have a parent who likes to gamble? Anyone lost your house or your college tuition yet? No? Well, my little friends, don't worry, that'll all become much easier now; why make folks go all the way to Connecticut, right?

And you should consider starting to gamble soon too, because it's good for the state, and good for your school!  But not till you've done your homework!

Keep up the good work, young winners and losers of tomorrow, we're here for you! Together We Can!"

It's not enough to just manipulate and subvert the government. Now developers want to actually BE the government!

A bill (Sen. 146) is being rushed through the state legislature that would let big land-owners/developers petition their municipalities for designation as "Local Improvement Districts" -- "bodies corporate and politic" that could do most things city/town governments can do, but without the accountability, transparency, and state oversight. Each new municipality -- complete with its own seal! -- could issue tax-free bonds, collect property assessments (i.e., taxes) from its neighbors to pay them off, get private and possibly public land taken for its developers by eminent domain, use the taxpayer subsidy to build whatever they define as "infrastructure." This could include parking garages, private shuttle bus systems, sports, arts and recreational (casinos? stadiums? golf courses?) facilities, dedicated highway ramps, and so on.

Yup, a new property tax, this time imposed on the neighbors of big landowners for infrastructure the big guys want, free from the limits of Prop 2 1/2!

Taxation without representation: Long ago, it got Bostonians to take serious action. Last year, public outrage shamed the legislature into backing off. This year -- we need to fight back again.

If this sounds like something you'd want to help stop in its anti-democratic tracks, read my column in the South End News.

Then, call or e-mail your legislators, whose contact info you can find here.

Tell them to demand a big public hearing.

Tell them to talk to Speaker Sal DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray and ask them to stop this privatization of the government.

Tell them to VOTE NO if this bill comes to a vote!

Don't wait. Contact them NOW. This bill has already been approved by its Committee, and is in the Joint Bonding Committee; it could go out for floor vote any time before the session end July 31, and IT WILL PASS -- if the legislators don't hear from YOU..

Tell them: Vote no on Chapter 40T. It lets profit-seeking developers replace our democratic government and impose a stealth property tax to subsidize thier projects.

After waiting two years for a chance to question the BRA at a budget hearing (last year's Ways and Means Chair, Rob Consalvo, is the son of a former BRA employee), a handful of Councilors showed up.

Little if any homework was done in preparation, an hour was ripped out of the middle by a press photo-op with the Mayor and his new School Superintendent, and NO ONE asked the BRA why it keeps stealing our land. Madame President never returned from the press conference to ask her urgent questions.

I was allowed to give a five-minute hurried comment in the midst of it all, and I told the Councilors to order the Mayor to come before them, as allowed by the City Charter, to explain why he's giving away our land and money to the BRA, and why he's laundering tax giveaways to developers through the BRA, when he can't find the money for schools, parks and libraries -- or even street cleaning. My suggestion didn't exactly catch fire.

I told BRA Director Paul McCann, who was smirking smugly as he walked out, that self-congrats weren't necessary -- he was taking candy from a baby. He laughed and said, "Oh, they just love us."

Campaign season heats up in September. If we don't hold these lazy, careless and incompetent feet to the fire, we deserve what we get.

.....the Mayah, Tom Menino! Yes, once again, the Mayor's hand-picked candidate is elected, with the help of his vast machine, and the City Council's supermajority Menino Nine-O remains intact, ready to rubber-stamp his every order.

Isn't there something illegal about the Mayor picking the City Council? Something Consitutionally wrong, like "breach of separation of powers"? Abuse of power in getting all those tax-payer-salaried City Hall employees to work for him and his chosen candidates? Is there a lawyer in the house?!?

Menino was quoted in a newspaper as saying that he didn't endorse either candidate, and his organization just does what it wants. 'nuff said.

There is no hope for democracy in Boston. It's not just the "strong mayor, weak council" problem. We have no checks and balances. We don't have three branches of government. We only have an executive branch. The legislative branch, sidelined in 1960 by the BRA's stealth take-over of planning and zoning, gets paid (i.e., pays itself) handsomely to remain out of the way. The judicial branch is largely fended off by the BRA's clever legal shenanigans that shield its dealings from lawsuit, and by the council's inability to hire a lawyer. If we want to resurrect democracy here, in its cradle, we'll need a major restructuring -- and an electoral revolt. If we just sit on our duffs and take it....we can't complain. In a democracy, people get the government they deserve.

For the most part, the press has a giant blind spot on Boston electoral politics. Few in the media have pondered the outcome of this race -- how it happened and what it really means. But one good piece on Boston's political idiocy just came out; read the Keohane article in Boston Magazine, and laugh and weep....

