City Unsuccessfully Sought to Remove BC Task Force From Lawsuit

The City of Boston unsuccessfully sought, in an emergency motion, to remove the Boston College Task Force from the list of defendants of the lawsuit filed earlier this summer by Brighton residents Patrick Galvin and Mark Alford over the city's review and approval of Boston College's institutional master plan.

The city's corporation counsel and outside legal counsel filed a motion on October 19th as an emergency motion seeking to "cure the misjoinder and dismiss as a defendant the improperly named BC Task Force."

The emergency motion was rejected on November 13th with a hand-written notation -- by the judge in the case, I assume, although I cannot read the signature -- on the court documents stating that:

There are no emergencies in this case. And the court will entertain no further emergency motions. Any and all pending motions shall be heard on the hearing date currently scheduled for 12/14/09. The parties may submit any [revised?] pleadings up until 12/11/09.

The original lawsuit named the Boston Zoning Commission, Boston Redevelopment Authority, and Boston College Task Force as defendants. Boston College has filed a motion with the court to enter the case as an additional defendant.

According to that notation, the parties are due in Suffolk Superior Court today for a hearing on the matter. Based on the court documents to date that I have inspected, I expect the hearing to address two substantive issues: whether or not to remove the BC Task Force as a defendant in the case; and whether or not to add Boston College as an additional defendant in the case. And assuming the case goes forward, they will probably also begin to set up a series of substantive hearings on various elements of the lawsuit.

BC Files With Court to Enter Lawsuit Over IMP Approval

Boston College filed court papers last month in order to join the lawsuit filed by two Brighton residents against the city of Boston over it's approval of BC's institutional master plan.

Those two Brighton residents, Patrick Galvin and Mark Alford, filed their lawsuit with the city in Suffolk Superior Court in July over the city's review and approval of BC's IMP earlier in the year. The Boston Redevelopment Authority's Board voted to approve the IMP in January and the Boston Zoning Commission voted to approve the IMP in May and June; both the BRA and the BZC are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Mayor Thomas Menino signed his approval of the IMP in June, although neither he nor his office are named as defendants.

BC was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, but in the motion they filed with the court on November 9th they seek "leave to intervene as a defendant." They assert in the motion that they meet the requirements "for both intervention as of right and permissive intervention."

No response regarding BC's motion had been filed by the plaintiffs with the court as of last Thursday.


Big Gun Lawyers Involved in Case

BC was represented in the motion by legal counsel from the large law firm Goodwin Procter LLP. In their court filings, Goodwin Procter has at least two partners -- Anthony M. Feeherry and Lawrence E. Kaplan -- involved in the case, as well as two other associates.

I reported on Friday that the plaintiffs are now themselves represented by counsel which includes Jan Schlictmann, the attorney who was the subject of the best-selling book A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr.

The city is in various documents represented by its own Corporation Counsel as well as a smaller firm Rosenberg, Schapiro, Englander, Chicoine & Leggett, P.C -- which appears to have the direct involvement of two of the named partners, Edward S. Englander and Denise A. Chicoine, in the case.

With all those lawyers involved in the case -- particularly the partners -- I would be willing to bet that quite a lot of money is being spent on both sides.

'A Civil Action' Attorney Schlictmann Enters Lawsuit Over BC Expansion

Two Brighton residents, Pat Galvin and Mark Alford, sued the City of Boston earlier this year over the review process and approval of Boston College's expansion plans into the former St. John's Seminary property. The plaintiffs object to BC's plans to construct athletic stadiums and dormitories on the land, as well as the city's review process of the university's institutional master plan which they assert violated the state's Open Meeting Law.

Galvin and Alford filed their lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court pro se, meaning that they were representing themselves.

No longer. As of November 11 -- in documents I saw at the courthouse on Thursday -- they are represented by two lawyers: Orestes Brown and Jan Schlictmann [right].

Yes, that Schlictmann. The guy who was the protagonist of the best-selling book "A Civil Action" by Jonathan Harr and the movie starring John Travolta [left] as Schlictmann.

Schlictmann was portrayed in the book as being so obsessed with the Woburn case that he drove his firm (and many of its employees) to the verge of financial bankruptcy -- just before the court ruled in his clients' favor. The book opens with the scene where Schlictmann's Porsche is repossessed on the morning before the verdict.

More recently, Schlictmann has been in the news on two other high profile, local cases:

But if people thought Schlichtmann might mellow after being immortalized in Jonathan Harr’s classic piece of reporting and the movie of the same name, forget about it. Schlichtmann is still fighting, only now his adversaries include the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority over proposed toll increases, ink and paint manufacturers over a factory explosion that ravaged a Danvers neighborhood, and former colleagues over legal fees.

Schlictmann has not had much success in the turnpike lawsuit.

His presence in the lawsuit of Galvin et al. v. Boston Zoning Commission et al., however, seems to be an indication that the plaintiffs are interested in a no holds barred pursuit of their case at every step of the way.

