Councilors could vote Wednesday to hand over downtown garage to BRA based on agreement they don't have at a price they don't know

Today the economic development council held a hearing at 10 am (see it here) on a Mayoral proposal sent to the City Council giving away 115 Federal Street, which is a City of Boston owned parking garage to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. This property has been publicly talked about being worth $250 million dollars if it is allowed to be built out as Boston's tallest Building as Mayor Menino envisioned for the site.

There would not have likely been any hearing at all except that some government watchdogs pointed out to the City that it was not lawful to give away City property without the City Council, whose main job is to be the fiscal watchdog of the city, signing off on the giveaway. In fact, the BRA had already advertised and taken bids in on the parcel starting in February even though they didn't even own it! They even told the press that they already owned the building in February. So, late last week the Mayor sent a document asking the City Council to sign off on this. They had their hearing today and they are supposed to vote on it at the City Council hearing on Wednesday.

Less than one week to discuss giving away a property that could possibly house the second or third tallest building in the City!

During testimony Sheila Dillon from the City explained that the BRA is "better equipped" to sell the property than the City is so they support giving the property to the BRA.

Brian Golden from the BRA then testified. He was asked by a councilor how much the property was worth and he hemmed and hawed and asked his staff and then said it was worth maybe 10 or 15 million dollars but they really weren't sure. This from the group that has been looking into selling the project for over 6 years!

Mr. Golden then explained how an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) would be sent to the City Council to be signed in time for their Wednesday hearing. This would obviously be worked out behind closed doors between the BRA and the City Council, no member of the public would ever get to see it, and $250 million dollar of taxpayers assets would disappear just like that! The Memorandum of Understanding, Golden explained, would result in money flowing back into the City once the the BRA had extracted their "expenses".

Shirley Kressel, Sam Tyler of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, and I all testified against the deal. (No one testified in favor)

First of all I told the City Council I would give them $20 million dollars for the parcel right now closing in 90 days so they already have a higher bid than what the head of the BRA thinks it is worth. I know it is probably too difficult for the BRA and the City Council to figure out, but the City of Boston Assessing Department has the property assessed at $31,528,500 so that might be a good starting point.

As I explained to the council this is actually a very simple real estate deal. The BRA are like the brokers in this. When someone wants you to sign an agreement in 2 days and they don't have the agreement to show to you and they basically say, just sign the document and trust us, we don't know exactly what our fees are or how much the building is worth but we will give you money later on after you have given us ownership: THAT IS NOT A GOOD DEAL TO GET INTO!!!!!!!!

If this deal goes through and you ever hear a City Councilor complain that we don't have enough money for the schools, or the roads, or the bridges, or police protection, or summer jobs, or City Councilor raises, just bring up this $250 million dollar giveaway and know that the government is not being honest with you.

The Olympic angle to this: I have been conversing with some City Hall insiders who think that this might be one of the dominoes that has to fall into place for the Olympic people to fulfill their promise of 'No Public Money' going into the games. Since the BRA is off the books and not a true public agency, the BRA, which already owns property in Widett circle where the proposed Olympic Stadium is to be built could use the windfall from the sale of this parcel to buy and use eminent domain (a power they have) to obtain the necessary land for the Olympic Games. Thus the developers still get the land grab they need and want while the elected officials can say that 'No Public Money" went into the process.

I saw my friend Councilor Matt O'Malley outside City Hall and asked him if he was going to vote for this giveaway and he said "Honestly, I don't know which way I'll go on this".

Please think about contacting your councilor to let them know how you feel about the giving away of tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on City assets for nothing but an unsigned MOU.

They could insist:

1) The City retain the property and let the BRA work as agents for the City of Boston taxpayers obtaining the best deal for the citizens and the City in an open, transparent bidding process

2) They only convey a 99 year lease on the property with ownership reverting back to the City of Boston in 100 years so that down the line there is a great windfall for our citizens 4 or 5 generations hence.

3) To delay voting on this unit the Memorandum of Understanding is made public and allowed to be discussed and get public input in a transparent process.

4) At the very least, get market value for the property by independent appraisers, not what the BRA tells them it is worth, since the BRA by their own testimony needs the property so that they can continue to fund themselves.

This is the type of back room deal that goes on in government that starves the citizenry of fair value and makes people disgusted with politicians and the political process.

For holding our elected officials's (and their minions's) feet to the fire. Our city doesn't follow its own rules and Ms. Kressel is constantly pointing this out. She has been blackballed financially, personally ridiculed at BRA meetings, and yet she continues.
Google her name at least: Shirley Kressel BRA critic

The formation of a BRA advisory board of neighborhood representatives was a nearly unanimous recommendation at the community input meeting held at Roxbury Community College after Mayor Walsh was elected. The moderators and leadership of the Mayor's Transition Team led everyone at the meeting summation to believe that this recommendation had some weight and would be implemented.

