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Romney campaign to parents: Take a hike

State officials met with the owner of the building housing the Romney presidential campaign. Outcome: Romney campaign doesn't want parents using their parking lot to drop off kids for the tennis/literacy summer program next door and that's that.

Tenacity, which runs the summer program, informed parents that the city is willing to give parents 15 minutes' worth of parking in resident spots to pick up, but one parent said there are no spaces right next to the tennis courts where the program is run. The garage across the street is also willing to let parents park briefly to run their kids across busy Commercial Street.

"Whatever happened to politicians kissing babies?" the parent asked.

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Comments

Feel free to park legally and bring them inside and I'm sure he'll be more than happy to kiss your baby.

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"There are no spaces right next to the tennis courts where the program is run."

No, they're about 100 feet away on the other side of Commercial St. There are crosswalks at Hull St and Washington St. Use this as a way to teach your kid how to correctly cross a city street. He probably doesn't get that lesson enough anyways since you seem to prefer to air-drop him into every situation with your car.

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Because if you were, you'd be just a little more understanding,IMHO. Seriously, ever tried crossing that street?
Drivers fly down that street! Also, where are these mythical spaces you speak of? The North End is without a doubt the hardest neighborhood in the city to find legal street parking in.

Then again, this will all be moot in a few months when Romney gets his ass handed to him.

Again.

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To get run down on that stretch. Go ahead - just TRY to use the crosswalk and see what happens, Kaz. Now try to do it with, say, two hyperactive dogs on leashes or even two small children if anyone will let you borrow them.

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I think the fact that I'm not writing this from a hospital bed or the great beyond suggests it's feasible that you can cross the road there without getting hit by a car maniac...not even a maniac with a kid who, screw the rest of us having to drive and park legally in the city, has to get to the tennis courts.

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I can't see Kaz doing any running, anywhere.

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Because I'm fat enough that it really shouldn't be that hard to see me.

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That's why you're uninjured: drivers are worried about denting their cars.

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I use that crosswalk often, sometimes with my grams using her walker or with my niece and nephews (ages 4, 7 and 8) on the way to the tennis courts, and if you wait for the light and use the crosswalk, it's actually pretty safe. You definitely can't run across where ever you want, but you have a clear view for a good long way in both directions and the walk lights are timed realistically. The only people I've ever worried about are the ones coming out of the garage by Prince Street, since that doesn't seem to be factored into the traffic pattern, but they aren't going very fast anyway.

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Anyone see what happened this morning in Waltham?

You do understand why parents would rather have a drop off point, then having to coral young kids down a very busy street and across it.

Romney, as always, is a shitty person for this. Still I'm surprised, because a decision like this is just tone deaf, and he's usually very apt at playing the politics up to his advantage, even if it means he's slimier than jello.

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Not surprising. Romney is only interested in large money donors. The only way he would let the parents use the lot is if they are able to donate more then 5 figures to his campaign.

He does not care about the regular person. Its the same as when he was in the State House.

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I don't like Mitt personally but I wonder if he even knows about this or if it's just staff

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Adam, according to North End Waterfront, it was "representatives of the Tenacity program" (which is sponsored by Democrat activist Alan Khazei's City Year), not just "the state" who met with the management company. By omitting Tenacity and who is behind them, the story takes on an undeserved air of legitimacy instead of being exposed for the blatant Democrat electioneering that it is. Not unlike the 2001 scandal in which unsuspecting City Year kids were duped into "earning credits" while campaigning for far-left Sen. Cheryl Jacques (D-Needham). BTW, why is DCR involving itself in a dispute between a "non-profit" and a private management company? North End Waterfront makes clear that DCR can't find any easement for the property. Has the State Ethics Commission been notified that the DCR is essentially joining a smear campaign against Romney even though they have no standing in the case?

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He was born in Mexico, like his dad. That's why he's got third world thugs posturing outside his office - he learned from the drug lords.

I'm sure some elderly relative will *remember* him being born there to one or the other of the wives ... or was that his father or his uncle? ;-)

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I don't see anything on the Tenacity website about being funded, staffed, or run by City Year. I see that they accept AmeriCorps volunteers for staff positions, but let's not conflate the two.

So please do let us know how you know that this is a City Year program, and further how Alan Khazei and the Massachusetts Democratic Party is somehow electioneering this whole fiasco.

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Aside from the North End Waterfront article, where are you getting the idea that City Year "sponsors" Tenacity? According to City Year, they don't work with Tenacity.

Which leads me to ask, why did North End Waterfront say that they did? Either somebody is confused and too lazy to check facts or somebody is lying.

But definitely somebody is parroting what they read on the web without checking it because it fits their twisted little conspiracy theory narrative.

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In my first post, I originally called it a City Year program. My parent source referred to Tenacity as sponsored by City Year and I put 2 and 2 together and got 5. Somebody from City Year contact me to let me know this was not a City Year program, so I changed it.

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Let me get this straight. A concerned mom (or dad), who is so informed about her child's tennis program that she takes a former Governor and current presidential candidate to task in the media, is the same mom who is totally misinformed about who is sponsoring said tennis program? Did she (and reputable North End Waterfront) just dream up the City Year sponsorship? PLEASE! This thing is starting to smell worse and worse by the hour. As they say in tennis after an out-of-bounds serve, "Fault!"