I found the following Wikipedia entry on the Boston Redevelopment Authority! If you think some more accurate information is needed, you should go to the Wiki website and add it! Note the last paragraph. I'll say a "citation is needed"....!

PS There's an entry on Mayor Thomas Menino that may need a little editing, too....

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Boston Redevelopment Authority is a planning and development agency in Boston. The BRA was established by the Boston city council and the Massachusetts legislature in 1957. Its primary goal is to work with Bostonians, business and developers in order to provide direction for development in the city of Boston.

The BRA's statutory authority was set forth in the Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 121B, section 4 in 1957 and Chapter 652, section 12 in 1960. Its broad development authorities include the power to buy and sell property, the power to acquire property through eminent domain, and the power to grant tax concession (under MGL chapter 121A) to encourage commercial and residential development.[1]

The BRA works in the housing and business sectors. It is currently undertaking development projects such as a parkway being developed atop the Big Dig, opening up the waterfront to pedestrians. The BRA owns real estate throughout the city and sells this when an attractive plan for the use of the property is submitted and approved. This is can be seen in the "East Boston Municipal Harbor Plan" where BRA owned properties along the waterfront are currently being developed[2] and Fort Point Channel development.

One of the first projects the BRA took on was the demolition of the west end or the Scollay Square area and building of Government Center [3]. The finished project which includes Boston City Hall is considered an eyesore and the large brick plaza as an uncomfortable place to be.[4]

Overall though, the work that the BRA has done in Boston has been positive.[citation needed] In 1968 the BRA took on the renewal of Faneuil Hall Market Place which was slated to be demolished. This project has been attributed to bringing life back into the then debilitated Boston downtown. [5]

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.cityofboston.gov/bra/HomePageUtils/about_us.asp
2. ^ http://www.cityofboston.gov/bra/Planning/PlanningInitsIndividual.asp?action=ViewInit&InitID=13
3. ^ http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~fup/password/downtown.html
4. ^ http://www.celebrateboston.com/strange/governmentcenter.htm
5. ^ http://www.tbf.org/uploadedFiles/greathitsweb.pdf

The FY2008 budget hearings are starting. The budget is online. The schedule is available on the abnboston.org home page. Go, or watch on TV, and speak up; it's your money.

Note the BRA hearing on Tuesday, June 19, 2:00-5:00.

Please attend if you can; testify and/or write in comment letters. This is your money.

Remember, though, that the budget has nothing to do with your taxes, because the Mayor and City Council are determined to raise your tax rates to the maximum allowed by Prop 2 1/2, even if the budget were cut! If you ask for budget cuts, either say where you'd like the money to go instead -- or demand that our tax levy -- that's your taxes -- be cut commensurately.

The only "department" that directly affects your taxes is the BRA, and the BRA does that not by affecting expenditures but by affecting collections -- that is, by giving away huge and unneeded tax breaks to big developers, by ignoring the ridiculously tiny PILOT payments made by institutions when the BRA can negotiate for more at development approval time, and by holding billions of dollars worth of real estate itself and paying not a cent in property tax.

To hear a discussion of Boston's powers over development planning and taxation, come to:

Boston Bound: A Comparison of Boston's Legal Powers with Those of Six Other Major American Cities

Thursday, April 26 at 8:30 a.m.
10th floor, The Boston Foundation, 75 Arlington St.

Welcoming Remarks by Mary Jo Meisner, Vice President for Communications, Community Relations and Public Affairs, The Boston Foundation

Summary of Findings by Gerald E. Frug, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and
David J. Barron, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Remarks by The Honorable Timothy P. Murray, Lieutenant Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts and
The Honorable Thomas M. Menino, Mayor, City of Boston

Moderator
Paul S. Grogan, President and CEO, The Boston Foundation

Panelists
Geoff Beckwith, Executive Director, Massachusetts Municipal Association

Lawrence S. DiCara, Partner, Nixon Peabody

Edward L. Glaeser, Glimp Professor of Economics and Director, Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston

Lisa C. Signori, Chief Financial Officer, City of Boston

Kirk Sykes, President and Managing Partner, Urban Strategy America Fund

A public forum co-sponsored by The Boston Foundation and The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.

To reserve a seat, please call 617-338-4390 or email rsvp@tbf.org. Seating is still available.

