Brownfield’s of Dreams

Bill and Paulie do a great job on this topic so I’ll defer to them but as I watched the first half of the City Council meeting last night I was shocked at how summarily a non no-lo housing project was dismissed by the Mayor and a tardy City Councilor. Let me be clear on the fact that I know nothing of the agreement on Green Hill Park and that the obstacles for putting an Innovation Center there may be too great to overcome, but for the Mayor to essentially invite lawsuits and the Councilor to go on the record against it (an quite frankly insult a local businessman) without any discussions taking place is absurd and shows a complete lack of leadership. I have to wonder what the response would have been if the $15 million federally funded project were another no-lo income housing project. The ironic thing is that the same City Councilor actually mentioned the Winn project in the old Chevalier building and his only concern was that there wasn’t any retail space on the first floor. I guess he deserves some credit, because I think that’s the only mention I’ve heard of one of these projects on the Council floor. We certainly have an “if we build it they will come mentality” in this city, we just need to do a better job of prioritizing the “it” and the “they”. It’s time for some leadership on issues like these.

Ms. Remembering

Is there anyone on the planet that believes Nancy Pelosi is telling the truth about what she knew about the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques being used after 9/11? I can certainly understand how she might be conflicted about the use of these techniques but come on, hasn’t she watched Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, et al. Substitute H.G.H. for E.I.T.’s and she might as well have been on Sports Center instead of C-Span trying to explain to us how she just bench pressed Barney Frank. Once again one of our elected officials has the opportunity to not treat us like dopes and once again they put politics over the truth.

Part Time Help Wanted

I know you can’t always believe what you read and there are good and hard working legislators in Massachusetts, but some the stuff that takes place on Beacon Hill is an absolute slap in the face. Day after day we’re bombarded with how terrible things are in the state and that we are going to have to either choose between paying higher taxes and fees and or living with less services (some more essential than others). It would be nice to know this fiscal crisis has consumed more than 32 hours of our state legislatures attention over the last 4 ½ months. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve spent more time than that balancing the checkbook. For arguments sake, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say the balance of their time was spent in their districts talking with their constituents (still waiting for my call). Wouldn’t they then clearly understand that most of us don’t buy the premise of choosing between more taxes and/or less services, that in fact we want to see real changes like pension reform, transportation reform, and elimination of the 2000+ new positions the Patrick administration has created since it came into office to name a few. Complicated issues for certain that need to be addressed and most certainly will require more than 32 hours of deliberation over a 4 ½ month period. But we’re not hearing about any of that. What we are hearing is that we can’t expect to continue to receive what we have been without paying more for it. So what are we to take from all this? They aren’t listening, they aren’t serious about real reform, and tax and spend is alive and well. Then again, Election Day is only 172 days away.