The East Boston Times-Free Press reports the mayor is vowing to go ahead with the $11.3-million project even without the $8-million state grant the city had applied for, but probably won't get.
Last year, BPL trustees had targeted the Orient Heights branch for closure, in part on the assumption the city would build an entirely new branch to replace the tiny building and the neighborhood's other branch.
In one of its periodic overviews of the eternal debate over neighborhood boundaries today, the Globe quotes Tom Menino as referring to "a hogmosh of undefined lines."
The Globe reports a planned 47-story addition to Copley Place has critics roiling.
Mike Ball, himself an avid bicylist, ponders the ramifications of a City Hall statement that Hizzona Himself wants bicyclists to stop for red lights and wonders if the new enforcement will also involve going after signal-disregarding motorists as well:
Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts explains why she's proud of Tom Menino:
Mayor Menino deserves credit for staying true to Boston's reputation as a city that welcomes newcomers and citizens alike, while focusing on community-based policing as the best way to keep our streets safe. Let's hope that the Mayor continues to be smart on public safety and makes a final decision to scrap S-Comm for good.
Police supt. on 102 Blue Hill Ave.: "Something no 12-year-old should have to experience."
A day after police and inspectors swooped down on a Blue Hill Avenue building nearby residents called a criminal warren, city councilors and lawyers began hammering out an ordinance for cracking down on owners of troubled apartments - including a provision that would require licensing for landlords with repeat offenses.
Operation Kickstand comes the day after a 4-year-old was shot in Harambee Park by somebody who then used a motorized dirt bike to escape.
Initially, Boston Police and city transportation workers are being directed to tow illegal dirt bikes, specifically ones without registration, being driven in parks and being driven by drunks or other reckless people. However, Mayor Tom Menino says he will file a home-rule petition with the state legislature for permission to ban the vehicles completely from city streets:
Mayor Mumbles is so afraid of major events in "his" city. Loves that the Red Sox and Celtics won their recent titles on the road. No worry about the Pats as the Super Bowl will never come to Mass. Remember the great job he did with the Democratic Convention a few years back? He closed the city, businesses went broke and Dems vowed never again to hold the event in Boston.
The last big Red Sox game in Boston, his police panicked and shot and killed a collage kid with a "non lethal" weapon.
WBUR reports the mayor will ask the FCC for the right to tell Comcast what they can do with their rates. He says Comcast has a monopoly in Boston because RCN is an also ran and Verizon refuses to light up Boston for FiOS (and why would that be?).
The Globe reports on a compact to be announced today between the city and publicly funded but privately run charter schools. In exchange for consideration on reusing closed public-school buildings, the charter schools will focus their student recruitment on the geographic area around them, in an attempt to cut the city's school-bus costs.
It began, John Pepper says, with a phone call Wednesday from City Hall: Could one of his Boloco restaurants supply burritos for a major announcement the mayor wold be making in front of City Hall on Thursday?
Here's hoping they got a permit from ISD - we wouldn't want children scarred for life seeing the Easter Bunny being tossed into the back of a cruiser.
The hunt is this Saturday at 10 a.m. in Adams Park. Video by RoslindaleVillage.
John Pepper, founder of the Boloco chain, is ripping into the city on Twitter tonight for what happened with the burritos the mayor's office promised bicyclists who showed up at the Hubway bike-rental announcement in front of City Hall today:
City of Boston threatened 2 shut down fed st Boloco b/c City of Boston didn't pull food permit for their own event. We donated 200 burritos.
Joseph Gillespie, president of the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, charges he's been passed over for promotion several times now because he threatened to lead a boycott of the 2004 Democratic National Convention and because he convinced his union to support Michael Flaherty in the 2009 election for mayor.
The Herald seems to have captured Menino saying the Hole can stay a hole until those goddamn New Yorkers learn Boston means business. Or something:
People say to me: 'Oh, you've got a hole there - so what! The hole is going to be there until those folks from New York understand we in Boston know how to do development. And just because they can't get development done, that's not my fault.
Robert Ambrogi reports a Globe reporter who wrote about a performer upset over restrictions on his performance space at Faneuil Hall can't be forced to testify in his lawsuit against the city.
Bruce Peck, who performed as one of those painted mime-ish people, sued Boston in federal court in 2009 after Tom Menino ordered restrictions to ease the noise he said he heard way up in his fifth-floor City Hall office.
The Ferdinand building. Photo copyright Paul Keleher.
Mayor Tom Menino today proposed moving Boston Public Schools headquarters from Court Street downtown to the long closed Ferdinand building in Dudley Square, as part of an effort to revitalize the square and consolidate city offices (he's also proposing moving some other city agencies to Court Street and the Boston Fire Department to existing city offices at 1010 Mass. Ave.). Menino would issue bonds to pay for the estimated $115-million cost of renovating the Ferdinand building, which the city has owned for several years now.
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