MetroFuture: This Way to a Greater Boston Region

Tuesday, May 1 at 8:00 a.m.
Grand Ballroom, Hyatt Regency Boston, Financial District, One Avenue de Lafayette (Downtown Crossing)

Join 500 residents from across Metropolitan Boston at a May 1 Boston College Citizen Seminar, and be part of the planning for your community and your region! At this Seminar for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council's MetroFuture project, we will unveil the plan to guide Metro Boston's growth through 2030, and identify action steps that the region can take, over the coming months and years, to make the plan a reality.

Register at http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/cga/citizen/rsvp/, or call 617-552-0904. The event will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (former Swissotel) in downtown Boston. Complimentary breakfast will be available at 7:30 a.m., and the program will begin at 8 a.m. Visit www.MetroFuture.org to learn more.

The state Supreme Judicial Court took the Biolab case from the Appeals Court, recognizing the importance of this issue. Klare Allen and her Roxbury Safetynet group, Alternatives for Community and Environment, and their colleagues and attorneys inspire us to keep fighting for what's important -- NEVER GIVE UP! Whether the community wins or not, at least this issue will get the serious attention it deserves, and will not be pushed through under the radar by its political and financial beneficiaries.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/03/23/sjc_to_hear_arguments_on_construction_of_bu_biolab?p1=email_to_a_friend


SJC to hear arguments on construction of BU biolab

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff | March 23, 2007

The state Supreme Judicial Court will decide whether construction of a high-security research laboratory in the South End should continue, the latest twist in the ongoing fight to block the Boston University project.

In an action made public yesterday, the state's highest court said it would directly hear the controversial case, bypassing an appeals court that had been scheduled to consider the matter. The SJC set a hearing for September, seemingly expediting the legal process by eliminating one step.

Ten neighbors of the lab, already under construction on Albany Street, sued in state court to block the facility, where researchers will work with the world's deadliest germs. They also sued in federal court, blasting BU for locating the lab on its medical campus, near a densely populated neighborhood with a significant number of low-income and racially diverse residents.

Last August, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Ralph D. Gants ordered further environmental review of the $178 million project but did not halt construction.

BU appealed Gants's ruling, an appeal that was scheduled to be heard next month. But yesterday, the SJC, without explanation, issued a notice that it was taking the case.

"Generally, that means that it views the case as something that either has an important legal issue or is of general public significance," said Douglas Wilkins , the Anderson & Kreiger attorney who is representing the residents.

It is not unusual for the SJC to hear a case directly, and Wilkins said that its action should not be interpreted as favoring one side or the other.

BU spokeswoman Ellen Berlin said the university welcomed the court's action.

"We are pleased that this important project is receiving this important scrutiny from the Supreme Judicial Court," Berlin said.

The facility, known as a Biosafety Level-4 lab, has provoked controversy since the moment it was proposed in January 2003, with a fervent contingent of scientists, environmentalists, and community activists protesting at every turn. After their objections failed to stop the project at the city or state level, opponents turned to the courts.

Foes of the lab hailed the decision by the high court to resolve the case. "Finally, the residents are going to be heard," said Klare Allen , one of the residents suing to stop construction.

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.

As you may recall from the Fan Pier design process, Chapter 91 of the State laws, the Waterfront Act, places restrictions on private development on Commonwealth tideland areas; according to the public-trust doctrine for such areas -- even if they are filled tidelands -- any development has to serve a "public purpose," and private benefit has to be secondary to public benefit in any non-waterdependent project.

Development on such lands requires a license from the state, and the licensing process assures that certain protections are obeyed, e.g., height near the water, that public benefits are provided to prevent privatization of the public land, e.g., access paths (like the Harborwalk) and publicly accessible ground-floor uses, and generally that the public receives appropriate compensation for the profitable use of the public land, e.g., open space, civic and cultural amenities. The licensing process provides for public hearings so the community has a voice in the project design and public benefit decisions, and creates an enforcement mechanism for developers' commitments.

Some years ago, the Dept. of Environmental Protection decided not to include so-called "landlocked" tidelands (separated from the waterfront by a public way) in its jurisdiction for licensing private development on public-trust tidelands. (I don't know the reason, but I understand that there was some "compromise" with developers, rather than any underlying fact or principle involved.)

The state Supreme Judicial recently made a ruling on a community lawsuit (against the large NorthPoint tidelands project, mostly in Cambridge and partially in Boston) that DEP had had no right to abdicate its power for public protection on landlocked tidelands because the public's rights can only be retained or given away by the public's representative, the legislature. The ruling restored the licensing process to these areas.

It is a rare opportunity to recover public rights to public assets, and re-instate the public's voice. And the experience with the Fan Pier project and many others has shown that the public process actually improves final designs, and deprives developers of very little if any profitable building space while providing much long-term benefit to their communities and their own vicinities.

