Civic Boston

Kevin White: A Neighborhood Perspective

2012-01-31T13:49:00.004-05:00

Kevin White reached the end of his tenure as Mayor of Boston in 1984, and the last 28 years have done little to change the thumbnail biography. Widely hailed as a visionary who did so much to reshape and revitalize downtown Boston, he inspires admiration, sympathy--and no small measure of criticism--for his dealings with the surrounding neighborhoods in the grip of polarization and dramatic change.

But White's reputation as the downtown innovator who often clashed with Boston's sometimes contentious grassroots elements overshadows the way he reshaped Boston's neighborhoods. Even when the results were unsatisfactory, similar ideas would re-emerge later, sometimes applied more successfully with a different cast of leaders and political climate.

When White won his first term in 1967, the city's racial divide was already sharply defined. The city's economy and population were still in decline. Though two previous mayors--John Hynes and John Collins--were pushing the city toward a "New Boston," the side-effects on surrounding neighborhoods were sometimes neglect, disruption, or displacement.

With the renewal of Quincy Market in the 1970's and developments along the Boston Waterfront, White helped redefine the city as a new, post-industrial hub for a knowledge and visitor economy.

"The thing that people forget is that Boston was really on its knees," said Larry DiCara, an attorney who served on the Boston City Council from 1972 to 1981.

"He refused to accept that and looked beyond where we were to where we could be," said DiCara. "And made a lot of people mad in the process."

DiCara says White's refashioning of Quincy Market as a visitor portal helped lay groundwork for other changes in the Boston landscape, from the depression of the Central Artery to the creation of the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

For White's predecessor John Collins, the vision of a "New Boston" also included an express route between downtown and the suburbs--the multi-lane extension of Route I-95 that was supposed to cut all the way from Readville to Lower Roxbury. The extension was later dropped by Governor Francis Sargent, partly because of grassroots opposition.

Sargent took a stand against the highway in 1970, when he and Kevin White were running for governor. The former state representative from the South End, Mel King, credits the decision to the power of community action, but he also credits White for joining ranks against the highway.

By April of 1987, more than three years after White had left office, the path of the highway would be the new route for a depressed Orange Line. Though commuters from Dudley Square lost a quick ride to downtown Boston, the relocation had some advantages--from more sunlight on Washington Street to the creation of a new Southwest Corridor Park, joining neighborhoods that used to be divided by two sets of rail lines above street level.

Said Fred Salvucci, White's transportation advisor and later architect of the Big Dig, "It's a major achievement of Kevin's that continues to benefit the city, in my view."

White's tenure overlapped with the development of community health centers in medically under-served neighborhoods. These were also products of community action, but their incubation required help from City Hall. During the same time, there were also grassroots initiatives coming from non-profits in social services, from the earliest versions of community development organizations, and from neighborhood leaders at community centers, launched by White as community schools.

The most crucial problems with city leadership were in the Boston Public Schools. White correctly insisted that his control over education was limited by powers of the Boston School Committee, which had resisted pressures for voluntary desegregation. But King says White should have done more about concerns over education being raised by parents and leaders in the black community. As the city went down the path to desegregation under a federal court order, there would also be friction between the mayor's office and predominantly white neighborhoods.

Boston election results shows signs of friction between the city's white majority and its mayor. Though a Republican, Sargent won his election for governor by carrying Boston and its heavily Democratic electorate. White enjoyed more solid backing--if with lower turnouts--from Boston's black and liberal voters, and he is remembered for a cast of appointments that was markedly more diverse than its predecessors. But the racial split among voters would register dramatically once again in the 1976 presidential primary, when the top vote-getter among Democrats in Boston was the notorious foe of desegregation, former Alabama Governor George Wallace.

Later in the same year, two years into the turbulence of court-ordered desegregation, White tried to increase his leverage over the school system through a proposal for charter reform that was placed before the City Council in December. By including district seats, the reforms were advanced as a way to allow more diversity among city office-olders on the School Committee and City Council. At the time, both bodies were all-white, until the election of 1977. But, with scant backing from any community, White's modified version of the recommendations from a charter reform commission was widely denounced as a power grab.

As it turned out, some of the ideas in charter reform would be adopted within little more than a decade. Voters approved a mostly district-seat City Council and School Committee in 1981. The elected School Committee would finally be abolished, in a campaign led by White's avowedly populist successor, Ray Flynn.

The turbulence around the schools overshadowed other areas where Boston's elected officials had to be pushed by grassroots pressure or legal challenges. One was example was public housing. A law suit by tenants over deplorable conditions resulted in the Boston Housing Authority being placed in receivership. There was also a lawsuit over alleged racial bias in the distribution of community development money from the federal government.

Another area that required court intervention was the city's assessing of property values. White did mitigate the burden on homeowners throughout the city, thanks to his 1978 referendum campaign to allow higher tax rates on commercial property. But, before the tax classification campaign, the city lagged in reflecting the loss of values in neighborhoods the most severely affected by disinivestment and abrupt racial turnover. In response, Fair Share organized tax abatement campaigns and staged confrontational actions, including a bus trip to the home of a deputy mayor in the suburbs.

Even when the intent was to benefit the neighborhoods--through Infill Housing or access to mortgages for people of color under the Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group (BBURG), the results were often blighted properties or vacant lots. Years later, some of the same affordable housing goals would be approached more effectively through cooperation between City Hall and non-profit developers more attuned to their neighborhoods.

Though White is lauded as a neighborhood ally against Logan Airport expansion and the aborted plan for I-95, his administration was also criticized when urban renewal plans went too far as a force of displacement. In the South End, renewal meant a new infusion of investment and neighborhood pride in 19th century brownstones, but there would have been even more displacement of black and Latino residents if not for grassroots campaigns leading to affordable housing at Villa Victoria and Tent City.

It can said that there were similar struggles at the time in other cities. And White's task was sometimes made more difficult by a climate of distrust and polarization at the grassroots level. Making the job even more difficult was statewide referendum that imposed a cap on property taxes in 1980--only a few years after a spike in taxes in response to a budget shortfall caused largely in connection with desegregation. And before the vote on Proposition 2½, taxpayers also became rate-payers, funding a new agency doing a sorely needed upgrade of the city's water and sewer system.

When former Governor Michael Dukakis tried to head off the voter rebellion by tapping the state surplus for aid to cities and towns, White absorbed the allotment for Boston without passing on savings to the taxpayers. It's impossible to say whether acting differently would have kept "Proposition 2½" from passing. But, when the necessary budget cuts took effect the following year, the closings of police stations, fire stations, and schools meant even more strains in White's relationship with the neighborhoods.

By White's last term, there was a noticeable fall-off in the quality of some appointees at Little City Halls. His earliest ambassadors to the neighborhoods included Fred Salvucci and Kirk O'Donnell, who later became a top aide to former US Speaker of the House "Tip" O'Neill. In White's last term, there was Jack Williams, the Little City Hall manager caught in a shake-down over a proposed redevelopment project in Dorchester's Upahms Corner.

Between the top-down flow of money from Washington, and the norms of governance at the time, White may have decided the best way to be more effective was to increase leverage for his agenda was by building a machine. If the current mayor, Thomas Menino, credits results to partnerships--often developed over long periods of time--White's tenure was more characterized by crises and pressures for swift action.

But there were times when White tapped connections and showed openness to ideas of other people--as when he followed up on the suggestion by City Councilor Tom Atkins to minimize violence after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The city's relative calm, in contrast with other cities around the country, has been widely credited to White's managing to have a Boston Garden performance by James Brown telecast live on WGHB-TV.

In his last term, White did turn attention to neighborhood regeneration in parts of his "Plan for Boston" and through a new effort to combat hate crimes. He also gave approval to an early version of a policy for more residents, women and people of color to get jobs on major development projects in the city. City officials would be prodded for many years to put more teeth in a policy that originated in grassroots activism and gained momentum in Mel King's first run for mayor in 1979.

If White failed to meet the goals of his neighborhood vision, he did lay a path for development with more results under the next two mayors, as was the case with Blue Hill Avenue. Even when pursuing goals of their own--Flynn along Dudley Street and Codman Square, Menino in Dudley Square and the South Boston waterfont--the parallel with White is hard to miss.

In judging White's performance and legacy, it would be a mistake to overlook the role of Boston's grassroots leaders as agents vision and power. There were times when White showed his respect for that role. And that may have been done in grandest fashion at White's last inauguration, when he took the oath of office with city councilors on the stage of the Strand Theater, an old movie palace trying to make a comeback in Dorchester's Upahms Corner.

Warren Touches Base in Dorchester

2012-01-04T22:36:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth Warren came to Dorchester's Florian Hall Tuesday night for what was billed as a conversation. But the most prominent Democratic candidate for US senator from Massachusetts did most of the talking. And, if the idea was to engage the audience--well-stocked with local progressives and Democratic Party activists--it was by turning listeners into more active campaigners.

Introducing Warren to the local audience was Dorchester State Representative Marty Walsh--a staunch union ally and a leader of the Boston Building Trades Council. Walsh warmed up the audience by attacking the state's Republican US Senator Scott Brown for votes against measures to increase aid to college students and to extend unemployment benefits.

Warren followed suit be labeling herself "a maintenance man's daughter who ended up as a fancy pants professor at Harvard." She made it clear she would have voted for the spending measures opposed by Brown, including one to fund infrastructure work--providing more construction jobs--and another to preserve the jobs of teachers, police, and firefighters.

The difference with Brown was about how the spending would be offset. The measures would have required an additional tax on people earning more than $1 million a year, and Brown has contended that tax increases would diminish economic growth.

As a consumer advocate with a national profile, Warren was raising alarms about household debt and questionable lending practices well before the collapse of the housing bubble. And, on Tuesday night, she put the blame squarely on banks, telling the audience, "The financial service sector broke this economy one lousy mortgage at a time."

There's plenty of agreement that the housing collapse was a leading factor in the recession and in slowing the recovery. But there's sharp disagreement about how the blame should be shared between the private sector and government. So far, the ensuing bail-out of lenders starting before President Obama took office has generated considerable backlash. Some of that sentiment is anti-Wall Street (as in the Occupy Movement), but aid to banks or even homeowners with mortgage troubles has also fed Tea Party outrage over government intervention.

While some regulators have called for new ways to help homeowners with mortgage troubles take advantage of refinancing--to keep the housing market from being too much of a drag on the rest of the economy--others have been quick to say homeowners who avoided trouble shouldn't have to share the burden. In her remarks at Florian Hall, Warren concentrated on the need for regulation to curb risk in lending, but there was no mention of relief for homeowners locked out of refinancing by upside-down mortgages.

Rather than giving more details on policy, Warren concentrated on what she viewed as a larger trend--the erosion of living standards for many working-class and middle-class families over the last three decades.

"We've hammered on America's middle class basically for a generation now," she said. "We've squeezed them harder than ever. We've pushed them with rising costs, with flat incomes. We turned loose a credit industry on America's middle class--to paint bull's eyes on their backsides."

In addition to supporting short-term jobs measures unsuccessfully proposed by President Obama, Warren called for long-term investment in infrastructure, education, and research. As for where to make budget cuts, she mentioned military spending, but there was no mention of a single entitlement program. On the revenue side, she favored higher taxes on the wealthy, and an end to "loopholes" that enabled some corporations to avoid paying federal taxes.

If Warren goes on to face Brown in the final election, it's likely both candidates will be asked about their stands on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. On health care alone, there is considerable potential for more divisions among voters--not just between consumers and special interests or average people and wealthy people, but between consumers more worried about access to treatment and consumers more worried about the cost of mandatory health insurance. And employers' concerns about the cost of coverage are readily understood as concerns about jobs.

Instead of differences between the rich and less-than-rich, voters might also be primed to focus on differences over immigration policy or the racial code words embedded in campaign talk around the country about entitlements. And, thanks to new latitude on campaign contributions, there could be more messages on these topics, not only from candidates themselves, but from independent political action committees.

It's also likely any debate about government regulation will go beyond banks, and Republicans have been hammering the message that regulation of financial services and environmental quality stifles economic growth.

The location of Warren's event, at Florian Hall, is the home base of the Boston Firefighters Union, but it's also the polling place for territory that was carried two years ago by Brown--Ward 16, Precinct 12. The precinct results showed Brown with 55% of the vote over Democratic rival Martha Coakley, and the turnout was significantly above the citywide average. Though Coakley managed to carry the whole city, the Boston turnout was generally higher in the pockets of support for Brown.

The turnout in the coming presidential election will be different, but Warren tried to cast herself as someone who can build alliances and marshall their support against strong adversaries. That was how she characterized her experience in the battle for Congressional approval of a new consumer financial protection bureau. The bureau was approved, but Warren withdrew as a candidate to be the agency's director, in the face of opposition from Republicans in Congress.

In Warren's account, the experience showed her ability to help get legislation approved, partly through mobilization of broad support against strong opposition. She also cast herself as the underdog who refused to settle for less.

In the closest thing to a challenging question from the audience, Warren was asked if she was serious enough about her campaign to "leave hair and teeth on the floor." To which she replied, "I didn't scratch my way to Harvard Law School to be anybody's sissy."

Council Results Show Boston Vote Shift

2011-11-11T11:23:00.001-05:00

If you go back twelve years in Ward 18, the at-large vote for City Council looks like the politics of a different century.Even in 1999, the ward--comprising Hyde Park and Readville, along with parts of Mattapan and Roslindale--was racially mixed. But the top four candidates were (in order) Hyde Park resident Steve Murphy, Mickey Roache, Albert "Dapper" O'Neil, and Peggy Davis-Mullen.

As it turned out, 1999 was the last hurrah for O'Neil, a racially divisive figure who in earlier votes had topped the ticket citywide. But, in November of 2011, the top four vote-getters in Ward 18 were (in order) Ayanna Pressley, Felix G. Arroyo, John Connolly, and Steve Murphy. Even excluding the ward's six precincts in Mattapan, the top four were the same, only with Pressley behind Arroyo and Connolly behind Murphy.

But the most recent numbers show more than racial change. In the previous year with a vote for City Council only, in 2007, the vote was off in the ward's precincts in Hyde Park and Roslindale, though up in Mattapan. On Tuesday, the number of votes was up throughout the ward, and especially in the predominantly black Mattapan precincts, where the number of votes was more than 91% higher than it was in 1999.

Boston's 2007 election is notorious for low turnout (13.59% citywide), and this year's figure of 18.13% hardly looks impressive compared with the figure for 1999, at 24.49 percent. But the steady increase in voter enrollment, plus growth in Boston's population, have also produced a larger electorate. That's one reason why a modest improvement in the turnout figure obscures the dramatic increase over 2007 in the number of votes cast--a jump of of more than 36 percent.

Overall, the number of people voting Tuesday wasn't much higher than the figure in 1999--by only 5.72 percent. But a breakdown of the citywide figure shows some dramatic changes in the distribution of votes. For example, in the high-turnout Ward 20 (West Roxbury and part of Roslindale), the number of votes was down from the figure in 1999 by more than 20 percent. In South Boston, despite an increase over four years ago with this year's competitive race for a district council seat, the number of votes was still down from the figure in 1999 by 7.69 percent. In the same district, the number of votes from the largest piece of Chinatown (Ward 3, Precinct 8) was more than five times the figure in 1999, going from 124 to 825.

Also posting substantial increases over the vote counts in 1999 were Ward 14 (Grove Hall, Four Corners, Franklin Field), by 62.62%, and Ward 17 (Lower Mills, Codman Square) by 70.22 percent. And, in Roxbury's Ward 12, the figure was up by 13.25 percent.

Though the changing composition of Boston's active voters owes much to the mobilzation for the last presidential election in 2008, there is still a good deal of change to be found in the elections with the weakest draw, for City Council only. In 2011, as in 2007, there was no citywide preliminary vote to give the race added visibility, though this year's final vote had ideal weather for maximum turnout. If there was any political boost expected for turnout this year, it was supposed to be among predominantly white voters drawn to competitive races for district seats (in Dorchester, South Boston, the South End, Chinatown, Bay Village, and the Leather District), or to the best-known at-large challenger, former councilor and mayoral contender Michael Flaherty.

In pre-election coverage by local media, there was speculation that Flaherty's campaign could be at the expense of the council's first and only woman of color, Ayanna Pressley. As it turned out, Pressley would finish ahead of all the other at-large candidates.Pressley and colleague John Connolly got some attention for making campaign appearances jointly. And this year's incumbents sometimes made appearances and statements expressing mutual support.

The campaigns also resulted in votes that crossed the racial boundaries of the past.For example, in Ward 20, Pressley came in second, behind only Connolly, who lives in the West Roxbury. In Ward 19 (Pondside, Jamaica Hills, part of Roslindale), with its normally progressive tilt, Pressley came in first, even surpassing Jamaica Plain resident Felix G. Arroyo.

Though Flaherty came close to matching his vote in 2007, when he topped the field, he failed to match shows of strength two years ago, when he campaigned for mayor with fellow councilor Sam Yoon as a running mate. This year, Flaherty finished behind the top four positions in Ward 5 (Back Bay/Beacon Hill/South End), which he carried in 2009, and in Jamaica Plain, where he lost that year with almost 49% of the vote.

If Pressley showed it was possible to pick up votes across racial lines, then so did the the other winners at large, especially Arroyo and Connolly. Another example was the challenger for the council in District 2, Suzanne Lee, who fell short of beating the incumbent from South Boston, Bill Linehan, by only 87 votes.

As expected, Lee carried almost all the District 2 precincts outside South Boston, with almost three-quarters of the votes in those precincts. Linehan carried all of South Boston and two neighboring precincts in Dorchester with less than two-thirds of the vote. In these precincts, Lee had more than thirty percent of the vote.

In the race to fill the seat being left open in District 3 (Dorchester) by Maureen Feeney, Frank Baker took almost 56% of the vote against John O'Toole. Both candidates had their share of union endorsements and well-known political supporters--Mayor Menino's organization and an official endorsement from Maureen Feeney for O'Toole, and Dorchester legislators--including another Columbia-Savin Hill resident, Marty Walsh--for Baker.

It was Baker who showed more strength outside his base in Columbia-Savin Hill, even carrying precincts in Port Norfolk and in Lower Mills, where he had support from State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry--and where O'Toole might have been hampered by disenchantment with Feeney over plans (later reversed) to close a branch library.For all the contentious campaigning, the results in District 3 were also explained by Baker's ability to make contact with voters, even close to O'Toole's base in Cedar Grove, with its high-turnout polling place at Florian Hall. O'Toole carried the precinct (Ward 16, Precinct 12), but union backing and direct contacts helped him get 308 votes, his fourth highest precinct tally in the district.

The two other district races were much less competitive. In District 7 (Roxbury, parts of Dorchester, Fenway, the South End), Councilor Tito Jackson won his first full term, taking 84% of the vote over Sheneal Parker. In District 4 (Dorchester/Mattapan), Charles C. Yancey was re-elected over perennial candidate JR Rucker with almost 89% of the vote.

*****

One reason has been given for the decrease in the number of votes this year--compared with 1999--from Ward 20: the lack of competition for the district council seat. In the earlier election, there was a strong but unsuccessful challenge to the City Councilor for District 6 (covering most of Ward 20), Maura Hennigan, by John Tobin. In the next off-year elections, there would be two other incumbents, John Tobin and Matt O'Malley, who were unchallenged. And there was little speculation in the media that West Roxbury's at-large councilor, John Connolly, was in danger of losing his seat. Though vote numbers could also reflect a drop in population or voter engagement, it has to be noted that the number of people registered to vote in Ward 20 (26,283) is higher this year by about 8 percent.

Comparing this year's figure for Ward 20 to that from November of 2007 shows an increase of almost 14 percent. But, in some areas of Boston without a competitive race for a district council seat (in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan), the numbers were up anywhere from 47% to 62 percent.

Challenger Makes Splash in Council Race

2011-09-28T11:50:00.013-05:00

There's no doubt the most remarkable result from yesterday's preliminary elections for Boston City Council was the first-place finish for Suzanne Lee. Running in District 2 (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Leather District, Bay Village), she received 39% of the vote. The incumbent from South Boston, Bill Linehan, received 35%, followed by another South Boston candidate, Bob Ferrara.

After reuniting with her parents at age 11, Lee grew up in Grove Hall and eventually became well known for her accomplishments as an educator and community leader. And she went into yesterday's election with endorsements from the Ward 5 Democratic Committee and the South End News.

Another way to view the results in District 2 is to say the two candidates from South Boston got more than 60% of the vote. That's greater than the share of the vote for Linehan in the final round of the special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of Jim Kelly. In that earlier contest, Linehan won with less than 53% of the vote. His co-finalist from the South End, Susan Passoni, received more than 46 percent.

One significant difference in the vote this year was in the largest subdivision that includes Chinatown, Ward 3, Precinct 8, which is also Lee's home neighborhood. The precinct gave her 484 votes, for 80% of the total. In May, 2007, the precinct vote was split, with Passoni getting 52% and Linehan almost 48 percent. Before yesterday's election, much of the precinct vote was thought to have been controlled by allies of Boston mayors. If that element was somewhat offset in Passoni's showing, then yesterday's election stood out for being the first district race in which people in the precinct could vote for one of their neighbors.

But figures from recent elections also show the precinct has more voters, partly as a result of mobilization by an organization Lee helped form in the 1970's, the Chinese Progressive Association. By comparison with the figures from May, 2007, turnout rates in most of the District 2 precincts throughout were down. Those figures will probably go up in this year's final election, November 8, when the ballot will also have 7 candidates running for the council's 4 at-large seats--including South Boston's Mike Flaherty.

Within South Boston, Linehan carried 11 out of 15 precincts, with the other 4 carried by Ferrara. In the preliminary round of the special election for District 2, Ferrara came in last place, in a field of 7 candidates, with less than 5% of the vote. This time, he got 25% of the vote throughout the district. And, in three South Boston precincts carried by Linehan, Ferrara still managed to get more than 40% of the vote.

Another draw for voters in Boston will be the final round to fill the seat being left open by Maureen Feeney in District 3. The district covers most of Dorchester, from Columbia-Savin Hill, Fields Corner and Meeting House Hill, to Pope's Hill, Cedar Grove, and Lower Mills. The race had long been viewed as mainly a competition between three candidates, and that proved to be the case. Frank Baker came in first place with almost 32% of the vote, followed by co-finalist John O'Toole, with almost 26 percent. Finishing 150 votes behind O'Toole was Craig Galvin.

The two finalists come from opposite ends of the district. Baker grew up in what is now Blessed Mother Teresa Parish (formerly St. Margaret's), in a family of 13 children. A former shop steward in the city's printing department, he has also worked on other political campaigns and served as a leader of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association.

A realtor and former plumber, O'Toole served 14 years as the president of the Cedar Grove Civic Association. He also came into the race with an official endorsement from Feeney and, many believe, the unofficial support of Mayor Menino.

In line with the geography, both finalists carried the bulk of their precincts closer to where they lived. For O'Toole, these were in areas such as Cedar Grove (including the high-turnout polling place at Florian Hall) and Lower Mills. In addition to prevailing in the Columbia-Savin Hill area, Baker carried precincts in Uphams Corner, Jones Hill, Meeting House Hill and areas near Fields Corner.

In other races, the results for candidates believed to have the mayor's unofficial support have been mixed. And the transfer of votes from other candidates, especially Galvin, could also be driven by other factors. Come November, any machine vote should be higher, but there could also be more voters drawn out by Flaherty, who's casting himself as the at-large candidate most likely to differ with the mayor.

The competition was much less intense in District 7, which covers Roxbury, along with parts of Dorchester, the Fenway, and the South End. After succeeding Chuck Turner in the special election in March of this year, Tito Jackson received 76% of the vote in yesterday's preliminary. His opponent in the final election will be Sheneal Parker, who placed ahead of two perennial candidates with 11% of the vote.

Yesterday's turnout figure was 13.77% That represents voting in only 3 of the 9 City Council Districts, so it's hard to find a recent comparison. But in the last final election for City Council without a concurrent vote for Mayor, in 2007, the turnout citywide was an abysmal 13.55 percent.

How Federal Budget Showdown Affects Boston

2011-07-22T10:27:00.012-05:00

As President Obama and both houses of Congress negotiate over spending cuts and the national debt limit, advocates and providers of health care and social services are trying to get more attention for the possible toll on the needy. In a demonstration yesterday outside Government Center in Boston, they turned the heat on the state's Republican Senator in Washington, Scott Brown.

The next day, Brown would vote for the more stringent cuts that would have been required by the "Cut, Cap and Balance Act." The measure was defeated by a vote of 51-46, and liberal advocates were quick to denounce Brown for voting to "gut" Social Security and Medicare while protecting tax breaks for millionaires and "big oil." But a nationwide survey newly posted in the Rasmussen Report shows Republicans doing better than Democrats in handling debate over the debt ceiling. Even if that hardly proves Brown's vote would have a similar level of support in Massachusetts, he does have whatever political advantage there might be in favoring the GOP measure, yet without the disadvantage of its full range of cuts taking effect.

Should there be a political compromise along more moderate lines, that would still probably result in dramatic changes in federal spending. As of last night, President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner were reportedly trying to get support for a deficit reduction of $3 trillion over the next ten years. If that fails to appease many Republicans in the House, it could also be tough to swallow for many Democrats.

As for the effect of reaching an agreement before the deadline for action on the debt ceiling, the best scenario would have the advantage of a financial crisis averted and a more sustainable pace of federal spending, with benefits for the economy at some point. But, even in that scenario, there would be short-term disadvantages, with job losses and cuts in federal money for everything from publicly supported health coverage to grants for higher education--even for people working their way out of poverty at community colleges and programs offered by Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD). In response to the federal budget developments this week, ABCD President and CEO John Drew issued a memo, which included these observations on the possible range of budget cuts:

Our elected officials in Congress are battling in budget negotiations tied to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. President Obama has convened ongoing meetings to reach a budget compromise. On the table are severe cuts in federally funded domestic programs, including CSBG. The two sides find themselves at an impasse over the President’s insistence that tax increases as well as spending cuts be included in the legislation. Thus ABCD programs and many others – including Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps, public housing and other “safety net” programs – could be sacrificed in the budget compromise.

If Congress does not reach an agreement and the debt ceiling is not raised, then the government will be unable to pay its bills and ABCD programs along with Social Security, government pensions and salaries, and other programs will not receive the federal payments due them.

At a time when the economy is in desperate straits, when unemployment remains high and people struggle to pay their mortgages and rent and put food on their tables, our national leaders in Congress and the White House should not be putting Americans – especially our most vulnerable citizens – at this terrible risk. I call for our elected officials to get together and act responsibly so that increased misery is not inflicted on the most vulnerable in society. At a time when increasing numbers of Americans are at economic risk we should be investing in job creation, boosting programs that help the most vulnerable in society, and doing what is necessary to keep the country going. We should not be gambling with people’s lives.

Thus we are in a position similar to that of last spring – when the new conservative majority in the House of Representatives proposed huge domestic cuts including elimination of our critically needed Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) monies – in the budget that would continue funding America. At that time we let Congress and the world know that Community Action is too important to cut and that the work of ABCD and the 1,000-plus CAPs across America is essential to the survival and upward mobility of the huge numbers of Americans struggling in poverty and to the nation’s economic recovery.

Personal Rounds Through a Public Golf Course

2011-06-20T10:18:00.012-05:00

I first experienced the George Wright Municipal Golf Course as a six year-old intruder. Since I had no understanding of golf whatsoever, I only knew that the course, like earthly paradise, was a gated landscape. And what impressed me above all was the size. My family had just moved to Hyde Park from a two-family house in Dorchester, so I was used to much smaller worlds, with more pavement and much less open space.

Like other kids in the neighborhood, I considered any stretch of woods or grass a potential playground. After school, during weekends, and throughout the summer, we spent hours of unstructured time roaming the fairways and the rough, dodging the golf balls and the police on the motorcycles (reviled if not exactly identified, by names such as Hackett and Hogan). Along with burning calories, these excursions begged for plot lines, whether it was about soldiers at war, criminals on the run, or explorers on the frontier. From here, it was only a small leap of imagination to believe it when someone told me the water in a brook near the 18th fairway came through mysterious underground channels all the way from Texas.

Since our family lived on a hill that overlooked George Wright, the course was how I placed the neighborhood on my earliest maps of the world. From certain vantage points, it was possible to see the course stretching into Roslindale, toward a high point on the horizon marked by the water tank on Bellevue Hill in West Roxbury. In the other direction, the fairways rolled out toward the Neponset River, the main commercial center of Hyde Park, and eventually the Blue Hills.

