BC Task Force Meeting: Tuesday 10/16, at 6:30 pm

BC Task Force Meeting

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
6:30-8:30 pm

Brighton Marine Health Center
77 Warren Street, 3rd floor
Brighton MA 02135

Agenda:

1. IMPA -- Update
   
2. Student Behavior -- Update
   
3. Allston/Brighton Scholarship Program
   

For more information, contact:
John FitzGerald
Project Manager
Boston Redevelopment Authority
617-918-4267
John.Fitzgerald.bra@cityofboston.gov

Note that this meeting does not appear on the BRA website for Allston-Brighton meetings.


Institutional Master Plan Amendment

At the September 18 meeting of the BC Task Force, BC officials notified residents that they intend to file an IMPA imminently filed an IMPA on 10/12/07 to provide for use of two buildings, Bishop Peterson Hall and the St. John's Library, that BC purchased in the late summer from the Archdiocese of Boston.



They announced that the IMPA would cover:

1. Extension of the BC master plan zoning overlay to include these two buildings;
2. Renovations of the two buildings; and
   
3. Occupancy of the two buildings for institutional use beginning in late 2008.

According to the previous meeting, BC was intending to have filed the IMPA by now, but I have heard no word of that; hopefully, they will clarify the timetable.

A sticky issue that was raised in the September 18 meeting was housing for the seminarians of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. The IMPA does not provide for housing of the seminarians, but postpones the issue for the subsequent IMP; in effect, this move blocks the seminarians from using existing housing on the Brighton Campus, like St. Williams Hall, thereby forcing BC into building new housing for them (i.e., next to the Foster Rock).

Another unresolved issue was use of St. Williams Hall in the IMPA. Since the IMPA will move occupancy (offices, classrooms) of those seminarians from St. Williams Hall to Bishop Peterson Hall, theoretically this will leave St. Williams Hall vacant -- unless a different occupancy is included in the IMPA. At least one BC official had stated informally in the past that administrative staff at More Hall would be moving into St. Williams Hall, but this point was not raised at the September 18 meeting.


Student Behavior

BC officials have been playing full-court press with trying to bring off-campus student behavior under control -- and mollifying the neighbors about it -- prior to submitting their big IMP later this year. At the September 18 meeting of the BC Task Force, BC Vice President for Governmental and Student Affairs Tom Keady, Jr., stated twice that BC itself has a "zero-tolerance" policy for off-campus student behavior; this was further clarification of previous statements, such as by Dean Paul Chebator in an August 29, 2007 letter to students, that "the Boston Police Department has instituted a 'zero tolerance policy' and will be enforcing the law aggressively throughout the year."

Hopefully the update at the October 16 meeting will include answers to:

1. What are the procedures BC and Boston Police will be using when they break up a party, i.e., how to they decide when students enter the BC disciplinary system vs. the municipal system?
2. How many students have entered into the BC disciplinary process over off-campus behavior since the beginning of the academic year?
3. How many students have been arrested by Boston Police?
4. How many problem houses have been identified by BC and Boston police, and (roughly) where are they?
5. Has the electronic ID scanning device been initiated for use by BC police?
   
6. Is Keady still working the midnight-3am shift?

Allston/Brighton Scholarships

These scholarships are part of the community benefits from previous BC institutional master plan. Ten new scholarships are awarded each year to qualifying students who reside in Allston-Brighton. The definition of "qualifying" was described in a newsletter, distributed to residents in August 2007, as having at least $10,000 in financial need. While that August newsletter named the most recent recipients, previous recipients have not been named; hopefully, that will be corrected at the October 16 meeting.

Accusations and an Admission at the BC Task Force Meeting

The June 19, 2007 meeting of the BRA's Boston College Task Force was a lively, noisy, and, at times, unruly sideshow. While I previously reported on the substantive material presented as part of the unannounced agenda -- and also on a past police log incident apparently related to the individual who caused a disturbance late in the meeting -- there was more going on in the meeting than has been reported to date.

After Mark Alford objected to the meeting being held on account of the failure to provide advance, public notice of the agenda, Patrick Galvin levied a general accusation that -- here, I'm guessing on a few of the details because it was hard to hear clearly over the air conditioners -- one or more members of the BC Task Force had accepted "gratuities" in the past from BC. No specifics were given as to the individuals or the gratuities, although I heard somebody, I believe, mention something like, "tickets for athletics events."

Now, normally I wouldn't post an unsubstantiated accusation like that on the blog, except that task force member John Bruno later responded with some specifics. First, Bruno admitted that he had, in the past, received some tickets to BC games (like hockey) which he had then handed out to youth players when they showed up to practice and/or games. These kids thus got to attend a college athletics game. He expressed the opinion that this was a pretty good thing, and it's hard to argue with him on that; BC even touts such giveaways as part of their community benefits. It is unclear if these youth ticket giveaways were the gratuities implied by Patrick Galvin's comments, or if Galvin meant something else, since I believe Galvin had let the room by the time that Bruno made these comments.

Bruno's second admission, however, was a whopper. He confirmed that his son currently attends Boston College on a full, tuition-free scholarship: "Yep, my son is there. I see $40,000 a year" in benefits from the scholarship. I assume he means $35,150/year for 2007-8, which is the tuition cost to attend BC as an undergraduate. Since Bruno is a resident of Allston-Brighton, his son's scholarship is presumably one of the ten "Allston/Brighton Scholarships" allocated annually by BC to A-B residents as part of community benefits agreed upon through past Article 80 master planning processes. (It was touted as such by Thomas Keady, Jr., BC's VP for Governmental and Community Affairs, at the January 16, 2007 meeting of the BC Task Force.)

I must say that I was personally surprised to hear a member of the BC Task Force acknowledge that he is the recipient of $35,000-$40,000 per year from the very institution whose master plan he is supposed to be studying, discussing, and eventually voting up or down to recommend to the BRA for approval or disapproval. I also find it rather odd that the A-B TAB's article fails to mention this admission by Bruno, although their reporter appears to have been present both at the beginning of the meeting (for Alford's and Galvin's comments) and the end of the meeting (for the ejection/scuffle with Costello). Strangely, they reported the unsubstantiated allegations of "gratuities" without reporting the response later in the meeting.

What do you think about all this? I welcome comments to this post -- as I do to all posts -- but the comments cannot be anonymous (or offensive), and I note that they are moderated.