Marty Walz

Feeneyan raid

adamg — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:46:12 +0000

Gin Dumcius tweets that state Rep. Marty Walz (D-Back Bay) is filing legislation that would bar city and town clerks from making any money from performing marriages either during work time or in their offices even after hours.

Gee, what did a former city councilor expected to become Boston city clerk tomorrow do to annoy Walz so much that she not only files legislation but issues a press release that ends like this?

The Boston City Council is expected to select a new City Clerk on Wednesday, December 21. "I am announcing this legislation today so the new clerk knows that the days of using the Clerk's office as a private for-profit wedding chapel are numbered," Rep. Walz concluded.

State rep demands revocation of liquor license for Back Bay restaurant that's sat unopened for more than a decade

adamg — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:16:32 +0000

Restaurant owner Joe Cimino asked the Boston Licensing Board today for six to nine more months to get his Saratoga restaurant at 41 Fairfield open, but state Rep. Marty Walz told the board enough's enough and it's time to let somebody else have a crack at the restaurant's license.

Walz said it's unfortunate Cimino has run into a never-ending series of problems related to the building's age, historic nature and simple existence in the Back Bay - from wiring to handicap access to groundwater concerns - but said the six years he's had, coupled with the six years she says the previous owner didn't use the license, has exhausted the neighborhood's and the board's patience.

Boston's trash emergency

adamg — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:41:19 +0000

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports several state reps are shepherding an "emergency" bill that would, immediately on passage, let Boston and other communities ban overnight commercial trash pickups. Legislators consider the ide at a hearing on Oct. 18 at the State House, Room A-1, starting at 10 a.m.

The proposal, backed by, among others, Marty Walz (D-Back Bay) and Aaron Michlewitz, would dovetail with an effort by city councilors Felix Arroyo and Mike Ross to limit commercial pickups because of noise complaints in neighborhoods such as the North End, downtown and the Back Bay. Current state law prohibits such bans.

Can you have a debate where you hope both sides lose?

adamg — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:53:45 +0000

On the one hand, you have Back Bay nagtivists who haven't liked anything proposed for their neighborhood since 1871. On the other hand, you have a developer telling them they have to put up with a design totally at odds with the surrounding architecture, unless they want "a cartoon" of a building. At issue: What should replace the old WEIU building on Boylston Street.

Jay Fitzgerald ponders the role in all this of state Rep. Marty Walz, who is torn between the Scylla of outraged constituents and the Charybdis of monied developers.