In the spring, we could hear the night music of peepers from the urban wilds in the Stony Brook Reservation. This was separated from the course by stone walls that were stained with years of rust from miles of chain-link fencing. In the fall, when people on our street burned piles of dead leaves in the gutters, there would also be smoke from the golf course, where patches of rough were turned, by design, mischief, or accident, into scorched earth and, months later, a fresh patch of overgrowth.

After snowfalls in the winter, there were sleds and toboggans streaking down the 12th fairway. Like other kids from the neighborhood, I went down the hill many winter afternoons, and even at night. On some winter nights, from the window in my bedroom, I could see fidgets of light on the part of the fairway known as "Suicide Hill." I still remember going out there one night when someone had built a fire, and a radio was playing a hit song from the Beatles "Sergeant Pepper" album.

My next phase at George Wright was a brief attempt at caddying. At the time, I was 14 years old. Though I still had little interest in playing golf, I had a keen desire to make even a token amount of money on my own. That's how, on at least a few early mornings, somewhere along the stairs between the clubhouse to the first tee, I passed the time waiting for employment.

I mostly remember my competition, especially the kids who seemed to snap up bags of clubs with little fuss and strap them on with little sign of strain. No doubt, some of them were regulars who had proven their ability to haul their weight for the full 18 holes and track down shots that were so readily devoured by encroachments of wild grass and trees.

Though a designer might have intended the wilderness features of George Wright to evoke the natural splendors of the Scotland, even a caddy knew that golf was supposed to be a triumph of civilization and geometry. Braving hazards of water and sand, golfers had to adjust the arcs and lines of their shots to dips and swerves of terrain. After this came the treacherous nuance of a green. Aside from being a beast of burden easily replaced by a golf cart, an effective caddy was potentially the difference between order and chaos: the difference between just another retiree with a bad lie, and a raving trek through the heath with King Lear.

My waiting for assignments usually ended in rejection, or passively watching a procession of golfers who avoided eye-contact altogether. It didn't help that I wore glasses, which must have made them expect I would miss balls (and I certainly missed my share) or fail to keep my mind on their game.

As we waited for our luck to turn, my fellow day-laborers would advance theories. Maybe the caddies were supposed to have been assigned from a list kept in the clubhouse by another mysterious figure of authority (sometimes referred to as Delaney). A thing apart from the course, the clubhouse itself was almost palatial in its underutilized spaces, with their lingering smells of beer, perspiration, and cleaning solvents. Somehow, I construed all this as an outpost of administration, kept going by a troupe of interchangeables who might just as well have been named Murphy, Molloy, and Malone.

Despite the rejections, I did manage to service a few golfers and make it through 18 holes without too many losses. Among the clients were the owner of a pub in Jamaica Plain and an affable teacher of high school Greek, a regular at the course whose exotic attire even included a pith helmet. I also remember a couple of golfers who seemed dressed for a course with more prestige. One of them, according to rumor laced with schadenfreude, was a supermarket visionary and Harvard grad who, because he was Jewish, wasn't allowed to play on a private course more on par with his income. Though a municipal course had to be less discriminatory, I sensed that legal requirement could also seem utterly stigmatizing, if only through its inability to disguise a reasonable claim to something better.

It would take me decades to figure out why the kind of discrimination that seemed outdated almost anywhere else could flourish on a golf course. I should have taken a hint on the fairway when I overheard a joke about the Irish that didn't seem funny. After all, this was one of the few places, outside of a barroom, where men (for the most part) could be free from the constraints of mixed company, and where the only rules that mattered were part of a game. As a caddy, I was supposedly old enough to be exposed to off-color verbiage, but still young enough for people to expect I should behave differently. Like any good servant, I was also obliged to keep the indiscretions under wraps. In such a way, I defended civilization as a guardian of appearances.

It was only after a chance for practice on a driving range that I started going to George Wright for golf. Since I happened to live in Boston and went to one of the public schools, I was allowed to play quite a bit for free. I could borrow a set of clubs from an older brother, so the only other thing I needed was a supply of golf balls, which came from the course itself--and my countless hours of rummaging. If I broke a rule by not returning stray balls to the pro shop, I obliged by losing all of them somewhere else in the course. You might even call it borrowing or recycling. Whatever it was, it was part of a routine that allowed me to burn off a couple of summers by playing as many as 27 holes a day.

With a couple of exceptions, my golfing days were over by August of 1969. By then, at age 16, I was old enough, and lucky enough, to get a year-round part-time job. From that point on, I never really missed the game, and I sometimes felt golf was an activity for which I was temperamentally unfit. Aside from a lack of discipline, technique, or brute strength, it seems my physical motions were hobbled by some mental circuitry I couldn't shut down. Instead of being motivated or diverted by the companionship of a team sport, I was often playing the course by myself, tangled up in some internal conflict. In a fit of desperation, I even painted my golf balls orange. I thought a change of color might improve their trajectory or make them easier to locate, but the paint only seemed to add more drag to the sluggish air of a hot summer.

Every so often, there were things that worked, if only from sheer luck. I really did come within inches of a hole-in-one on the short 17th fairway, though that was badly tarnished by a rash of wayward putting. On the longest fairway, the 15th, there was a drive from the tee that sailed at least 150 yards, clearing a downslope to a lower plane of grass. The shot would also be spoiled by what happened later. But there was still that one moment of a boundary cleared by something that was still on track as it dipped out of sight.

In more recent years, I have come back to the course, if only for walks, with or without a dog. I pay little if any attention to golf, though it's hard to resist picking up a stray ball, whether for luck, or as something like a rare mushroom after heavy rains. If I do pay attention to something, it's more likely to be the smell of freshly cut grass, a torrent of wind in the trees, or the drizzling pulsation of crickets on a Friday afternoon in June.

I’ve also walked the course in winter, puzzling over tracks in the snow, or picking out remote specks of Christmas lights from the 12th fairway. So let's say I'm at the top of the hill, looking out toward Fairmount and, off to one side, the highest of the Blue Hills. The sledders have all gone home, but the course is draped with snow, and there's a moon overhead, nearly full. The light reflects off the snow, not as it does from the glossy matrix of a golf ball, but as something more subdued, yet also less contained or even earthbound. Almost weightless, it extends past all borders in all directions and, for all I know, indefinitely through outer space.

Tribute June 4 in Roxbury for Ron Bell

2011-06-03T16:39:00.003-05:00

A tribute luncheon will take place tomorrow in Roxbury for Ron Bell, Governor Patrick's Senior Advisor for Community Affairs. Also well known as the founder of Dunk the Vote, Ron was hospitalized a couple of months ago with a massive heart attack. But he's come a long way toward recovery, and he's scheduled to be on hand tomorrow. The event's being hosted by the Statewide Black Clergy for Unity, and there will also be a jazz performance led by Frank Wilkins. The time is 2 p.m, at the Roxbury Center for the Arts (Hibernian Hall) in Dudley Square. Tickets are available at the door or by calling Pastor Cutts at 857 221-0291, or Anthony Brewer at 617 272-0473.

Last Respects to a Voice of the Neighborhoods

2011-06-01T09:31:00.004-05:00

A funeral service is being held today for Clyde Whalen, a long-time contributor to BNN's Neighborhood Network News in Boston, who passed away Friday, at age 91. In more than two decades with NNN, Clyde kept to his beat with utmost dedication. He reported the news from his long-time neighborhood, Allston-Brighton, then also from his new territory in the Fenway. He did his job as a correspondent with considerable care, whether gathering information from sources, processing stories from newspapers, or practicing his script to make sure he got it right--with his own hyper-local flavor. As a seasoned performer who had traveled the world entertaining on cruise ships, Clyde knew the toil and calibration needed to make something look natural, and he kept on in the same spirit even through his last segments with us earlier this year. By swapping impressions and observations in the newsroom, he helped keep us all more engaged in a neighborhood’s life and atmosphere. Not just another face on a learning curve, Clyde had his own brand, a way with the facts of the day that could arouse the sense of outrage, admiration, or absurdity. And, when it was sorely needed, he was an ambassador who could vouch for NNN’s authenticity as a local phenomenon, and not just a farm team for bigger leagues. All this, plus his inquisitiveness, his sense of humor, and even a daring to be downright puzzled by what's going on, will be missed.

Obama Rallies Boston Supporters to "Steep Climb"

2011-05-23T09:56:00.009-05:00

Some things had changed since Barack Obama rallied Boston supporters more than two-and-a half years ago at the Seaport World Trade Center.

At the earlier event, Obama was trying to become the Democratic nominee for president. When he stood on the platform, he was the newest figure in a constellation that included Deval Patrick, Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, and John Kerry. Speaking on the eve of the Massachusetts presidential primary, he was a sum of possibilities, associations, and mystique.

Last Wednesday, in a fundraiser at the Cyclorama in the South End, Obama appeared after a series of warm-up speakers, including Patrick, but he gave his address as one figure on a platform, with a presidential backdrop of American flags.
Since this was a stump speech by an incumbent, there was a list of accomplishments, from partial progress on the economy, to health care reform, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and the end of "don't ask don't tell." There were still echoes of campaign speeches in 2008, especially words about the country's historic march toward greatness through adversity. This time around, there was also talk about the grind of governing, with its compromises, setbacks, and detours. And, given the expected showdown with Republicans in Congress over the debt limit, Obama was compromising enough to talk about cutting waste and living within the nation's means.

"We're going to have to make some tough decisions about things we can do without," he said, "and we'll all have to make some sacrifices."
So the difference between Obama and Republicans was to be over how the sacrifice would be distributed. Though public opinion surveys show support for some of Obama's positions--ending tax cuts for the wealthy and subsidies for oil companies--there is also the poll by MassINC showing confidence in economic recovery in Massachusetts is slipping, despite the steady but modest improvement in employment figures.

Anxiety could also mean a chance for Republicans to advance a recovery plan with less government spending and regulation. Even if their steeper cuts in the budget eventually prove a stronger boost for the economy, the near-term result could still require more public sector layoffs and more out-of-pocket spending on what used to be covered by entitlement programs. And that, too, could be a source of anxiety, added to the continuing slippage the housing market.
With the beginning of the calendar year for the next presidential election still more than seven months off, polls show there is no single Republican challenger who can beat Obama. At the same time, Obama has been shown trailing a generic challenger with a Republican orientation. And Massachusetts is no exception to at least some shift in voter sentiment, with its Democratic governor re-elected by less than 50 percent of the vote and with Ted Kennedy succeeded by Scott Brown--also still without a strong challenger.
So, as he stood on the platform last Wednesday, Obama was trying to mobilize supporters for the grind of campaigning. Snapping tweetable photos with their smart phones, they looked ready to channel the team spirit personified on the podium by Kevin Garnett and Bill Russell. But this moment in the calendar and this gathering of (mostly) young professionals, as Obama acknowledged, was still a long way from the multitude of decisions by the less fortunate and less networked to bother voting.

"This is just the start," he said, "of what is going to be a steep climb."

Boston Residential Tax Bills Increase

2010-12-17T16:49:00.003-05:00

The rate’s going up for Boston’s property taxes. For residential property, the increase is from $11.88 per thousand dollars of value to $12.79. For commercial property, the increase is from $29.38 to $31.04.

The average tax bill for residential property will increase by 7.5%, from the previous year’s $2,935, to $3,155. As in past years, there will be an exemption for owner-occupants of residential property. This year’s exemption will be $1,594.85.

The administration of Mayor Menino say it’s raising total property tax revenue by the maximum amount allowed by Proposition 2½. Also affecting the rate is a slight decrease in the city’s overall property values.

The tax bills coming out will be calculated on property values as of January 1, 2010. The date precedes changes in market values caused by the tax break for first-time home-buyers, and by the fall-off in sales when the break expired.

In recent years, residential values in some parts of Boston have held firm or even started going back up. But, in other parts of the city, values are still falling. As in past years, city officials note the average residential tax bill in Boston is lower than the same bills in many other communities. And they say the bill for FY 2011 is 30% below the average residential bill for all of Massachusetts in FY 2010.

After School Closings, Still More Hurdles

2010-12-17T12:44:00.014-05:00

With 5,600 vacant seats in the Boston Public Schools, there must be room for saving money on buildings and, possibly, transportation. If the money can be used for longer school days and incentives for more effective teaching (which would have their price in a new teachers' contract), then there’s all the more reason to consolidate.

That’s the case for closings made by most of Boston’s public officials and business leaders, and even by advocates for students. The argument has been made for at least three years.

But, instead of consolidating in phases and spreading out disruption, the School Committee voted this week to close nine buildings and merge another eight schools. That’s the largest single downsizing in the Boston Public Schools since the early 1980’s, a time of economic recession after newly approved limits on the city’s property tax and a drop in enrollment with the start of desegregation.

Over the weeks leading up to the vote on this year’s round of closings, school officials have emphasized the big picture. Repeatedly they brought up the expected savings on facilities—$10 million—and the coming year’s expected budget faces a shortfall—as much as $63 million. And they kept saying that money saved could at least make surviving schools with empty seats more attractive.

“Many of those empty seats are in high-quality schools,” School Committee Chair Rev. Gregory Groover told BNN News, “so if we can relocate some of those children to those high-quality schools, you’re talking about hundreds of more students, if not thousands of more students who will have access to better schools.”

One reason officials backed off from earlier attempts to consolidate schools and transportation was that the remaining options increased educational inequality in a way that was hard to miss on a map. Under one plan to increase the number of school zones from three to five, many families in the poorest neighborhoods would have faced a disproportionately high probability of being stuck with an under-performing school.

So, instead of just leaving access to sub-standard schools more randomized, the goal is to bring more schools up to standard, even with more options among charter schools.

But, as in the 1980’s, many people most directly affected by closings view them as a new uncertainty, and possibly a step backward. At a series of hearings before the consolidation was approved this week, parents and students spoke about what they valued in the schools being closed, and they combined personal narrative with statistics.

At a hearing in November, before more schools were added to the consolidation plan, Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman turned his back on the School Committee and told a hall mostly filled with parents and students, “The schools chosen are not under-performing schools, and not in any way dysfunctional schools.”

This week, the day before the vote, in a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Thomas Menino weighed in and put the emphasis on the big picture: “Will we as a city have the courage to stop doing things that limit students’ achievement, so we can grow the strategies that accelerate it?”

The day after the vote, the mayor pointed out that the closings are only the start of a longer process. Along with providing space in other buildings, school officials are faced with the challenges of redesigning the assignment process, improving performance at more locations, and finding the right programs and teachers for English language learners and students with learning disabilities.

At a hearing last month, the assistant superintendent for English language learners, Dr. Eileen de los Reyes, said the aim would be to “move the strength” of the special programs. “We are hoping to move the faculty with the students,” she said.

But, as the West Roxbury Patch reports, plans for English language learners affected by the closing of the Agassiz Elementary School in Jamaica Plain are being questioned by parents of students at one destination school in West Roxbury, the Patrick Lyndon.

Another school being closed, the Emerson in Roxbury, has the only structured immersion class for Cape Verdean students. And one opponent warned that splitting up students in the language program would also interfere with daily routines of going to school in groups. “You’re breaking up not only the programs,” she said, “but the families.”

Some of the mergers in the plan involve high schools sharing the same buildings in South Boston and West Roxbury. Though officials say mergers will add strength overall, the chief academic officer, Irvin Scott, denied the change would mean the expansion of one school and the total disappearance of the other.

“The goal,” said Scott, “is to take what’s great in both schools and replicate it.”

With the new combinations yet to be defined, some students from high schools being merged in West Roxbury left class this week to protest in downtown Boston. They talked about being faced with changes in curriculum and possible conflicts with a different mix of classmates.

The mergers of subdivided high schools also signal disillusionment with what once seemed a promising concept—that smaller, more tight-knit schools, would improve student performance. Though some of the innovative schools, such as Excel High School in South Boston—have been hailed as improvements over the standard district high schools, the assistant superintendent for research, assessment and evaluation, Kamalkant Chavda, said that, overall, they showed “no significant” academic improvement.

If nothing else is changed, a smaller number of schools would create more demand for student transportation. That means savings will have to come from other measures. One possibility is to have some middle school students take MBTA buses with discount passes. Another would be to let fewer students within a walk zone have the option of a bus ride.

Demand for busing will also be affected by any redrawing of zones, and the resulting changes in the number of options for school assignments. If there were enough improvement at enough schools, it would be possible to increase the number of zones without increasing inequality of options. And Deputy Superintendent Michael Goar said last month the five zones proposed a couple of years ago are “not enough.” In the best possible outcome, there could even be more families satisfied with a school’s performance and a convenient location in their neighborhood—qualities valued by many of the parents who spoke out against school closings.

But, getting to that outcome will involve difficulties, including some posed by the expansion of charter schools. Along with contributing to a shift of state money away from district public schools, charters have an advantage in transportation. Currently their students are entitled to busing anywhere in the city, and this is paid for by the Boston School Dept. Even with the current assignment plan, busing is only provided within a zone—for students in the BPS and Catholic schools.

Though school officials say the consolidation will stop short of exceeding student-to-teacher ratios in each classroom, some fear there will be more classes where the influx will hurt performance. And, after the vote, Stutman even questioned the determination of Boston officials to stem the exodus of potential new students to charter schools.

By speaking to the Chamber of Commerce instead of parents at the School committee, Mayor Menino chose a setting that was almost certainly less confrontational. And he used the occasion to bring up one other challenge to educational improvement—the rising cost of health care for teachers and other city employees.

As the president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Samuel Tyler, points out, the budget for the Boston School Dept., minus the amount for insurance coverage, is getting smaller. Menino and the Bureau favor a change of state law that would let the city impose a less costly form of coverage without having to get separate agreements from all collective bargaining units—something allowed to the state since 1955.

It stands to reason that give-backs for unions would go over well with business executives, but that has so far been little match for the reluctance of the state legislature and Governor Patrick, or even the Boston City Council, to dramatically increase leverage over health plans for local communities.

Given the media exposure for Menino’s speech, it could be said he was trying to rally a broader public. This could include many people with less generous coverage, and maybe fewer options for educating their children. And, judging by The Boston Globe’s account of new population trends, the audience could even include actual or potential “New Bostonians” whose pursuit of good schools prompts them to move out or avoid the city altogether.

Pariahs, Pantheons, and Chuck Turner

2010-12-02T16:11:00.010-05:00

It was a little after the City Council vote to expel Chuck Turner when I got off the trolley at Government Center. As I was on the way up the stairs, I saw a descending face that looked familiar yet puzzling.

Not only that, but this figure on the escalator seemed to recognize me. I still don't know who this was, but it was only a couple of seconds before misplaced resemblance became a reminder of a tarnished political figure in Boston's past. That's why, as I headed across the wet brick plaza toward a funereal mass of people outside City Hall, I thought of the late state representative from Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain, Kevin Fitzgerald.

Unlike Chuck Turner, Fitzgerald was never convicted of a crime. But Fitzgerald was entangled in a civil action over money he came by after helping an elderly woman described as being mentally impaired and having bags of cash containing thousands of dollars. Though Fitzgerald was a beneficiary in the woman's will, there was no proof beyond all reasonable doubt of stealing money that, sooner or later, should have gone to someone else. And Fitzgerald denied that it was a case of private compensation for public service. Though the case was widely reported in the Boston media, Fitzgerald kept being re-elected. For the rest of his political career, he would also be saddled with a familiar nickname, "Money Fitz."

As he made his defense before yesterday's vote, Chuck Turner compared himself to a more famous figure who went from humble origins in Roxbury to Jamaica Plain--Boston's "Rascal King," James Michael Curley. Along with rising as high as mayor, governor and congressman, Curley would be convicted twice, and on the second occasion for a federal crime. Not only that, but he continued serving as mayor of Boston after his release from prison.

As a Roxbury politician who spent some time helping local constituents--including ex-offenders--Curley certainly has some things in common with Turner, who has lived in Roxbury for decades but was born in Ohio. To be sure, Curley had his attractive traits and admirable accomplishments. Unlike Turner, the son of immigrants moved to the Jamaicaway and lived in a mansion with servants (plus legendary lines of supplicants at his door).

The author of The Rascal King, Jack Beatty, offers plenty of detail about the dark side of Curley, as off-and-on demagogue and possible crook. When asked if Curley might have done any garnishing along the way, the author of a more recent book on Curley, former State Senate President William Bulger, strongly disagreed.

Two years before he died, Curley moved from the mansion to a smaller house in Jamaica Plain. He was diminished materially and, more importantly, by the death of all but one of his children. The combination of accomplishments, misdeeds, and misfortunes made him seem larger than life.

When Curley died in 1958, there was what has been called "the largest funeral in the history of the City of Boston," maybe surpassing even the turnout at Columbia Point last year after the death of Ted Kennedy. Likewise, Fitzgerald was remembered before and after his death as a strong champion of human services. He would eventually be honored by the naming of a scenic park looking out on the office towers of downtown Boston and the spires of Mission Church.

Further on in Boston's political afterlife, Chuck Turner will be remembered as a leader of campaigns for jobs, reform around criminal background checks, and for putting a spotlight on the persistent achievement gap in the city's schools. If he was remembered in yesterday's vote for taking a wad of cash at his office in Dudley Square (as the federal jury saw it), he might also be remembered for spending time there to help individuals trying to get their lives back on track.

When Turner invoked Curley yesterday in the City Council's Iannella Chamber, some found the comparison fatuous or offensive. If it was a plea for being allowed to stay in office, it was certainly wishful. If less than fully persuasive, it did open the door to more comparisons with elected and non-elected officials who, despite serious lapses, managed to keep their positions.

But the view of Curley in Boston is like an image in a cracked mirror, or a pair of images that don't quite match. So it is with the two pieces of sculpture near City Hall. One shows Curley standing proud--Curley the beloved, the admirable, and perhaps shrewdly mythological. The other shows an old man on a bench, a fellow mortal, not so much enthroned as deposed.

Yes, Curley the ex-offender was allowed to serve the remainder of his term as mayor. He ran again more than once but was never again to be elected. While he was a strong candidate for immortality, the voters of his last decade confirmed he had outlived his usefulness as a public official.

By voting to expel Chuck Turner, his colleagues might seem to have been slighting the positive elements that people might remember in years ahead. If Turner were to have continued serving, the sting leading to his conviction might have gotten more life as a public issue--with voters in Roxbury's District 7 left to see his behavior as principled defiance or colossal stupidity.

But, instead, the expulsion left the district's voters to concentrate on something else. That takes the spotlight off the afterlife of other officials who go on to work for interests with business before the city or the state. And it dims the glare on the more roundabout--though usually quite legal--ways of rewarding people in the public realm for benefits in the private realm. What Turner's exit also makes less apparent is any resemblance to the lingering presence of Curley on the bench.

Dorchester Swing Voters Find Way to Surprise

2010-11-12T10:44:00.011-05:00

We chose to do a report on the November election in Boston by going to Florian Hall in Dorchester. The main reason was that Ward 16, Precinct 12 had the makings of a swing vote.

In the last final election for governor, in 2006, the precinct gave Deval Patrick and Tim Murray more than 48% of the vote, with a tally of 397. That was in a four-way race, with the Republican team, Kerry Healey and Reed Hillman, getting almost 41% (336 votes). The remaining 11% went mostly to Christy Mihos. But, in January of 2010, when the special election was held to fill the seat left vacant by the death of US Senator Ted Kennedy, the precinct was carried by Scott Brown.

Given the drift of public opinion surveys around the country, it seemed that a precinct carried by Patrick four years ago could tilt in a different direction this time around. Even though Patrick was clearly favored in most of Dorchester, the mix of voters at Florian Hall was different even from that even in most other predominantly white precincts—with more firefighters and police, and with many elderly, especially from the nearby Keystone Apartments.

Though one voter in this year’s mix expressed sympathy for the Tea Party, the results had Patrick on top, if with a smaller margin over the rest of the field. The governor received almost 44% of the vote, and his tally was 369—28 votes less than four years ago. Incidentally, almost 44% was exactly the precinct's share of the vote in January for Martha Coakley, when Scott Brown received 55% in what was much more a two-way race.

As it turned out, the biggest difference from four years ago was the drop in support for the Republican ticket. Charlie Baker and Richard Tisei got a little more than 33% of the vote. As the managing editor of the Dorchester Reporter, Bill Forry, noted, the reason was the level of support for independent candidate Tim Cahill, at more than 22%—well above his showing statewide.

If the showing for Patrick in the precinct was less than triumphal, there’s a case for saying he did better than other Democrats around the country, especially if he’s judged on votes by the elderly. According to Nonprofit VOTE, there was a dramatic shift in the tilt among elderly voters, compared with November of 2008. Two years ago, Democrats had the edge with these voters—by one percent. This year, the advantage was to the Republicans, by 21 percent.

One explanation for the shift among elderly voters—aside from general discontent over the economy—could be the portrayal of national health care reform as coming at the expense of Medicare. If Democrats and AARP tried to make reform seem less threatening to the elderly, there was certainly a different spin from Republicans in campaign advertising (even back in January, when Brown was on his way to victory).

There’s still the caveat that comparing this year’s vote to that of 2006, let alone 2008, is tricky. In the presidential election year of 2012, the common assumption is that the turnout will include many more young voters, which should help Democrats. Less clear is whether the elderly vote of 2012 will be more like the national tilt in 2008 or the national tilt this month, not to mention the presumably greater tilt in favor of a Republican at Florian Hall in January of 2010.

Boston Vote: Higher Numbers, Lower Turnout

2010-11-03T12:23:00.025-05:00

Before the polls closed, it looked as if support for Deval Patrick in cities throughout Massachusetts might be outweighed by a surge of votes from the suburbs. When the counting was over, the Patrick-Murray ticket was re-elected by a tighter margin than in 2006, yet with a higher number of votes from Boston. By comparison with 2006, Boston's turnout was down considerably--from 56.22% to 43.99 percent. But only going by those percentages would be to overlook the dramatic change in the city's number of registered voters, an increase which includes many voters signed up for the election of 2008. So the other comparison is to say the number of people voting in Boston yesterday was still up from the figure for November, 2006 by 6765 or 4.33 percent.

By sections of Boston, Ward 20 (West Roxbury and part of Roslindale) had the highest turnout, at 59.50 percent--which was down from November of 2006, when the figure was 66.36 percent. This year, following primary contests for two open seats in the state legislature and a special election for district city councilor, the number of registered voters in Ward 20 was up by 13.97%, but the number of votes cast, compared with four years earlier, was up by 2.19 percent. Along with a strong showing in Boston for state senator by West Roxbury State Representative Mike Rush (76.62% of the vote) over West Roxbury Republican rival Brad Williams, there was a small change in the break-down for Patrick. Four years ago, he lost one precinct in Ward 20. Yesterday, he carried all 20 precincts.

Citywide, Patrick carried all but 8 of 254 precincts, losing precincts only in South Boston. He also lost most of these precincts four years ago, when Kerry Healey won 10 precincts in the city. There was a larger jump in enrollment in South Boston (up from November, 2006 by 39.34%), partially fueled by competition in September for the seat being vacated by State Representative Brian Wallace. Though the turnout percentage was down, the number of votes cast was higher, by 14.87 percent. As in past years, the final election results for state representative proved to be lopsided, with the Democratic nominee, Nick Collins, getting 73.13% of the vote over Republican rival Patrick Brennan.

As it turned out, the strongest showing by a Republican running for a local seat in Boston was in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill. That's where Brad Marston received 30.38% of the vote against Democratic incumbent Marty Walz.

Patrick wrapped up his campaigning Monday night with a rally in Roxbury's Dudley Square. The main question, even at the rally, was about getting out the vote. Compared with November of 2006, the figures from predominantly black precincts in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park show the vote was up modestly--by 3.35%, though the percentage of enrolled voters at the polls was down--from 54.59% to 42.09 percent.

By comparison with four years ago, the Patrick-Murray share of the Boston vote was slightly smaller, down from 72.86% to 70.28 percent. The number of votes they picked up this time in Boston was slightly higher, by less than one percent.

From Vargas Llosa to Dorchester Avenue

2010-10-09T11:04:00.021-05:00

I finally got around to reading an English translation of Mario Vargas Llosa’s Conversación en La Catedral a few years ago. The thick paperback had been stacked on a shelf at three different locations for as many decades. But I was hooked right away by the crapulous opening. And it’s even better in the original:

Desde la puerta de “La Crónica” Santiago mira la avenida Tacna, sin amor: automóviles, edificios desiguales y descoloridos, esqueletos de avisos luminosos flotando en la neblina, el mediodía gris. ¿En qué momento se había jodido el Perú?

A newspaper reporter—let’s say a reporter washed out before he’s forty, or grey at noon and descolorido, if you will—looks out on the dreary streetscape of Peru’s capital city and wonders (in much more polite terms) what went wrong.

