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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
 Posted - 04/14/2008 : 11:31:47 PM
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If you haven't caught it, I would suggest that you try to watch this month's Chamber Chatter on ECTV 3. Their guest this month for the entire program is Mayor DiMaria.
I haven't seen the whole program yet (missed some of the beginning) but, besides taking a shot at the blogs (hey, fair's fair) a few of the items that he discusses are the plans for the budget (trying to keep it flat even though costs are rising), beautifications efforts (might spur some discussion), a possibilty for the old high school and an update on Mr Thibeault's plans.
It is fairly current. I believe it was taped last Wednesday, the same day as meeting to discuss the disposition of the Devens School. I only saw a couple minutes of that meeting. I need to catch all of it too. The little bit of it that I saw indicated that it may have also veered off the track a little bit, so who knows what was discussed there as well.
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 07:32:02 AM
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| Thanks, I am going to try and catch Chamber Chatter today. I believe it is on Channel 3 @ 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM. Do you know what time the meeting about the old Devens School is on? |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 07:59:27 AM
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| I believe that the old Devens School meeting is scheduled for 2:00 PM today and tomorrow on ECTV 16. Don't know of any other airings but there may be some; it was on later (10ish) Sunday night when I caught the couple of minutes. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 09:58:36 AM
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| Chamber Chatter is not on channel 3 this morning. So, I don't know when it's on. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 11:12:17 AM
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Tetris,
Since I can't catch Chamber Chatter, could you please let us know what the update is on Mr Thibeault's plans? |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 11:45:54 AM
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I wont be able to watch it in the next few days but any info here would be helpful. I know the ECTV schedule below is not updated but it's usually on the same days.
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 4:48:38 PM
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I thought we'd all be able to watch it, so I didn't committed it to memory, but here goes. (All of my editoral comments are in parentheses; anything else that may seem like it are things that I actually recall the mayor saying.).
First, the shot at the blogs. The mayor said that if you read the blogs, you'd believe he was in Mr. Thibeault's back pocket. He's not. And as proof, he offered that the city pulled a $180,000 a year contract away from Wood Waste and the city is now doing this dumping somewhere cheaper.
Mr. Thibeault is looking to relocate Wood Waste to a long overdue enclosed facility on a two acre parcel near Costco. He is currently talking to the EPA and the DEP about it. (What about the Board of Health, since they would be the local permitting authority?). He spoke about Mr. Thibeault doing some dredging so that a deep water port could be possible on the site. He said that the Gateway Mall was interested in developing more retail space on the remainder of the space (Not sure if I heard that completely correctly.) He said that wouldn't be his first choice; he is more in favor of office space, which might be desirable because of the closeness to Boston without being in Boston. If there had to be retail, then he'd like to be something like the mixed use development down in Wellington Circle.
As far as the City Yards/Parkway goes, he wants to collect the $3.5 million from the sale of the City Yards. He didn't speak of any definite plans for the area. But he did mention that he has been approached with a number of different possibilities, including a hotel with a banquet facility.
That's all I can really recall. I've tried to do it justice but I can't guarantee that it is 100% accurate or if I've left out things that some of you may be interested in. It is a shame this program didn't get scheduled for more plays. Maybe this weekend. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 6:46:34 PM
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Thanks, Tetris.
I didn't see the program so I can't comment too much. I will say, "the long overdue enclosed facility" is located on Boston Street, not on lower Broadway. I am pretty sure the dredging has to do with Mr Thibeault wanting to transfer his waste by barge. Why would a development like Wellington Circle ever want to be located next to a waste transfer station? I would like to see that, I just can't see it happening.
So, it sounds like Mr Thibeault will be putting in his waste transfer station down on lower Broadway. Thanks, Mayor DeMaria, it's not what most people want. Including a lot of people who voted for you. |
Edited by - massdee on 04/15/2008 9:17:41 PM |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 8:12:47 PM
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I did get to watch the program on the "Deven's School Re-use."
The mayor said a developer, Mr Anthony Casano, put in a bid for $950,000.00 and that it had been accepted. Mayor DeMaria is in favor of turning the Deven's into housing for Seniors, fifty-five and plus. Mr Casano siad he would re-hab the building with 20 to 25 one bedroom apartments, with about 15 parking spaces. The rent will be $1200.00 to $1300.00
Some area residents urged Mayor DeMaria to make sure the city will not need to use the building as a future school due to the growth of our student population. Mayor DeMaria stated, he doesn't believe the schools need more space.
Another resident mentioned a Boys and Girls Club. The mayor mentioned that a YMCA will be going in at a different site but he was not ready to say where.
All and all a very interesting meeting with the area residents. |
Edited by - massdee on 04/15/2008 8:15:41 PM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 10:58:08 PM
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Massdee,
Did they mention the exact status of the transaction? I'm assuming that this is the same bid that Mayor Hanlon brought before the Common Council last summer. On August 8, 2007, there was a special meeting of the Common Council. Item #3 on that meeting's agenda was a proposed amendment to a prior city council order that allowed for the school to be put out to bid only. The amendment would have modified that order so that the school could be sold. The amendment got shot down because at that time because there was no concrete plan for what would be done with the school. I assuming that now that there is a plan and a neighborhood meeting has been held, this is where the process will begin again. Hard to believe that it took eight months to get to this point again; I'm sure that the change in administrations didn't help. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 11:18:24 PM
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Tetris,
The only status the mayor gave was the amount of the bid and that the bid was accepted. I don't know if it's the same bid as last year, I don't believe the mayor mentioned that. The mayor did say, "nothing is cast in stone." so I'm not sure why he had Mr Casano at the area meeting. The mayor said there will be more area meetings about the Deven's School.
