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Charlestown dog owners help keep Bunker Hill Monument clean during Trump shutdown

NBC Boston reports on the trash removal efforts of members of CharlestownDogs.

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Why are people not carrying their trash out of National Parks on their own? Many state parks have carry in carry out policies. Are tourists really that filthy and lazy?

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This is an example of the what happens when the Federal government shuts down.

Are you so intellectually lazy that you miss the obvious issue?

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Dog owners are the biggest offenders,the least they could so is clean up!! Tragedy of the commons what is it

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You're not "intellectually lazy". You're right. This was also my first reaction. I'm disgusted that people would trash our national parks like this. Of course they should bring it back out with them and you're not wrong to assume that they would. Most people with any sort of self respect wouldn't want to contribute to a trash problem. Suggesting otherwise is ridiculous. This is exposing how ill mannered Americans have become. The issue has nothing to do with Trump.

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but so are some local residents. And this is a historic monument in the center of a city, not a wilderness. And when you are in the wilderness, the ranger stations have trash receptacles that you bring put your trash to, because nobody actual takes trash home.

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Carry in-carry out is for places that have no services.

The trash cans advertise that there is a service to remove trash for you. In the middle of a city it isn't always obvious that you have moved from city maintained property to federally maintained property.

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Currently there are no services here.

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He's showing us all what a useless joke government is.

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So emptying the trash at a historic landmark is a joke?

I'd rather my taxes pay for that then most of what DHS and the military spend billions on.

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But if somebody is willing to volunteer to clean the park...why do we pay somebody to do it? Better yet, why are we paying for nobody to do it? The IRS's revenue collecting mission hasn't shut down.

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how useless your comments are.

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So I'm glad you reached into his playbook.

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They show us all why music sucks and nobody should like it

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...to Libertarian Paradise.

Oh wait, that didn't work out too well did it...

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“This town is so easily scammed,” says John Hazlehurst, himself a former council member and now a columnist with the Colorado Springs Business Journal. “Why? Because we’re hicks. It’s really that simple.”

Well, we're not hicks. Maybe that's the variable in implementing Libertarian ideas in a community.

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Things are going just swell there as a result of the Libertarian principles....

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/tax-trump-kansas/54...

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Marty tweeted tonight that DPW went over there to work on the trash situation to support our friends in the NPS.

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nt

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He's the one who referred to it as a "strike", probably just because of his extremely limited vocabulary, but possibly as a lame attempt at PATCO part 2.

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Thank you Charlestown dog owners!

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I need a civics lesson. I thought Congress controlled appropriations, not the President. Shouldn’t it be called the Pelosi shutdown?

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Given that Pelosi and the rest of the house of representatives have passed a spending bill and the holdup is entirely within the Republican-led Senate and the White House, no, your dumb inflammatory idea is incorrect and you would indeed be well served to bone up on Civics 101.

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The Senate and the House both passed a spending bill that did not include $5.7 billion for a wall, and Trump said he’d sign it. Then Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity (among) others, called him a coward and he changed his mind and refused to sign it.

Now, the House has passed a spending bill that Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, refuses to allow to come up for a vote in the Senate.

And so here we are. It ain’t the Pelosi Shutdown, it’s the Trump/McConnell Shutdown. But nice try, I’m sure it’s far easier to just blame a single politically liberal woman than the multiple conservative men whose fault this actually is.

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The irony is that it would probably be cheaper for Congress to allocate the $5 billion than to let the shutdown continue.

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How was it Dear Leader was unable to get the money for the wall when his own party controlled both houses of Congress?

Sucks to be him, I guess. The master dealer couldn't even get his own party to give him a deal.

Second, even you might have noticed this is not an issue of dollars and cents. There's an actual moral component to what the Democrats are doing in dealing with the Prevaricator in Chief.

Third, just for fun: Really Donnie, really, you never said Mexico had to write you a check for your wall? I don't know which is worse: That you might be lying (that's from your own frickin' campaign Web site) or that you're suffering some worsening neurological deficit (well, I guess worst would be both).

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The first step is knowing you have a problem.