A Peruvian native who writes for the Jamaica Plain Gazette, Andy Zagastizábal, describes this fictional reporter as “a desperate person who feels he has lost everything.” When we had talked about this passage a few years ago, Andy quoted the last sentence in the original and asked me if I knew what the verb meant in English. I came fairly close. Even in translation, this was a memorable passage. I certainly remembered it last Thursday when I learned that Vargas Llosa had just won the Nobel Prize for literature. And, after I shared this news with Andy, he called this passage “one of the best beginnings of a novel.”

I’ve never seen Lima, but a college classmate who grew up there once described it as a rather depressing place with a lot of gray weather (he much preferred the Peruvian jungle). I’ve always imagined a much less pleasant San Francisco, with a swelling periphery of shanty towns.

The title of the book actually refers to the name of a seedy bar. This is where the journalist meets with his rich and influential father’s chauffeur, who fills him in on some dark family secrets, overlapping with the underside of Peru’s military dictatorship in the 1950’s. True, there’s something in common here with the post-traumatic effects of other dictatorships, whether you read them in works by Junot Díaz or Viktor Pelevin (who once described Russia of the early 1990’s as “a banana republic that imports bananas from Finland”). But, when I read the beginning of Conversación en La Catedral, I think of a place in Boston.

To be precise, I think of an unremarkable bar on Dorchester Avenue, Vaughan’s Tavern. This was in the mid-1970’s, and Vaughan’s was just another brick-faced bunker with small rectangular windows, where there surely would have been the kind of skeletal avisos luminosos tracing the name of some beer. As for decor, I remember few details except for a portrait of Bobby Kennedy hung on a wall, just above a couple of rifles. The bar was right across from Edison Green, which at the time was only a vacant lot where there used to be substandard housing.

As it turned out, I went to Vaughan’s on the first story I covered in Dorchester. This wasn’t even a story as much as a way of meeting people and gathering dots that could later be connected as stories. Some of those stories would concern trouble over liquor licenses, so it was a good idea to sit on the meeting, which took place in a storefront next to the bar. Also making an introductory visit was the newest member of the Boston Licensing Board. He was meeting with leaders of Dorchester neighborhood groups, among them a no-nonsense leader from Savin Hill, Kit Clark. After much else on the agenda, Clark finally let him speak and told him to keep it brief.

There was one more reporter in the room, a columnist for The Boston Globe, Alan Lupo. He thought it would be a good idea to finish connecting dots for his piece about the man from the Licensing Board at the bar next door. Lupo graciously invited me to tag along, and, after that, I mainly listened and watched, if not all that perceptively.

I do remember that the man from the Licensing Board stood out from his surroundings. He wore a suit and he spoke with a certain deferential confidence about listening to concerns of people in the neighborhoods and being responsive. After all, he had been a concerned neighborhood leader himself in another part of Boston.

The most memorable thing happened as the three of us were on the way out. One of the customers, who’d had a bit to drink, for some reason went up to the man from the Licensing Board like a voter courting a politician (yes, it sometimes works this way, too). Taking the man in the suit by the hand, the customer told him, “I’d want my son to grow up some day to be just like you.”

To this day, I’ve never really been sure whether this was an outburst of admiration or sarcasm. In any event, time would later prove it to be misdirected. The man from the Licensing Board would, among other misfortunes, go on to have a tarnished career.

But I would keep reading Alan Lupo’s columns and books for many more years, until he passed away in 2008 (or, in the words on his voicemail, “shrugged off his mortal coil”). And, by sometime in the 1980’s, the vacant lot across the street would become an elderly housing complex named after Kit Clark.

First impressions do linger, and maybe no less when they mislead. As benchmarks, they help show how the dots that seem so factual, even if logged in a notebook or pixelated in a photo, can also be fictitious, or at least a kind of mythology. If some of these dots are deceptions that need to be exposed, others are symbols that instruct and inspire by keeping alive the memory of a role model.

The other side of this is how fiction draws on fact. In the case of Vargas Llosa that especially means his earlier career as a journalist. After learning Thursday that he won the Nobel Prize, he told the Spanish paper, El País: "El periodismo me ha dado la obligación de confirmar, de verificar, me ha enseñado lo importante que es la perseverancia. Si no hubiera tenido esa disciplina no hubiera sido un escritor; sigo verificando, sigo corrigiendo, obsesivamente. Es un gozo para mí escribir, sin duda, pero si detrás no hubiera este esfuerzo no hubiera escrito las historias que ahora forman parte de mi vida. Es una servidumbre y un gozo, un gran gozo".

To hazard a translation: "Journalism has given me the obligation to confirm, to verify, has taught me the importance of perseverance. If I hadn't had this discipline, I wouldn't have been a writer; I keep verifying, keep correcting, obsessively. Writing is a joy for me, without a doubt, but if there hadn't been this effort, I wouldn't have written the stories that now form part of my life. It is a servitude and a joy--a great joy."

What Vargas Llosa speaks of here might be what Dante called “la mente che non erra”—the mind that gets it right. That’s not always available at all times, so there’s a need to fall back on something for guidance, or at least a standard. Dante, washed out and middle-aged, meets Vergil in a dark wood and starts making his way out by making his way down—with the plod of reason. Myself, I think of another “low dishonest decade” and a conversation in a certain dive on Dorchester Avenue.

From Blitz Conversion to Scratch and Dent

2010-10-07T10:26:00.008-05:00

This article appears in the Dorchester Reporter.

There was a time when Peter Power knew some of the people who lived in the six-family houses across Parkman Street. But that changed after mid-September of 2007, when the three buildings were converted into condos, all within less than four weeks.

“The next thing I knew,” said Power, “nobody was living in them at all.”

By mid-October, a developer had bought all three buildings in separate transactions for a total of $2.2 million dollars. The units then sold, on paper, for a total of almost $4.9 million. All but one of them were sold within three days the after sale of their building. Lenders put up mortgages totaling $3.8 million.

Even more unusual was the assortment of condo owners—from the manager of the Bank of America Branch in Fields Corner, to buyers from Brooklyn, the Bronx, and even as far away as Atco, New Jersey and Norfolk, Virginia. On paper, some of them were owner-occupants. Others supposedly bought units as their second homes, or for investment—at a time when the condo market in much of Dorchester, and many other places, was in decline. Yet, judging from the difference between sales prices and mortgage amounts, the down payments for the units ran as high as $75,000.

Less than three years later, the developer, Michael David Scott, is under federal indictment for mortgage fraud, along with the bank manager, an attorney who worked on many of the transactions, and two other people accused of being recruiters for straw buyers. Scott and two other defendants pleaded not guilty last week. In the indictments, they are accused of paying the straws to buy units at falsely inflated prices, and making false statements to lenders about the buyers’ assets and down payments. Also pleading not guilty is the now former bank manager, Arthur Samuels, who stands accused of producing false documents and recruiting a straw buyer.

Before the first indictments were handed up late August, foreclosure petitions had been filed for 8 units in the buildings on Parkman Street. But, even without, in most cases, going all the way into foreclosure, the units that Scott sold for as much as $299,900 apiece would later be scooped up for as little as $55,000. Some were turned over for a nominal fee, with the buyer assuming the mortgage. In the interim, the buildings were painted on the outside and filled with new occupants.

But Power says the buildings still have problems. He mentions rodents attracted by trash containers that some residents don’t put out on the curb for collection. Plus, during the summer, there was a shooting in one of the buildings that, according to police, resulted in four arrests.

“It just brings the value of your house down,” says Power.

A lifelong resident of Dorchester, Power describes the buildings as a “flophouse” with “revolving tenants.” Saying he and his wife are thinking moving, he adds, “I actually do like Dorchester, but I don’t like what’s coming down the street right now. It’s not safe."

Federal authorities list fraudulent transactions by Scott and his collaborators on 48 units, all but six of them at locations in Dorchester—including the ones on Parkman Street. Most of the units have since been turned over to new owners. In at least one case, in a three-decker on Centre Street, there was a period when the doors and windows for one unit covered with plywood.

But there were also problems at another building listed in the indictment, a three-decker at 672 Adams Street.

“The lawn was disgusting. There was broken glass everywhere,” said a neighbor who described the building as “an eyesore.”

“We own our condo,” she said, “and we were afraid it would bring the price of ours down.”

Records show units in 672 Adams Street were all sold within a few days after it was bought under the name of Astoria Realty Trust. One unit was sold to Arthur Samuels. The others were sold to buyers from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Last year, foreclosure petitions were filed on two of the units. By February, all three units—which had sold less than two years earlier for a total of $870,000—were sold in separate transactions to a buyer from Quincy for a total of $140,900.

To buy all the properties listed in the federal indictment, Scott and his associates paid almost $6.2 million. On paper, the separate units sold—mostly within a few weeks—for a total of $13.9 million, while the mortgages put up by lenders came to almost $11.8 million. The highest loan totals were from Salem Five—more than $3.3 million—and Gateway Funding Diversified Mortgage Services—$4.4 million. And sources at both lenders say a loan officer who played a role in some of the transactions for Gateway later went to work for Salem Five.

Records show Scott and his associates, overall, sold more than one hundred units in Boston, mostly from condo conversions in Dorchester and Roxbury. Foreclosure proceedings were started on at least 80 of the units, while even some of the other units would be turned over in distressed sales. One lender—Gateway—wrote mortgages totaling more than $13 million for 44 of the units. Out of these, there would be foreclosure petitions filed on 35 units.

Many of the buyers purchased multiple units at multiple locations, and the same pattern can be found in multifamily transactions by other sellers. A partial review of records in Boston over the past few years shows foreclosure proceedings on more than 240 units against more than 100 owners of anywhere from 2 to 8 units. Some of those owners also turned over other units in distressed sales, without the filing of foreclosure petitions.

Researchers disagree about the effects of foreclosures on surrounding property, and they caution that poor conditions and price declines can also make distressed sales more likely.

The Rappaport Institute estimates a discount of 28% on sales of foreclosed (REO) properties, with the steepest discounts in areas where lenders have the most fear of property being damaged by vandalism.

According to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, small multifamily properties make up less than one-quarter of the housing stock in Massachusetts, but they account for 33 percent of the post-foreclosure sales. Researchers say the REO property discounts were steepest in areas with lower income levels, a higher percentage of minority residents, and a sharper decline in overall prices.

In multifamily REO properties that were converted into condos, potential buyers face even more obstacles. With staggered foreclosures on individual units, observers say financing is more difficult to arrange in buildings without functioning condo associations.

“You’re going to be left with someone who’s going to be willing to buy for cash,” said one appraiser based in Dorchester, “and, when you’ve got the cash buyer, you’re going to be left with considerably less for it.”

Monthly reports by The Warren Group show that the sharp declines in the median prices for Dorchester condos have since been reversed, even if prices are still below the levels at the height of the housing bubble. In July and August of this year, after the expiration of federal tax credits, there was a fall-off in condo sales, though the median price was still getting higher.

According to a report by In Realty, housing prices strongly rebounded in the second quarter of this year in all areas of Dorchester. In the area where the market had been the weakest—between Blue Hill Avenue and Washington street—prices were going up, but volume was down. According to the report, one reason was the decrease in foreclosures.

Helping to bring down the number of foreclosures are the efforts to keep buildings occupied, sometimes through loan modifications or sales to occupants. The non-profit Boston Community Capital has arranged this kind of turnover for 85 units of housing, mostly in Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, and Hyde Park.

“If we let nature and the market run its course, we have a real issue because of the inventory and the amount of time it’s on the market,” said the president of lending affiliates for Boston Community Capital, Patricia Hanratty. “If the people who are in one of these units can afford to buy it back at $70,000 or $80,000,” she asked, “why is that not under consideration?”

One reason is that, as speakers said last month in a Dorchester symposium on REO properties, non-profits are often outbid by for-profit competition. Though observers say the quality and intentions of the buyers are mixed, the competition increases demand for the housing supply. And, as the director of the city’s Dept. of Neighborhood Development, Evelyn Friedman explained, that can keep the property values from going too low to make repairs unprofitable.

At 672 Adams Street, the new owner of the condo units sold the whole building in June to another buyer from Quincy for $235,000. With recent signs of repair work, the neighbor says, “In the end it turned out OK.”

At a three-family house on Bernard Street, in the Franklin Field area, the people who bought units from Scott and his associates in late 2005 even managed to stay in the building, after getting help from Boston Community Capital. Records show the units, including one with less than 1,000 square feet, sold for more than $900,000. Foreclosure petitions would later be filed on two of the units.

Hanratty said Boston Community Capital intervened at Bernard Street and other locations because the mortgages had monthly payments that were “incredibly high,” adding that “nobody looked to underwrite these loans to say this is what somebody could afford.”

Despite renovations, Hanratty said, the units, as they sold almost five years ago, were “vastly overpriced."

"They were very high, even then,” she added. “Just thinking about a three-decker on Bernard Street as being worth almost a million bucks is pretty challenging.”

Open Seats Dominate Boston Primaries

2010-09-16T11:50:00.020-05:00

If there’s anything that makes this year’s primary results from Boston unusual, it’s the number of open seats in the state legislature. Unlike recent mid-term primaries, this year’s had no contests for governor or US senator, so the local results mainly reflected small pockets of competition within a single party. But that was enough to increase the number of people who voted throughout Boston over the figure for September, 2008 by 17.8 percent.

The closest among the contests for an open seat in the House of Representatives was in the 5th Suffolk District (Bowdoin-Geneva, Uphams Corner, Dudley Triangle), where unofficial figures have Carlos Henriquez ahead of Barry Lawton by 41 votes. Though Henriquez received a late endorsement from the district’s most recent incumbent, Marie St. Fleur, the vote pattern looks geographical. Henriquez carried precincts closer to his base in the Dudley Triangle, while Lawton carried precincts near his base in Dorchester’s Ward 15. Also on the ballot were two perennial candidates—Althea Garrison and Roy Owens, who got a combined total of 626 votes. That’s short of Lawton’s figure by only 52 votes.

In the 4th Suffolk District (South Boston/Dorchester), a former aide to State Senator Jack Hart, Nick Collins won with 47.3% of the vote. Leading the other three Democrats was Mark McGonagle, with 35.9 percent. The race has also been viewed as a proxy rematch of last year’s race for mayor, with Collins the favorite of the Michael Flaherty camp. If that raises doubts about Mayor Thomas Menino’s coattails, it has to be noted that Flaherty lives in South Boston and, to no one’s surprise, carried the area last year.

In November, Collins will be faced by a Republican, Patrick Brennan. An accountant living in South Boston, he’s a Worcester native who grew up in New Hampshire. His website says he has been living in the Greater Boston area for six years.

Home base also played a part in the contest for the seat being vacated by Willie Mae Allen, in the 6th Suffolk District (parts of Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roslindale). Russell Holmes won with 32.9% of the vote. He carried precincts closer to his home in Mattapan, along with others along Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester. Karen Payne, who came in second with 22.5% of the vote, carried precincts near her home in Roslindale.

In West Roxbury’s 10th Suffolk District, where Rep. Mike Rush is giving up his seat to run for state senate, the winner was Ed Coppinger, topping a field of six Democrats with 39.6% of the Boston vote, and coming in first in all 15 precincts in the city. A mortgage loan officer involved in youth sports and community service, Coppinger is also the son of former State Representative Fancis X. Coppinger.

In the Democratic race for Walsh’s seat, Rush received 56.2% of the vote from precincts in Boston, where the contest with Michael F. Walsh (no relation to the incumbent), a West Roxbury native from Westwood, also drew 1588 blanks. Results also show Rush trailing in the other parts of the district, in Dedham, Norwood, and Westwood.

In November, Rush will be opposed by a Republican, Brad Williams. A West Roxbury resident who moved in from Norwood, Williams is an investment advisor who’s active in the Republican Party at the ward level.

The closest challenge to a state senate incumbent, against newly-elected Sal DiDomenico, resulted in another loss for Timothy Flaherty. In the Boston vote, Flaherty was ahead with 57.1% of the total. There were also two Democrats on the ballot in the Middlesex & Suffolk District, where Brighton State Senator Steve Tolman got 78.8% of the votes from Boston.

In the 2nd Suffolk District (Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Chinatown, Fenway, Back, Bay South End, Dorchester), State Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz faced a more vigorous challenge from Roxbury attorney Hassan Williams. Chang-Díaz won a clear path to a second term by picking up 70% of the vote.

The 2nd Suffolk race was also a far cry from the close contest two years ago, when the incumbent was Dianne Wilkerson. The primary took place shortly before federal corruption charges were brought against Wilkerson, dashing her plans for a write-in campaign that was announced in expectation of a massive outpouring of support for Barack Obama. In this year’s primary, there were fewer votes cast—a decrease by 4774 votes, with 1087 blanks. As happened two years ago, Chang-Díaz had the advantage outside of Roxbury and Dorchester. Williams carried most of the other precincts, though he managed to lose six precincts in Ward 14 (Dorchester/Mattapan) that were carried two years ago by Wilkerson.

In the city, US Rep. Stephen Lynch from South Boston received 63.2% of the vote, over his Democratic challenger from Milton, Mac D’Alessandro. The challenger’s progressive platform won some precincts, mainly in Jamaica Plain and the Back Bay. In November, Lynch’s Republican opponent will be Vernon Harrison.

Also see segment on BNN News with Gin Dumcius, News Editor of the Dorchester Reporter, and Steve Poftak, Director of Research for the Pioneer Institute.

Shooting from the Hip near Codman Square?

2010-08-31T09:42:00.006-05:00

The news of a shooting on Lyndhurst street can easily evoke the terrible summer of 2005. Back then, the troubles on this street near Dorchester’s Codman Square included drug-dealing and prostitution. So it wasn’t altogether surprising that the pastor of a church a few blocks away, Rev. Bruce Wall, would occupy a building on the street and put the problems on the map.

As for what happened last night, there's no denying that a 43 year-old man was shot in the neck. How does that matter to the community? To begin with, as The Boston Globe reports, the gunshots were heard by neighbors, and that’s definitely unsettling.

But is it a continuation of what happened in 2005? Not necessarily. By this morning, the Boston Police said the shooting was “fueled by a personal dispute,” and that the alleged shooter, a 27 year-old man from Dorchester, knew the victim. The suspect has since been arrested and was due for arraignment in Dorchester District Court this morning.

As The Globe makes clear, the area has had more violent crime since 2005, including an assault on another pastor. Residents usually point out that most of the street is quite stable, with attractive single-family homes that are, for the most part, well maintained. But there are multi-family buildings near the corner of Washington street—the epicenter of Rev. Wall’s “Hell Zone”—that have a history of problems. These include multiple foreclosure petitions and distressed sales.

If the Boston Police Dept. is correct, the story around last night’s shooting looks different from the configuration of dots in the first news reports. It can certainly be expected the Police Dept. would want the public to think it’s not all that dangerous to walk down Lyndhurst street on a warm summer evening—even if the public remains on guard. It does appear the latest shooting wasn’t a random robbery, or something triggered by the kind of turf war that often takes a toll on bystanders. If there are still dots on Lyndhurst street, they have to be connected in a different way.

Condo Prices Still Lag in Housing Rebound

2010-08-04T07:45:00.006-05:00

As in the rest of Massachusetts, sales have picked up in Boston for homes and condominiums, though not always with a rise in prices.

According to figures from The Warren Group, sales of single-family homes in Massachusetts have increased through June of this year over the same period in 2009 by 28 percent. The increase for the second quarter was 35 percent.

The increase for condo sales in the first six months of 2010 was 30%, with an increase for the second quarter at more than fifty percent.

The brisk sales match levels that haven’t been seen since the boom years of 2005 and 2006, but the median prices are another matter. For single-family homes, the increase in June and for the first six months of 2010 was around 7 percent. For condos, the increase over the first six months was 5.7%, but the climb in the second quarter and in the month of June was lower, at less than 2 percent.

The Warren Group’s figures from Boston neighborhoods show a general flattening in prices later in the year, especially for condos, and even when sales were more numerous.

Among the areas with an above average increase in condo sales through June of 2010 were Brighton, Charlestown, South Boston, Jamaica Plain, and Mattapan. The largest increase in median price for these sales over the first six months was in Brighton, at more than 13 percent. In other areas, the median prices are down: in Charlestown by almost 2% and in South Boston by slightly more than 1½ percent.

In Jamaica Plain the increase in condo sales through June of this year was more than 39%, but the median price during that time was down by more than 7 percent. In June the drop was almost 8.7 percent.

The co-owner of the Jamaica Plain agency, McCormack & Scanlan, Karen McCormack, says one reason for a softening of condo prices was the ample supply of two-bedroom units.

“Because buyers had more choices,” she said, “there was this idea that buyers didn’t have to pay the asking price.”

But McCormack also reports more buyers from outer suburbs, attracted by Jamaica Plain’s combination of greenspace and proximity to downtown Boston.

“I’m definitely seeing again a resurgence of buyers from the suburbs, whose kids have grown up, and they’re selling their houses,” she said.

There was a different trend in areas close to downtown Boston, where the median price for condos increased over the first six months of 2010 by 12 percent. Sales volume was up, but only by 25% for the whole period, and less than 19% for the month of June.

There was also a contrast with last year in areas more severely affected by foreclosures and distressed sales. The increase in condo sales in Dorchester through June was below the statewide average, but the increase in median price was almost 28 percent. That compares with last year’s double-digit fall-off, when many units in multi-family houses were being scooped up in distressed sales for well below $100,000.

Also showing higher median prices for condos through June of this year, along with more sales, were Roxbury and part of the South End, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. With 118 transactions, the increase in median price for Roxbury and part of the South End was more than 22 percent. Though the number of condo sales through June in East Boston was down by almost 12 percent, the median price was up by almost 16 percent.

West Roxbury had what may have been the strongest contrast between the markets for condos and single-family homes.

For condos, the median price through June of this year was down by more than 20 percent, despite an increase in sales at 15 percent.

According to Joe Donnelly, an agent with West Roxbury’s Donahue-Brennan Real Estate, many of the condos are in brick apartment buildings dating from the 1960’s and 1970’s that were converted in the 1980’s.

“They went up the hottest and the hardest,” he said, “and they fell the most.”

But Donnelly says West Roxbury’s single-family market has lost less than ten percent of its value since the peak of the housing boom in 2005. Through June of this year, the market was close to the statewide average, with sales up by more than thirty percent and the median price a little better than average, increasing by almost 9 percent.

In other parts of Boston with more than twenty sales of single-family houses, there were double-digit increases in the median price through June in Hyde Park and Mattapan, with figures up in South Boston and Charlestown by about 32 percent.

Real estate agents readily acknowledge the sales volume has been given a boost by federal tax credits that were mostly for first-time home-buyers.

“The tax credit has served its purpose and has served as a stimulus to the market,” says The Warren Group CEO Timothy Warren, Jr. “Now, it’s time to withdraw that taxpayer support and let the chips fall as they may, and really see what the market will reach as a natural equilibrium.”

Warren credits two other factors with encouraging buyers: low interest rates, and the improving economy. So far, the recovery has been stronger than average in Massachusetts, but the state is not immune to more recent signs that the recovery is slowing down.

A Presidential Boost, Without Incumbency

2010-07-29T17:20:00.021-05:00

See BNN News coverage and interview with the news editor of the Dorchester Reporter, Gintautus Dumcius.

Is US Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass. , 9^th District) in so much trouble that he needs a lift from a President more than six weeks before a primary election? Or does Lynch’s Democratic rival Mac D’Alessandro look hopelessly overmatched by today’s show of party unity at the Ironworkers Hall in South Boston?

From one campaign season to the next, things do have a way of coming full circle, and that can be said about Lynch and the President who came to endorse him—Bill Clinton.

After being deserted last year by much of organized labor for the US senate campaign by Martha Coakley, Lynch—himself a former president of Ironworkers, Local 7--is being challenged this year by a Democrat who is a former political director for SEIU's northeast region. Under attack by D’Alessandro (see NNN interview) for a no vote on the health care reform package championed by President Obama, Lynch has fired back through his campaign by trying to depict the Democratic insurgent from the left as a tool of special interests—namely the more dogmatic supporters of health care reform in, well, organized labor. But, at today's rally, he was back in a union stronghold, where political allies were sprinkled with supporters from labor.

The D’Alessandro camp responded today by citing contributions to the Lynch campaign from the financial services sector—as in big banks that wrecked the economy and needed bailouts. Add to that the lingering fiscal consequences of Lynch's support for allowing the war in Iraq almost eight years ago.

But the voters are prone to anger and they’re worried about jobs, as in today’s and tomorrow’s. And, as Clinton put it, Lynch is the candidate who will get things done.

Lynch talked about the courage to make tough decisions, and his well-known vote on health care reform was viewed by many party regulars as bordering on the heretical, and all the more puzzling for his professed misgivings about the lack of a single-payer plan. As it turned out, Lynch’s vote played well enough on East Broadway. And health care reform has its share of critics—even among rank-and-file members of labor unions with good health coverage who fear they have something to lose.

If a Democratic member of Congress running for re-election hosts a rally in South Boston with Bill Clinton, does that mean trouble for Barack Obama? Probably no more than in January, when South Boston was carried by Coakley’s rival, Scott Brown. Though two Republicans are also running in the 9th District--Keith Lepor and Vernon Harrison--the timing of Clinton's appearance suggests more concern about the primary--if not whether Lynch can win, then by how much.

Two years before Brown's victory in the special election, in the Massachusetts presidential primary, South Boston Democrats went for Hillary Clinton, while Obama took the whole city. More importantly, Hillary Clinton carried Massachusetts, which is arguably closer to the profile of Democratic voters throughout the 9^th Congressional District.

Speaking at the rally, Lynch went even further back, praising the deficit-busting years of Bill Clinton. Maybe there was too much nostalgia to mistake that for the deficit concerns of angry voters in 2010. But, sixteen years after Democrats were clobbered in the first mid-term election under Clinton, the former President could bask in the role of being, if not an insurgent, then at least a non-incumbent. And, without pitting stimulus against fiscal austerity, he could even praise Obama. After all, if 2010 really were 1994 all over again, the President would crawl out from under and stay in the White House for another six years.

Blundering Through Boston's Boundaries

2010-07-01T12:25:00.026-05:00

Note: these thoughts on the mapping of Boston were provoked by an editorial in this week's Dorchester Reporter and an article in the Jamaica Plain Gazette about new census maps from the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Thirty years ago, I lived near the intersection of Adams street and Victory road. If you had asked me where this was, it wouldn’t have told you much if I only said it was Dorchester. To convey a sense of place, there would have to be something more narrowed down, yet large enough to fill a pigeonhole.

If I had been selling a home there at the time, I would have had to admit I was on the boundary of St. Ann’s and St. Mark’s parishes. Too bad I was on the Saint Mark’s side, because St. Ann’s supposedly had a better school. But I didn’t have kids at the time, and my excursions around the neighborhood usually took me through Fields Corner, or to weekly piano practice at Dorchester House.

To be more precise, I was living in you might have called a place without qualities, an interval surrounded by more definite places such as Pope’s Hill, Fields Corner, or even King Square. For lack of anything more interesting, I would sometimes mention I lived near the scene of an event connected to one of Boston’s most legendary crimes, the Brinks robbery. That scene was an apartment complex across the street, where one of the partners in crime, Specs O’Keefe, was gunned down by a hit-man named Trigger Burke. Though the complex was renamed when it was converted into condominiums, I still called it the “Trigger Burke Apartments.”

Then there was the old-timer who asked me where I lived. After I did my best to answer, he said, “That’s still Dorchester.”

For the next thirty years, his words would continue to irritate, perplex, or amuse.

In a city with as much change in its land mass as Boston, even the most genuine boundaries will migrate. Place names that originate with natural features—Back Bay, South Bay, the Calf Pasture—drift off as metaphors attached to other things: a stately grid of brick rowhouses, a big-box shopping center, or the hulking remains of a sewage facility between UMass Boston and the Kennedy Library. As Saul Bellow's lowly functionary reflects in Looking for Mr. Green, it's in the nature of things to break down over time--to the point where there's little more than a label or a convention: "It was that they stood for themselves by agreement, and were natural and not unnatural by agreement, and when the things themselves collapsed the agreement became visible. What was it, otherwise, that kept cities from looking peculiar?"

If that weren't enough, there can still be conflicts between official maps, such as zip codes and—before annexation to Boston--what used to be the lines between the independent communities of Dorchester and Roxbury.

But the “still Dorchester” response can be irritating if you think of boundaries as a constant that keeps the change within from becoming shapeless or chaotic or, better still, that provides room for change. Even if you allow that some boundaries matter differently over time (for example, with the closing of parishes, or political redistricting), there is some truth to what boundaries imply: that whatever elements they contain have some things in common, if not the same things at all times.