The mayor also said there will be a re-use meeting for the old high school on April 17, 2008. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2008 : 08:47:32 AM
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| The issues with Thibeault is people did not want him to move his waste station. They wanted him to do what he was suppose to do years ago according to the board of health and for the residents in that area. I'm sure Stop & Shop has lost a lot of business for him. As for the city pulling it's contract from him...it's a line of crock. That's just so it "appears" the city is doing something but they are not. They are rewarding Thibeault and it only shows if you have the money, you can get away with anything, including messing with people's health. That facility on Boston Street should have been closed down but instead, we will make Thibeault a billionaire. As for the blogs, I find it a little too convenient about the mirror just going away. I think DeMaria knew who was behind it. Maybe I'll start The Mirror2. He cant stop me. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2008 : 09:08:47 AM
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Sorry I forgot to ask, Did the Mayor comment on the non-compliance of Thibeault and the fact that he deliberately shut off odor control for spite for the residents and their children to endure?
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Did he have any comment to Thibeaults actions to the health inspector?
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Is this what our BOA and CC are going to have to go through along with us as residents? We need to fight this and the Mayor BOLD FACE LIED to my face. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2008 : 8:19:28 PM
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Tails,
I guess the Common Council person from Ward 1 was correct. Mr Thibeault does have a site plan for lower Broadway. I guess this plan hasn't been shared with some of our other elected officials.
Something I don't understand is, why would the city have a $1800,000. contract with a company they are in litigation with. It makes no sense to me. How long has the city had this contract? Why wasn't it pulled a long time ago? |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2008 : 09:23:33 AM
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| According to this week's Leader-Herald, the Chamber Chatter show with Mayor DeMaria will indeed be aired this weekend. It will be on ECTV 3 on at Friday and Saturday at 10AM and 6PM; it will be on Sunday and Monday at 10AM and 10PM as well. The meeting about the Devens School reuse will continue to air throughout the next week at various times. Still have to catch that one myself. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 10:09:50 AM
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After watching the episode of Chamber Chatter featuring the mayor again last night, I believe that I did a fair job of recapping the segment of it devoted to Wood Waste. The only major point that I believe I missed was an admission by the mayor that Mr. Thibeault knows that he has a bad reputation and is doing what he can to fix that. As I was writing this, I realized that I don't think that the mayor ever refers to Mr. Thibeault by name during the discussion. I find that a little odd. If anybody happens to catch the show, let me know if I'm wrong.
I also got to watch the meeting about the reuse of the Devens School last night. I found it to be an interesting meeting. I missed the very beginning of the meeting (seems that I have a real problem with that) catching only the end of the mayor's opening remarks. Although the various opinions and sentiments expressed at the meeting were very interesting, what I found to be even more interesting was a little more subtle. It involves the process that probably should be followed any time that a piece of city property is sold. We'll get to that in a minute but let's look the actual Devens School situation first.
By watching the portion of the meeting that I saw, I didn't get a direct answer to the question that I posed to Massdee a few posts back, i.e., is this a continuation of the process started by Mayor Hanlon. However, since the developer mentioned that he had been working with Community Development for over a year on this, I'm going to assume that it is. I've already posted about some of the errors associated with that process and I think that I'll show that the process was probably even more flawed than I originally thought.
I've been following a little bit of a discussion on the almost defunct Mirror about the sale of the Devens School. One side of the argument was that the current administration is putting the cart in front of the horse on this issue; the other side of the argument is that the current administration is only playing the hand that was left for them by the prior administration (gee..a little heavy usage of metaphors today). At first, I came down solidly on the side of the later opinion; but, after watching this meeting, I now see that there is some validity to the first argument as well. My only difference with it at this point is who actually put the cart in front of the horse. I would assign the blame for that to the prior administration. Long time readers of the board know of my displeasure with the Hanlon administration. But this discussion isn't meant to pick on them only. The Ragucci administration apparently made the same error when they started the process to sell the old city yards.
Alderman DiPerri was actually the one that started the discussion of the process that should be followed when selling a piece of city property. He has some good experience in this area, having served on the surplus building committee. On hindsight, that's probably a committee that never should have been disbanded. His contention was that once a piece of city property is determined to be surplus, it should go out on an RFP (Request for Proposal). By doing this, the city gets some idea of what developers might be interested in bringing to the city. The various proposals can then be discussed to see what type of development, if any, would be supported by a majority of the residents. If a use is agreed upon, then the piece of property can go out to bid/sale for that specific use. At this point, potential developers would be assured of what they could build and only the details of their specific proposal would need to be worked out in order to get the sale approved. This approach makes a lot of sense. It may be time consuming process but, in the end, it would go a long way towards alleviating some of the issues that the city faces today.
Again, time to give Mayor DeMaria some credit. It appears that he using the process that is described above for determining what to do with the old High School. Also, he deserve some credit for picking up the issue of Devens School, with some self-admitted from prodding from Community Development and his Chief of Staff, and trying to follow some version of the above process in regards to it. He is trying to get this right even though he wasn't left in the best of positions on it.
Gee...praise for the mayor in two different posts in the last twelve hours. Somebody's gonna think that I'm ill or something. |
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