Condo Prices Still Lag in Housing Rebound

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

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

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 shot 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 in a tightly defined area 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 cohabitative 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

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

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

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

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.