If you read Sam Bass Warner’s Streetcar Suburbs, you can learn how, at the end of the 19^th century, the rich builders of St. Peter’s Parish in Dorchester lived just around the corner from the immigrants in three-deckers. That extreme range of income might be a thing of the past, but respecting boundaries can also make it possible to find things in common between people who are normally assumed to be quite different. And if you were to read a local newspaper published almost one hundred years ago, you would find local residents had many of the same concerns as would be covered decades later: crime, land development, liquor establishments, and (less openly expressed) demographic change itself.

Place names will always be subject to revisions. Some of these are the wishful branding of developers or public officials, hoping to obliterate something in the past—whether by changing the name of a once notorious housing development, or replacing the immigrant stew of the old West End with streets named for New England Transcendentalists.

In my own family, there was one relative who suppressed Jamaica Plain and used a return address that said “Moss Hill, Massachusetts.” But, in the years when I lived near New England Baptist Hospital, I also learned about the need for nuance. Even if the hospital insisted on being in Boston, the return address on my envelopes said Roxbury. By word of mouth I was from Mission Hill. I was only from Boston when I was concerned about luggage being stranded in a foreign country.

As a local news journalist, I’m in a field with high risk for getting tangled up in boundaries. I can still remember the daily newspaper that shorthandedly described a violent crime near the western fringe of Roxbury, around Egleston Square, as happening in “West Roxbury.” Then there was a feature story on demographic change in the 1970’s, about the last white person living on a street near Grove Hall. When I continued the article on another page, I noticed someone who was too quick with the paste-up knife had shortened the headline to “Last White Person in Dorchester.”

Even worse is when people in the media do their own improvising, as when a story about crime along Columbia Road described the area as the “Badlands.”

With my bearings always at the mercy of deadlines and tectonic slippage, I feel the need for a back-up. Some of this comes from talking boundaries with people who know them better than I do. When that fails, I use the little red book published by the Boston Fire Department. The book doesn't show a date, but it was published when the Fire Commissioner was Leo D. Stapleton—which means when Boston's mayor was Ray Flynn.

Aside from listing the streets of Boston, the book has columns of different length showing where the streets begin and end, and all the cross streets in between. The streets are also labeled according to neighborhoods, sometimes with utmost precision--for example, a change from Dorchester to Mattapan at 1150 Blue Hill Avenue. Unlike with some official publications, there is no such thing as “North Dorchester.” The North End, South End, Bay Village, and Chinatown are missing as well, lumped in with Beacon Hill and the Back Bay as “Boston Proper.” Allston and Brighton are both in the book, but without a hyphen.

At the end of the book there are pages that are completely blank, except for the word “Notes.” Evidently, someone thought the true map of Boston would always need updates or corrections.

The publishers of the book aren’t identified, though they express their gratitude for information from “users of the Guide on missing streets, streets that have been altered or torn down, and similar changes.”

If that’s too deep into a parallel universe, I can still admire the publishers for a degree of humility that would be hard to find among journalists and planners. “Given the size and amount of change occurring in the Boston area, however,” says the publishers’ note, “it is almost inevitable that some inaccuracies will occur.”

BPD Command, MAMLEO on Diversity

2010-06-10T20:18:00.017-05:00

To explain why diversity on the Boston Police Dept. was important, Giovanna Negretti acted as a translator for an elderly Brighton resident, Lilian Perez.

Speaking Spanish at City Council hearing Tuesday night, Perez told city councilors about being robbed in her home in 2004. She said she was then unable to find a police officer who could listen to her story in Spanish. When she came back to see police later on, she said she was told she should speak English.

The executive director of the advocacy group, Oíste, Negretti blamed the experience on a shortage of blacks and Latinos in higher positions and specialized units on the Boston Police Dept. Negretti contends the shortage hurts performance and perception, even hampering the ability to combat youth violence.

“At the end of the day,” she said, “it’s about the safety of the children and the safety of the city.”

Top police officials at the hearing talked about efforts to increase diversity in higher ranks, as well as their own dissatisfaction with the dictates of civil service exam results.

The Boston Police Dept says diversity in command staff has increased to record levels. Department figures show people of color account for 40% of the command staff appointed by Commissioner Ed Davis. That’s above the levels when the department still used race-based hiring. The department also reports that, under Davis, the percentage of minority officers has increased on specialized units, with the largest gain, at 16 percent, on the Youth Violence Strike Force.

But figures were also compiled by District 4 (Dorchester Mattapan) Councilor Charles Yancey for all positions above the rank of patrolman, for which the pool of candidates is determined mainly by civil service exam results. Yancey's figures showed that in March, 2010, Asians, blacks and Latinos accounted for only 11 of the department’s top 100 positions. His figures also showed that all but 6 of the 74 lieutenants and all but one of 23 lieutenant-detectives were white.

And The Boston Globe reports that, at a ceremony in February, there was only one person of color among the 39 people promoted to sergeant and lieutenant.

Davis says barriers to more diversity include civil service exams, which he describes as not valid for deciding which candidate is the best for a promotion.

The exams are currently facing a legal challenge from police officers of color, including some from Boston.

The head of the city’s Legal Dept., Bill Sinnott, said the tests are still considered a valid measure of skills and knowledge. When Councilor Chuck Turner suggested that the city stop defending the tests in court, Sinnott warned that abandoning the test would backfire.

“The problem with conceding against federal standards,” said Sinnott, “is that we’ll find ourselves as defendants with a new set of plaintiffs.”

Davis told councilors he would be willing to have more discussions about promotions with representatives of the Mass. Assn. of Minority Law Enforcement Officers (MAMLEO). He also said he expects a committee exploring possible changes in promotion policy will make recommendations to Mayor Menino by the end of the summer.

Though Davis said he favored more transparency about reasons for promotions, he said he was against promotions that were racially based.

“I will not change my standards,” he said. “I will not pick people based on race. They have to do the job.”

MAMLEO members say some black and Latino officers also missed out on promotions that would have been allowed by civil service. According to MAMLEO, racial disparities in command produce disparities in assignments and discipline.

A former Boston Police Superintendent, William Celester, argued that more people of color should be in command positions most directly concerned with youth violence.

“What those kids on the street need is role models,” said Celester. “These kids need to see somebody of color who’s in charge.”

The hearing was called by Councilor at Large Ayanna Pressley. In a statement released before the hearing, she said she hoped it would increase understanding of problems around diversity and help make recommendations for action. She said diversity should be considered in decisions around police command, though only as one factor.

“But that being said, my race, my gender, my background do inform the work I do each and every day and do mean I view things through a unique lens,” said Pressley. “And I think that it is important that there are officers on the street and in headquarters who have grown up in similar circumstances as the people they are serving.”

Looking for Water in Dorchester

2010-05-02T13:46:00.014-05:00

The first place where we looked for water was at National Wholesale Liquidators on Morrissey Blvd, though we went here mainly to buy a couple of basins for washing dishes. We ended up getting a couple of basins and something that looked like a wide, clear-plastic salad bowl, with enough radius for a frying-pan. There were stacks of bottled liquids that, as I expected, turned out to be some semblance of fruit juice. I was momentarily distracted by some clear plastic containers that would normally be used for water, except the water wasn't included. Finally, we settled for some "paper" plates made of plastic (100 for $2.99) and left, having decided we had enough plastic forks to last for a few days. At least these didn't seem to be disappearing very quickly.

Next stop was the CVS at the corner of Victory Road. I didn't even bother to go in, since there was a sign next to the door that said "Sold Out of Water."

On to Stop & Shop, just down the road. For a while, I was tempted by bottles of pink lemonade and "lime-aid" that were going for a less-than-extortionist two for $4.00. I decided to check out the soft drink aisle first, and saw about a half dozen shoppers parked in front of empty shelves that would have ordinarily been lined with gallon jugs of water. Were more of these jugs going to reappear any time soon? I found that hard to believe. In mounting panic, I almost grabbed a bottle of Peregrino mineral water--something I've only allowed myself while on a rare vacation in a foreign country where the US dollar was stronger than the local currency. But my wife told me to walk a little further. Sure enough, there was plenty of the house-brand seltzer, at only 79 cents for two liters.

I thought that was enough luck for a day like today, but some customers did have a bit more. That happened when a lift rolled up, laden with cardboard cases holding six jugs of water each, all under a tight sheet of plastic. Once the plastic was torn off, the whole pile was heaped onto wagons in about one minute. There was a close huddle of wagons, but people managed to load their cases without hostilities and even make way as another lift rolled up with the next shipment.

Saving the Libraries Moves to Next Phase

2010-04-10T12:14:00.010-05:00

With yesterday’s vote by the Boston Public Library trustees to close four branches, the number of endangered locations becomes even smaller. In the headline on the BPL press release right after the vote, the closings disappear entirely, crowded out by the 22 survivors.

Failing to make the cut were the Faneuil Branch in Brighton, the Orient Heights in East Boston, Washington Village in South Boston, and Lower Mills in Dorchester. On March 25, the maximum of 26 possible closings had already shrunk to 17, when officials designated nine “lead libraries.” By Wednesday evening, when opponents of branch closings rallied at St. Paul’s Cathedral in downtown Boston, the four branches to be closed had already been recommended by BPL President Amy Ryan.

Wednesday’s meeting also followed several other turnouts in Boston neighborhoods, including Jamaica Plain, Allston-Brighton, and Dorchester. Adding to the neighborhood reaction were nine City Councilors who signed a letter saying the closings should be “the last option,” and then only after “lengthy public debate.”

At St. Paul’s Cathedral, there was more testimony about the value of libraries, for their materials, the services by staff, or their role as a defining community space—something both intimate and inclusive. For the project director at ONE Massachusetts, Yawu Miller, a local branch was a fixture of a typical New England community, whether in Roxbury, Mass. or Roxbury, Vermont.

BPL officials and Mayor Menino have talked about reconfiguring the value of libraries in a way that can go beyond the walls of a branch, with new collaborations and technology. But that “21st century” vision met with distrust from a Brighton resident, Maria Rodrigues, who spoke at the meeting about the proposed shut-down of the Faneuil Branch in Oak Square.

“The Boston Public Library system,” Rodrigues declared, “will not become an internet cafe.”

The closing of the Faneuil Branch comes after the closing of a Catholic parish and school at Our Lady of the Presentation. A non-profit foundation started by neighborhood residents plans to convert the school into a community center with preschool and adult education programs. Oak Square still has a YMCA built during the last ten years, and it can be argued that a branch library would help provide a continuum of services by city agencies and non-profits—one of those partnerships so often praised by Mayor Thomas Menino.

It might also be argued that partners could deliver the same services even more effectively without the formal existence of a branch library, possibly with some programs, materials and computers deployed at the Oak Square YMCA or the new community center. But, when the BPL trustees took their vote, a new configuration of services and greater efficiencies had yet to be spelled out for particular locations. The only pointer in that direction was a brief statement issued by the mayor after the vote, saying that plans for the four areas affected by the closings would be announced soon.

So, as of Wednesday night, the patrons, along with current and future library workers, were concentrating on the system they knew. And, if this month’s release of the iPad means the notion of a storehouse for books in every neighborhood has become obsolete, speakers who took their minutes at the pulpit in St. Paul’s talked about other reasons to keep the branches, and even current levels of staffing.

“A reduction in service points is a reduction in services,” said John Devine, a reference librarian at Copley Square. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.”

Storyteller and author Norah Dooley said she would never have written a book or gotten published, except for a conversation she had with a librarian.

“It’s very important to have public spaces,” she said, “that are dedicated to reading, learning and conversation—without paying money.”

It can be argued that some patrons who live near Oak Square should be able to drive or even walk to the renovated branch a mile away near Brighton Center. Rodrigues says she much prefers to have her four children, ages 4 through 11, use the Faneuil Branch.

“For us,” she explained, “the key thing is that is the place where my children are known by name. It’s cozy, it’s not threatening. It’s surrounded by books—it’s a place where my kids are known by name.”

With the long down-sizing in community services provided by organized religion—in Boston, mainly by the Catholic Church—there’s more of a void to be filled by other sectors. There’s also the void to be filled when it becomes the norm for parents to be away from the home all day, and time after-school takes on more importance as an opportunity for learning, or even as a safe haven from street violence. But filling voids takes money, as even library supporters admit.

“We need more revenues,” said Miller. “We need new taxes.”

In this year’s elections for governor and the state legislature, that might be a hard sell in much of Massachusetts, especially outside the largest cities. Among Boston City Councilors, there is talk about giving libraries more of the revenue Boston already has, including the recent increase allowed in the meals tax. Yet to be explained is how far that could go to offset the $3.6 million cut in Boston’s library funding proposed by Governor Deval Patrick.

The governor's Democratic primary opponent, Grace Ross, identified $50 million that could be made up by the tax break announced for the Liberty Mutual expansion in the Back Bay. Even if future events prove her right on the policy question, the current politics are more driven by the slump in Boston's commercial real estate market, not to mention a very noticeable hole in the ground near Downtown Crossing.

As patrons try to reverse or change Mayor Menino’s plans by mobilizing support among City Councilors, they’ll be competing for attention. The city faces a possible cut in local aid by the state legislature, by about $40 million. And this at a time when councilors are already hearing about cutbacks in the School Dept., especially among custodians, and community centers.

And library supporters will have to continue their campaign with only the four closings an officially sure thing for the coming year.

Before Wednesday’s meeting came to a close, the moderator and head of the Friends of the Dudley Branch Library, Sarah-Ann Shaw, told the crowd of patrons and BPL workers that they need to do more recruiting.

“We can’t win,” she said, “if we don’t get more people to stand up and say ‘Don’t do it.’”

Also: see Joe Rowland's BNN News report on the trustees vote and a report on the view from Oak Square.

BPL President: Close Four Branches

2010-04-07T11:08:00.008-05:00

The president of the Boston Public Library, Amy Ryan, recommends the closing of four neighborhood branches. These would be the Faneuil in Brighton, the Lower Mills in Dorchester, the Orient Heights in East Boston, and Washington Village in South Boston. Other branches would continue to have the same hours of operation.

In a release from the BPL, Ryan said, “The Boston Public Library needs to save money, stabilize, and begin to move forward. Keeping twenty-two branches open is the most prudent option. It preserves as many branches as possible, permits us to fill critical vacancies, and allows us to explore partnerships.”

The BPL says the closing would result in the layoff of as many as 94 employees.

In a statement issued today, the advocacy group, People of Boston Branches, took issue with the recommendation to close the Faneuil branch in Oak Square: "The closing of any branch is a mistake, but the plan to close the Faneuil branch is the most concerning and flies in the face of public opinion. This plan comes after tremendous vocal and active opposition to the closing of this branch. The patrons of this branch have been one of the most active groups in organizing to prevent any branch closure, meeting with local representatives, and meeting with library officials. Nearly the entire public comment portion of Monday's community meeting at Honan-Allston library, where community feedback was supposed to be gathered, was devoted to arguing for Faneuil to remain open. To close this branch is to openly ignore the voice of the people in this transformation process. It, as well as each of the other four libraries, is vital to the neighborhood that it serves."

According to data from the BPL, only six branches had less foot traffic than the Faneuil branch, but it ranked 5th out of the 26 branches for the amount of books and audio/visual materials borrowed. There would still be at least one other branch staying open in the four parts of the city where branches would close. BPL officials say the decision about closings would be based on several criteria, including location, accessibility, and proximity to schools and community centers.

The BPL trustees are scheduled to vote on the recommendations Friday morning. Ryan made her recommendation this morning, at the last in a series of forums held by the BPL. People of Boston Branches has scheduled a discussion about the BPL tonight, 6:30 p.m., at St. Paul's Cathedral, 138 Tremont Street in downtown Boston.

BPL Details Measurements for Branch Decisions

2010-03-31T16:01:00.000-05:00

The Boston Public Library has released a list of measurements for deciding which branches should remain open. The measurements include access, location, foot traffic, internet use, and proximity to schools and community centers. For details, see BPL press release.

More Warming in Boston Housing Market

2010-03-31T15:52:00.005-05:00

Figures from the Warren Group show areas near downtown Boston accounting for much of the upswing in the city's housing market, at least in condos.

The latest figures are for the month of February, and the comparisons are with Febraury of 2009.

Among the highlights in areas with more than a handful of transactions:

Areas near downtown Boston. Condo sales increased in February by more than 22 percent, and they're up so far this year by 26 percent. The median price was up in February by 31percent, and it's up so far this year by almost 29 percent.

Roxbury and the part of the South End. The median price for February was up by almost 54%, and it's up this year by almost 59 percent. But sales are down, with a smaller drop in February.

Sales of condos in Dorchester were down by 34 percent, but the median price was up by thirty-four percent. Last year many of the condo transactions in Dorchester were distressed sales, which helps explain how the increase over the year before was from $110,000 to $143,000.

Sales were up by more than 40 percent in Jamaica Plain, but the median price was down by almost 19 percent. In Charlestown, condo sales for February quadrupled (from only 4 in 2009), with the number of sales for this year almost tripled. There was little change in the median price this year for condos in South Boston, but sales were up in February by almost 26 percent, and for the first two months of 2010 by more than 37 percent.

The Warren Group also reports single-family home sales increasing in areas such as Dorchester, West Roxbury, and Roslindale. In Hyde Park, single-family home sales increased by 20 percent, with the median price going up in February by almost 38 percent. In West Roxbury, the median price for February was up by more than 12 percent.

A Library System Rooted in Branches

2010-03-19T11:13:00.005-05:00

Like discount stores, public libraries are outlets for inventory, but they’re also a threshold space. If the hush of decorum protects visitors from thought police and casual annoyance, it also allows for more contact with the world, whether people in a room or thoughts on a page.

Libraries also have other kinds thresholds, whether computers, toys, a table for a card game, or information on a flyer. Advances in technology are changing the role of library as a warehouse for materials, and those changes are still very much in debate. For all that change, there’s still great attachment to libraries as a community space, sometimes even intensified by changes in the way children learn or spend time after school.

Some thoughts on why branches matter can be found in this week’s Dorchester Reporter. More thinking about the future of branches can be found in an interview on BNN News with BPL President Amy Ryan. One experiment with a redefinition of library space can be found at the Boston Street Lab, a temporary storefront library that recent operated in Chinatown. BNN News did a report on Boston Street Lab earlier this year. For thoughts on different kinds of access provided by libraries, there are the president of the Friends of the Dudley branch, Sarah-Ann Shaw and author and BPL trusee James Carroll. For a deeper contemplation of library space, there’s the scene from the Wim Wenders film, Der Himmel uber Berlin.

Rep. Brian Wallace on Not Running in 2010

2010-03-02T14:34:00.009-05:00

The following statement was issued today by Brian Wallace, the state representative from South Boston's Fourth Suffolk District:

"In 1970 I began my career in politics working for then Rep Ray Flynn in room 460 at the State House. Politics was something that I found was in my blood and I loved walking into the State House every day flushed with the anticipation of that day's calendar and the inordinate amount of constituents calls that we received in Ray's office on a daily basis. When the brand new Tynan Community School opened up four years later I was able to work as Assistant Coordinator with another fine gentleman who became my dear friend. His name was James “Stretch” Walsh and he was a legend. Stretch and I were able to employ a lot of local kids who now have children of their own. In 1977 my friend Ray Flynn ran for the Boston City Council and he hired me to work on his council staff when he won that election. Politics, once again, called.

"In 1979 as Ray was running for his second term I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to work as a Probation Officer in Brighton District Court where I learned a lot about the law, those who make it and those who break it. In 1983 Ray decided to run for Mayor of Boston and it was once again hello to politics and good bye to the courts. I worked in the Mayor's office from 1983 to 1991 when I came back home as Executive Director of the South Boston Boys and Girls Club, a place where I had grown up and a place that shaped my entire life. Someone once said, "The friends you meet at 12 years old are unlike any friends you will ever meet in your life." I believe that totally and I still count those 12 year old friends from the Club as some of my best friends no matter where they live or no matter how many times we talk each year.

"In the early 90's I began a new career as a television sports announcer and writer. I announced over 500 high school and college games as well as having my own weekly series called "Scenes from South Boston" on Cablevision in Boston I was asked to write a weekly syndicated column called "Brian's Beat" which I enjoyed and which led to my first book "Final Confession." And as much as I loved the camera and the keyboard, my first love remained politics and in 2002 I had the incredible honor of being sent to the State House to represent the people of the Fourth Suffolk District.

"My very first week as the newly elected Representative brought me some sound advice from a very wise longtime State House employee who worked in the clerk’s office. He called me down to his office one day and asked me where I wanted to make a difference as a state rep. I stared back blankly and he told me that reps come into that building all the time and think they can change the world and end up accomplishing little because they are running from one hearing room to another.

"Most of them try to focus on everything and never develop a passion for anything. You will vote on a thousand bills but you can't concentrate on them all. He told me to think about 3 priorities and come back in a week, which I did. I told him that substance abuse was a serious problem in our town. He ticked off #1. I told him that Mass. was only one of two states in the country without a film office and no film tax credit. He ticked off #2 and I told that we needed the revenue and jobs from racinos and casinos. He smiled and put off three fingers. "There's your start," he said. "Go get 'em."

"I made my maiden speech on April 15, 2003 and I explained why Mass. needed the revenue and the jobs that racinos and casinos would bring. I have spoken each and every year since being elected about casinos and racinos. It now looks as though casinos and racinos will finally become a reality. I asked for and received a seat on the mental health and substance abuse committee where Marty Walsh, Steve Tolman, Jack Hart and I have accomplished a great deal including the introduction of 3 Recovery High Schools in Mass. and a slew of new recommendations which zero in on doctors who overprescribe opioids, make tamper proof prescription pads a reality, make drug education in middle school a reality and allow parents to know when and if their children have been treated at an emergency room for an overdose amongst others. .And on July 21, 2008 I stood with Governor Patrick as he incorporated my bills into the state's new tax film credit law at Loew's Boston Common. Since that day Boston has become the Hub of movies and the benefits have been enormous. I am proud that my bill to name the South Boston Court House after Judge Joe Feeney became a law. It is one of my proudest achievements and means a great deal to me and would to my father if he were alive. Marty Walsh and I worked on and passed some of the most important labor legislation in history.

"But when all is said and done it has been 40 years since I first walked into Room 420 with Ray Flynn and I have indeed made thousands of votes, but I never forgot that I came from the lower end of South Boston. I carried that mantle proudly whether I was in a room at the State House or a room in Washington. As for me, I have written two more books which have sat on a shelf, staring at me and getting dusty for the past 8 years. I really want to get back to my writing career. And most important of all, I want to spend some quality time with my family. On December 31, 2010 I will walk out of my office in room 472, just down the corridor from where I walked in forty years ago, for the final time. It has been a great experience! I have made many lifelong friends in that building, although we are not twelve years old anymore. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your friendship, support and guidance and for the privilege of representing you. "

The Mortgage Trail: From Bottom to Top

2010-03-02T12:18:00.007-05:00

It’s hard to imagine what investment banks and derivatives have to do with three-deckers in disrepair, but there are ways to connect the dots. Starting at street-level, there’s last December’s report by Jennifer McKim for The Boston Globe about a trail of bad loans connected in some ways with a single developer. More than two dozen of the loans were by a single mortgage banking company—by the way, not a bank that was directly pressed to satisfy mandates of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). As the Globe reporter took pains to discover, the owners of the properties may have been victimized, though they didn’t always fit the profile of the local buyers who only wanted a place to call home but got in over their heads.

At the other end of the financial trail, there’s Salon.com, with Andrew Leonard’s review of the new book by Michael Lewis, The Big Short. And that begs the question of regulation, with one possible answer yesterday by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. In short, the answer is that you need oversight with a real firewall to keep the bubble-and-burst from happening all over again.

You don’t have to look beyond three-deckers to see the market extremes, or find that what looks like a bad loan waiting to happen becomes—usually on someone else’s books—a foreclosure petition. A year and a half ago, my curiosity was aroused by a three-decker unit at 310 Fuller Street in Dorchester that sold for $365,000 on February 29, 2008—at a time when it was quite clear three-decker condo prices were definitely going downhill (see Dorchester Reporter). The other two units in the building had sold less than a year earlier for only $355,000. After foreclosure action on the units sold earlier, a foreclosure petition was filed on the more expensive unit last September by CitiMortgage, Inc. The loan--$328,000—was originated by a company called Dreamhouse Mortgage Corporation. On its website, the company said, "Our team of experienced mortgage experts is committed to your success and will go above and beyond traditional means to insure your satisfaction." You can write a book about it, but you can’t make this up.

The CRA is still being blamed for the meltdown because many toxic loans were absorbed on the secondary market by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To the extent they enabled bad primary lending, the secondary lenders should have been regulated more aggressively. It would be easier to blame their failings on the CRA if the toxic loans had lacked for other investors. According to Michael Lewis, this was not the case. As Leonard writes, the loans were originated due to sheer market forces--being readily scooped up by leading investment banks: “These banks were not creating complex derivatives tied to subprime mortgages because of government policy pushing homeownership or because individual homeowners were irresponsibly prone to lying about their income. Far from it; these banks had discovered that billions of dollars could be made transforming lousy mortgage loans into securities supposedly safe enough that they could be sold to pension funds or anyone else. So they had a huge financial incentive to encourage the creation of even more crappy loans.”

Downtown Leads Housing Rebound

2010-01-27T12:16:00.003-05:00

If there’s a recovery in Boston’s housing market, it’s less apparent with condos than single-family homes, and strongest for both categories near downtown.

Figures from the Warren Group show Boston single-family home sales increased slightly in 2009, with a very strong finish for the month of December. For the whole year, sales were up by less than two percent, and the median price was down by 2.24 percent. With many buyers racing to meet the deadline (since extended) for tax credits, sales for the last month increased over December of 2008 by almost 48%, while the median price increased by 24 percent.

Among the areas with more than a handful of single-family transactions, the most dramatic improvement for 2009 was around downtown Boston. In these parts of the city, sales were up slightly, but the median price increased by 36 percent. There was also a surge in Dorchester, but only for December, with single-family home sales up by 45% and the median price up by 25 percent.

Also showing a gain for the whole year was West Roxbury, where sales of single-family homes decreased slightly in 2009, while the median price increased by almost 6 percent. The largest decreases in the median price for a single-family home were in Roxbury (almost 33%), East Boston (more than 16%), Brighton (almost 15%), Hyde Park (just over 11%) and South Boston (almost 11%).

Dorchester has been hit hard by the rash of foreclosures over the past few years, especially in the condo market. In 2009, the number of condo sales in Dorchester was slightly down from 2008, but the median price fell by almost 50 percent.

For all of Boston in 2009, condo sales decreased by almost 10% and the median price decreased by almost 9 percent. In the month of December, sales increased over the same month in 2008 by almost 21%, while the median price was up by more than 15 percent.

The strongest finish for condos last year was in areas near downtown Boston. In this part of the city, condo sales for December were up by more than 43%, while the median price was up by slightly more than 12 percent. For the whole year, sales were down by almost 21% and the median price was down by more than 6 percent.

In some other parts of Boston condo sales for December increased without any gain in the median price. These areas included Charlestown, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. For all of 2009, Roslindale condo sales increased by more than 42%, though the median price was off by almost 6 percent.

Coakley Takes Boston, with Pockets for Brown

2010-01-20T13:25:00.007-05:00

Yesterday’s stunning election of Republican State Senator Scott Brown as the new US Senator from Massachusetts is a reversal on multiple fronts, including Boston’s voter profile. Instead of showing how Massachusetts is different from the rest of the country—as one of the most consistently “blue” states—the results show a more dramatic difference between Boston and the rest of Massachusetts.

Statewide, Brown and his Democratic opponent, State Attorney General Martha Coakley, each carried upscale and downscale communities. Aside from being the state’s largest community, Boston had the most economic and racial/ethnic diversity, and more than two-thirds (68.62%) of its vote was for Coakley.

Within Boston, there were some pockets of strength for Brown, who carried 32 of the city’s 254 precincts. During the presidential election of 2008, all but two of those precincts had been carried by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Much of Brown's strength was among Irish-American and Italian-American voters who used to dominate the city's electorate--and more consistently vote for Democrats.

The only entire neighborhoods carried by Brown were South Boston and West Roxbury. In South Boston, he carried 13 of 16 precincts (covering all of Ward 6 and most of Ward 7), with 56.31% of the vote. The only precincts going for Coakley were in areas that included the three public housing developments, Fort Point, and the South Boston waterfront. In November 2008, there were only two South Boston precincts carried by John McCain and Sarah Palin.

In West Roxbury (13 precincts in Ward 20 southwest of West Roxbury Parkway), Brown received 50.59% of the vote. One of the areas he carried, Precinct 14 (near Billings Field and Roxbury Latin), had the highest turnout for all of Boston, at 70.17%.