How are we doing on that?

Edited from my Globe article comment (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/06/17/bureaucratic-headaches-ensna...)

This enormous City asset was given away in two stages.

The garage "lease rights" were handed to the BRA in 2007 to collect several million dollars a year in parking fees while letting the building rot. That revenue should have gone to the City.

If it had simply been sold then, it would be completed by now,. All those construction jobs would have helped workers through the recession, and the space would be ready for the booming market.

I have no objection to any of the submitted project proposals, but I think we might have gotten many more developers to put forth ideas if they knew this were a real competitive bidding process and not another rigged BRA give-away, like Hayward Place.

The BRA can, as it has done elsewhere, legally up-zone this site without owning it, and defend against any charges of illegal spot zoning by declaring it consistent with the City's "master plan" -- which it can falsely claim exists because it made itself the city's "planning board" in 1960 to preclude any future city planning. The City can then sell or lease it to a developer offering the highest bid -- and the best program and design, as determined by the planning department. (Oh, wait, we don't have a planning department. Maybe we should re-create one, and get rid of the BRA! But that's another story....)

A Council vote on transferring City parking garages to the Public Facilities Commission is required by the City Charter. Either the Administration and the BRA are unfamiliar with the City Charter, as they claim, or they chose to ignore it; neither is acceptable. City Council, our legislative branch, is required to oversee the disposition of this public property in order to guard the public interest. The Globe's characterization today of that requirement as nothing more than an annoying snag of "red tape" reveals a lot about the Globe.

Will the Council stop the give-away of our public land? Judging from past experience, no. The BRA's hastily cobbled claim that it always meant to give all the money from the sale/lease of the City property to the City (never has, never will), and its statement that it came to the Council as the required next step in their acquisition, are simply Council soothers. Neither is true; the latter is already acknowledge to be false. But the Council will easily be tricked into signing a BRA document they don't understand -- and the BRA's Alice-in-Wonderland finagles are indeed virtually impossible to fathom or enforce, which is why the Council should not even consider any deal from the BRA and just sell its own land.

The motivation for circumventing the City Council (which is done often, and without Council awareness) is not that the Council will interfere, but that the public will find out about the heist during the process (as it has). The Mayor and the Councilors will then have to explain why he gave away a couple of hundred million dollars while he closes schools, cuts youth programs, elder services, road maintenance, etc. due to our "tight budget."

And the BRA, which is now campaigning for permission to extend its expired Urban Renewal Plans and power for ten years, is intent on showing that it is "not your grandfather's BRA," it is the "new BRA," kindler and gentler, and would never, ever abuse its urban renewal powers. That's why it didn't just take the property by eminent domain, as it previously took the garage lease rights to collect the parking revenue, with Menino's permission and waiver of compensation. The PFD route is the other usual give-away route.

Mayor Walsh is following in Mayor Menino's footsteps in using PFC as a land-laundering machine to feed the BRA off the books and out of sight. But PFD is allowed by the Charter to transfer City land only among City agencies for City uses -- and the BRA is not a City agency. PFC may also transfer land to any federal or state agency or authority (which probably contemplates an authority that does capital construction, like infrastructure-building) at an "appropriate price" (which, I'd think, would involve an independent professional appraisal, and is likely to be more than $1, the usual "sale price" to the BRA), or sell/lease it to a private developer -- which is what is really happening here -- by competitive bidding.

In all cases, the proceeds must go to the City's Surplus Property Disposition Fund, to go into the capital budget or, with City Council approval, the City's General Fund.

This was emphasized by Sam Tyler as well.

In short, this land grab by the Mayor and his BRA is entirely illegal and meant to rob the City of the couple of hundred million dollars this land is worth after up-zoning to about 800'.

As to the value: The City assesses it at $30 million now, as the site of a crumbling abandoned garage; as a tax-exempt property it gets a perfunctory evaluation usually far lower than the real value. And big commercial properties are assessed at some proportion of true market value (look up assessed values and sale prices on recent big commercial sales), about 50-70 percent. So let's say it's roughly $50 million. It's reasonable to think the up-zoned market value from a condemned 2-story parking lot to a shiny new 800' tower would be at least four times as much. By now, the BRA and the City Council each should have had independent assessments done so they know what they're talking about.

Whatever it is: it should not be stolen by the BRA. I know that the Public Facilities Division has the capabilities to bid out our land. PFD should do so, with no participation by BRA, which has shown, yet again and in a big way, that it cannot be trusted to care one whit about the citizens and taxpayers of Boston.

City Charter: (http://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/2007%20the%20charter%20draf...(final%20draft1%20with%20jumps)_tcm3-16428.pdf)