But instead of seizing this opportunity to expand public rights, Governor Deval Patrick has filed legislation that would authorize the DEP's exclusion of these tidelands from the licensing process!

Why is he doing this?

Well, Patrick recently appointed two of the NorthPoint developer's lawyers to major state positions. Dan O'Connell, who was a development executive (and investor) in this project and others on the seaport, is now the Director of Housing and Economic Development. Greg Bialecki, formerly an attorney for NorthPoint, Fan Pier, and other projects potentially affected by this ruling, is Patrick's "ombudsman" to act on behalf of developers to achieve "expedited development" statewide. These development promoters and their firms were also major campaign contributors to Patrick's campaign.

Whether this is Deval Patrick's own idea of promoting community and environmental interests, or he is letting insider deals drive his public policy, this is an extremely alarming direction for our new governor to take.

Unfortunately, he has been doing other things that show he is more concerned with "economic development" as corporate welfare, rather than with community and environmental protection and economic assistance to the truly needy.

Please contact your legislators and tell them to defeat his bill, H3757. Also tell them to defeat a bill by Rep. Michael Rodrigues, H847, that would reduce all public benefit on tidelands to a single item, Facilities of Public Accommodation (the publicly useable ground-floor uses mentioned above) in only 25% of the ground floor area.

I expected better from our new Governor. You should, too.

Events by the Rappaport Institute and the Kennedy School of Government's Taubman Center for State and Local Government.

For more information on any of these events, please contact Cara Cappello at 617-495-5140.

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Sprawl - No Longer a Dirty Word?
Monday, March 5, 12:00 noon
Taubman BC, 5th Floor Taubman Building, 15 Eliot St.

Robert Bruegman, Professor of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning
University of Illinois at Chicago, author, Sprawl: A Compact History

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Tough Choices or Tough Times: Rebuilding American Schools for the 21st Century
Monday, March 19, 5:00 p.m.
Bell Hall, 5th Floor Belfer Building, 15 Eliot St.

Thomas Payzant, former superintendent, Boston Public Schools, member of The New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce, and senior lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education Commentary by Thomas Kane, Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Co-sponsored by the Kennedy School?s Program on Education Policy and Governance, the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Graduate School of Education?s Project for Policy Innovation in Education


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Full Disclosure: The Promise and Perils of Transparency
Wednesday, April 11, 12:00 noon
Taubman A, 5th Floor Taubman Building, 15 Eliot St.

Archon Fung, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Co-director, Transparency Policy Project
Mary Graham, Research Fellow, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, Co-director, Transparency Policy Project David Weil, Associate Professor of Economics, Boston University, Co-director, Transparency Policy Project

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Government Failure in Urban Transportation and the Case for Privatization
Tuesday, April 24, 12:00 noon
Taubman AB, 5th Floor Taubman Building, 15 Eliot St.

Clifford Winston, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution, co-author, "On the social desirability of urban rail transit systems," forthcoming in the Journal of Urban Economics, and "The effect of government highway spending on road users? congestion costs," Journal of Urban Economics, November 2006

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Expanding the Talent Pool: Kevin White and the Encouragement of Public Service
Friday, May 4th, 12:00 noon
Kennedy Room, Charles Hotel Conference Pavilion, One Bennett St.

Panel Discussion featuring:

U.S Representative Barney Frank, former chief of staff for Boston Mayor Kevin H. White
Paul Grogan, president and CEO, The Boston Foundation and former special assistant to Mayor White
Micho Spring, chair, U.S. Corporate Practice, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, and former Deputy Mayor of Boston

Other panelists to be announced

Co-sponsored by the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston

RSVP required to Polly O'Brien at 617-495-5091 or
polly@rappaportinstitute.org

At-large Councilor Felix Arroyo has, in the first session of the year, filed for a hearing on creating a City Planning Board.

We haven't had a Planning Board since the BRA got it abolished, simply by sneaking the following sentence into unrelated legislation in 1960:

The city planning board of said city is hereby abolished, and all property of said city in the custody of such board and all appropriations of said city for the use of said board are heraby transferred to and vested in the authority; and all persons appointed by said board are hereby transferred to, and made employees of, the authority.

The BRA took it over specifically to evade public oversight through the City Council, and make sure planning would never get in the way of developers.

Obviously, it's a conflict of interest to be an advocate for developers and also a planning agency, which is supposed to review development projects with the overall well-being of the city in mind. No other city in America let an urban renewal authority take over their planning and zoning. Everywhere else, the renewal authority has to come before the City Council to ask for approval, like any other developer.

The zoning ordinance that implements planning is legislation, and in all other municipalities of