This case just got way more interesting.


Image of Jan Schlictmann from his page on the Legal Broadcast Network. Image of John Travolta in A Civil Action from imdb.com.

Lawn Signs That Will Vote Many Times -- Part Deux

Two years ago, I reported on a couple of lawn signs posted on upper Lake Street that I suggested would vote many times in the election for Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor.

Riding the wave of those supporters and others, Gregory Glennon took second place in the 2007 preliminary municipal election, only to lose to Mark Ciommo 60%-40% in the November 2007 municipal election.

Earlier this month those same two upper Lake Street property owners -- Patrick Galvin (brother to, and campaign manager for, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin) and Mark Alford -- posted campaign signs for candidate Abigail Furey to unseat incumbent District 9 City Councilor Mark Ciommo. (Secretary Galvin himself does not post campaign signs on his property.) Alford and Patrick Galvin have recently joined to sue the city over Boston College's expansion plans, so it's not a stretch to conclude that the two men think Furey's positions on the issues best match their desired outcome for the BC development project.

The difference between 2007 and 2009? This time around, Galvin and Alford probably won't get the assistance of former state Representative Brian Golden. Golden did plenty of arm-twisting for his former staffer Glennon in 2007, but Golden has since taken up a senior role at the Boston Redevelopment Authority; in his new position, it is probably both inappropriate and unwise to meddle prominently in the current election. (Some candidates, after all, are critical of the BRA and want to scale back its reach -- if not eliminate it altogether.)

"Lawn signs don't vote" goes the old saw. But these particular lawn signs on Lake Street are telegraphing Furey's name to a lot of Brighton residents who vote. Furey just got a big boost.


UPDATE (9/20/09): Pat Galvin has kept his Furey lawn sign but added one for Alex Selvig, too. Sounds like he's encouraging an anti-incumbent vote.

Two Brighton Residents Sue City Over Boston College Expansion

Two Brighton residents, Patrick Galvin and Mark Alford, have jointly sued the City of Boston over its approval of Boston College's expansion plans into the former St. John's Seminary land purchased by BC in 2004-7 from the Archdiocese of Boston.

The suit was filed in Superior Court Thursday afternoon. It names three defendants, all official governmental bodies of the City of Boston: the Boston Redevelopment Authority, whose Board approved BC's Institutional Master Plan in January 2009; the Zoning Commission, which approved the IMP in May 2009; and the BC Task Force, an official advisory body to the BRA Board (and appointed by Mayor Thomas Menino), who wrote a letter to the BRA Board generally supporting most of the elements in BC's IMP.

Mayor Menino was not named as a defendant in the suit, which is a bit surprising (to this non-lawyer) given that he also had to approve BC's IMP. He objected to several details of the IMP as initially approved by the Zoning Commission; the ZC later approved modifications, and then Mayor Menino formally signed off in June 2009.

The plaintiffs own property on Lake Street abutting the former St. John's Seminary land BC refers to as their "Brighton Campus." BC's approved IMP calls for construction on that land of athletics facilities (baseball stadium, softball stadium, support building, tennis courts), an auditorium, museum and new building for their fine arts department, and a parking garage. A related Article 80 large project at 188-196 Foster Street (also part of the land bought from the Archdiocese of Boston) to build housing for BC's School of Theology and Ministry was submitted by the Jesuit society and approved in November 2008 by the BRA Board, although it was initially included in BC's IMP. The Zoning Commission changed the zoning at the property as part of its June 2009 IMP approval process.

No monetary figure for damages is specified in the suit.


Image of the scales of justice in Haarlem, The Netherlands by lant_70 provided through a Creative Commons license.


UPDATE: The Boston Globe now has a story on it.

One Lawn Sign That Will Vote -- Many Times

"Lawn signs don't vote; people do." That is a standard mantra of local politics, an indication not to judge a political campaign by counting signs.

Over in Ward 22/Precinct 8, however, I recently saw a lawn sign that I think will vote -- and may bring a lot of votes along with it. It's a red sign for Greg Glennon for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council race, and it's on the front lawn of Patrick Galvin, brother and long-time campaign manager for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin.

The Galvins, their inner political circle, and their broad base of supporters (Bill Galvin represented the neighborhood for many years in the State House prior to his election as Secretary) provide a base as big as anything over on Wallingford Road or Portina Road. And the Galvin team carries connections to those constituencies, too. Then Representative Galvin worked with the Brighton Orthodox community to build its eruv (completed in 1993), a point which they clearly remember. And sandwiched between the two Galvin's houses is none other than Mark Alford's house, who participated in a May 8 meeting with the Orthodox community over Boston College expansion -- and was a candidate in the A-B City Council election until he pulled out suddenly on July 3 (the last official day to get off of the ballot). For the record, neither Alford's nor Secretary Galvin's houses have sprouted campaign lawn signs; nobody yet knows publicly how they lean.