Though Coakley won all the other neighborhoods, Brown carried four precincts in East Boston’s Orient Heights area, three in Charlestown and four in Dorchester’s Ward 16. The precincts in Ward 16 were in the Pope’s Hill, Neponset and Port Norfolk areas. In three of the precincts, the turnout was more than 55%, and it was more than 65% in Precinct 12, a perennial source of high turnouts, with many elderly voters taking the short walk from Keystone Apartments to the polling place at Florian Hall. In this precinct, Brown had 55.10% of the vote.

The citywide turnout for Boston was 42.76%. In some of the areas where Coakley had the most decisive edge over Brown, the turnout was below average. For example, along the Blue Hill Avenue Corridor in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, Coakley got more than ninety percent of the vote in several precincts, but the turnout in Roxbury’s Ward 12 was only 34.34%. In Ward 14 (Grove Hall, Franklin Field, Wellington Hill), the turnout was 32.11%.

Among the areas well above the average for turnout were West Roxbury (60.71%), all of Ward 20 (West Roxbury and part of Roslindale), at 59.55%, and Ward 19 (part of Jamaica Plain and Roslindale), at 56.55%, along with South Boston and Charlestown, both at 49.77%.

See video report on election day in Boston by Joe Rowland.

Boston Classical Music in a Digital Age

2010-01-08T00:01:00.043-05:00

Notes on the change in news and music programming at WGBH and WCRB

Twenty-eight years ago, while I was lugging my cello to the auditorium of an elderly housing complex in Brighton, one of the residents stopped me to ask if I was a music teacher.

As a raw amateur playing in a free concert by the Little Orchestra of Cambridge, I didn’t want to raise her expectations too high. But, before I could explain I was much more like a student with a day job, she confided, “My husband was a musician. He played the violin. He’s dead.”

At first, this seemed almost in character with the setting. Because I worked on a community newspaper, I had been in other elderly developments that had a feel of exile, only less appealing. But even here, at Jewish Community Housing, I couldn’t help noticing the cinderblock wall of stairwell and a lounge chair stuck outside in the cold. I imagined the residents, for all their subsidized material comfort, as being somehow left behind.

This hardly prepared me for the auditorium, which was packed with rows of elderly women and a scattering of men. It seemed everyone was talking at the same time and, as we passed by with our instruments, looking at us.

I remember a couple of pieces from the concert—Bartók’s Rumanian Dances and Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. There were no program books, so our conductor, Sophie Vilker, did some introductions, speaking to the audience in English and Russian.

Since the symphony came last, the concert ended quietly, in a fade-out with hesitations and broken phrases, like a diminishing shorthand of memory. Much to my surprise, the audience was quick to applaud, even loudly. People walked down to the platform so they could say thanks and shake our hands—as if to prove we were real. As I was packing the cello, a couple of women with foreign accents came up to me and one of them, positively beaming, announced, “Everybody in Russia is happy.”

* * * * *

After years of playing solo in a garage, bedrooms, or an empty hallway--playing anything I wanted as badly as I dared--I could appreciate the difference in performing with a group before an audience. And this was an audience of strangers, without the obligations of our friends and relatives. What I appreciated most was the importance of meeting the audience where it happened to be, musically and physically. Instead of a just being a concert, this was also a chance for two groups of people to feel appreciated, included—if only for a short time—in a single world.

An amateur orchestra has to be inclusive, since it intertwines rank-and-file players with professionals. That's how I picked up some bowing technique in the Mystic Valley Chamber Orchestra when the conductor was a cellist from the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), Ronald Feldman. There was also the flutist who recruited me for chamber music and passed on lessons in phrasing and intonation from the BSO’s Doriot Anthony Dwyer. From reading so many bars of music, I must have absorbed something about narrative structure and how to minutely subdivide a given beat inside my head. But I also learned how important it was to lift my eyes from the music stand and listen for the slightest stretch of tempo by an aspiring mezzo soprano such as Lorraine Hunt.

Because I grew up with classical music in Boston of the 1960’s, inclusiveness had another meaning when it came to FM radio. One example was the encyclopedic wealth of free music played by the Harvard station, WHRB. Even stations closer to the mainstream, such as WCRB and WBUR, aired pieces that would be hard to find on radio by the 1990’s, even long before or after drivetime. That music included anything from late quartets by Beethoven, Schubert, Janáček and Shostakovich to new works by Eliott Carter, Donald Martino, and John Harbison. If I didn’t like atonal music right away, it would only be a matter of time and another nudge of the dial before I was hooked by the last movement of Schoenberg’s 2nd String Quartet.

By December of 2009, the only places for classical music on FM radio were WHRB and WCRB, recently acquired by WGBH for a new location with a weaker signal, at 99.5. The move by WGBH has been viewed as a gain and a loss. On one side, there is classical music 24 hours a day and, according to WGBH, a 140% increase in broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. On the other side are the loss of the BSO’s Friday afternoon concerts (also being reduced by the BSO), the loss in broadcast range, and the outsourcing of music programming to a syndicate based in Minneapolis.

During a panel discussion Tuesday at Old South Church presented by The Boston Musical Intelligencer, WGBH representatives heard a good deal about reception problems with the new WCRB in Roslindale, Dorchester and Beacon Hill—and that’s just from listeners within Boston. WGBH’s director of radio stations, John Voci, said the problems could often be overcome by moving the radio to another part of a building, or even the same room. Another option would be to make a “small investment” and buy a high-definition radio.

Along with prompting debate about the mission of WGBH, the change has revived an even longer debate about the classical playlist. That’s partly a debate between philistines and innovators going back for centuries, but there’s also the changing technology of distribution—the reproduction of music and much else in the digital age.

For the long-time announcer and general manager at the old WCRB, Dave MacNeill, there’s still no substitute for FM radio as a way to attract new listeners for classical music—even if that requires small doses of what’s most accessible to most people. And MacNeill argues that’s easier to do with a radio than with a more random search over the internet.

“The best way for people to discover classical music,” said MacNeill, “is to stumble on it, and then they’ll pursue all the other possibilities.”

Hence the rationale for “drivetime” programming aimed at stressed-out commuters. And MacNeill said that was also crucial for bringing in revenue—during all the years when WCRB was a commercial station.

But one person’s lifeline to ad revenue and new listeners can be another person’s elevator music. As one listener objected, “I don’t feel the purpose of art music is to make us relax.”

Another listener complained the drivetime span at the new WCRB was being stretched too far.

“Ten o’clock at night is not drivetime to me,” she said. “This is supposed to be our main classical music station in Boston, and they’re playing one movement of a suite that doesn’t make any sense.”

When I recently tuned in to the new WCRB between 9 and 11 p.m., the selections were less adventurous than the non-drivetime programming of the past, if still more substantial than the worst fears about elevator music. The longest piece was a whole clarinet concerto by Carl Maria von Weber (still less than 25 minutes). And there was a whole violin sonata by Mozart—in a minor key, no less, though hardly as imposing as, for example, the G minor string quintet. Elsewhere in the mix were a transcribed sonata by Scarlatti and one piece from the 20th century, Debussy’s waltz, la Plus que Lente—salon music with a soupçon of irony.

At the panel discussion, Voci described the new classical venture as a “big risk” that could still be improved. And, he noted, if 99.5 FM had been sold to another bidder, it would have no classical programming at all.

“This is an evolving service,” he said, “that will grow as our resources permit.”

That could be taken as the beginning of an appeal for listeners to accompany their constructive criticism with financial support for public radio. But that could still fail to slow the migration of listeners and revenue to the internet.

“Broadcast FM music is dead,” said a listener from Jamaica Plain.

“Automobiles are going to have wi-fi in the future,” he predicted, “so people at drivetime will be able to listen to all the music they want.”

Another panelist, Christopher Lydon, has already made the transition from print journalism, TV news and FM radio to webcasting with Open Source. He said radio “as we’ve known it” is “fundamentally over.”

“We live in a YouTube world,” he said. “All this stuff is free.”

To be sure, there’s also plenty of free music that’s illegal. You can buy all kinds of rare recordings legally if you pay enough money. And if you want more than just the Boston Symphony Orchestra, you can get a live webcast of the Berlin Philharmonic in high-definition video for $14.18. But why purchase music or get a high-definition radio when you can virtually be your own station manager and put together YouTube playlists for any mood, genre, or time of day?

As a former music critic for The Boston Globe, Richard Dyer, put it, there’s also less reason to turn on the radio for access to classical music.

“No child in Boston today enjoys the advantages that I did fifty years ago in Texas and Oklahoma, at least as far as radio,” said Dyer.

He says the changes in radio also mean that small performance groups in a given area would have a diminished opportunity for marketing. As Voci indicated, groups around Boston could still have some access to WGBH/WCRB for marketing and studio performance broadcasts, plus the advantage of a station whose sole focus is classical music. But would that be enough to gain new listeners for classical radio and keep old listeners from other delivery systems?

“If it lets itself become irrelevant to its listeners,” said Dyer, “it’s in trouble.”

By Lydon’s definition, relevance would mean offering what local radio and other media used to offer with only partial success: conversation about a lively arts scene around Boston. But even that might be hard to capture and circulate with FM radio.

“The whole architecture of social conversation,” he said, “is being rebuilt in our time.”

*****

Even if for a lack of social conversation, I increasingly turn to YouTube, usually surfing music and movies. Though this happens long after drivetime, I somehow feel less put off by clicking on isolated movements or jumping the genres. If I stumble upon an outdoor performance of Bartók’s Rumanian Dances, I can take a hint from a comment by distant stranger and check out a video by the Romany musicians, Taraf de Haïdouks.

Or I can find my way back to a song by Mahler through an excerpt from the Jim Jarmusch film, Coffee and Cigarettes. Once again, I watch the dialogue that begins with an almost literal translation of the text set to music, a poem by Friedrich Rückert. I can taste the memory of stale coffee in a paper cup, with a faint voice-under of Janet Baker singing “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I’ve become lost to the world”).

This only leaves me thirsting for more YouTube, that is, more versions of the same song, and there are at least half a dozen. As a YouTube critic, I would give a thumbs-up to the version by Christa Ludwig. But, as a person who once frittered away so much time on music around Boston, I revisit the performance by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, recorded eight years before her death in 2006. Once again, I’m trying to place her as a live presence in a public library, a hospital, or, yes, an elderly housing development.

The conjuring never quite works. Then it occurs to me that’s what the song is about, with those instrumental phrases that continue past the end of a poetic line, or the film, too, with its surface of non-sequiturs. They’re all about connections missed, connections pursued or avoided, but closely mapped nonetheless. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from musical form, it's that the shorthand of memory should repeat only enough to signal there’s no turning back. And, since I have the urge, I could applaud, but there’s no one to hear it.

MBTA Tries to Improve Bus Route 23

2009-12-18T16:58:00.003-05:00

The No. 23 bus became notorious in March, 2007, when an 18 year-old passenger was fatally shot. But the route between Ashmont Station and Ruggles Station has long been a source of complaints from riders. The complaints are mostly about service being slow or erratic—long gaps between buses alternating with buses in rapid succession.

The route’s one of 15 the MBTA plans for improvements to be funded by federal stimulus money. But changes aimed at speeding up the service--such as consolidating or relocating stops-- can either help or hurt, depending on the location. And, if slowing down can contribute to tensions or provide more opportunities for violence, having one more stop—for example, near Jeremiah Burke High School—can help students avoid walking through hostile gang territory.

In contrast with service on rapid transit, buses involve more improvisations. At one stop, a driver might save time by not pulling all the way over to the curb. There might also be an extra stop for that stooped elderly woman with a cane.

It’s also not unusual for a No. 23 bus to have some of its passengers standing all the way from Ashmont at least as far as Dudley Square. That can be a problem even for riders capable of standing up and keeping their balance: just watch the scramble along the crowded aisle when someone tries to get off. Or watch the slow influx of riders trying to sidestep a stroller parked near the front door.

For more on the process for planning improvements, see the Dorchester Reporter.

Housing Rebound Less Dramatic in Boston

2009-11-24T17:29:00.008-05:00

Boston shows only a mild case of the pick-up in housing and condo sales reported for Massachusetts by The Warren Group.

Single-family home sales in Massachusetts increased last month over October of 2008 by 17.2%, with the median price falling by 2.8 percent. For condos, the sales were up by 12%, with prices down by 8.1 percent.

In Boston, home sales for October were up by 7.41%, with a slight increase in the average price, at 1.91 percent. Among areas with more than five transactions this year, the largest increases in the number of sales were in Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale and Hyde Park. Percentagewise, sales prices were up by double digits in Hyde Park and Mattapan, though none of these neighborhoods had more than 12 sales. The prices were also up for single-family homes in Dorchester, by 36.90%, though the number of sales was down this year by 44.44%, from 18 to 10.

For condos in Massachusetts, The Warren Group reports sales were up by 12%, while the median price was down by 8.1 percent. In Boston, the fall-off in price was almost as high, at 7.39%, but condo sales increased by less than one percent.

In neighborhoods with at least five transactions, the largest jumps in the number of sales were in Hyde Park, East Boston and West Roxbury, followed by Jamaica Plain and Brighton. The largest decreases in price were in Allston (54.64%), West Roxbury (27.06%) and downtown Boston (26.60%). One of the few areas with a substantial gain in median price was Roxbury and the South End, at 31.29 percent.

Like other observers, The Warren Group’s CEO, Timothy M. Warren Jr., attributes some of the increase in sales to the temporary tax credit for first-time homebuyers. He also calls the increase in condo sales a “significant reversal” after double-digit declines earlier this year. If the October figure for Boston is well short of a reversal, it’s still quite different from earlier this year, when monthly condo sales were down by more than 20 percent.

City Tax Outlook: Values Down, Rate Going Up

2009-11-20T16:14:00.007-05:00

Property valuations in Boston are going down, so the tax rate has to increase. That was the message sent out this week to property owners by the Boston Assessing Department.

If the preliminary assessments are approved by the state, they would take effect in January of next year, but they reflect the values of January 1, 2009. Almost a year ago, the new tax bills reflected the values of January 2008, when a housing slump was still offset by a more prolonged increase in values for commercial property. This time around, there's a downturn for both types of property, and it's expected a larger portion of the higher tax levy will fall on homeowners.

The president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Samuel Tyler, expects “a little shift from business to residential.”

“For the average single-family home,” he said, “the tax bill might increase by $100, $125 or $150 a year.”

Boston Assessing Commissioner Ronald Rakow says it’s “still too early to tell” how the tax levy will be distributed. But the notices from the city say the levy will increase by the maximum allowed, 2½ percent.

As Rakow notes, values are generally down this time for commercial and residential property. Housing sales figures from the Warren Group have shown some parts of Boston with large decreases in value and others with little change. So, as the notices point out, “homeowners may see an increase in their tax bill despite the reduction in their assessments.”

Unlike some other communities, Boston has a tax break for residential property with owner-occupants. The city also has tax relief programs for the elderly and other owners, including some veterans, and people with disabilities.

Commercial assessments are determined more by a property’s income from rents, or the loss of income with vacancies. The CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, Gregory Vasil, says that’s why the best way to relieve the tax burden on homeowners is to create more jobs.

“Vacancies are a function of job creation,” said Vasil. “And, if nobody creates jobs, nobody comes into the buildings.”

After the Gold Rush

2009-11-19T12:09:00.004-05:00

After the gold rush in the housing market comes reality. When Hendry street looked the way it did in the the view above left, three-decker units--even outside the most desirable locations--were still selling for more than $300,000 apiece. Not that anyone believed that made sense. In the view at right, from November, 2009, things look much better, thanks to the market, plus the intervention of government programs and non-profit developers. One conclusion is that if housing is more affordable, and market values seem more reasonable, there will be buyers. The tricky part is to make sure as many buyers as possible will fix up and maintain all those three-decker units that turned into condos and--eventually--foreclosures. See article about the market and the intervention in the Dorchester Reporter.

Chuck Turner's Last Hurrah? Not So Fast

2009-11-10T22:37:00.006-05:00

That last hurrah for Chuck Turner might have to wait.

Three days after the November 3 election, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reported that the District City Councilor from Roxbury as saying he would not run for another term. He also said he had encouraged the fifth-place runner-up for councilor at-large, Tito Jackson, to be his successor.

Gazette publisher Sandra Storey says she stands by the report. But Turner said in a phone interview this morning that he would like to run for one more term.

“I’m continuing to plan to run in 2011,” he said, “and not to run for the District 7 seat in 2013.”

In a statement he issued the day after election, Turner made no mention of retirement, though he did say he would focus on his legal defense against his federal indictment on corruption charges. Until the case is resolved, Turner would still be barred from serving as a committee chair for the City Council.

In his second challenge against Turner in two years, Carlos Henriquez received almost 40% of the vote, more than double his percentage in 2007.

When asked about the Gazette report and Turner’s support of Jackson for councilor in District 7, Henriquez said, “I think I would be a good person to sit in that seat as well. That’s why I’ve run for the seat twice.”

Henriquez said the story prompted a friendly talk between him and Jackson.

“Tito and I have hundreds of mutual friends,” said Henriquez, “and we want to make sure we are not dividing our neighborhoods.”

Henriquez says his immediate plan is to go back to his job as Teen Programming Director for the Castle Square Tenant Organization and continue as the president of the board for the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. Jackson says he’s going back to his job in the Mass. Office of Business Development.

When asked about his support from Turner, Jackson said, “It’s a huge compliment coming from Councilor Turner, based on his work in the community.”

Jackson allowed for the possibility of a future campaign, though not necessarily for City Councilor in District 7.

“At this point,” he said, “I’d look toward serving the whole City of Boston in some capacity.”

Boston Election 2009: Continuity and Change

2009-11-05T22:12:00.009-05:00

MassVOTE confirms one measure of the interest in this year’s election in Boston: the highest turnout in a city election since 1993, when Thomas Menino won his first term as mayor.

With Sam Yoon as his unofficial running mate, Michael Flaherty had 42.4% of the vote, while Menino had 57.3%. Flaherty’s figure was slightly less than the share of the vote in the preliminary election for him and Yoon combined.

As it turned out, Flaherty won several of the precincts that were previously carried by Yoon. In most of these precincts during the preliminary election, Flaherty had even finished behind Menino. In the final election, Flaherty repeated his advantage over Menino in South Boston and Charlestown. Flaherty also carried Ward 5 (most of the Back Bay, along with parts of Beacon Hill and the South End), and he came very close to winning Jamaica Plain (parts of Wards 10, 11 and 19) with 48.9% of the vote, and Ward 22 (parts of Brighton and Allston), with 49.4 percent.

Menino carried the rest of the city, including East Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, Roslindale, West Roxbury, Mattapan and Hyde Park, along with Chinatown and Bay Village.

Despite inroads in some parts of the city, Flaherty ran far behind in predominantly black precincts. In most of those precincts, he received less than one-third of the vote. In 10 of the 14 precincts in Ward 14 (Grove Hall, Franklin Field, Wellington Hill), his share was less than 25 percent.

The predominantly black precincts were also a larger share of the total vote this time around. Compared with 1993—when the total vote was larger—the number of people voting for mayor in Wards 8, 9, 12, 14 and 17 (plus the Ward 18 precincts in Mattapan) was higher, by 29.8 percent. In Flaherty’s strongest base of support, South Boston, the number of votes cast for mayor this year was down from the figure for 1993 by almost 21 percent.

The results for City Council increase the racial diversity among members at large, but the newest members—Felix G. Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley—also had a diversity of supporters. The newcomers finished behind incumbents John Connolly and Steve Murphy, but more than ten thousand votes ahead of the next highest candidate, Tito Jackson.

Along with being the top vote-getter for council at-large in Jamaica Plain, Arroyo finished in the top four positions in Roxbury, Hyde Park, Ward 20 (West Roxbury and part of Roslindale), Ward 5 (Back Bay and parts of Beacon Hill and the South End), East Boston, Allston-Brighton and most of Dorchester.

Ayanna Pressley did even better in Dorchester, also finishing among the top four positions in her home, Ward 16 (Fields Corner, Ashmont, Neponset). She also was among the top four in areas such as Roxbury, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Ward 5 and Allston-Brighton. Though she ran fifth in Ward 20, that was still good enough to get her 3,856 votes.

In the voting for district seats on the council, Mike Ross was re-elected with 84.1% of the vote and Sal LaMattina with 76.6 percent. In Allston-Brighton’s District 9, Mark Ciommo won his second term with 64.1% of the vote, while Alex Selvig received 35.4 percent.

The closest race for a district seat was in Roxbury’s District 7. Despite the federal corruption indictment from last year, incumbent Chuck Turner received 59.8% of the vote—still significantly lower than his finish two years ago with 81.2 percent. His only opposition this year consisted of two perennial candidates and Carlos Henriquez, who ran against Turner two years ago and received 18% of the vote. As the finalist this year, Henriquez got 39.5 percent.

In a statement after the election, Turner said, “I view this victory not only as a mandate to continue my leadership as Councilor but also to continue my fight to prove that former US Attorney Sullivan tried to publicly humiliate and jail me despite his knowledge that I am innocent.” Turner said, with the election over, he would focus on trying to have the federal charges dismissed. Until the case is resolved, he will still be unable to chair any committee of the City Council.

Also see election analysis in Neighborhood Network News interview with Boston Phoenix reporter David Bernstein and election night story by Joe Rowland.

Menino Vs. Flaherty: Last Salvos, Loose Ends

2009-11-01T23:50:00.007-05:00

If there’s one sign of change in Boston since 1993, it’s how candidates for mayor sidestep a question about the residency requirement for city workers.

Once a test of confidence in the city, the issue has been eclipsed by education, youth violence, and—despite the recent slump in real estate—the lack of affordable housing.

Sixteen years ago, Thomas Menino and co-finalist Jim Brett took positions favoring a stronger residency requirement, spurred by outcry from the pro-residency group Save Our City. In the aftermath of an economic downturn, and with residential property values still slipping, there was a resurgence of support for keeping city workers in Boston—and, by extension, the entire middle class. The earlier push for a residency requirement was in the 1970’s, after the start of desegregation in the Boston Public Schools, when there was another downturn coupled with declining property values.

When Menino and co-finalist Michael Flaherty were asked about residency in a forum last week at Faneuil Hall, they each expressed general support then switched the topic.

“But the core issue is why people leave Boston,” said Flaherty.

By the end of his answer time, Menino was fending off criticism that he should have more racial diversity among supervisors and top officials in city agencies.

“It’s not just having minorities in the administration,” he said. “It’s about doing things for the neighborhoods to improve the quality of life.”

On schools, both finalists have straddled the line between fact and overstatement. Flaherty says 38% of the Boston Public Schools are underperforming, and Menino says the figure overstates the number of schools with achievement lags across the board.

The mayor even points out that underperforming schools can also be found in wealthy suburbs—though he doesn’t say the ones in Boston are doing just as well. He says the dropout rate has been lower during his time as mayor than it had been for several years before. When reminded that the rate showed no steady improvement during his tenure, he replied, “Those are just numbers.”

One number that hasn’t been disputed by Flaherty is the mayor’s claim that applications to the Boston Public Schools have recently increased. This follows years of declining enrollment, attributed by officials to competition from charter schools, but also to a decline in school-age population.

One thing Menino has done in recent years, with encouragement from parents and officials such as City Councilor Maureen Feeney, is increase the number of K-8 schools. And, with the application process for next year getting under way, Superintendent Carol Johnson has added seats in Charlestown and the North End, while officials are looking for ways to increase capacity in areas with growing demand, such as West Roxbury, Roslindale, the Back bay and Beacon Hill.

Flaherty has drawn more attention to the waiting list for enrollment in charter schools. He wants to lift the cap that limits new charter schools in Boston—a change that would subtract money from the district schools, barring change in the funding formula. Menino favors “in-district” charter schools that would allow for more autonomy and innovation while still being under Boston control. Either approach would require approval of legislation at the State House.

“The last thing we need to do,” Flaherty said, “is to give the mayor control of more schools.”

Menino says some students, such as English language learners, are under-represented in conventional charter schools, while others who enroll fail to graduate without a detour to the Boston Public Schools.

“We don’t need more schools in Boston,” said Menino. “We need better schools.”

Menino’s push for “in-district charter schools” emerged in June. This followed years of struggles with the Boston Teachers Union to expand innovative “pilot schools.” The change also came after plans for more charter schools had been announced by Flaherty and fellow challenger (and later running mate) Sam Yoon. Adding to the incentive for new charter schools was the promise of federal stimulus money.

Both mayoral finalists say they want to save more money on student transportation. Menino and school officials have called for doing this in past years, only to retreat in the face of opposition. One argument from opponents is that a cutback on busing—and enrollment options—would leave some parts of Boston disproportionately zoned for underperforming schools.

“Until we get every school as a choice school,” said Menino, “we’re not going to get there.”

Flaherty called the spending on busing, with reportedly high numbers of empty seats, “a colossal waste of resources.” He also points out that the decrease in buses in Boston was much smaller than the decrease in student enrollment.

Menino has repeatedly said half the current busing is for students in special programs for learning disabilities, or for students in charter schools and Catholic schools. When officials were considering an end to busing for schools with citywide enrollment, they also met with opposition from champions of citywide enrollment for charter schools. If the supply of charter schools in Boston were allowed to expand, there could also be more demand for busing.

Another sign of change in Boston is that, despite the current housing slump, private owners of subsidized apartment complexes still want to convert them to market rental units. That’s currently the prospect at two “expiring use” developments in Hyde Park, Georgetowne Homes and Blake Estates.

Menino met with Georgetowne tenants last month and promised to support state legislation that would limit rent increases developments with expiring federal subsidy agreements. Supporters of the targeted rent control have been trying to get approval at the State House for several years, without success. While tenants put their hopes in more aggressive lobbying by Menino, owners of developments around the country are said to be more nervous about depending on federal subsidies in the future. Short of adding to units he was able to keep affordable for the long term, Menino said he would try to keep Georgetowne Homes affordable for current residents.

Flaherty has said he would support the legislation favored by the tenants. He wants more of the city’s new affordable housing to people with greater need—which could effectively mean a higher amount of subsidy per unit. He also called for doing more to prevent the eviction of tenants during foreclosures.

“We need to knock on the doors of these banks to help keep people in their homes,” Flaherty said in the forum at Faneuil Hall.

The very next day, Menino announced had done just that. Talks were in progress at four properties in Boston controlled by Bank of America to allow the tenants to stay. Under the plan, the properties would be acquired by the city and be turned over to private or non-profit developers.

Menino took credit for the plan being the first of its kind around the country, with potential for catching on with other lenders, but the idea had been proposed months earlier by the advocacy group City Life/Vida Urbana. What neither finalist has proven is whether a similar approach would work with financial stakeholders that have less visibility in Boston than Bank of America.

The forum also took place three days before reports that a graduate student at a Boston University BioSafety Level 2 laboratory had been infected with a bacterium that can cause meningitis. For opponents of the BioSafety Level 4 laboratory that BU is still trying to get approved, the infection was one more reason to say no. But officials say the infection was reported promptly and that the student is recovering.

At Faneuil Hall, the Level 4 lab brought out sharp differences between the candidates, with Flaherty having switched from being a supporter to an opponent. He was against having the lab in a densely populated area, near Boston Medical Center. Menino says there already is a Level 4 lab on a college campus in Georgia.

“We have the most stringent regulations,” Menino said.

“We don’t have a comprehensive evacuation plan,” said Flaherty.

Whoever wins on November 3 will have to reach new contract agreements with several unions representing city workers, at a time when the budget is expected to be even tighter.

Flaherty says by introducing performance reviews he can eliminate “a tremendous amount of wasteful spending.”

“I argue,” he said, “that we can save millions, if not tens of millions of dollars by bringing performance review to Boston.”

Hanging over both finalists are troubles with the Boston Firefighters Union, whose last contract expired in July, 2006. Since indications of possible substance abuse when two firefighters were killed in a fire in 2007, Menino has been trying to have the contract include random drug and alcohol testing. Despite recent management reforms, Menino’s tenure has seen equipment problems (above all, the fatal crash of a ladder truck) and alleged abuses of disability pensions—leading in October to federal indictments. But it’s Flaherty who has the union’s endorsement. Along with the benefit comes the burden, since the union has also been blamed for the pension abuse, rising overtime and resistance to changes in vehicle maintenance.

Flaherty has set a limit on how far he would go with a pay raise for firefighters, and he promises to go even farther than Menino with random testing. At last week’s forum, Menino still took issue with the union’s contract demands in connection with testing. “They want to get paid to take the test,” he said. “Is that fair?”

