Mission Hill

A group of Mission Hill residents traveled to City Hall this morning to support a Dunkin' Donuts proposed for a long-vacant storefront across from the Roxbury Crossing T stop. But a neighborhood association and city officials oppose the shop because, they say, there are already enough places along Tremont Street to grab a cup of coffee.

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let Joel and Janel Silveira open a new Dunkin' Donuts at 1447 Tremont St., in a space that has been vacant for ten years. The couple already own a Dunkin' Donuts franchise at the other end of the hill, at 1631 Tremont St. in Brigham Circle.

Boston Police report arresting four 20something men - at least one a Northeastern student - on charges they tossed propane tanks, bottles and at least one chair on a police officer from a Parker Street roof early this morning.

Career criminal Cornell Smith is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow in Suffolk Superior Court on charges he murdered Rebecca Payne in her Parker Hill Avenue apartment in 2008 by shooting her in the knees and the chest.

Smith was indicted for Payne's murder in April, but local officials had to work with the federal prison system to fly him here for his arraignment.

Smith was on probation for another drug conviction at the time of Payne's murder - and is in a federal prison for his conviction for a drug sale made three months after her death.

A second man, Michael Balba of Billerica, allegedly drove Smith, his alleged crack dealer, to the murder scene. Although he is not charged with the murder itself, he was indicted on charges he lied about driving Smith to and from Mission Hill.

Innocent, etc.

A disgusted Riverway resident complains about a mattress that's been sitting in front of 376 Riverway for weeks now:

When is the city going to collect this? Makes neighborhood look blighted - this isn't Allston.

The MBTA is outlining a series of changes to the 39 route from Forest Hills to just before Back Bay it says will mean shorter commutes for riders on the system's second-busiest bus route.

Among them: Eliminating one out of every five stops and looking at new locations for some of the remaining ones. Also proposed are changes to the traffic signals at Monument Square in Jamaica Plain.

This morning: Where the signs used to be

A contractor yesterday removed the Rte. 9 signs that popped up right in the middle of the sidewalk on Tremont Street last week.

Turns out that neither the city DPW nor the state Department of Transportation was gripped with a sudden urge to inform Tremont Street motorists that they were just a half block from Rte. 9, a.k.a. the street better known as Huntington Avenue. Instead, MASCO, a private consortium of Longwood Medical Area institutions, decided to sprinkle the area in and around Longwood with signs informing drivers of their imminent arrival at the "highway," and apparently its contractor felt it was OK to just stick the signs wherever the hell it felt like it.

We learned this from somebody in city government, who said MASCO "is inspecting other locations to make sure additional new signs are out of the way of those using the sidewalks."

UPDATE: Turns out it wasn't the city (or the state) that put the signs up; in any case, they've been removed.

An aggrieved Mission Hill resident reports from Tremont Street near Huntington Avenue, which the DPW has decided people really need to know is also Rte. 9:

We can't get crosswalk signs, but please--put highway signs in the middle of the sidewalk. Perhaps we should just eliminate those pesky sidewalks all together.

Ross: "Irresponsible" to make kids pay for superintendent's mistakes.

A divided City Council today approved a plan that moves seven schools around and creates two new schools, but even councilors who voted in favor told School Superintendent Carol Johnson and School Committee Chairman Gregory Groover they're skating on thin ice.

Councilor Ayanna Pressley (at large) said the $20-million plan, which will mean 1,400 new seats in what BPS says are high-performing schools, forced her to vote for a plan that moves the Mission Hill K-8 School to Jamaica Plain. But she said she will never again vote for a BPS capital request unless officials pair it with a comprehensive five or ten-year plan. The council has final say over borrowing for large-scale capital projects.

Jackson: Not happyA skeptical group of city councilors urged school officials today to reconsider a school-moving plan that would send a Mission Hill elementary school to Jamaica Plain. The full council could vote on the issue at its regular meeting next week.

At a hearing on the proposal today, City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) said the $19 million school BPS wants the city council to approve for loans - down from an earlier $21-million estimate - could be used to leverage additional state school construction money to simply build a brand-new school, reducing the number of students in 19th and early 20th-century buildings. State officials are currently sitting on payments for the renovation of Hyde Park High School, because BPS shut the school not long after renovating it.

"It really makes me angry that we've been given miserable choices amongst horrible options," Jackson said of the plan, in which Fenway High School would move to the Mission Hill K-8 building, the Boston Arts Academy would take over the Ipswich Street space it now shares with Fenway, the New Mission High School and Boston Community Leadership Academy would move to Hyde Park and a new Margarita Muniz Academy would move into the Agassiz School in JP along with Mission Hill.

Mission Hill teddy bear explains the problems with moving Mission Hill K-8.

BPS officials are scheduled to explain a proposed $21-million school relocation plan to a skeptical City Council committee at a hearing that starts at 11 a.m. in the council's fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.

Under the proposal, two high schools, including New Mission High School, would be moved to the closed Hyde Park High School - for which state officials are now withholding renovation funds because the money was supposed to be spent only for schools that are open and Fenway High School would be moved into the building that now houses New Mission and the Mission Hill K-8 School, which would be moved into the mold-infested Agassiz School, along with a new high school BPS is opening in the fall.

Petition to Mayor Menino and Superintendent Johnson asking they keep the Mission Hill K-8 School where it is rather than moving it to the old Agassiz School in Jamaica Plain.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury today convicted Carmen Andino of Mission Hill for stabbing a neighbor in a dispute over a parking space the neighbor had shoveled out but Andino then claimed, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Andino, 40, will be sentenced on May 9, the DA's office reports. Andino's daughter was acquitted of charges she helped her mother in the attack.

