City getting ready to hand Boston Common over to a private group?

He's the guy who keeps pushing it.

The little shit thinks Boston Common and the surrounding area are there for the express purposes of being Kershawland; he owns Cheers, 75 Chestnut, Hampshire House, etc....and the frog pond, which is run by a tax shelterfoundation of his. His "foundation" charges a "management fee" of $88,000, which is paid to one of his restaurants.

The Boys and Girls clubs offered $45k more to the city to run the place, but supposedly because Kershaw's foundation had put money into repairs (as would be expected of anyone running the place) he was given the contract to continue running it (and continuing to collect his $88k fee, which means he really only "paid" the city about $2k.)

Basically, he wants to put a rich-snob restaurant on the Common; it's the ultimate prize for him. It'll probably be as similarly a sweet deal as the Frog Pond, which costs him $1/year to lease and has turned a profit almost every year he's been there, thanks largely in part due to the underage student labor.

What would come next? Selling the BPL?

Well B&N could buy it and it could be known as the Barnes&Noble Paying Library no letters need to be changed in BP. Your library card would become a charge card.

Let's sell the BPL...no wait, I mean, I will absolutely organize and donate in opposition to anyone who would be willing to privatize either the Common or Public Garden.

The Public Garden, of course, being partly administered by a non-profit private entity.

The City could easily put language in a "concession agreement" that would require certain areas of the common remain "designated public fora" where 1st Amendment activity would be expressly permitted (with the usual, LAWFUL, time, place and manner restrictions). You could do that and still get Post Office Square type maintenance and attention.

Oh boy. "Free Speech Zones." They work so well.

The thing about the Boston Common is that it has always been open to the people for airing their grievances, issues or opinions. No matter where, no matter what. I have an old book about Boston printed in the early 50s, and it contains this little piece of doggerel:

The Common belongs to the People.
The People -- that means you!
You can stand on a chair
And find fault with the Mayor
And nobody minds that you do.

Now, admittedly, the poem also mentions that on the Common you can "sleep on the lawn / from dusk until dawn" and that's not quite the case nowadays. But vagrancy and exercising one's right to free speech are completely different concepts and should not be lumped together in the same category.

Designating certain spots as "public fora" and requiring permits, paperwork, bureaucratic froo-frah, well, takes the Common away from The People. All you should need to be able to express your views publically is a soapbox, literal or metaphoric, and some views to express. Irresponsible behavior, of course, is not looked kindly upon, and if you do end up crossing the line and "disturbing the peace", then you have some stuff to answer to.

And what spots would be designated, anyway? The circular plaza around the statues, I hope. That unused gazebo? Where? The answer should be simple: Everywhere.

This is (the oldest?) site in America designated for exercise of free speech, and we must not allow that right to be taken away from us. Let the Public Garden have the rules, the Stay Off The Grass signs, the decorum. Let the People have the Common and enjoy the freedom and benefits that it offers.

Keeping it well-maintained, now, that's another story entirely, but certainly one can have both here.

This is all about banning the pot rally. Menino, being a fascist, has tried to shut it, and any other spontaneous free expression in this city, down.

Secondary objective is probably to get rid of the homeless tribes and Spare Change guy.

Its kid of funny that Menino is the voice of reason in this. I also agree that a dog run area would be nice, as Im sure it must be hard to find a nice place to take your dog in the city. Other then that they should just leave the park be and use that group Menino mentioned to raise more funds for the park and just do some general upkeep. That park doesnt need all of that glitz and glamour, its nice the way it is, they just need to CLEAN AND FIX it more often. Sometimes less is more, and in the case of the common its definitly true.

The city has two large public areas. One, in my opinion, is utterly hopeless and should be redone, and thats City Hall plaza. Maybe they should privatize the plaza, tear up the bricks, put in grass and trees and put a nice restaurant in the middle of the new park? I think city hall would look a lot less ugly if it was flanked by trees, benches, and a Tavern on the Greenesque place for people to gather and socialize.

Thanks for seeing it our way, hizzoner!

Besides, that's definitely not the spot that I thought they'd want to put the restaurant. Are these people out of touch? That corner is half a block from Pine Street and directly up against the graveyard. Who wants to eat food between the homeless and the dead? A block further down Tremont is also where the show Cops showed a bunch of drug busts in an alley a few years ago...I don't think it's really much better over there still. Just a dumb spot for a restaurant.