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MEETING NOTES

East Boston Greenway Coordinating Council
Harborside Community Center
Monday, October 19, 1998

map of the Marginal to Prescott Segment of the Greeenway
Click to see full map of proposed Greenway

Attending:

Eva Bisceglia, Valerie Burns, Rose Christopher, Connie Carbone, Ken Crasco (Parks), Rose D’Amore, Florence D’Avella, Edith DeAngelis, Stacey Fox (PL), Blossom Hoag, Ethan Hoag, Vincent LaBella, Sal LaMattina, Richard Lynds (EBF), Karen Maddalena, Anthony Maffei (PL), Jeanine Moore, Jean Riesman, Fran Riley, Bobby Ry (PL), Eugene Testa, Mark Warren, Lauri Webster, Mary Ellen Welch.

After introductions all around we began with Richard Lynds, Executive Director of the East Boston Foundation.

1. The East Boston Foundation

After apologizing for not making the last Council meeting, Richard began his presentation on the East Boston Foundation. The business of the East Boston Foundation is to make East Boston a better place to live and the Foundation will be granting funds toward this end.

Everyone knows about the historic mitigation agreement that resulted in the East Boston Foundation. Negotiations lasted over 6 years and through three Massport administrations, with Representative Serra and Senator Travaglini being instrumental in bringing them to closure and establishing the Foundation. The Cellucci/Blute team and the community finally agreed on $8 to 10 million over the next 8 years.

The Foundation was officially established last May. There are 11 board members, appointed by elected officials, community groups, agencies and a judge. EBF goals and objectives involve improving the quality of life in East Boston by supporting activities that mitigate the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of current and future airport operations. Currently the Foundation is in the process of dealing with requests for support of programs. EBF will also be looking to:

• identify and develop open space on property not owned by Massport with the objective of developing a park system for East Boston.

• develop and promote business community as it relates to airport needs.

 

The Foundation needs to develop guidelines for giving out grants. It has already developed an application process to create a fair and level playing ground. BNAF has requested and received a copy of the application on behalf of the Greenway Council.

With respect to Parks and open space, the Foundation will probably develop a Request for Proposals so that grantees help the Foundation meet its goals. First, however, the board wants to get a sense of what the broader community would like to see. There are a lot of things going on in East Boston now ( i.e. the Greenway, the Massport and BRA master planning processes, etc.). Richard stopped and asked if council members had any questions.

Blossom brought up the confusion created this year, when programs that had depended on Massport funding were told that they needed to go the East Boston Foundation and wondered whether the Foundation was going to pick up everything that Massport funded. Richard said that Massport will be giving the Foundation $1.4 million per year. About $75,000 is going to cover the activities that Massport used to fund. Massport is not going to stop funding some programs and has committed to continue to fund scholarships, community sailing, and Main Streets (5 to 10K/year). For a lot of organizations, who received Massport money in the past, it was guessing game--Massport had no process at all. At least with the Foundation, there will be a process and it will be more predictable.

Fran wanted to know if Massport was going to continue funding employment programs and providing summer jobs funding separate from mitigation. Richard said that Massport is expected to continue to be a good neighbor, but could not say whether Massport was or was not going to continue funding the jobs programs.

Jean wanted to know what the thinking was on the relationship of the Foundation’s open space objective and projects underway like Greenway. Richard said there are so many things going on and that the board wants to better understand all of them.

Karen wanted to know if the Foundation would consider funding plantings in Porzio Park. Richard answered that although there is no restriction from doing improvements on city owned property, there would probably be a policy to not to do so; he acknowledged the Foundation might consider embellishments to public parks.

A question was asked if there were any caps on spending. Richard replied that there is a desire to cap overall spending per year. They will be looking to investment advisors for advice. So far this year, the Foundation committed $100,000, mainly to programs. All this will be public information. The Foundation must file a Form 990 every year. Richard is thinking about getting Peter Nagle to publish a quarterly report. Blossom suggested filing the reports at the Library, too.

Valerie asked what the foundation’s calendar year was and how much money the foundation had so far. Massport will be giving the Foundation a base payment of $600,000 per year for 8 years and payments of $800,000 per milestone. Milestones are tied to Logan 2000 and average about one per year. When formulating this, they made sure the projects were ones that were really going to happen and that they were not controversial (i.e. runway 1432). The Foundation will have $2,000,000 by the end of this month.

Jean wanted to know what public process would be. If the foundation is the funder, who will issue RFP? Richard replied that the best way to do that is for community to work with Massport and the City of Boston.

The Foundation has a new address Richard Lynds, Executive Director 46 Bennington Street, East Boston Phone 561-6336 Fax 561-6349.

2. The Greenway from Marginal to Porter Street

There are no MHD staff here tonight, although they were invited. The bids did not open on October 6, as scheduled. Since the bids were not opened as scheduled, Valerie wrote a letter to Commissioner Sullivan as the Council directed at the last Council meeting. She handed copies out to all present along with copies of a letter signed by Representative Serra that David Christopher had written to MHD after the last meeting. The new bid opening date is tomorrow, October 20, 1998. For anyone on the Council who would like to attend, it will be at the Transportation Building at 2:00 PM.