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That went wherever the lie did go!"

Gee, City Year is one of AmeriCorps' programs. AmeriCorps has a few different programs. One of them works with Tenacity. How could there ever be any doubt that this non-profit is actually a front for an elaborate campaign to smear a GOP candidate over a parking lot usage dispute (which I actually would say Romney's office is completely in the right here, but perhaps being dickheads...but hey what would you expect?). It seems fairly obvious to me that this is a case of confusion on the part of someone interviewed in the street and Adam and the North End Fish-Rap did not follow up to fact-check (Adam did own up to it).

And Alan Khazei is not on the Board of City Year or as far as I can tell, employed by them or advising them. He's got another outfit that you can rail against. Get with the times.

Continuing to pursue this theory on the basis of nothing is sort of like screaming "THAT BALL WAS ON THE LINE!!!" When in fact they're on your chin.

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I don't know about the DCR, but the Dept of Environmental Protection got easement concessions from 585 Commercial St back in 1993 according to this memo from the director of the DEP at the time.

Basically the DEP had to license the building as it stood based on changes made in 1986 to statutes surrounding structures built on filled tidelands (like this one). In agreement to license the building, they got the owner to agree to sidewalks connecting Commercial St to the harbor walkway on both sides of the lot and a removal of a bunch of fencing surrounding the building to tie the lot into the open space around it (I'm guessing this is before the tennis courts were there...thus requiring the DCR to put up fencing to keep errant tennis balls from flying all over...heh).

So, DCR may have no easement with the owner for something like allowing people to use the parking lot as a drop-off for the tennis courts, but in the lot's history, there's examples of agreements between the state and the owner for public access to parts of the property (another example: this lot was at one point planned to become a condo building until North End NIMBYs fought it off...part of the planning was an agreement to build a publicly accessible marina as part of a different easement/concession for the redevelopment).

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Sponsoring doesn't mean day-to-day control. Or do you assume that every company that sponsors a program on a PBS station controls that station? If there is any sponsorship, as a parent told me, it's not even important enough for Tenacity to list on their Web page (they list several city programs as sponsors, as well as DCR and a bunch of private entities, but not City Year).

Second, as I've mentioned before, I didn't get this story from Tenacity (or City Year). I have not spoken to anybody at Tenacity about this issue (for that matter, I've never spoken to anybody at Tenacity about anything, ever, although I think I might have once, briefly, exchanged e-mail with them about a press release a year or so ago about some program somewhere else in the city). This is coming from parents.

My only contact with City Year has been to acknowledge e-mail from them that they are NOT running this program as I mistakenly wrote initially. I said I'd fix that. I did.

In short, I made a mistake about what I think is a minor part of the story. You, however, seem intent on making a mountain out of a molehill.

Why would DCR be involved in this? The Tenacity program is run on DCR land. I dunno, maybe they're concerned about the safety of kids using that land.

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Has the Romney campaign given a reason to oppose letting the parents use the lot? Is it politics, is there indeed a safety issue, private property issue, something else?

I have no idea - is anybody reporting their side of the story beyond they are evil anti-children, dog kicking, police hating, People's Republic of Mass bad-mouthing scum? (seriously folks - most of you sound like the left wing version of the wingnut gang).

What's the other side of the story?

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The original reason given was that someone had damaged one of the Romney staffer's cars without leaving a note or anything and they wanted to prevent that in the future by limiting access to only those people who actually belonged in the lot (Zipcar and Romney's staff).

From a practical standpoint, the lot is not shaped well to be a drop-off zone. It's a letter "U" shape but with only 1 entrance/exit location. Unless the lot is at least partially empty on Romney's side of the lot (Zipcar takes the 10 spots along the tennis courts), it would be impossible to drive in without actually parking or having to do a multi-point turnabout (possibly using the loading dock in one corner of the "U" up against the building).

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I did see that the other day but thought that was just the opinion of those handsome young men in suits. thought maybe the official PR would be different. You're right about the lot though - looked at the satellite and it's not configured particularly well for pick-up/drop off.

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I had the folding bike, so I popped some wheelies and circled it a couple of times, cutting through the empty spots.

When Paul Blart opened the door I waved and headed over the bridge.

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"From a practical standpoint, the lot is not shaped well to be a drop-off zone. It's a letter "U" shape but with only 1 entrance/exit location."

I guess half the hotels in the city better tell their guests to find a parking spot across the street and walk their bags across busy streets then.

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You're gonna have to explain that one a lot better.

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To be fair, I don't think he's any of that, even though I profoundly dislike the man and hope Michelle Bachmann beats him for the nomination, so her closet-case husband can be caught with a rent-boy in October 2012.

But he does eat kittens.

I seen it.

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he has his campaign headquarters in Massachusetts? I mean he insults MA and its people every chance he gets.....

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$$$$$$$

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organization that does summer tennis camps (with reading components) and also runs several afterschool programs in the city schools that do the same They are a great organization that do a lot on a shoestring budget. There's nothing criminal about driving your car to drop your kid off at a summer camp and needing to walk them over to deliver them to a person. Considering what I see at my son's school at dropoff times (parents stopping their cars in active traffic lanes and letting their kids out on the street), you should be applauding responsible parents who are getting their kids to their destination safely.

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he found the last few massachusetts residents he hadn't already thrown under the bus, but if he can just force them out into that busy street......

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