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Greenway won't let just anybody plant daffodils
By adamg on Fri, 10/12/2012 - 7:48am
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on discussions between the Friends of the North End Parks, which wants to use its own money and volunteers to plant several thousand daffodil bulbs to replace dead and dying plantings along the Greenway and the Greenway Conservancy, which says whoa, not so fast, it might consider that in February - or about four months too late to ensure blooms this spring.
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Comments
The Conservancy is useless
The 15 FOTNEP members in attendance were frustrated with the Conservancy’s lackluster response. “We’ve met seven times since July,”
A major re-planting might need her Board of Directors approval and the next board meeting is not scheduled until February 2013.
Six figure salaries and they can't even find time to talk about planting something until four months from now? If you're paid $185,000 to oversee a median strip, the very least you can do is be responsive to the public.
Why do we need the
Why do we need the Conservancy?
Abolish that bureaucracy and turn it over to Boston Parks. At least they let volunteer groups like FOTNEP fix up the place.
Why do we need the Conservancy as opposed to Boston Parks?
One reason is because the Boston Parks Department does not have, nor will it ever have, nearly the amount of resources needed to maintain this as the showcase public property that it is supposed to be.
If Boston Parks took it over and let each little sub-neighborhood constituency "volunteer" to maintain "its" share of the Greenway it would be a disaster - each section would be treated like the exclusive property of the sub-neighborhood (I can envision activities analagous to putting out street furniture to save parking spots), and from an aesthetic point of view, it would look like a fricken ramshackle community garden. No thanks.
Also, Boston taxpayers would scream bloody murder if they had to foot the bill for maintaining the Greenway (particularly if Mr. Davey gets his way and MassDOT is able to decrease its contribution - but I don't see that happening).
The Conservancy, while heavily flawed, at least can serve as a vehicle for combining both public and private funds for the Greenway while also having at least a little insulation from the nonsensical political crap.
Where does the Conservancy
Where does the Conservancy get its money? That same money can go directly to Boston Parks, without any of it getting wasted on the highly-paid Conservancy staff.
The Public Garden, Christopher Columbus Park, and the Esplanade are just a few examples of parks run by regular parks agencies with the help of volunteer groups. Do you think those parks are treated like parking spaces with chairs in them by the groups?
What about the Comm Ave Mall? It's like the Greenway, except less ugly, and doesn't need a professional Conservancy.
Hold on a minute there anon
I'm no fan of the conservancy and this is one example of what moronic putzes these people are BUT...
don't know about Christopher Columbus, but the Comm Ave Mall, Public Garden and the Esplanade are the beneficiaries of ENORMOUSLY generous benefactors (I think the Public Garden's endowment is somewhere in the range of $15 million now and it generates almost $1 million a year for the garden on top of what the city allocates). Comm Ave is now supplemented by the friends of the Public Garden, but most of the tree maintenance is funded annually by neighbors. The Esplanade has a surprisingly small endowment, but is working on increasing that and does have enough contributions to fund large expensive projects every year - they can't save much because there's simply too much work that needs to be done.
That said - yes - there are Friends Groups - mostly volunteer - that do almost all of the fundraising etc. for free. They have no need for a bloated public lord and overseer.
Conservancy vs. Boston Parks
Certainly Boston Parks could get the portion of the money coming from the state, but something tells me that the private donors who throw millions of dollars at the Greenway would be less inclined to make those donations if it were going to be Boston Parks employees as opposed to the private landscapers who do the job now.
Your comparisons to the Esplanade and the Public Garden are inapposite for at least the reasons Stevil gave above and because the Esplanade is not maintained by Boston Parks and the Public Garden is only nominally so.
The reasons that the Esplanade Association et al. are not engaging in the type of activity I alluded to above is because the Commonwealth (better funded and less prone to hyper-local political nonsense) will not let them. The crux of my initial comment was that I have little faith that an all-to-often neglected City department and political football could effectively manage the Greenway. It has a hard enough time effectively managing the Common (or not).
Mumbles doesn't want to be
Mumbles doesn't want to be responsible for the Greenway. Right now, it's someone else's toilet. Give it to Parks and Recreation, and it's his toilet.
The city dumped Franklin Park Zoo on the state almost a hundred years ago. The object is to have nice stuff, but not pay for it.
I'll say it again:
White people are (expletive) idiots.
I'll say it for the first time:
Will LaTulippe is a idiotic bigot.
I'm white, and
he's not wrong.
I'm white too, Jeff F
I can and will call out my own race for its stupid (expletive.)
Equal Opportunity Offender
Don't need to be a diff color to be a bigot
I didn't say anything about what race you might be - just pointed out that your assumption that the apparent idiocy of the Conservancy had anything to do with its members being caucasians (which, unless you consider latino and asian americans white, is incorrect) was itself a bigotted and idiotic statement.
The fact that you responded to my comment with one "calling out" your (entire) race is just more evidence that you actually believe that there's an innate correlation between skin color and behaviour/intelligence. Kind of the definition of both "bigot" and "idiot". Congrats!
Well, not an innate correlation
But you're naive if you believe that people don't sometimes shape their mannerisms based upon those of their peers of the same skin color.
Just gonna point out
if you said "Black/Asian/Hispanic people" there would be 55 comments and "RACIST!!!11!" everywhere. Double standard much? Guess what, non-white people can be both 1. stupid and 2. racist too!
Ever hear of Facebook?
I mean, I post with my real frickin' name. A simple search would have indicated to you that I am white.
Amazing. I am clearly intellectually superior to so many of you.
EDIT: Not directed at the above anon.
Problem Solved!
Turn the Greenway into a parking lot that MAKES money and benefits parking starved North End residents and local business instead of costing $4M a year to support lame parasites! It cost 20-25 $B to bury the central artery to make a $4M/year park? Instead, let that freed-up land go to good use! OK with me to put daffodil bulbs all around the edge of the parking lot, no director's meeting required!
(At this point I'm a cliche' and obligated to promote causes for the dominant transportation mode! So consider this half tongue in cheek)
Not a bad idea
Another idea I've had for a while is replace most of it with a trolley system, connecting North and South Stations. Yeah, the Greenway doesn't go *all* the way to North Station, but you can have a people mover or something connecting it with the trolley. Can even make it a branch of the Silver "Line".
How about building 4-5 story
How about building 4-5 story buildings along the corridor to knit the bordering neighborhoods and districts back together while preserving a few popular squares/parks along the route? The city sure could use the units of housing and more restaurant/retail spaces connecting North to South Station. The tax revenue would be nice as well. But that's crazy talk, we replaced one costly green scar for another.
State law prohibits diminishing a highway
The preferred interpretation is not removing lanes, but selling any land. Long term leases of the land that others pay to build on would be needed.
There are structural issues. Don't need anything more falling on the heads of those in the tunnels. This probably limits rail options, if not for weight, for vibration. Concrete types ill suited for vibration will fail quickly, like that repaired last weekend just outside the northbound exiting lanes.