It can be argued it was fair enough for Boston’s largest police union. Menino introduced random testing on the Boston Police Department ten years ago, after fierce resistance from the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. The police contract also introduced new benefits—the education bonuses provided under the Quinn Bill, and paid for by the city and the state. With the state cutting back its share, leaders of the BPPA insist on keeping a benefit that was gained by bargaining. As BPPA Secretary Jay Broderick wrote three months ago in a union publication, any cutback by the state “will just force the individual municipality to provide the funding.”

Also see NNN report on debate by Joe Rowland.

Flaherty Tries to Build on Alliance with Yoon

2009-09-29T22:42:00.006-05:00

Michael Flaherty is trying a new way of building support for his showdown in the final election against Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Instead of just reaping endorsements from his fellow challengers in the preliminary election, Flaherty has brought on City Councilor Sam Yoon as a running mate and possible deputy mayor.

The last time Boston had deputy mayors was under Kevin White. When his successor, Ray Flynn, took office in 1984, he did away with the deputies, while at the same time experimenting with a build-up of grassroots political power through neighborhood councils.

In announcing his campaign alliance this morning, Flaherty emphasized Yoon’s qualifications.

“Boston doesn’t just need an urban mechanic,” said Flaherty, “it needs a visionary to tap into the intellectual capital of this city.”

Flaherty also contrasted Yoon with Michael Kineavy, Menino’s Chief of Planning and Policy, whose deletion of emails caused a stir just before last week’s preliminary election.

“The mayor has Michael Kineavy,” said Flaherty. “I’m going to have Sam Yoon.”

But will Flaherty have Yoon’s votes? And, even if he were to have all those votes, would it be enough to unseat Menino? In last week’s results, Menino received 50.5% of the vote, more than double the percentage carried by Flaherty.

Flaherty says the results show half the voters wanted change, and 21% of them voted for Yoon. And, by having Yoon campaign with him as a future deputy mayor, Flaherty would be getting more than just an endorsement.

In last week’s election, Yoon carried 24 precincts, mainly in parts of Allston-Brighton, Jamaica Plain, the Back Bay and the Fenway. The areas are, for the most part, traditionally progressive and, with the exception of Jamaica Plain, relatively low on turnout.

In all but one of the precincts carried by Yoon, Flaherty finished behind Menino. That’s one reason why former City Councilor Lawrence DiCara says transferring support from Yoon voters to Flaherty will be a “tough challenge.”

“Where Sam Yoon received his votes, Michael Flaherty received almost none, and vice-versa,” said DiCara.

The results in November also depend on how many more people will vote than in the preliminary election. This year, Menino is facing his most competitive challenge since winning his first term in 1993. Voters will also be drawn out to fill two of the at large seats on the City Council.

Flaherty estimates the total number of voters in November will increase over last week’s figure by as much as 40 percent. DiCara says he thinks the increase will be smaller, and he predicts the greater share of the increase will occur in precincts where most voters are people of color—precincts, for the most part, carried last week by Menino.

“I don’t think those minority folks who voted for Sam are going to go for Flaherty,” said DiCara.

“It’s a cultural issue,” he said, “not so much ideological as cultural.”

Asian American Vote Breaks Young for Yoon

2009-09-25T15:10:00.004-05:00

In his third place run for Mayor of Boston in Tuesday’s preliminary election, City Councilor Sam Yoon carried several precincts in traditionally progressive areas of Boston, but it was Mayor Menino who carried every precinct with the largest concentration of Asian American voters.

Though that much can be confirmed by a look at unofficial returns, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund dug a little deeper in its exit polling. The survey found Menino was favored by a clear majority of Asian American voters—71%, followed by Yoon at 22% and Michael Flaherty at 6 percent. But the poll also found the voters’ preference also depended on age. Among younger Asian American voters, the winner was Yoon, at 46%, with Menino at 31 percent.

Short of confirmation by exit poll, it stands to reason that age might also help explain why Yoon was the top voter-getter in parts of Jamaica Plain, Allston and the Back Bay.

Among candidates for City Councilor at Large, the leader was another Asian American from Dorchester, Hiep Quoc Nguyen, with 39%. The next highest levels of support were for Félix G. Arroyo (30%), and for Tomás González and Tito Jackson—each with 25 percent.

Voters were asked to list the main issues affecting their choice of candidates. The largest number listed health care (49%), followed by economy/jobs (37%), housing/development policies (26%), senior care (24%), education (23%) and public safety (19%).

The Fund says there were “few problems” with the voting process, though it notes many Asian Americans needed bilingual ballots.

Boston's Preliminary: Turnout and Patterns

2009-09-23T12:34:00.006-05:00

The turnout for yesterday’s preliminary election in Boston was impressive, but only by comparison with the lackluster municipal contests going back to 1997.

By comparison with the presidential election turnout last November—at 61.8%--yesterday’s figure for mayor and city councilors was much lower, at 23.1%. That’s still higher than turnout figures for the last two preliminary elections in years when there were votes for mayor and city councilors. In 2005, when there was no preliminary vote for mayor, the turnout figure was 15.1%. In 2001, it was 17.25%, and in 1997—when Mayor Thomas Menino was unopposed—it was 16.15%

The most impressive number in yesterday’s election was the increase in the number of people who came out to vote, 81,641. That’s more than twice the number of votes cast in the preliminary election four years ago and 86% higher than the figure for 2001. That seems to contradict the modest increase in turnout percentage. But, since 1997, the number of registered voters in Boston has grown by 49.9%.

With three opponents in the preliminary, Menino faced what was by far his most significant challenge since winning his first full term in 1993. Yesterday, he received 50.5% of the vote, followed by his co-finalist Michael Flaherty with 24%, City Councilor Sam Yoon with 21.2% and Kevin McCrea with 4.1%. In the only other preliminary comparison between yesterday and 1993, Menino received 73% of the vote in 2001, when he and co-finalist Peggy Davis-Mullen were joined on the ballot by perennial candidate Althea Garrison.

Despite his federal indictment last year on corruption charges, the District 7 (Roxbury/Dorchester) City Councilor, Chuck Turner, received 52.6% of yesterday’s vote. The next highest vote-getter was Carlos Henriquez, with 23.9%. In the final election two years ago, Henriquez received 18% and Turner received 81%.

Among the candidates for councilor at large, the two incumbents, John Connolly and Stephen Murphy, finished well ahead of the other candidates. Félix G. Arroyo, finishing third, trailed Murphy by more than four thousand votes, but the son of former Councilor Félix Arroyo was almost nine thousand votes ahead of the next candidate, Ayanna Pressley. The only woman on the ballot, Pressley finished more than four thousand votes ahead of the 5th place candidate, Andrew Kenneally. Fewer than three thousand votes separate Kenneally from the other three finalists in November: Tito Jackson, Doug Bennett and Tomás González.

In the only other two preliminary contests for district seats on the council, the incumbents finished well ahead of their competition in November. In Allston-Brighton’s District 9, Mark Ciommo received 59.8% over Alex Selvig’s 23.2%. In District 1 (E. Boston, Charlestown, N. End/Waterfront), Sal LaMattina received 73.4%, while Chris Kulikoski received 15.1%.

With a racially diverse pool of candidates, there were expectations for higher turnout in much of Boston. This year, the results were closer to the old pattern, with the highest turnouts in Ward 20 (W. Roxbury/Roslindale), at 35%; Ward 16 (Neponset, Cedar Grove, Pope’s Hill), 33.2%, Hyde Park (30.4%) and South Boston (29.8%).

Areas with the lowest turnout percentages were Ward 21 (Allston), with 11.6%; Ward 5 (Back Bay/South End), with 13.4%; and Ward 4 (Fenway/South End), with 14.7%. In between were Ward 17 (Codman Square/Lower Mills) at 25.6%, Ward 1 (East Boston) at 24.8%, Mattapan (24.1%), Ward 12 (Roxbury) at 23.6%, Ward 11 (Forest Hills/Egleston Square) at 23.4%, Ward 2 (Charlestown) at 23.3%, Ward 14 (Grove Hall/Franklin Field) at 20.2%, Ward 15 (Fields corner/Bowdoin-Geneva) at 20%.

Though Menino finished well ahead of his competition, there were some pockets of support for Flaherty and Yoon. Flaherty carried three precincts in Charlestown, all but one of the precincts in South Boston, and five precincts in Dorchester—mostly in Ward 16’s Neponset-Pope’s Hill/Neponset area.

Yoon carried one precinct in the West End, two in the Fenway, four in the Back Bay, 14 in solidly progressive Jamaica Plain and 8 in Ward 21—mostly in Allston.

The rest was carried by Menino, including Ward 20 and the precincts with the largest Asian population (in the main Chinatown precinct, the vote for Menino was 58.2%).

Two Views of Boston's Mayoral Race

2009-08-07T15:11:00.032-05:00

Over the summer, Neighborhood Network News has been presenting interview segments with and about candidates running in this year's city election. Among the recent segments are two with candidates for mayor: City Councilor Michael Flaherty on July 23, City Councilor Sam Yoon on August 5. The next scheduled interview in the series is with mayoral candidate Kevin McCrea. It will be on Neighborhood Network News Monday, August 10. BNN airs the show at 5:30, 9:30, and 11 p.m., with live streaming at those times.

City Election 2009: In Praise of Skirmishes

2009-08-01T11:25:00.008-05:00

We decided to cover Sam Yoon's "town meeting" last week in Mattapan, expecting little more than the snapshot of a campaign in action. But an exchange between Yoon and Mayor Menino's Chief of Staff, Judith Kurland, made the event more two-sided. It was as if, like Rodney Dangerfield at a boxing match, we ended up with a hockey game.

When someone in the audience brought up literature and handbags with the mayor's name given out by the city's Commission on Affairs of the Elderly, there was an opportunity for Yoon to score. To be sure, there's some advertising going on with the hand-outs, and that's more of a problem if it's paid for by city funds instead of campaign money. Does this apply to everything the Commission does, as Yoon comes close to arguing? Isn't there some overlap between gratuitous advertising and the good impression an elected official makes when the administration performs a service? Anyhow, Yoon reached far enough to leave an opening for a counterthrust by Kurland, who--with a deft touch of dramatization--snatched a passable look of tacit agreement from a woman sitting near her in the audience.

For details on the conext behind the exchange, read the article in the Dorchester Reporter by Gintautas Dumcius. There's also a video report on the meeting by Joe Rowland for Neighborhood Network News.

Judging from accounts of the meeting, Yoon made some good impressions, though the exchange with Kurland suggests a need to wage verbal fights more carefully, and maybe to pick battles over something more urgent (even if this topic wasn't initially picked by Yoon).

Kurland's performance, no matter how much it sprang from a genuine sense of indignation, was worthy of a candidate in a town meeting debate. The more that's noticed, the more it makes Yoon appear to be taken seriously, and the more it suggests the debate should be not with a proxy, but between candidates. And if the debate were about other topics?

This minor showdown goes some way to suggest the potential for debates to get people interested in an election. All too often these skirmishes tell us very little that's new (which may very well apply to what happened in Mattapan), and they might even be compared to fights in hockey game--a distraction at best that, on repetition, quickly becomes tiresome. But, in an election year so deprived of face-to-face confrontations between candidates in three-dimensional reality, even a minor skirmish can be refreshing.

Fall-off in Homicides: Just the Rain?

2009-07-28T07:41:00.007-05:00

If homicides have decreased in Boston over the past few months because of the weather, that would hardly account for the fatal shooting of Soheil Turner.

The 15 year-old student was shot on a rainy morning, outside a convenience store on Dudley Street. According to investigators, the killer, who was wearing dark sunglasses, was equipped with a .380 semi-automatic handgun and an umbrella.

Since the day Turner was shot, on May 7, Boston has had an abnormally high number of cloudy days and—by comparison with last year--a decrease in rate of homicides. Some observers say the recent drop in homicides and shootings can be partially explained by the weather. But others say the reasons could include everything from efforts by law enforcement and medical personnel to anti-violence programs and the neighborhood walks by community volunteers.

From the beginning of this year through July 19, there have been 27 homicides in Boston, down 25% from the figure from the same date last year. Homicides are also down in some other large cities around the country. The weather has been cited for the decrease in New York City, but the Washington Post reports homicides are also down in cities with different weather patterns, including Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

In Boston, the decrease in homicides has been very noticeable in areas that have usually experienced the most violence. In Area B (Roxbury, Mattapan and part of Dorchester), there have been 5 homicides since Turner was killed, but only one since June 14: the stabbing death of a 49 year-old man on July 27. In Area C (Dorchester and South Boston), over the same period of almost seven weeks, there has been only one homicide—a 74 year-old man allegedly stabbed by a 64 year-old woman.

About a week after Turner was shot, a three-year old boy and a 70 year-old woman were struck by shots fired into a store on Bowdoin Street by a sixteen year-old suspect. The shootings were non-fatal, but the next day, Mayor Menino and Police Commissioner Ed Davis were on Bowdoin Street to announce they would increase patrols and visibility in “hot spot” areas.

Even by last December, there were plans for a violence prevention strategy with a new way of deploying street workers funded by the Boston Foundation. Instead of only city street workers who finished their shift at 8 p.m., the “Street Safe” program would have some workers be on the clock till midnight, then be available on call. The street workers are jointly administered by the city and the Boston Ten Point Coalition.

At a meeting in June, law enforcement authorities and church leaders warned gang members that violence would meet with tough sentencing. They also offered alternatives to gang activity. The approach had been tried before, but Ten Point Coalition Executive Director Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown said the newest group responded with “less bravado” and more interest in alternatives.

“This time around, the kids were really listening to us,” said Brown.

“You’ve got a younger set of shooters than before,” he explained, “so they seem more apt to listen to people approaching them out on the street, who are out there to help them rather than put them in jail.”

Over the last three weeks, Brown says, street workers have helped make it possible for members of different gangs to spend time at Washington Park in Roxbury without conflicts.

“They’re not looking to do anything,” he said. “They’re just trying to relax in the city.”

Along with the street workers, Brown credits community volunteers who walk through “hot spot” neighborhoods.

Less reassuring this year are the figures on Boston’s non-fatal shootings. As of July 19, the total number of all shootings this year was slightly higher than it was last year.

Given the fall-off in homicides without a decrease in shootings, the founder and director of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Clementina Chéry, says the reason might be neither the weather nor efforts of law enforcement.

“So people get shot but don’t get killed? Who gets credit for that?” she asked. “Hospitals are doing a better job in treating victims.”

Through May 25, the total number of non-fatal shootings for this year was 89, up from the figure for the same period last year by more than 50 percent. But, from May 25 through July 19 this year, the figure was 39, down from the same period last year by 35 percent.

The executive director of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative, Emmett Folgert, notes the recent change in shootings, and the kind of people involved.

“The gang stuff is down,” he says.

But Folgert says one reason could be fewer targets on porches and sidewalks for drive-by shooters—on account of the weather.

“The rain is our best friend,” he said.

But there have also been changing trends in arrests and convictions.

A spokesperson for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, Jake Wark, says the conviction rate for homicide has improved over the past two years, while more people are being prosecuted on gun charges.

“That takes some players off the street longer than they used to after a gun arrest,” he said.

Folgert says the Boston Police have done “a lot of good work getting guns off the street.” So far, the Boston Police report arrests for all gun-related offenses have increased this year by 8 percent.

Chéry says there should be more attention to the reasons for violence. Like other leaders of community-based programs, Chéry and Folgert have described much violence as retaliatory and cyclical. But Folgert says a cycle of violence can be moderated by a cycle of weather.

“We’ve all heard that violence begets more violence,” he said. “Well, peace begets more peace.”

New Money, New Plans for School Reform

2009-07-23T09:13:00.004-05:00

This post appears as an article in the Dorchester Reporter.

When Boston School officials tried to save money this year by cutting costs in student transportation, they met with strong resistance from parents who put more hopes in choice, even with the need for a bus ride.

By estimates of the Boston School Dept., the parents who stand to lose from a cutback in choice and busing are a minority, while almost three-quarters prefer schools close to where they live. But the parents who cling to wider choices are a diverse population, and their support for busing as a vehicle of choice has been reinforced by other Boston parents sending their children to charter schools and parochial schools.

“You’re not going to have people give up their child’s transportation,” said one parent, “if their child is going to go to a lower quality school.”

Under a proposed student assignment plan put out for discussion in May, a disproportionate number of under-performing schools would have been in zones that include Dorchester and Mattapan. When officials decided later to slow down the change in the assignment process, Superintendent Carol Johnson asked for more information about school improvement and ensuring access to quality throughout the city.

Johnson’s comments were in a memo dated June 3, the same day another Boston Public School parent, City Councilor Sam Yoon, called for raising the cap on charter schools in Boston. These public schools operate independently of the Boston School Dept., and Yoon wanted the cap to be lifted only for charter schools that were successful.

Within a few days, there was support for raising the cap from another BPS parent and City Councilor running for mayor, Michael Flaherty. The same day Flaherty came out with his education platform, Mayor Thomas Menino announced plans to file state legislation that would allow more charter schools to open, but under control of the Boston School Committee. The charters would be conversions of schools that consistently under-perform.

The move also comes after a slow-down in the expansion of innovative “pilot schools,” though the Boston Teachers Union has agreed more recently to the opening of additional pilots. In January, a new study showed an advantage for a sample of students in charter schools over students in the BPS district schools and pilot schools. BPS officials argue the study draws mostly on a sample from the best charter schools, but they acknowledge that charters get better results in math for 8th graders.

While some question the state’s definition of under-performing schools, there is still concern in Boston about the racial gap in achievement and the number of dropouts (1,447 students last year, according to the Boston Plan for Excellence). The Plan for Excellence also reports that 56% of the BPS 9th graders were “off-track to graduate” in the 3rd quarter of the last school year, and 26% were “severely off track.”

“Although we’ve made tremendous gains in the Boston Public Schools, I am frustrated with the pace of our progress, especially in our low performing schools,” Mayor Menino said last month. “To get the results we seek – at the speed we want – we must make transformative changes that boost achievement for students, improve quality choices for parents, and increase opportunities for teachers.”

Unlike the pilot schools—innovative schools within the system—the new charters could be set up without approval by the BTU. Each school would have a performance contract, and the plan calls for failing schools to close. The plan has been described as an abrupt shift by Menino, and even as an election-year gesture with little chance of overcoming opposition at the State House from teachers’ unions.

But Menino’s qualified support for alternatives to the Boston Schools is hardly new, given his presence at ground-breakings for parochial schools and charter schools—one as far back as 2001, and another the day before announcing his in-city charter bill. The last appearance was at the future home of the Renaissance Charter School, which is relocating to an old mill and warehouse in Hyde Park with the help of financing from an agency staffed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

When the Boston Municipal Research Bureau took notice of the growing support for charter school expansion, it gave more reasons—the 5,264 students from Boston already enrolled in charter schools, and another 8,577 still on wait lists.

But, last week, when Menino and Governor Deval Patrick shared a podium at the Museum of Science with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, their support for more charter schools was linked with a chance to get more federal money, a nationwide total of $4.35 billion.

Governor Patrick hopes to use some of the money in Massachusetts for additional charter schools that would have to meet conditions for inclusion, especially for English Language Learners and students with learning disabilities. The governor also hopes to use the federal money for transforming chronically under-performing schools into “Readiness Acceleration Schools.” These would be under state authority, but they would have more autonomy from local districts, and there would be new services outside the schools for students and their families.

Menino and Patrick have expressed concerns over the effect of charter school expansion on budgets for local school districts, and charter schools have also attracted students who, in past years, might have gone to parochial schools. Menino is still against lifting cap on expansion of the regular “Commonwealth” charter schools, provided the legislature allows the “in-district” charters. Even last Thursday, Patrick said the funding formula for additional charter schools “needs to be looked at.”

According to the vice chair of the Boston School Committee, Marchelle Raynor, there is no redirection of funding needed under the mayor’s proposal for “in-district” charter schools. And Raynor says the schools could be in operation as early as this September.

The mayor’s plan has been greeted with skepticism from the Boston Teachers Union and the Mass. Charter Public School Association, which represents the “Commonwealth” schools.

“We want to make sure that when he creates these ‘in-district’ schools,” said Association spokesperson Dominic Slowey, “there’s the high level of accountability as with the Commonwealth system.”

BTU President Richard Stutman called the mayor’s plan “poorly thought out.” And he described the announcement by Patrick and Menino as “nine-tenths stimulus money.”

By including merit pay for teachers in his plan, Menino has aligned himself with Duncan. When Menino announced his plan last month, he said the incentives would make teachers “jointly accountable” for results in the classroom, and help attract “more excellent educators.”

Stutman says teachers would go along with extra pay that could be shared by a team, but not with incentives for individuals. “It’s so difficult,” he said, “to measure who’s contributing what.”

The governor’s also facing some resistance to his plan from the Mass. Charter Public School Association. Though the governor stops short of setting quotas for enrollment of demographic groups in new charter schools, he wants to require best efforts in recruitment. The Association says this could be an incentive to keep students in the categories of English Language Learner or special needs even after they should be in regular classrooms.

Advocates for choice and local officials still argue some types of students are under-represented in the Commonwealth charter schools. And they blame some charter schools for shedding students who either drop out or end up in the local district schools.

“It’s easier to teach a population that doesn’t require special services,” says Stutman. “It’s cheaper, too.”

But a cutback in busing has also been viewed as a way of inadvertently encouraging more parents to choose Commonwealth charter schools. Earlier this year, Boston officials were trying to end citywide enrollment at elementary and middle schools, which they said would make it easier to apply the same restriction to students at charter and parochial schools. That plan has met with legal barriers, as well as opposition from different groups.

“It would be a hardship for a lot of parents to come up with their own transportation,” said Slowey, “plus, it would be in conflict with state law.”

The assistant director for Boston School Reform at Mass. Advocates for Children, Kim Janey, said it would be unfair to continue citywide transportation for students in charter schools while elementary and middle school students in the Boston Public Schools could only be bused within one of five zones.

“You run the risk of perpetuating a two-tier system in the city,” said Janey.

In an interview on Neighborhood Network News, Raynor said the in-district charter schools proposed by the mayor would not require additional transportation.

In his announcement last month, Menino did not specify whether the in-district charter schools could have citywide enrollment and transportation. But, if they did, Stutman says, that “would increase transportation costs by millions of dollars.”

Housing Market Stirs Demand, Hits Snags

2009-07-02T10:49:00.009-05:00

Note: this article appears in the Jul2, 2009 issue of the Dorchester Reporter.

Crosscurrents in Dorchester’s real estate market are pulling in different directions—extending the fall-off in prices of the past two years, but also showing signs of new vitality.

“If someone’s telling you there’s no business, they’re not in our neighborhood,” says the Dorchester office manager for Jack Conway & Co., Julie Simmons.

“There is a lot of activity now,” she says. “That $8,000 tax credit is really bringing people in.”

But even agents who vouch for people willing to buy and sell say their customers still meet obstacles.

“Definitely the buyers are there. They’re eager to buy because the prices are low,” says Patrick Dorcena, an agent who does business in Dorchester for Torrez Realty in Brockton. “What’s killing us are the banks.”

Working in favor of a turn-around in the market is the federal tax credit created primarily for first-time home-buyers. But tighter lending standards, especially for condos, have been holding off buyers who fail to qualify for government programs. And Dorcena says some lenders have been challenging sales prices with their own appraisals, or pulling out of deals at the last minute, slowing down sales by as much as six months.

According to figures collected by the Warren Group, the spring market in Dorchester hardly appears robust. Sales of single-family homes through the end of May are down from last year’s total by almost 20%, though the median price is slightly higher.

Condo sales in Dorchester are much more numerous, and they exceed last year’s total through May by more than 6 percent. But, over the same period, the median price for those units is down by almost 60 percent.

The owner of Just In Boston Properties, Justin Green, says the aggregate price for condos is “totally askew” because of the numerous distressed sales, often after foreclosures.

Many condo units in distressed sales have been selling for less than $100,000, and some for less than $50,000. But, in less than 2½ years, prices for one unit in a three-family house on Bellflower Street, just a few blocks from Andrew Square, have swung sharply both ways. In January, 2007, unit 3 sold for $360,000. All three units would later be foreclosed. After unit 3 was sold last November for $121,500, it was sold again in May of this year for $299,000.

According to Green, the streets between Edward Everett Square and Andrew Square are one housing market that could be poised for an upturn. And he says the same potential exists in other parts of Dorchester close to the Red Line.

“It stands to reason,” he said, “that something along a train line, a train line that’s been renovated, is a location that’s going to be in demand.”

And, just a few blocks from JFK/UMass. Station, a loft unit at 950 Dorchester Avenue sold in May for $410,000.

Between the extremes are unit sales with a less dramatic fall-off in price. One is a three-decker unit on Sawyer Avenue, on Jones Hill. It sold last month for $250,000, after having been on the market last summer for $279,000. The seller bought the unit almost five years ago for $309,000.

Though the tax credit for first-time homebuyers is scheduled to expire later this year, Green says the condo market in Dorchester could be in for some relief from new rules being introduced by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Starting October 1, the FHA will insure some mortgages for condos in buildings up to 4 units. That would make financing available with down payments of 3.5 percent. With conventional loans, the current down payment required on many condo units for buyers without serious credit problems can run as high as 20 percent.

Like Simmons, Green says there has been more activity recently, and he describes the spring housing market in Dorchester as “very strong,” with “a lot of sales.”

“We’re very busy here,” he said. “Not only is everybody working, but putting deals together and getting financing.”

But Simmons points to signs that recovery is still a way off.

“People aren’t moving as often as we would like in this business,” she said.

And the backlog on sales has an effect on rentals.

“A lot of rentals are sitting on the market there, and a lot of condos are being rented,” said Simmons.

“So regular condos,” she explained, “have to compete against the granite and stainless steel.”

Simmons says that makes for more of a renter’s market. But other agents say rents in Dorchester are holding steady, with prices mostly in the range of $1,100 to $1,300 a month. And Green says his agency sees more customers looking for apartments.

“The price of renting hasn’t increased too much,” he said, “but the demand has definitely increased.”

The senior organizer for City Life/Vida Urbana, Steve Meacham, says there have been “significant rent increases,” even in neighborhoods that bore the brunt of mortgage foreclosures.

“Banks were holding so much property off the market in low and moderate income neighborhoods in Boston,” he said, “that it was pushing up the rental market.”

Also seeing little relief for renters was the director of media and public relations for the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development, Lucy Warsh.

“We still have a major need for affordable units in most of the affordable neighborhoods, such as Dorchester and Roxbury,” she said.

In parts of Dorchester with more multi-family housing and a higher concentration of foreclosures, unit sales are often to investors buying in bulk. The city has turned over some foreclosed units in three-deckers, but with an eye toward having them redeveloped as rental property, preferably with an owner-occupant in one unit.

According to the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development, more than one-third of Boston’s mortgage foreclosures in 2008 were in Dorchester, and more than half of those were in condominiums--many created in three-deckers.

“We’re seeing that it’s not the best model for the three-deckers, unless you have a more affluent group,” said the director of the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development, Evelyn Friedman.

“One of the big challenges of a small condo association,” she argued, “is that if you have one person stop paying the condo fees, the whole association falls apart.”

The treasurer for the Dorchester Home and Garden Trust, Patrick Cooke, predicts recovery will be significantly slower in areas with the most foreclosures. And he says the foreclosures and the economic downturn are also cooling off the rental market.

“I don’t think it’s going to drop precipitously,” he said, “but it’s into a long, slow decline, and landlords are going to have to adjust their expectations.”

Cooke has been renovating houses in Dorchester for thirty years, and he has seen earlier downturns in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

“The downward pressure on the market is going to continue to be felt for some time,” he predicts.

In Dorchester’s multi-family housing, Cooke likens the latest downturn to a “can of worms,” confronting potential buyers with the expense of aging properties and the hurdles left by collapsing or non-functioning condo associations.

“The market,” he said, “almost has to get worse in order for these things to be salvaged.”

Thin Blue Line in Black and White

2009-07-01T09:41:00.009-05:00

The immediate chain of events that led to the beating of Michael Cox by fellow officers on the Boston Police Department took place at three locations: a bar in Dorchester’s Four Corners, a hamburger joint in Grove Hall, and a dead-end street in Mattapan. The settings might just as well have been the Wild West, where the hold of law and order is stretched thin, and the distinction between true and false, or good and evil, can be scrambled in a burst of violence and the frenzy of a chase. But the chain of events reaching farther back and farther beyond raises the chaos and calculation of one night to an indictment of a city’s leadership.

Since the incident took place in January, 1995, the case around the beating and the overturned conviction of fellow officer Kenneth Conley have been widely reported in Boston media. In his new book about the case, The Fence, Dick Lehr, a journalism professor at Boston University and former investigative reporter with The Boston Globe, shows the connections with a series of costly blunders by the Boston Police, including missed signals of trouble ahead.