Prosecutors convinced the jury that Andino went into a rage when the neighbor returned from a trip after a snowstorm, found two children's play tables Andino had put in the McGreevey Way space and moved them for her car:

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today set bail at $100,000 for a Billerica truck driver and real-estate broker who allegedly hung around outside the Parker Hill Avenue apartment where, police say, his dealer murdered a Northeastern student.

Michael Balba, 55, was a frequent customer of crack dealer Cornell Smith, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office says. Smith was indicted Friday for the murder of Rebecca Payne, a woman prosecutors say had no connection at all with Smith, except for living in the same building as the woman Smith really wanted to kill. Balba was indicted for perjury for allegedly lying at least four times to that grand jury.

The justice system gave Cornell Smith a second chance. And a third. And a fourth. And now he stands accused of murdering an innocent Northeastern student in a case of mistaken identity.

A Suffolk County grand jury indicted Smith on Friday on charges he murdered Rebecca Payne in her Parker Hill Avenue apartment in 2008 by shooting her in the knees and the chest. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office says Payne, a New Milford, CT resident who had a job at Legal Seafood, did not know Smith. Channel 7 reports police think Smith got Payne confused with another resident of the building, who looked like her - but who had some sort of gang affiliation.

City Councilor Mike Ross says riders on the E line between Brigham Circle and Heath Street shouldn't have to worry about getting flattened by crazed Massholes who ignore the "STOP" painted on the sides of open trolley doors.

Ross, who lives on Mission Hill, is seeking legislation to let the T install cameras on trolleys that share the road with motorists in that stretch to catch and ticket drivers ignoring stopped trolleys.

Under Ross's proposal (see attached), images from the cameras, along with date stamps and locations, would be forwarded to an MBTA police officer trained in traffic enforcement, who would then write out tickets.

The proposal gets a hearing before the council's Committee on Government Operations at 10 a.m. on May 29 at City Hall. If the committee and then the full council approve, the measure would then go to the state Legislature as a home-rule petition.

Trial began today for Carmen Andino, 40, and her daughter Shey Carrasquillo, 19, on charges they stabbed a neighbor on McGreevey Way on Jan. 11, 2010 in a dispute over, among other things, the table they allegedly used to save a parking space after a snowstorm, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Innocent, etc.

Four city councilors told Boston school officials today they're not liking plans to spend $12 million to move Fenway High School to the building that now houses the Mission Hill K-8 School and New Mission High School - and another $3.5 million to get the moldy, shuttered Agassiz School in Jamaica Plain ready for the K-8 School and a brand-new high school.

Instead, Councilors Mike Ross, Steve Murphy, Mark Ciommo and Charles Yancey said, they want BPS officials to report back on the challenges of leaving the Mission Hill school where it is and moving Fenway to the Agassiz.

BPD: Video shows murderer fleeing scene.

Boston Police report charging Keith Hobbs, 26, with killing Demetrius Blocker, 21, on Horadan Way on Dec. 16, 2010, thanks to tips from community members.

Hobbs is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow in Roxbury District Court.

The initial investigation revealed that Mr. Blocker was in the rear parking area of 48 Horadan Way while waiting for a relative. As he waited by a green jeep that was parked in the area, an unknown Black or Hispanic male approached Mr. Blocker and fired several shots which struck and killed him. Detectives soon learned that the suspect then fled out onto Horadan Way. He ran though the passage ways between buildings out onto McGreevey Way across Saint Alphonsus Street to Longwood Avenue to Huntington Avenue.

Innocent, etc.

Boston Police report a super vigilant store employee helped them capture two knife-wielding robbers and their getaway driver after a robbery last night.

According to police, two guys dressed in black and with black ski masks over their faces entered South Huntington Convenience, 12 S. Huntington Ave. around 9:30 p.m. yesterday and demanded money:

The owners of the Ginger Exchange in Inman Square go before the Boston Licensing Board on Wednesday for permission to buy the Savant Project's beer and wine license from the bank that now owns it and turn the 1625 Tremont St. location into a sushi joint that promises to "inject a not-so-subtle element of fun and interest in the pure enjoyment of good food."

UPDATE, 2:30 p.m.: Still popping in the Fenway.

From Brighton to Brookline to Mission Hill, people are reporting popping sounds that have been going off for several hours.

36 million, to be exact. Seems the city won a large grant from the state to renovate the school - scheduled to be paid out through 2019 - and the state doesn't like having its money wasted for repairs to buildings that get shut down. Take a look at this letter from the Massachusetts School Building Authority to Boston School Superintendent Carol Johnson back in June, which mentions several schools, but singles out the building last known as the Hyde Park Education Complex:

In 1999, the City received approval for a grant for a renovation project at Hyde Park School. To date, the MSBA has paid $23,383,012 to the City for the Hyde Park High School and there is a total of $12,664,978 remaining in grant payments which the MSBA is scheduled to pay in annual installments through fiscal year 2019. Due to the closure of this facility, however, the MSBA may consider putting a hold on the remaining payments for this project and recouping a portion of funds that have already been paid to the City for this project, pending the City's future plans for the facility.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports the Boston city councilor is considering moving back to Newton, where he grew up, to run for Barney Frank's seat.

The Globe reports the School Committee gave its pro-forma approval last night to Superintendent Carol Johnson's school musical chairs.

Ross angrily denounced the plan to move the Mission Hill K-8 School in his district to the closed Agassiz in Jamaica Plain; according to the Globe, he uttered the ultimate Boston political insult: That moves like that mean "Boston will never be considered a world-class city."

The Huntington News reports on a proposal by the Mission Hill Problem Property Task Force for a fund to which Northeastern, Wentworth, MassArt and Mass. College of Pharmacy would make contributions to repair vandalism. Northeastern's John Tobin (yes, that John Tobin) says it's unfair to assume that all vandalism on the Hill is the fault of college students.