The Boston Common: let's make a deal
Dec 18, 2008 09:51
A
City Council Special Committee for the Boston Common,
chaired by Michael Ross and joined by Bill Linehan
and Sal Lamattina, is trying to set up a private
fund-raising conservancy (see my South End News
column)
made up of abutters. It will be mainly Emerson
College and Suffolk University, who have been
expanding around the Common and aspire to make it
part of their campuses -- and especially the
ball-fields, which they want to consolidate into a
big athletic field and cover with synthetic turf
for their sports program use. After objections
from the Friends of the Common and Public Garden
and State Rep. Marty Walz, Councilor Ross promised
to delete the word "conservancy."
But he simply replaced it with "Improvement Fund." The objectors then swatted the Special Committee upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper. Its members quickly promised to abandon any further thoughts of a private non-profit.
But the final report, presented at the Council meeting this week, still contemplates "partnerships" and "relationships." To me, a "relationship with a local college to maximize care and utility of the fields" is fundamentally the same thing: a deal with a private party for public rights in return for private money. Rotch Field (in South End), which the Committee denounced, has been privatized out of the community’s hands by exactly such a partnership, or a "relationship," with "a local college" -- Emerson, in fact.
The justification for these deals is always that the City doesn’t have enough money to take care of its parks. So, let’s ask the Parks commissioner what she needs for the Common, and look at all the money that does come in, from all sources; it’s much more than the official City operating budget.
And if we need more, there’s lots of it around, in waste, fraud and abuse. Like the $60,000 a year -- $600 an hour!-- paid to a stenographer to produce the skeletal Council meeting minutes that the Clerk’s office could type up in a half hour. And all the "excess" money in the Council budget every year that is divvied up among the Council's employees (Did you ever wonder about those mysterious hastily-mumbled votes called without reading the dockets? That’s what they are). And the millions in property tax breaks the City gives away to developers every year. A lot of public money is burned in the Ianella Chamber, while we use poverty as an excuse to accommodate Suffolk and Emerson.
Conservancy, Improvement Fund, partnership, relationship – the title doesn't change the basic problem of City alliances with private parties who are pursuing special interests in the park.
The privatization of public spaces has proceeded here and all over the country, unquestioned by the general public and welcomed by most park advocates who don’t want to “look a gift horse in the mouth.” We shouldn’t be shocked when it reaches the most quintessential public space of all, America’s first public park.
But he simply replaced it with "Improvement Fund." The objectors then swatted the Special Committee upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper. Its members quickly promised to abandon any further thoughts of a private non-profit.
But the final report, presented at the Council meeting this week, still contemplates "partnerships" and "relationships." To me, a "relationship with a local college to maximize care and utility of the fields" is fundamentally the same thing: a deal with a private party for public rights in return for private money. Rotch Field (in South End), which the Committee denounced, has been privatized out of the community’s hands by exactly such a partnership, or a "relationship," with "a local college" -- Emerson, in fact.
The justification for these deals is always that the City doesn’t have enough money to take care of its parks. So, let’s ask the Parks commissioner what she needs for the Common, and look at all the money that does come in, from all sources; it’s much more than the official City operating budget.
And if we need more, there’s lots of it around, in waste, fraud and abuse. Like the $60,000 a year -- $600 an hour!-- paid to a stenographer to produce the skeletal Council meeting minutes that the Clerk’s office could type up in a half hour. And all the "excess" money in the Council budget every year that is divvied up among the Council's employees (Did you ever wonder about those mysterious hastily-mumbled votes called without reading the dockets? That’s what they are). And the millions in property tax breaks the City gives away to developers every year. A lot of public money is burned in the Ianella Chamber, while we use poverty as an excuse to accommodate Suffolk and Emerson.
Conservancy, Improvement Fund, partnership, relationship – the title doesn't change the basic problem of City alliances with private parties who are pursuing special interests in the park.
The privatization of public spaces has proceeded here and all over the country, unquestioned by the general public and welcomed by most park advocates who don’t want to “look a gift horse in the mouth.” We shouldn’t be shocked when it reaches the most quintessential public space of all, America’s first public park.
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