As Lehr announces in the full title of the book, the story is about “a police cover-up along Boston’s racial divide.” On one side is Michael Cox, an African-American who grew up in Roxbury, working at the time as a plainclothes officer in the gang unit. Though at least one officer present at the beating was also an African-American, Lehr’s narrative traces a definite fault line, mainly between Boston’s black community and public authorities—all the way from responders on the street to police command, the mayor’s administration, and prosecutors.

The beating took place after a lengthy police chase through Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. At the end, police arrested four suspects, but it was Cox who was by far the most battered—suggesting the force used on him was excessive even for subduing a criminal.

The chase began with what proved to be a fatal shooting around 2 a.m. in Grove Hall, at Walaikum’s Burger. The victim was also targeted by mistake, incorrectly linked to a long-running feud with a gang member spotted earlier at the bar in Four Corners, Cortee’s Lounge.

The next mistake would be a phone call from the scene of the shooting falsely reporting the victim was a police officer. It's another crossing of lines, with even more to follow. In a world where cops try to blend in with gangsters, and where suspects scrupulously signal turns while trying to zig-zag away from patrol cars, it’s not too much of a stretch to say the distinction between the two sides can sometimes be as porous as, well, a chain-link fence.

The false report from Walaikum’s made the chase larger and more frantic, a whole posse of Boston Police, Municipal Police and even private security guards—likened at one point to a high-speed funeral procession. At the end of the chase, on a dead-end street, Cox tried to pursue one of the suspects by scaling a chain-link fence. Before he could get to the other side, he was knocked down and kicked in the face. The next thing he registered was that a police officer was trying to place him under arrest.

The book leaves no doubt this was quickly recognized as a mistake. Had the mistakes ended there, Lehr argues, there would have been disciplinary action against a few officers—but probably with no one losing a job, no federal prosecution of Kenneth Conley, and no harassment of Cox by anonymous tormenters. It’s also likely the city’s taxpayers would have been spared anything like the figure of $1.3 million dollars for eventually settling the civil rights suit brought by Cox.

But the next mistakes at the scene of the beating were more deliberate. The officers who beat Cox left him on the ground without calling for help. Though other officers did call for medical attention, the first supervisors on the scene made it more difficult to establish what happened and who was responsible. That even applied to the arrests of four suspects who had been chased.

Within a few first months after the beating—having started an internal investigation more than one week after the fact—officials in the Police Dept. showed signs of knowing about the mistakes and conflicting reports from officers on the scene. What police and prosecutors failed to do was to break the silence of witnesses who tried to avoid incriminating themselves and their fellow officers. And two supervisors who made it more difficult to determine what happened on the scene were later promoted.

According to Lehr, police officials failed to use opportunities for at least putting pressure on officers they suspected of taking part in the beating and cover-up. Commissioner Paul Evans did take disciplinary action against four officers, but that was more than 3½ years after the fact—and shortly before Cox’s civil rights suit went to trial. And Lehr notes this was also two years after any new information had been turned up on the case by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. “The truth was,” wrote Lehr, “Evans could have taken the officers off the street a long time ago.”

Another chain of error led to the conviction of Officer Kenneth Conley for perjury—supposedly for failing to admit he saw Cox’s beating. The conviction was later overturned, after evidence came to light showing weakness in the case against Conley—evidence that should have been disclosed to Conley’s attorney. Even that information might have languished in a folder, if not for a challenge to disciplinary action by Conley’s partner, Bobby Dwan.

Even more embarrassing for law enforcement agencies was the identification of officers involved in the beating by one of the suspects being chased, a drug-dealer from Mattapan, Robert “Smut” Brown. He gave testimony placing one officer at the scene, and he helped build the case against Conley by mistakenly assuming he was the white officer near Cox at the fence.

Later, while Conley was on trial, Brown tried to correct that mistake right after he spotted another white officer, Jimmy Burgio, in the lobby of the federal courthouse. When Brown tried to tell an FBI agent the white officer he saw at the fence was actually Burgio, there was no interest. In Lehr’s fallen world of bungling by authorities, it turns out the closest thing to a detective may have been a career criminal.

A look at School Assignment Questions

2009-04-23T10:38:00.004-05:00

A series of neighborhood meetings will take place in May on possible changes in the student assignment plan for the Boston Public Schools. The meetings will follow presentation of a revised proposal from the Boston School Dept. A final plan, taking effect in 2010-2011, would be considered by the School Committee in June. Tighter budgets will probably make access to quality more difficult. Officials working on the plan have to find a way between or around two entrenched ideas about school assignments: a preference for schools close to home, especially through grade 8; and a belief that more options, requiring more transportation, means more access to quality. Would more walking assignments, for example, for families in Hyde Park and West Roxbury, necessarily mean less access to quality for students in Roxbury and Dorchester? Would more neighborhood assignments necessarily increase access to the full-day benefits in a "community of learning?" And what about needs of English Language Learners and students in Special Education? See article in Dorchester Reporter.

Biolab Questions Meet Clarity of Gray Areas

2009-04-22T11:13:00.007-05:00

Two City Councilors trying to clarify the possible hazards on the frontiers of research at Boston University’s Level 4 Biocontainment Laboratory in the South End found themselves last Wednesday turning headlights on a fog.

The line of questioning at a hearing by the Council Committee on Health and Environment, almost entirely from Councilor Chuck Turner, was mainly to find out whether some research requiring extra precautions might even be ruled out by the city’s regulations.

The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) restricts research involving recombinant DNA (rDNA), defined as DNA molecules constructed outside of a living organism or synthetic molecules joined with natural molecules. The city prohibits research with rDNA in Level 4, which is the setting with the highest risk and security precautions.

The head of the laboratory, Dr. Mark Klempner, had reportedly said he expected it would include research on vaccines produced with rDNA— “chimeric viruses.” And the city regulations incorporate guidelines from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which do include standards for work with rDNA in a Level 4 setting.

Located on the Boston University Medical School Campus, the lab is already built, but its environmental safety review by the NIH is expected to continue for at least another year.

The Director of the Bureau of Community Initiatives at the BPHC, Roger Swartz, acknowledged the rDNA ban, but said he could only address issues “in terms of applications submitted” for specific research proposals. The BPHC would decide whether to approve a proposal after receiving a recommendation from an advisory committee. Swartz told councilors the question of rDNA would “be discussed in its entirety” once the committee comes together.

“We have had a number of discussions with experts,” said Swartz, “and it’s clear to us that there are some areas of, some gray areas. And we want to make sure that from the start, as we address rDNA and Level 4, that we have the scientific experts that will be providing guidance and recommendations to the executive director (of the BPHC). So, at this point, I would say we’re not prepared to address specific proposed or hypothetical research. We’re not there in the process.”

In his testimony to the councilors, Klempner denied the lab would engage in development of biological weapons.

“Let me state clearly and unequivocally,” said Klempner, “that all the research and every one of our researchers in the NEIDL (National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories) will completely abide by the BPHC regulation, which bans recombinant DNA research in Biosafety Level 4.”

After Klempner was asked about a statement he reportedly made last year indicating that some research at the lab under its associate director, Dr. Thomas W. Geisbert, would include rDNA, he gave neither confirmation nor denial.

“I want to reiterate again to you,” said Klempner, “that we are absolutely committed to transparency and we are in every case going to submit every proposed research proposal to the regulatory bodies that we need to respond to in order to be able to have approvals to do the research in the laboratory. I certainly have made statements about work that we hope to conduct in the laboratory, and we will continue to do that. We are continuing to recruit new scientists to do research, but that is different than making statements about the regulator.”

As Klempner reminded councilors, the decisions about which research would be allowed would be up to the BPHC. In other words, the lab was the regulated and the city was the regulator.

For one opponent of the lab at the hearing, the distinction between the two wasn’t clear enough. The legal counsel for the Roxbury-based non-profit Alternatives for Community and Environment, Eugene Benson, said one reason for this was that the president and CEO of Boston Medical Center, the main affiliate of Boston University Medical School, was the vice chair of the BPHC’s Board of Health. And he noted that a BPHC official who would be part of the committee reviewing proposals for research had previously recommended designation of the Biolab for Boston by the NI H.

“What you have is, in two ways, you have an impossible situation here,” Benson argued, “where the Boston Public Health Commission has refused to actually articulate what are very, very bright lines in their regulations. And then you have this back-and-forth between people who work for the Boston Public Health Commission and Boston University. So you’re setting up a dynamic where the dynamic is going to be to approve proposals that clearly violate the regulation. That is really no way to operate a regulatory agency. And, while it wasn’t my intention to make this recommendation, but I think the only recommendation that I can make coming out of this is that you need to prohibit all BSL-4 regulation in the City of Boston because what this tells you is that you are trying to do your oversight role but it can’t be done, considering the interaction between BU, the Boston Public Health Commission, and their failure to adequately and completely respond to Councilor Turner.”

Another lab opponent, a professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, Daniel Goodenough, went a step further. Though he acknowledged that rDNA was “a fundamental tool” for research, he said using it in work that required a Level 4 setting was “too dangerous.” He argued that it was difficult to oversee research that, once it gets under way, could take new directions, involving new personnel over time.

“All of these regulations, as we all know, just get harder and harder to maintain,” said Goodenough. “More and more people are coming and the turnover rate is huge—in academic that’s the name of the game, it’s up or out: you either succeed and you go somewhere else, or you fail and you leave. So there’s very high turnover, huge, huge amounts of training issues here, and I don’t think that the Boston Public Health Commission can possibly assess that. And it’s my belief that this regulation (banning rDNA research) was put in place initially with the understanding that we can’t regulate this—it’s too hard. And the only solution is to say, ‘No, we just don’t have any of this going on in a BSL-4 facility.’”

In one of his few comments on testimony at the hearing, the chair of the Committee on Health and Environment, Councilor John Connolly, described the remarks by Swartz as “very comprehensive, as far as covering the major points.”

Turner insisted there should be more definite information, and more transparency, about what would happen at the lab should it be approved for operation. He said it was “disheartening” that the BPHC was “unwilling to help the public understand the confusion that is here.”

“I think that really just puts wood on the fire,” he added, “that just makes people more distrustful of what’s going on.”

School Updates: Dropouts, Assignment Plan

2009-04-16T19:51:00.003-05:00

The Mass. Department of Education reports an improvement in the annual dropout rate for Boston schools. The latest figures are for the school year 2007-2008, when the annual dropout rate was 7.6 percent. That's the lowest figure in six years. In the two years before the most recent figures, the dropout rate was almost 8.9%, and the year before that it was 9.9 percent.

But the Boston figures for 2007-2008 still had racial gaps. The highest rate was for Hispanic students, at 10.2 percent. The next highest figures were for black students (7.4%) and white students (5.3%), with the lowest figure for Asian students (2.5%). There was also a gender gap, with the rate for male students at 8.2%, and the rate for female students at 6.9 percent.

The annual rate is used less often for measuring the dropout problem than the rate that tracks students throughout high school. The increase in the annual rate for Boston began its last increase in 2003-2003, around the time of cutbacks following an economic slowdown. The high dropout rate for Hispanic students may reflect some of the problems with English Language Learners discussed in a recent report by the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development & Public Policy and the Center for Collaborative Education.

* * * * *

A series of public meetings will take place about possible changes in the student assignment plan for the Boston Public Schools. As a way to reduce transportation costs, officials have been considering a possible increase in the number of school assignment zones. Boston currently has three zones. More zones would mean that parents would have to make choices from fewer schools, though officials say there has been a general preference among parents for schools that are close to home. Officials say they hope a new plan will have four kinds of benefits: lower transportation costs, more walkable communities, a range of school choice, and continuity of educational experience.

The series of meetings will begin Wednesday, April 29, with the presentation of a revised assignment plan with five zones. The meeting will take place at 26 Court Street in downtown Boston, in the Winter Chambers. All meetings will begin at 6 p.m. The remaining meetings are as follows:

Thursday, May 7. Umana Middle School Academy. 312 Border Street, East Boston
Tuesday, May 12. Edison Middle School. 60 Glenmount Road, Brighton
Monday, May 18. Lewis Middle School. 131 Walnut Avenue, Roxbury
Wednesday, May 20. McCormack Middle School. 315 Mt. Vernon Street, Dorchester
Tuesday, May 26. Irving Middle School. 105 Cummins Highway, Roslindale
Wednesday, June 3. Boston School Dept. 26 Court Street,Winter Chambers (recommendations by superintendent)
Wednesday, June 24. Boston School Dept. 26 Court Street,Winter Chambers (vote by School Committee)

Budget Plan Takes Aim at Moving Targets

2009-04-10T10:47:00.007-05:00

One day after Mayor Thomas Menino presented his budget plan for the next fiscal year, the Boston schools got slightly more relief than expected from the federal government. But, when all the figures affecting the city budget are known—and that could be months after the June 30 deadline for approval—the mayor’s figure of 565 layoffs could still get larger.

As of Wednesday, the mayor’s budget called for eliminating 212 teachers and teachers’ aides. There could also be layoffs of as many as 67 police officers after October 1, unless the city receives funding from the federal government.

Once again, Menino called on more unions to go along with a one-year wage freeze. So far, there have been agreements from 22 unions. Among the hold-outs are some of the largest unions, including the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association and the Boston Teachers Union.

“If the Boston Teachers Union accepts,” said Menino, “we can save every teacher and classroom aide in good standing.”

In a statement issued Wednesday by President Richard Stutman, the BTU came close to saying the jobs could be saved without a wage freeze.

“The Boston Teachers Union is actively working with our local, state, and federal officials to identify and generate additional federal stimulus money,” said the statement. “Beyond these efforts, we have been working with the school department to place current teachers into suitable alternate subject areas for the upcoming school year. In the end we believe there will be no need to lay off a single person.”

When the mayor announced his budget, he was counting on another $16 million for the schools from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“We don’t see any additional money coming down from the recovery act,” he said.

A day later, Governor Deval Patrick said Boston’s Title I funding from ARRA would be $20.9 million-- about $4 million more than city officials projected a day earlier. But the chief communications officer for the Boston School Dept., Chris Horan, said there was also less money than expected from the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act. He said the net gain for Boston was only $2.4 million. And, with restrictions on how much of the ARRA money can be used for saving jobs, a spokesperson for the mayor said the difference would protect only about ten more positions.

The three candidates who have announced campaigns for mayor have all called for budget cuts in other areas. In a reaction to the mayor’s budget plan, City Councilor Michael Flaherty calls for more cuts in positions for managers and consultants, but makes no mention of the wage freeze. Councilor Sam Yoon has drawn attention to recommendations by the Boston Finance Commission, such as doing away with fire alarm boxes. And the day of the budget announcement, Kevin McCrea repeated in his campaign blog, “There is enough money in the budget to not layoff a single police officer or teacher.”

This year’s budget figure of $2.4 billion is higher than last year’s by $5 million, but the calculations also include a decrease in local aid by $62.2 million and contractual pay increases adding up to $55 million. While there are cuts in the School Dept. (1.9%), the Police Dept. (2.4%) and Fire Dept. (4.7%), the budget would avoid cutbacks in hours for libraries and community centers. There would even be an expansion of some school options, including early learning centers.

The budget is based on some expectation for new revenue that would have to be approved by the state legislature and the governor. The president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Samuel Tyler, says the expectation for local aid might even prove too optimistic, should the state budget gap approach the worst expectations of about $1 billion. But Tyler notes there could also be more money to protect jobs if the legislature makes it easier for the city to place city employees, along with retirees and their survivors, under less expensive health insurance.

Even if the mayor’s projections prove to be the most correct, the largest city unions holding off on a wage freeze have large majorities with enough seniority to know their jobs are safe. That could make the approval of a wage freeze a hard sell.

“This is probably the worst budget I’ve seen in all the years as mayor and city councilor,” said Menino.

“You don’t see any relief out there,” he said.

In 1981, two years before Menino won his first term as a city councilor, and right after adoption of a cap on property taxes—Proposition 2½—the budget decisions were more difficult and more divisive. Officials decided to lay off hundreds of police and firefighters and close schools. A few years later, as the economy recovered, Boston would get more revenue from its property tax base and local aid from the state.

A quarter of a century later, the local tax base has declining values for residential and commercial property. And, once federal recovery money is exhausted, the dependence on state funding will be more critical. The executive director of the Mass. Budget and Policy Center, Noah Berger, says the mix and volatility of state tax revenue have to be reconsidered, as well as the tax cuts that took place in more prosperous times.

“There are basic structural budget problems that need to be resolved,” he said. “I’m not sure whether the best time to do that is now, or when the economy recovers.”

Public Funding Relieves Scarcity of Teen Jobs

2009-03-27T16:20:00.008-05:00

Boston will spend almost $9 million this year on summer jobs for young people ages 14-24. The announcement about jobs funding took place today at the Mission Hill Main public housing development in Roxbury.

Helping to pay for the jobs over the next two years is more than $21million in funding for Massachusetts from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In addition to the stimulus money, the state’s providing almost $10 million from the YouthWorks program and public safety funds. Boston's level-funding its contribution to summer jobs this year at $4 million.

Mayor Thomas Menino says the funding will provide Boston with 5,000 jobs. To meet a goal of 10,000 jobs, the city hopes once again for additional support from the private sector.

City officials say they still need to find jobs for as many as 4,000 more teens. The city’s job registration period ended March 16.

“Eight thousand young people applied to the HOPE Line this year,” said Menino. “That’s why we need the private sector to step up to the plate.”

Menino says public funding for summer jobs is “favorable” compared to amounts in past years, and Governor Deval Patrick noted increases in summer job spending by the state since he was elected. But his Secretary of Labor & Workforce Development, Suzanne M. Bump, says the overall job market for teens across the country is at a 60-year low. She said teen employment was currently at 38%, and 21% in low-income communities.

Applicants and employers can get more information about the YouthWorks program by calling 1 866 968-8461 . Also: information about jobs for teens from low-income families provided by ABCD.

Retail Districts Try to Survive Recession

2009-03-19T16:09:00.017-05:00

On Newbury Street in the Back Bay, even parking tickets are down.

As an enforcement officer puts it, “Everybody’s being smart.”

They might also notice the window signs offering steep discounts, by as much as 60%. Most of the shops and stores along the upscale retail artery are still open, but vacancies are on the rise. Flanked by the glow of survivors, the dark pockets of empty space are hard to miss. So are the rental signs, some of them fronting lit-up interiors with bare shelves.

An agent with the C. Talanian Realty Co., Tom Brennan, says it’s normal for Newbury Street to have more vacancies and turnovers at the end of winter, though he acknowledges, this year, the number is “more than usual.”

“We are in a recession now,” says Brennan. “There are a lot of businesses on Newbury Street that are marginal and not surviving.”

Some of the recent departures include a fashion boutique, Whim, and a home furnishing boutique, Comptoir de Famille, but also the more familiar national clothing chain, Gap.

The president of the Newbury Street League and owner of the G2O Spa & Salon, Joyce Hampers, agrees the vacancies reflect the season and the economy, though she recalls more vacancies during the last downturn, about six years ago.

“It’s probably more the fact that everything is down,” she said, “and the fact that Newbury Street is not able to escape it completely.”

Like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, another high-end retail district slowed by the economic downturn, Newbury Street relies heavily on the buying power of visitors. And, to judge by figures from Boston area hotels, visits are down, especially bookings for the most expensive rooms.

If the downturn on Newbury Street is largely global, the president of the Back Bay Association, Mainzer-Cohen, says it might be made worse by the run-up in the area’s commercial property values, resulting in higher rents for retail tenants.

“My guess is that there are going to be more closings,” she said, “and some landlords will have to rethink what they are charging people. And some already are.”

Mainzer-Cohen says the potential for recovery might also be hampered by the long-running conflict between retailers and preservationists. The Back Bay Architectural Commission is working on new design guidelines for the commercial area. Mainzer-Cohen wants them to allow more large windows and to require fewer embellishments such as planters. In other words: more display and less clutter (whether planters or sandwich signs on the sidewalk).

But Mainzer-Cohen says it might also be wrong to predict the summer on Newbury Street based on how it looks in March. So does the CEO of C. Talanian Realty, David Coughlin. He says some retailers report a pick-up in business in recent weeks, and he says there are “a lot of people looking” at possible rentals.

“We need to react to the tenant market,” he said. “We’re not going to sit on space that’s empty.”

Should there be an upswing anytime soon, and should there be less restriction on retail display, Newbury Street won’t necessarily be more like a suburban mall. That fear has been increased over recent years with the influx of national chain stores. But Coughlin says there will be fewer of those tenants surviving the downturn.

By comparison with Newbury Street and the stretch of Washington Street from Downtown Crossing to School Street, vacancies are more difficult to spot in Boston’s other retail centers, even in neighborhoods with high rates of housing foreclosure.

In Dorchester’s Codman Square, on Washington Street, retail vacancies are scarce. Further along the street, past Four Corners, there’s even some business growth. What began as a women’s clothing boutique, Mod Boston, has expanded with space for men’s clothing.

Mod Boston Manager Shantae Romain says most of the store's customers are from Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, with some from the suburbs. The store also does business online. If business is slow everywhere because of the economic slump, operators of Mod Boston can at least look forward to reasons for buying, whether it’s spring break, parties, or a job interview. They can also look forward to more traffic from a new commuter rail stop close by.

Located near another stop on the same commuter rail line is the clothing store, Final Touch With Class. Owner Danny Hardaway talks about expectations from the high volume of potential shoppers, whether from trains or from the four lanes of traffic along Morton Street.

Hardaway envisions a cluster of shops and other businesses, like in Greenwich Village. And his strategy is to divert more customers from malls by offering more services, even classes in etiquette. His schedule includes a hat show in April, but it will take more time before the adjacent site of a long vacant former police station is redeveloped as housing.

At Dudley Square, vacancies are hardly abundant, but some are noticeable. Like so many stores that mainly sold recorded music, Funky Fresh Records has closed, despite a last minute upsurge in community support.

Another fixture in Dudley Square, A Nubian Notion, has downsized, after vacating space that was used for a gift shop in the renovated Dartmouth Hotel building. While the renovation has been acclaimed for improving the look of Dudley Square, the retail tenants are faced with higher rents.

The director of the Dudley Square Main Streets program, Joyce Stanley, says there have been some other recent closings in retail district, though not necessarily because of the downturn. And she says there has also been some growth, especially in businesses run by Somali immigrants.

Dudley Square’s also scheduled for new development. Last September, the city invited designs for a new municipal office building on the site of the old Ferdinand’s Furniture complex. The project has raised hopes for new customers, and some apprehensions for current businesses. The project hinges on plans to build a new city hall on the South Boston waterfront—which, in turn, would entail redevelopment of the current site of City Hall in government Center.

In the meantime, according to Stanley, some businesses that survived earlier downturns in Dudley Square are adapting, even by reducing their product line. And she says their chances are better if they own their commercial property.

“All of the merchants are saying their business is down,” she said. “It’s really slow.”

Home, Condo Sales Figures Show Deeper Chill

2009-02-25T00:03:00.004-05:00

There's more confirmation of the chill in Boston's housing market. According to figures from the Warren Group, for single-family homes, the median price was down by more than 19%--almost the average for the whole state. Compared with January of last year, the number of sales was down by 5.9%. The statewide figure was 10.3%.

In West Roxbury, sales for single families were down by more than 41.7%, but the median price was up, by almost 28.9%. In Dorchester, there was only a slight increase in the number of sales for January (from 7 to 8), but the median price was down by 35.1%.

In Boston's condo market, sales and prices were below the state average. Even in what recently been the strongest market, the mostly high-end areas near downtown Boston, the median price was down by 18.5% and the sales volume was down by 46.7% Citywide in January, condo sales were off by almost 29.7%, while the median price was down by almost 32.7%.

In areas with more than a half dozen transactions, the largest drop in the median price for condos was in Dorchester, with a decrease of more than 69.3%. Dorchester had more condo sales than last January--an increase of 45.8%. Market observers say many of these involved properties in foreclosure.

“The inventory in the foreclosure market is just so great now,” said the Dorchester office manager for Jack Conway & Co., Julie Simmons.

“Investors are coming out of the woodwork that we haven’t seen since the 1990’s,” she said.

Simmons says clearing away the inventory of distressed properties will help the rest of the market. But observers note that bargains don’t always attract buyers who improve the property and increase values.

Simmons points to one condo unit in a three-decker on Draper Street, on Meetinghouse Hill, that recently sold for $40,000. According to real estate analyst John Anderson, two-thirds of the units recently sold in Dorchester went for less than $100,000. His figures show Dorchester condos have lost 72.4% of their market value since the last peak of the market, in mid-2006.

Though the number of condo sales in Dorchester has increased dramatically over January 2008, observers say other buyers and sellers are staying out of the market, or at least stopping short of closing a deal.

“They’re just not out there,” said Anderson. “They’re sitting on the sidelines, looking to see how far down things are going to go.”

Mortgage Troubles Erode Faith in Ownership

2009-02-19T11:17:00.005-05:00

Note: This article appears in the Dorchester Reporter.

The mortgage troubles plaguing multi-family housing in parts of Boston are putting new strain on belief in the benefits of greater access to home ownership.

In a public policy discussion paper on subprime lending and multi-family housing released on the last day of 2008, researchers for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston argue that two widely-held beliefs in policy may have been overstated. One belief is that increasing owner-occupancy improves the quality of life for buyers and their neighborhoods. The other is in the growth of ownership among people of color—a trend that was also supposed to narrow the racial gap in wealth.

With the disproportionate toll of foreclosures on urban neighborhoods, advocates and public officials have put most of the blame on high-risk lending—especially subprime mortgages. But researchers at the Federal Reserve say the subprime loans and resulting foreclosures might also be viewed as a reflection of the buyers themselves.

“In other words,” say the researchers, “these borrowers are more likely to default because they have a history of delinquency (perhaps providing a signal of their preferences) or lack the financial means to survive an adverse financial shock or life event.”

Those same buyers would also be more vulnerable to a sharp downturn in the market. Adding to the risk would be the dependence on rental income and the need for repairs, especially in older buildings.

“If something goes wrong and you need to fix something, and nobody can live in the unit, you get into trouble very quickly,” said Paul S. Willen, a senior economist and policy advisor for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

“The good thing about the absentee landlord,” said, “is they have a lot of reserves and they have a lot more resources than a small owner.”

The report from the Federal Reserve was confined to homes bought as multi-families. It confirms the number of black and Hispanic households who bought homes in Massachusetts doubled between 1998 and 2006. But the report also found the increase was solely due to subprime loans.

When researchers compared the number of home purchases to the number of home sales or foreclosures, they found the increase in subprime financed purchases between 2003 and 2006 in Massachusetts “was unlikely to have led to a significant increase in homeownership.”

And, according to researchers, as subprime lending increased from 2003 to 2006, there were more transactions in which buyers and sellers were both people of color. “In other words,” say researchers, “one could argue that it enabled a sort of churning of properties.”

A more recent discussion paper from the Federal Reserve also shows that subprime lending practices changed over time. The earlier subprime loans were mainly for refinancing, while the later loans were almost entirely for home purchases. Also increasing over time were loans that combined less documentation of the borrower’s income and assets with higher leverage—or a lower percentage of down payment. It was the increased leverage that researchers say contributed the most to the increase in defaults.

The resulting foreclosures are reminiscent of what happened in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, when there was an attempt to expand home ownership opportunities for people of color by the Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group (BBURG). Under BBURG, loans were guaranteed by the federal government, so lenders had less reason to worry about risk—or finding a new buyer after a default.

Almost forty years later, lenders were passing on risk by selling their loans to financial markets. And riskier subprime and “Alt-A” loans—with higher interest rates—were also attractive to financial markets because of their higher yields for investors.

But the most recent downturn in Boston’s multi-family housing market brought yet another change in the pattern ownership—the conversion of three-deckers into condominiums on a massive scale. Before the end of the boom, when more desirable three-deckers were selling for $500,000 to $600,000, recorded sales prices on converted units in Dorchester were as high as $439,900 apiece.

Public records indicate many of the unit buyers were not occupant owners. Even some loans given for use of a unit as a primary residence went to buyers who received mortgages containing the same provision within a year on other properties. In other cases, owners of multiple units at different locations had mortgages for “second homes” that also restricted use of the property for income. And most of the lenders were mortgage companies or thrifts, which were less tightly regulated than commercial banks.

On many three-decker conversions, there were also piggyback mortgages. And researchers at the Federal Reserve say the default rates for these loans were abnormally high.