Let me help you on your second step: Congress decides what it thinks appropriations should be. It submits those as bills to subcommittee and then if it passes in the subcommittee it goes to the full chamber to vote. Either chamber, the House or the Senate, could start an appropriations bill but most often the House starts it. Once both chambers agree to it (if they agree on similar bills but not identical bills then there's either reconciliation or joint committee processes to get something everyone agrees on), then it goes to the President to sign. If he vetoes it, then both chambers can override his veto with enough votes and enact it anyways.

Now, let's see how that played out here.

The Senate passed a bill (with no border wall appropriations). Before it got to the House (at the time run by Republicans) to discuss, the President told the House leaders that he wanted border wall money in it. They passed a different bill with border wall appropriations in it which would have required a joint committee to hammer out the difference between the two chambers. Before that could happen, the session ended and the shutdown began because there was no funding agreed to and sent to the President. Bills have to be agreed to during the session they're raised in or reintroduced from scratch. The new session has a House run by Democrats. They immediately passed the bill the Senate passed the previous session. It went back to the Senate. The Senate (still run by Republicans) has refused to open it up for discussion or a vote...even though it's the same thing they all already agreed to only a month ago. The President is telling them he wants border wall money they didn't agree to before. If the Senate passes it, the President claims he will veto it. He's a Republican too so they're protecting him from that.

So, at what point in all of that do you think the Democrats are at fault again?

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Funding bills start in the House. The Senate will handle it's appropriations through it's own process. But the process of starting a funding bill is supposed to always begin in the House.

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But more recently (the past few years) the Senate Appropriations Committee has started their own bills simultaneously with the House or even before the House submits one to committee. This most often happens with the continuing resolutions ("keep the lights on" type bills) where not much is supposed to change from past bills, so there's less formality given to "House goes first" traditions. Part of this is also the falling out of the formality of funding the government for a full year at a time with a single bill. Congress has played loose with a lot of its "rules" especially when it's politically expedient to screw/support the other chamber or the president.

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So when a bill has finally passed both houses of Congress the White House has to either sign, veto or do nothing, as with any other bill.

As Trump preened his declaration of owning the shutdown he owns refusing to sign the bill Congress - both parties - sent to him.

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Trump said the shutdown was his responsibility and went on to specifically state that he would not blame anyone else. Apparently Trump is a liar. Sad.

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Bunker Hill Monument is a part of the Boston National Historic Park. It covers Faneuil Hall, the African Meeting House, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston Harbor Islands, The USS Constitution, the Constitution Museum, USS Cassin Young, and it partners with many more.

During the shutdown, the USS Constitution remains open because it is a commissioned US warship in active service and so is staffed by TDY service members - not the US Coast Guard. I think you can still board, but you need to go through screening with a valid government issued photo ID, as it's a federal military site. The Cassin Young is staffed by volunteers/NPS rangers, and so it's closed to the public.

Volunteers normally staff the visitors center in Fanueil Hall, on the Greenway during the summer season, at the Bunker Hill monument and museum, work on habitat restoration and citizen science on the BHI, and there are multiple private, local, state and federal partners involved.

National Park Rangers are accountable for assuring the safety of volunteers and visitors, and so when they are furloughed, most sites are closed.

There is a critical need for volunteers year round at a variety of sites when Trump isn't holding them hostage.

Here's the link to the BNHP site that currently is listing partner sites which are open:

https://www.nps.gov/bost/index.htm

And the Get Involved/Volunteer web page is here:
https://www.nps.gov/bost/getinvolved/volunteer.htm

Normally, there are multiple types of volunteer positions listed. There is no citizenship or residency status required. The only paperwork volunteers fill out is a yearly federal and state release of liability and safety check (stating any special needs or accommodations you require), but you're covered under worker's comp laws. In years past, I've worked alongside volunteers from around the world who wanted to see the US through the lens of the National Park Service and planned their vacations with volunteering for favorite activities in mind.

Anyone can show up at an unfenced site and pick up trash. However, the volunteers need to make their own arrangements for hauling it away. On the Boston Harbor Islands, this is a year round expectation as there are no facilities or room on the ferries for hauling trash.

The rangers I've met over the years have all been wizards and polymaths. They love what they do, and to deprive them of their hard earned salaries is just wrong, any way that you look at it.

Thanks to the dog group! I'm sure it's not just dog related waste that they're taking care of.

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