The Galvin-Alford-Galvin trifecta have long ties to the Brighton neighborhood, lists of campaign supporters from Secretary Galvin's decades of running for elected office, and a behind-the-scenes influence that is hard to match. While Secretary Galvin's list of six Allston-Brighton campaign contributors (search on CFPID 10176, City of Boston, and year 2006; then count 02134 and 02135 addresses) might have been thin during his most recent re-election campaign, those guys no doubt have an extensive database of supporters ready to be mobilized.

If one move has the potential to mix up this race, Patrick Galvin's lawn sign might be it. Two candidates are probably the least pleased with this development: Mark Ciommo and Rosie Hanlon. Why? Those two are long-term residents who have been splitting the "old boy" neighborhood vote of long-term A-B residents. I don't have enough digits -- even after removing my shoes -- to count the number of men who have told me they were going to vote for Ciommo solely based on knowing him since they were kids. Hanlon's connection to the neighborhood is not quite as deep, but no doubt growing -- her five kids (with the web of school and friend connections that brings), and her work with the Brighton business community, reaches all across the established residents of the neighborhood.

Glennon has comparatively far less of that traditional support in the neighborhood -- except for some of the inherited supporters of former state Representative Brian Golden. Patrick Galvin's lawn sign may indicate that some of Ciommo and Hanlon's long-term resident support may now be split with a third candidate, Glennon. A three-way split for the "old boy" vote may actually work to the benefit of Tim Schofield -- or probably more so for Alex Selvig, who could eke out a second-place finish if he can mobilize large portions of the anti-institutional expansion and under-40 crowd.

Finally, I wonder if my "phone survey" last night from the Glennon campaign had anything to do with this lawn sign over in 22/8? Best left as speculation.


Of Whales and Elephants

I previously commented on how there were too many lawn signs up during this campaign season, and that I was praying for rain to disintegrate some of them. The recent rain did just that to at least a few signs. I'm gonna continue my backyard dance to summon a nor'easter and clear these signs away.

Casino Trachtenberg Open for Business: Schofield at "Even Money", Ciommo at 3-2

In an opinion piece in this week's A-B TAB, Mark Trachtenberg places odds on the seven candidates for this fall's election for the open Allston-Brighton District City Council seat. The article is quite a fun read, not just the guide to betting.

Here's a toast to Allston-Brighton's newest economic development project: Casino Trachtenberg!

Trachtenberg's odds on the candidates are:

Tim Schofield, even money

It’s rather surprising that somebody as “plugged in” as Tim Schofield wouldn’t have studied Felix Arroyo’s proposal to tame the BRA, an agency that can be quite a rogue elephant sometimes.

Mark Ciommo, 3-2

His lawn signs are quite an impressive display, but lawn signs don’t vote, as At-Large City Councilor Steve Murphy found out the hard way when he lost to Andrea Cabral when he ran against her for Suffolk County sheriff in 2004.

Gregory Glennon, 3-1

[While Glennon] pretty much ran [State Rep.] Golden’s office when Golden was doing his U.S. Army Reserve duty in Iraq, [he] gets viewed by many “progressive” activists as the enemy because he’s a devout Catholic and has trouble dealing with sexual politics issues such as abortion and gay marriage which the city of Boston has virtually no jurisdiction over anyway.

Rosie Hanlon, 4-1

While Rosie Hanlon readily agreed to provide the BAIA with a list of businesses in Brighton which do not sell any alcoholic beverages and thus qualify to be promoted free of charge to incoming college students as part of the BAIA’s planned alcohol-free entertainment marketing drive this coming Labor Day weekend, she also has supported various bar and restaurant owners in their applications to expand and/or extend their hours of operation.

Alex Selvig, 4-1

If you’re in the mood for a hard-core protest candidate... Alex Selvig would seem to be your best bet... Alex Selvig’s core message may be exactly what many voters in Allston-Brighton want to hear from their next city councilor, so if he can raise enough money and avoid making any “rookie mistakes,” he could be in a position to pull off the upset of the millennium.

James Jenner, 8-1

[Trachtenberg's] advice to Jenner: do the best you can in your campaign for City Council this year, go to night school to finish your college degree, volunteer for as many neighborhood organizations as you can, and come back the next time a seat opens up.

Mark Alford, 1000-1

Rosie Hanlon asked, ”Have you seen Mark Alford anywhere?” Well, I [Trachtenberg] haven’t, and, at that time, neither has virtually anybody else in local politics since the campaign began.

Well, I have seen Alford at a few meetings, including some that I ran, and I can tell you he usually sits in the back row. But then again... I didn't remember seeing Trachtenberg at those meetings. Maybe they are the Jekyll/Hyde of Allston-Brighton?

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.

Mark Alford Announces for City Council Race

Mark Alford, a resident of Lake Street in Brighton, entered the race yesterday for the open Allston-Brighton seat on Boston's City Council, according to John Donovan of the Boston Elections Department.

Donovan also confirms the other names that have been listed on this blog previously, which brings the official list of candidates for the seat to nine.