Observers say the risks were also increased in some cases by transactions at inflated prices—which had an effect on the rest of the market: when prices were climbing, other properties became less affordable; when the market fell, some of those properties had less value than what was still owed on the mortgage. According to figures for Boston from the Warren group, the sharpest falls in the median sale price for condos last year were in Mattapan (55%) and Dorchester (18%).

The changes in subprime lending practices took place in years when housing prices in Boston were still rising, or at least before a sharp downturn. And, as researchers for the Federal Reserve note, the change in practices was gradual. “Thus,” they wrote, “rather than plunging into uncharted waters, investors may have felt increasing comfort with each successive round of weaker underwriting standards.”

And Willen says prices during the boom years may have made those standards seem less important. “If house values are rising, it’s not that risky,” he reasoned. “If they’re falling, even a documented loan is going to be pretty risky.”

According to the city’s Dept. of Neighborhood Development, Boston had 1,750 foreclosures in 2006-2008, and more than half were on units owned by investors. As of last November 15, there were 955 properties taken by foreclosure that had yet to be resold.

Because so many of the foreclosed properties were owned by investors, Mayor Thomas Menino’s chief of Housing the director of the Dept. of Neighborhood Development, Evelyn Friedman, argues against putting all the blame on homeowners.

“I don’t think the issue is home ownership opportunities. The issue is the quality of lending,” said Friedman.

“Yes, we do want to have home ownership,” she said. “We want to have sustainable home ownership.”

And Friedman says that includes lending based on sound documentation of the borrower’s ability to pay.

“The lenders have to be made to be responsible for whom they’re lending to,” she said. “That’s the regulatory problem that has to be addressed.”

The executive director of the Mass. Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA), Thomas Callahan, says the best way to stabilize the city’s multi-family houses is to have, in most cases, entire buildings in the hands of responsible investors and owner-occupants.

“It’s not the right solution to give up on owner-occupants as the bulk of the three-family owners in the city,” said Callahan.

“I think what you see in the market,” he notes, “is investor owners walking away quicker than owner-occupants do.”

Though Willen says some of the borrowers who ended up in foreclosure had taken home-ownership classes, Callahan says MAHA’s delinquency rates for two- and three-family homes were even lower than the rates for condos and single-families.

“I think two- and three-family home ownership in Boston and Massachusetts can be very stable,” he said, “if it’s done right.”

The city is using federal money to acquire 7 foreclosed properties by early next month directly from Countrywide Financial, which has been acquired by Bank of America. The city’s plan is to acquire more properties directly from companies holding the loans, and then to turn them over to private or non-profit developers and owner-occupants.

“I think the group of people we need to attract, and will be attracted to these properties,” said Friedman, “are the young first-time home-buyer who can’t afford Jamaica Plain or the Back Bay.”

A new challenge in the current downturn is that foreclosures in multi-family buildings converted into condos have taken place one unit at a time, and occasionally months or years apart. Friedman says the city will only try to acquire units where it would control the entire building.

And, if past downturns are a predictor, there is no guarantee that other properties sold after foreclosure will be stabilized quickly.

The executive director of Citizens Housing and Planning Association, Aaron Gornstein, predicts that, once the market reaches bottom—possibly after another wave of mortgage defaults caused largely by the economic downturn—recovery could take another five years. In the meantime, he says, the chance to buy cheap might not be enough to attract the kind of homeownership that benefits the neighborhood.

“Unfortunately,” said Gornstein, “it tends to attract investors who don’t have a long-term plan to invest in the neighborhood, who want to flip the property and get out.”

Mattapan, Dorchester Lead Housing Slump

2009-01-28T17:23:00.007-05:00

The Warren Group reports single-family home sales were down last year in Boston by almost 15%. The median price decreased by more than 11%. The largest decreases in sales were in Brighton, South Boston and West Roxbury. The largest price drops were in Mattapan, at almost 31%, and East Boston, at more then 26%.

For condos in Boston, the number of sales was down by almost 20%, but the median price was up by more than 4%. The neighborhoods with the largest fall-off in condo sales were Brighton, Mattapan, East Boston and Hyde Park, all more than 30%. The largest price drops were in Mattapan, at almost 55%, and Dorchester, almost 18%. The largest increase in the price of a condo was in Roxbury, at more than 10%.

Besides having the largest price drops for all of 2008, Mattapan—among comparisons of more than a handful of transactions—had the largest price drop in December for condos (70.37%). The decreases in December condo sales were almost as high in West Roxbury (61.54%) and Charlestown (60%), but the decreases in median price were less than 10%. In East Boston’s condo market for December, the number of sales was down 46%, while the median price was down more than 30%.

Neighborhoods where the 2008 median price increased (for single-family homes) were Jamaica Plain, Brighton, Roslindale, and South Boston. There were price increases for condos in Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and areas close to downtown Boston, though the numbers of sales in those areas were all lower. The number of condos sold in Dorchester increased in December, compared with the same month in 2007, but the median price declined by 61.44%. The largest increase in condos sales for December was in Roxbury—more than doubling, from 13 to 27—but was price was down slightly, by 1.22%.

Boston 2009: Same City, Different State

2009-01-27T11:27:00.009-05:00

It’s hard to recall when the state of the city had changed so much in a single year.

When Mayor Thomas Menino gave his State of the City address in January, 2008, he said the national economic climate was “uncertain,” while the state of the city was “stronger than ever.” As he told the audience at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester, Boston was “bursting with excitement, investment and potential.”

A year later, Boston is one of many cities confronting an economic crisis. Office rents and the number of active mega-projects are on the way down, while the economy shows signs of struggle everywhere from the financial sector and world-class universities to neighborhood businesses on Bowdoin Street.

In 2009, it was the neighborhoods that the mayor said were stronger than ever, if measured by diversity and population growth. If the state of the city was strong, it was, as the mayor put it, because of being in the hands of Boston residents. In other words, the road to recovery would have to include sacrifices, such as the mayor’s proposal for a one-year wage freeze for city workers with union contracts.

The crowd hadn’t even left Faneuil Hall when the wage freeze started taking some hits. As one member of the audience pointed out, there was no wage freeze for some of the elected officials listening to the speech in the front rows. But supporters of the idea can argue a wage freeze looks much more acceptable to people in the private or non-profit sector who might feel lucky if they still have a job.

By the mayor’s estimate, the wage freeze could shrink an expected budget shortfall of $140 million by $55 million. But union leaders could argue that opening up contracts for one revision could lead to more, and also shave money off workers’ pensions.

City Councilor Michael Flaherty, who would later announce his candidacy for mayor, responded by calling for cuts in unspecified wasteful programs, and for getting rid of all consultants.

“Some people will lose their jobs,” Flaherty said in a statement right after the address on January 13, making his own call for Boston to be a “national leader in lean budgeting.”

The more waste cut from the budget, the smaller the shortfall, and the less need there would be for concessions from unions. Over the past several weeks, the mayor’s administration had been sending signals about possible budget cuts in the Police and School Departments. The signals have been mixed and the message is being challenged. But, outside this year's address at Faneuil Hall, the message was reinforced. Instead of police or firefighters demonstrating over contract demands, there was a show of concern over budget cuts from a group of high school students.

The wage freeze proposal got more support from another councilor said to be considering a run for Mayor, Sam Yoon. He favors a freeze for workers making at least $100,000 a year. City Council President Mike Ross called the wage freeze “a good idea worthy of serious consideration,” but less than a complete solution to the city’s budget gap.

Union leaders can also argue the wage problem is really a revenue problem that can be solved with some help from the state. That was the hint when the president of the Boston Teachers Union, Richard Stutman, responded to the mayor’s speech by issuing a statement pledging support for helping the city get powers to collect more revenue from local option taxes, most likely on rooms or meals.

In the last economic downturn, around 2003, the mayor trimmed the city payroll with the aid of early retirement incentives. These made it possible to avoid layoffs in large numbers, and the incentives could, for example, protect the jobs of young, motivated teachers without tenure—at the expense of more experienced teachers, who also might be more inclined to move on.

But, as the president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Sam Tyler points out, the incentives can take a disproportionate toll on certain departments, along with increasing the city’s pension liability. For those reasons, he says the city “should not even consider” the incentives this time around. But Tyler suggested it might be a good idea to encourage an exit by employees already eligible for retirement.

So, if the unions agreed to a wage freeze, and the city had new sources of revenue, would that close the budget gap?

“I don’t say it would prevent any kind of employee reductions,” said Tyler, “but significant cutbacks this year would not be necessary.”

Local option taxes have support from Governor Deval Patrick, but Tyler notes, even if there were to be agreement from the state legislature, and enactment at the local level, little if any of the money would be available before the new fiscal year at the beginning of July. And, based on the real estate market at the beginning of 2009, it’s expected the burden of any increase in property taxes next year would fall more heavily on homeowners.

One other departure from last year’s state of the city address was the lack of any talk about the potential School Dept. savings from a reduction in busing. Last year, the mayor said busing costs would increase 50% in five years—by $20 million, but this year’s speech came after months of declining gasoline prices.

Last year’s speech also mentioned an expansion of ties between schools, libraries and community centers that could mean less reliance on busing for equal access to quality education. The mayor called the strategy “Community Learning,” and he even referred to it as the “next Boston Miracle.” In the 2009 speech, the mayor mentioned several achievements and improvements, along with the promise of a better future, but there was no miracle.

Gun in School Update

2008-11-21T16:29:00.002-05:00

A judge in West Roxbury District Court has set bail for Walter West, Jr. at $100,000 and revoked his open bail in connection with another case.

“The defendant had a cocked and loaded 9mm handgun inside a school,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley. “With rounds in the chamber and the magazine, it presented an extremely dangerous situation in a building full of innocents.”

Also arraigned in connection with the disturbance yesterday morning at Boston English High School were two juveniles and two other 17 year-olds from Dorchester. The three older defendants will have to wear a global position monitoring system and observe an 8 p.m. curfew.

In a statement issued after the arraignment, Conley also said, “A case like this should be chilling to every parent and every person in the Commonwealth who cares for children’s safety, no matter where those children live or go to school.”

Teen with Gun Arrested at Boston English

2008-11-20T17:50:00.006-05:00

A teenager with a firearm was arrested this morning at Boston English High School in Jamaica Plain.

Seventeen year-old Walter West of Dorchester is being charged with unlawful possession of a gun and ammunition, unlawful possession of a gun on school property, resisting arrest and trespassing. Also arrested for trespassing were two other 17 year-olds from Dorchester, Damien Oliver and Tyrone Rutledge, along with two juveniles.

Boston Police say the arrests followed a disturbance at the school that was reported around 9 a.m. Authorities say Oliver was the only one of the teens arrested who is a student at Boston English.

According to police, one of the teens was “focused on and reaching for” a backpack that, as it turned out, contained a loaded firearm.

Prosecutors say it was Oliver who let the other teens into the school through a side door. The chief communications officer for the Boston School Dept., Christopher Horan, says the door can only be opened from the inside, and he says students who come in through the regular entrance are randomly searched for weapons with a metal detecting wand.

Once the intruders were in the building, said Horan, they were quickly recognized as trespassers.

“It certainly is troubling,” he said, “but we were all impressed how quickly and appropriately the school responded.”

Creating New Hotspots for Voter Turnout

2008-11-13T17:28:00.012-05:00

The following post was published as an article in the Dorchester Reporter.

There were only two people standing on the traffic island in middle of Blue Hill Avenue with an Obama-Biden sign, but the horns could be heard for several blocks around.

It was election day in Grove Hall.

Propping up the blue sign were the founder of the local radio station, TOUCH FM 106.1, Charles Clemons, and the executive director of the Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corp., Sister Virginia Morrison. Each of them held the sign with one hand and waved at the traffic with the other. And whenever they waved, someone answered with a triumphant honk.

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” Morrison exulted.

One reason to exult was the commanding vote for her candidate. Another was the increase in the Grove Hall vote count. In one of the areas near the same intersection, Ward 14, Precinct 1, the number of votes cast last Tuesday had risen over the figure for the 2000 presidential election—the last to fill a vacancy in the White House—by 66%. Since 1996, the presidential year count had increased by 80%.

What happened last week in Grove Hall was happening in several areas around the city where normal turnouts used to run lower than average. Most of these were areas where voters were predominantly people of color—from Asian-American in Chinatown to Latinos around Jamaica Plain’s Hyde Square, along parts of Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester dominated by African Americans and other immigrants, whether from Haiti, Vietnam, or Cape Verde.

“People were engaged in this election,” Mayor Thomas Menino told Neighborhood Network News, “and they wanted to make changes, but also they had a candidate they believed in. That’s why we had such a huge turnout in the City of Boston.”

While votes cast in this year’s election around the country had increased over November, 2004 by no more than 5%, the increase in Boston was slightly short of 15%.

Compared with the election in November, 2000, the number of people voting in Boston last Tuesday had increased by 17.75%--despite an increase in the number of eligible people who didn’t vote. There were more votes cast in almost every ward. But one area traditionally known for high totals—Ward 20 (West Roxbury and Roslindale)—had an increase of less than 6% over the figures for the last two presidential elections.

At the other end of the chart were neighborhoods with very sharp increases, such as Chinatown (Ward 3, Precinct 8), with almost 96% over the total for 2000, and Dorchester’s Ward 15 (Fields Corner/Bowdoin-Geneva/Meetinghouse Hill) at more than 58%. Close behind was Ward 14 (Grove Hall/Four Corners/Franklin Field/Wellington Hill), with an increase over 2000 by more than 57%. Compared with November, 2000, vote totals for Roxbury wards increased anywhere from 41% to as much as 72%.

Less dramatic increases in the same areas had been seen in other recent elections, especially the one in November, 2006, when Deval Patrick became the first person of color to be elected Governor of Massachusetts. Vote totals in the same parts of the city also showed a higher percentage gain in city elections for 2003 and 2005, though not for 2007.

“So we’re seeing an excitement around getting civically engaged that, to a large degree we lost,” the deputy director of MassVOTE, David Ortiz, said in an interview last week on Neighborhood Network News. “We’ve always talked about the possibility of trying to get a holiday to happen on election day, and I have to say that I think everyone would agree that it seemed as though this election was a holiday. People were celebrating like it was the Fourth of July.”

Among the neighborhoods where voters came out early in large numbers was Chinatown.

“People were lined up before 7 a.m. when the polls opened,” said the executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, Lydia Lowe. “The line was out to the end of the street.” To accommodate elderly voters waiting in line, she added, community activists even provided chairs.

Lowe acknowledges that some of the neighborhood’s increase in voters results from new housing developments, with many newer non-Chinese residents from Chinatown proper and the adjoining Leather District.

But Lowe says the turnout has also been increased by voter workshops that drew “several hundred” residents, mainly Chinese-speaking. Under an agreement with the US Dept. of Justice, those voters could use ballots almost entirely in Chinese, except for the names of candidates. In the workshops, the candidates’ names were transliterated into Chinese characters.

Lowe says what’s gained in translation is that immigrant voters who have become US citizens feel more competent to decide elections.

“It’s a sense of empowerment,” she said. “Since Chinatown’s vote has increased over the past ten years, politicians pay attention to Chinatown.”

Novel grassroots campaigns without explicit connection to candidates were going on in other parts of the city as well. In Jamaica Plain, teens in the Hyde Square Task Force tried to reach voters through phone banks and house calls. The message was that a “No” vote on Question 1 (the proposed abolition of the state income tax) was a vote for their future.

Ortiz says that kind of community networking is a two-way street, channeling the community’s support for potential candidates, and the candidates’ support for needs in the community.

“These community-based organizations can now say they have a base—they have a base of voters—in the sense of a community-based organization,” he said. “They will try to use that base to get them involved in the issues, get them involved in services that they have, or try to get them to become volunteers.”

Between November, 2000 and last Tuesday, the number of people voting in one area around Hyde Square (Ward 10, Precinct 6) increased by almost 62%. Over the same period, the number of registered voters in the precinct had risen by 90%.

And Ortiz sees a parallel between turnout and registration campaigns in Boston and the widespread use of grassroots volunteers in campaign Obama’s campaign around the country.

“I think what candidates have done,” he said, “is they’ve learned from organizations like MassVOTE that, if you try an organic approach, more holistic approach, an approach that’s sort of led from the bottom-up, that folks want to get more involved, that there’s more motivation, and because of that, more participation. And I think that more candidates are starting to see that and starting to mimic that model.”

Among those candidates Ortiz includes two getting off to a head start on campaigns for City Councillor at Large—Felix G. Arroyo and Jean Claude Sanon.

Also taking note of the grassroots factor is Sam Yoon, a City Councillor at Large who’s reportedly raising money for a possible attempt at higher office.

“A lot of these groups penetrated parts of the community that are harder to reach for either (presidential) campaign,” said Yoon.

While there was little doubt who would carry the state for President, Yoon said areas with the largest increase in votes were drawn by the urge to support a candidate—and to participate.

“Obama inspired that,” said Yoon. “His message inspired that kind of participation—that feeling that everyone mattered, no matter what their race, creed, or community.”

And Yoon says that meant getting voters to think, not as isolated individuals acting only on self-interest, but as people connected to other people.

“This is important in a democracy,” he said, “that we feel that connectedness to each other.”

But last year’s election for City Council showed that voter participation can also sharply decrease. Because this was an off-year election, with no race for mayor, a relatively low turnout had been expected. As it happened, there were barely enough at-large candidates to require a preliminary September election throughout the city, and even fewer candidates with competitive campaigns.

When the City Council and Mayor Menino passed a special measure to skip the preliminary election for Council at-large, there was little opposition, even from grassroots organizations. When the single at-large election took place in November, the number of voters plummeted, in some areas below the levels for 1999. The turnout figure was 13.59%.

Yoon was quick to note that one difference between last year and this year was the change in candidates.

“Now that these folks have been engaged,” said Yoon, “it’s up to us to keep them engaged in the political process.”

And Ortiz says there should be a carry-over of newly-engaged voters in years ahead.

“I think what’s left over will come with the face of those that are 18 to 29, because they were the ones that really turned out this year,” said Ortiz. “What we saw was a younger generation of voters that we’ve never seen before, which is completely different from the past, when it was older folk that were actually going out to vote in large numbers.”

*****

After the article was published, Sister Virgina Morrison conveyed some of her thoughts on the election:

Yes, there was an organized effort to get out the vote and then there was the community utilizing every person, place, or thing to inform our community about the power and significance of their vote. There also was a sense of pride. Many saw hope. President-elect Obama and the soon-to-be 1st lady of these United States represent a sense of family and morality that has been lost. Two very educated, bright, and articulate husband and wife from humble beginnings aspiring to be president of what most see as the most powerful country in the world are worth helping to succeed.

Obviously, when the politicians see the potential votership they will pay attention to the needs and wants of a potentially very large constituency, which should translate into more services, etc. for any given community.

I feel, once the people see what their vote can do and has done, they will be married to the political system. They understand how important it is to be well informed, and how important it is for the candidate to be connected to the mainstream and grassroots. They now know what is expected from them and what they should expect from local and national politicians.

Boston Vote Strength Comparison

2008-11-06T12:29:00.011-05:00

The following table shows how this year's presidential election vote cast in Boston compares with figures from the three previous presidential elections. For the most part, the figures show more relative gains in areas dominated by people of color--Chinatown, Roxbury, Mattapan, and parts of Dorchester.

Compared with the election of November, 2004, the number of registered voters in Boston had risen by 26.7% to 380,881. Despite the increase in the number of votes cast, there was also an increase in the number of eligible persons who didn’t vote. That’s why this year’s voter turnout (61.57%) was lower than the figure four years ago (68.61%).

For video reports on election day in Boston and reaction in Dudley Square the morning after the election, go to NNNonline.

Wilkerson, Church Leaders Discuss Exit

2008-10-31T16:07:00.006-05:00

The exit strategy for State Senator Dianne Wilkerson will play out longer than was expected by even some of the closest supporters in her community.

It was reported this morning that church leaders in the Ten Point Coalition and Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston would follow the lead of the state senate and ask for Wilkerson’s resignation. But, before their scheduled announcement at the Charles Street AME Church in Roxbury, Wilkerson arrived there to meet them for what her campaign manager, Boyce Slayman, called a conversation that “had to happen.”

When the announcement took place shortly before noon, it was Wilkerson who broke the news by saying she would suspend the sticker campaign she began after losing the Democratic primary September 16 to challenger Sonia Chang-Díaz. And Wilkerson said she would make an announcement concerning the remainder of her current term after the final election, on Wednesday, November 5.

Slayman said the talks before the announcement touched on Wilkerson’s exit strategy and “what could or could not be said legally” due to corruption charges by the US Attorney Michael Sullivan. After the talks, the announcement was made with Wilkerson and the church leaders standing together.

“We’re simply standing with the senator today, recognizing that she is a part of our community. We dearly love her and will continue to pray for her,” said the president of the Black Ministerial Alliance, Bishop Gilbert Thompson.

The chairman of the Ten Point Coalition, Rev. Ray Hammond, said church leaders would also “continue to work to see that, in fact, what is right is done.”

Slayman said Wilkerson’s decision to suspend her campaign was “in large part, primarily for the community,” but that a “significant consideration” was the well-being of her family.

“The press attention to the accusation by the US Attorney caused a lot of consternation within the community,” said Slayman, “and there is also the consideration that she has gotten a lot of calls—mostly in support, but we’ve also gotten a few critical calls.”

Even before yesterday’s vote in the senate—and its seconding by Governor Patrick, the black community’s weekly newspaper, the Bay State Banner, had withdrawn its endorsement of Wilkerson’s re-election. But Slayman says the district would suffer if Wilkerson were to resign before a new senator takes office.

“One of the stories that’s beginning to be told even at the end of this campaign are the contributions she’s made to this community, representing people, working with mothers of children who’ve been murdered, getting people who’ve been sentenced to prison wrongly some compensation,” said Slayman. “The things she’s done took a real strong person to do, and the concern is that the person on the ballot now, if they have the will to do that, it would just take so much time to learn the system and to gain the influence to make the difference, and to really learn the constituency—she hasn’t lived in this community, hasn’t invested very much time here. And so the concern is that the community needs government more than most other senate districts in the state.”

Later this afternoon, Chang-Díaz appealed to Wilkerson supporters in the senate district for their partnership and help.

In a statement issued by her campaign, Chang-Díaz said, “I will go to the mat for the constituents of the Second Suffolk every day on the issues affecting our families the most—whether it's improving our public schools, stemming youth violence, tackling CORI reform, or fighting for affordable housing. We all know solutions won't happen overnight, but I can tell you I will work, from Day One, to build the coalitions both in- and outside the State House necessary to pass the legislation we need.”

The same afternoon, Governor Patrick announced formation of a new bipartisan task force on ethics reform. The task force would be headed by the governor’s chief legal counsel, Ben Clements, a former federal prosecutor who worked four years in the Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit. The move follows developments in the Wilkerson case, but also investigations of lobbying by associates of House Speaker Sal DiMasi.

FBI Pictures Tell Story: Senator for Sale

2008-10-29T11:40:00.008-05:00

On the FBI’s undercover video, it wasn’t the senate district that was for sale, but the senator herself.

After losing a tight Democratic primary race September 16, Dianne Wilkerson accused contributors to challenger Sonia Chang Díaz of buying a seat that belonged to the people of the Second Suffolk District. But in the eye of an undercover camera, it was Wilkerson who was the accused, allegedly bought with a cash bribe stashed into her brassiere. For people accustomed to seeing the senator in the center of a large gathering, the shots looked off-angle and even truncated, as if the familiar public figure had been deconstructed.

The affidavit filed with the FBI’s criminal complaint against Wilkerson says she took $23,500 in cash bribes over a period of 18 months. The money was supposedly for help with securing a liquor license and development rights along Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury.

Helping to get the license could just as well have been part of a state senator’s job: pushing for one more step on the long road to realizing the Crosstown area’s potential for economic growth. In other words, a case of “Dianne delivers,” to use the name of the website for Wilkerson’s most recent campaign.

But, as the FBI alleges, the liquor license was arranged after Wilkerson had used her power as a senator to hold up measures affecting the Boston Licensing Board and the 2007 City Council election. And the FBI said Wilkerson tried to provide exclusive development rights on a piece of state-owned land that would normally be awarded after a process of public bidding and review. Without that process, it would be more difficult to know whether the rights were given to the best possible development deal for the state and the community.

According to the FBI, Wilkerson helped secure a partial victory for the applicant—the FBI’s “cooperating witness” —trying to open a dinner club at Crosstown Center. After denying the initial application, the Boston Licensing Board approved some revisions and gave permission to serve beer, wine and cordials. Before that happened, Wilkerson allegedly held up state legislation to give board members a pay raise. Was the board’s later decision influenced by the actions of Wilkerson? The FBI makes it seem this could have been the case. The board has no comment.

Wilkerson also allegedly put pressure on the City Council to help with the license approval, and to increase the supply of new licenses. One of these would potentially benefit the “cooperating witness,” since it would be much less expensive than the cost of getting a license the conventional way, by transfer from another location. And the FBI said five of the coveted licenses were to be set aside for Roxbury and controlled by Wilkerson.

To get cooperation from the City Council, the FBI says Wilkerson threatened to hold up a home rule measure that would have made it possible to skip the preliminary election in September of 2007 for city councilors at large. With only nine at-large candidates on the ballot, and fewer who were considered competitive, supporters justified the measure as a way to save money. The measure eventually passed, and in the final election, voter turnout was 13.59%, little more than half the figure for the two previous elections for city council alone.

If there had been no more than eight candidates to begin with, the preliminary election would have been skipped automatically. It’s hard to prove the lack of a preliminary made much difference in the outcome, though some have blamed it for a reducing public awareness and voter interest.

To go by the FBI account, while the City Council, Mayor Thomas Menino, and the Boston Licensing Board delivered for Wilkerson, there’s no accusation they did so with any knowledge of cash payments from a special interest. To the extent they helped with the license application and the overall supply of licenses, the affidavit doesn’t rule out the motives of promoting economic development and political cooperation.

Former City Councilor Lawrence DiCara says the councilors probably saw their dealings with Wilkerson as horse-trading.

“People do horse-trading,” he said. “That’s what politics is all about.”

If what gets traded benefits the district, or even special interests whose campaign contributions are made legally, it’s quite possible there’s no harm done. DiCara even recalled securing a license at a cost of $1.00 for a Sons of Italy lodge in Roslindale founded by his grandfather.

But if the quid pro quo also includes what the FBI says it captured on video and audio, the story changes.

“If I had done someone a good deed,” said DiCara, “and if I had done any horse-trading and found they were getting bags of money on the side, I would be embarrassed and offended.”

Late Tuesday afternoon, City Council President Maureen Feeney issued a statement that she had met earlier in the day with the FBI and the Boston Police Department, and that she was cooperating in the ongoing investigation.

“This is a disappointing day for all of us who are involved in public service,” she said. “The people are right to expect a higher standard.”

Another interpretation, by one of Wilkerson’s long-time supporters, Louis Elisa, is that there was a double standard: going after Wilkerson at a time when the FBI’s ability to go after criminal activity such as mortgage fraud had been diminished. And Elisa argues enforcement against corruption falls disproportionately on politicians of color.

While critics blame Wilkerson’s ethical problems on her character, Elisa says they are “a continuing pattern of trying to stop her from representing the community she lives in.”

As the affidavit notes, Wilkerson had supported the alcoholic beverages application before there was any question of a payoff. It was only after the initial application was denied that the “cooperating witness” offered the bribe, acting “at the direction of the FBI.” This happened, according to the affidavit, after the witness had told the FBI Wilkerson “routinely took cash payments from constituents and others having business before the Senate.”

If Wilkerson was baited, she still could have refused an illegal payoff. Even if the decision to lay the bait stems from a double standard or even from false accusations, any political weakness or financial strain could have made the temptation harder to resist. As Elisa put it, “It’s like offering bread to someone who’s hungry.”

Elisa was among the supporters at the meeting September 22, when Wilkerson announced she would try to hold on to her seat by running a sticker campaign in November. Two nights after the meeting, the FBI says Wilkerson spoke with an undercover informant about the campaign and legislation for development rights, and asked for $10,000.

Ten days later, according to the FBI, Wilkerson met the informant at Ali’s Roti Wraps and Take Out Restaurant on Tremont Street in Roxbury. The affidavit says, after telling him she filed the bill for the development rights, she took ninety $100 bills and twenty $50 bills and placed them in a manila folder. It was the last payment.

But yesterday’s events have changed the mind of at least one stalwart supporter, the most prominent newspaper in Boston’s black community, the Bay State Banner. In an editorial titled “End of an era,” the Banner weighs Wilkerson’s past accomplishments against the charges, the images in the media and the rest of the FBI’s evidence. “It is evident,” says the editorial, “that Wilkerson has breached the public trust.”