The big concern is that the remediation money that is required to be spent in 1998 is not lost. We are told it will take at least one month to execute the contract, which gets us into late November. According to Ken Crasco, the engineer had said the remediation work would take two weeks, which leaves a three week cushion. Lauri noted, that at a previous meeting, MHD staff told the Council the remediation work was going to take 4-6 weeks. Ken said that Commissioner Liff (Parks) called Commissioner Sullivan (MHD) and asked that there be no further delays.

Fran thought the Council should write to the governor and put the commissioner on distribution. It might also be a good idea to have our elected representatives call MHD. Valerie told the Council that MHD Chief Council Deb Gilberg is preparing a request to EPA to extend the deadline for using the remediation funds, which were fines assessed by EPA. EPA has not encouraged MHD to do this. MHD may come to us to ask for our support. The Council was skeptical, thinking that if the project were extended, MHD would never begin. Council members requested Valerie to write a letter to the Conservation Commission just to let them know of the situation.

Al Miller has not returned our phone calls and Steve O’Donnell says he is out of the project after tomorrow. Ken did not know whether Al Miller would manage this project through construction. Valerie will try and find out who our contact will be at MHD.

3. Greenway/Bremen Street Park and Prescott to Frankfort

Valerie began the discussion by distributing copies of the East Boston meeting schedule generated by the BRA and a letter she wrote to Mike Lewis suggesting three things. The first suggestion, was to have the next Greenway Council meeting at the CA/T Community Outreach Office to review park design issues since the last CA/T Park Design meeting was not so well attended due to the conflict with the Massport waterfront planning process. The second request was to move the December 16 CA/T meeting to January to avoid the conflict with the next Massport meeting and the third request was for information, including a schedule for the design of the greenway section from Prescott to Frankfort. At the last CA/T meeting, the project presented a conceptual design for this greenway section, which is wonderful. This is something that the Greenway Council would be very interested in making a regular topic at Council meetings.

Sal reported that he had a resident parking meeting at the CA/T Outreach Office that was very well attended by people who live near the proposed Bremen Street park. At the end of the meeting, he talked about the park and generally people were interested although there was some opposition to the community gardens. At the meeting, Carolyn Banulis defended the community garden. Karen Maddalena suggested that they talk to people about the community gardens at Cottage Marginal and Border Street.

Sal noted that some people from this neighborhood have criticized that there isn’t enough outreach being done. There were mailings and every house got flyered; lots of people are just choosing not to come to these meetings.

With respect to the land swap, Sal said the Mayor had sent a letter to Cellucci requesting that the Governor intercede and make the deal to get Goldberg onto airport property. Connie passed around a copy of the Mayor’s letter which was published in the newspaper. The letter was well received, but nothing had been done and the Governor has not yet responded to the Mayor. People thought about what the next step should be. Mary Ellen suggested that the Mayor speak with Peter Blute and Mark Robinson. Other Council members thought there should be a campaign from the Greenway Council-- that our public support was long overdue. They wanted Valerie to write a letter to Cellucci with copies to Mark Robinson, Blute and Kerisiotis.

With respect to the Memorial Stadium problem, it appears that Massport wants to sell their slice of land adjacent to the BRA factory to the proposed hotel. We passed around a plan of the hotel which was presented to the Boston Civic Design Commission. Several Council members were alarmed by the vehicular entrance off the park entrance near the intersection of Porter and Orleans. There was also some debate about where property lines are and whether the hotel is showing the slice of land owned by Massport in its plan. Some Council members think slice of land has been within park boundaries all along. Council members decided they wanted the developers to come present their hotel proposal to the Greenway Council in December.

4. BRA Masterplanning Process and the Greenway

Valerie asked how the Greenway was fairing in the planning processes. Council members reported that generally it was being supported, although it was always necessary to clarify its route and educate planners/consultants. It does not appear at this time that any action is necessary by the Greenway Council.

5. UPDATES

Columbus Day Parade

It was a very wet, but fun day for the East Boston Greenway Float in the Columbus Day Parade. Much thanks and admiration for Rose Christopher and her grandson who stuck it out along with Justin Shaponick, Erin Sullivan, Valerie Burns and son Nick, Karl and Luke Pastore and Lauri. Thanks also to MDC staff person Anthony Guthro and his children A.J. and Ashley. Council members should set aside the parade date in the year 2000 to be on the float!

Fall Programs

All Council members should have gotten an East Boston Greenway Bulletin listing all the Fall Programs. There is a Nature Photography Walk, Halloween Fun at Belle Isle (sponsored by the Friends of Belle Isle Marsh) and a Fall Bird Walk.

On Thursday evening, January 14th, as part of the Oral History project, Amelia Earhart will be visiting the East Boston Library. Her name came up many times during the interviews, so we invited her to come tell us about herstory. Come with questions (Does she support 1432?).

END. These notes are written to the best recollection of the authors. Please let us know if corrections are necessary within 60 days of the date of the meeting notes. Contact BNAF@aol.com

BOSTON NATURAL AREAS FUND. INC.(BNAF)
59 Temple Place, Room 558
Boston, MA 02111-1307
(617)542-7696
(Fax)542-0383
e-mail: BNAF@aol.com