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Quincy's mayor apparently unfamiliar with barges

The Patriot Ledger reports Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch is proposing an ordinance banning construction vehicles from the roads leading to where Boston wants to rebuild the Long Island bridge, as a way to block construction.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who once seemed to have given up on restoring a road link to the Boston-owned island off Quincy, made rebuilding the demolished bridge part of his re-inauguration speech in January - along with developing addiction programs on the island.

Boston shut the decaying bridge in 2014 and then tore it down.

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Comments

How this whole bridge thing is entirely Mayor Walsh's problem, and how Quincy is blameless for the fact that over the course of Menino's time in office the bridge was allowed to deteriorate. But hey, it's not like the Quincy delegation to the General Court fought any state funding for the bridge.

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You don't see any homeless people in Brookline, Newton, Milton, etc... so clearly only Boston is producing homeless people and drug addicts so we are obviously the ones solely responsible for paying for care and treatment of these unfortunate people who are all 100% from Boston.

Regional problems require regional solutions and yet everyone cries about more density in Boston to solve the housing crunch and needs us to rebuild this bridge.

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You don't see homeless people in those places BECAUSE THEY DEPORT THEM TO BOSTON AND STICK BOSTON WITH THE BILL!

Marty should be demanding reimbursement from those deadbeat cities and towns. Should they not comply -then the state should levy a fee on communities which don't take care of their own to reimburse the communities which carry the social burden.

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check it out, bro

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And anon hits it out of the park.

Off a tee.

But seriously, you make an interesting policy proposal. It sounds like a 40 B but for homeless. Maybe any developments including a homeless shelter get exemptions from local zoning?

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There have always been homeless people all over Massachusetts

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/1970/01/20/the-last-tr...

As transportation got better, the towns stop letting them spend the night. Does anyone actually believe that homeless people were born that way?

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Their head in the sand. These addicts are coming from your suburbs and you should be taxed for their treatments not Boston.

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this is so true or send them back to where they came from. not include the crime they bring with them.

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Quincy definitely has a homeless and drug problem. Just look at the library, Quincy Center station or Father Bills.

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When was maintenance or rebuilding in the City of Boston budget?

What did Quincy reps do in GC to oppose it?

How did City of Boston respond?

Was there any administrative or legal action taken?

Or are we just going off of Menino being such a prince and he says he tried, so there?

I'll wait.
Thanks.

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Why wait, when I've already cited sources on this.

But this isn't about Boston's attempts to at first repair then later rebuild the bridge. This is about Quincy keeping Boston from getting the bridge repaired and now rebuilt. And if you need further proof, look at what Adam wrote above.

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And carry no water for any of their politicians.

You didn’t answer a single question. Nor did your link do so.

Again, where is an iota if evidence that Menino fought for this or even proposed a budget item for repairs since the last repairs?

That’s my issue. Menino and then Walsh did fuck all to repair that bridge.

I’ll even grant you that Quincy pols probably squawked about it.

But they didn’t fight or stop anything because nothing was done by Boston in the first as far as I’ve ever seen.

You specifically mention the General Court. What specifically did Quincy do in that forum?

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Put tolls on the Neponset River bridge and let this little den of corrupt Boston emigres slow devolve into Revere, except with a truly gross little beach.

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Revere Beach actually isn't bad, while Wolly world is the needles in the sand (ok, rocks) horror show in Boston inner harbor. Long Island is part of Boston and isn't near Anyone in Quincy. Stop with this pearl clutching nonsense because you've heard that the buses drive through Squantum. Maybe you can pretend you actually saw one once.

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Revere Beach got better food , and exciting entertainment is near by as well.

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If you were batting cleanup for the Sox they’d only be like 12-6. Read more carefully, think more critically.

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Mea culpa. Too bad because I'm sitting on a pile of insults for everything except La Paloma.

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Revere beach is a pearl compared to Wollaston.

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I don't even live there but I know Quincy is a lot more than a Boston emigres. Jeez.

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Long Island should be part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, and it should be open to the public. If not 24/7, at least during the same daytime hours as the rest of the islands (Spectacle, Georges, Peddocks, etc). It makes no sense to spend all this money on a replacement bridge if the public can't use it.

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.

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The treatment facilities on the island worked because the place was inaccessible. Do you realize that the most dangerous sex offenders are not competent to stand trial, and therefore not on any list? Did you know that all of the buildings are connected by tunnels?

I am no expert in recovery, but there is a stage where being on an island is helpful.

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Weren’t the only residential programs on the island for women? Those sex offenders were bussed into town daily, no?

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Except for the people in Detox or kids in state custody, everyone leaves during the day.

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Doesn’t that mean that if the island were open to the public, the offenders wouldn’t be there at the same time as visitors?

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New residents stay at the programs. They stay during bad weather as well.

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But still not running free around the island, posing a threat to visitors.

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And security works both ways. There are other islands open for recreation.

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Sorry, but this guy lost me when he sided with climate change deniers to oppose a wind turbine out on Moon Island. Feet of clay, he needs to go.

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Liking Koch more and more each day.

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Its okay to be that way ... just don't tell us the details mmmmkay?

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Mayor Koch is also unaware of the phrase "the common good".

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He's just taking the standard position on it, which is "things that help out my tribe at the expense of others are for the common good; things that help other people out and inconvenience me are HORRIBLE AFFRONTS TO LIBERTY and must be stopped at all costs."

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fine, be a dink Koch.

We will just take the homeless and addicts, put'em on buses, take'em to Quincy Center and dump them off. It's clear Koch doesn't want to help people who are in need and people who would benefit from the island being open, so he can deal with the outcome of blocking it. Let them all take over Quincy Center and I'm pretty sure he'd be changing his tune very soon.

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Sounds like a plan to me. Mayor Koch should be ashamed of himself. The residents of Quincy that support his obstruction should be too.

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They are already there.

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They used old shipyard to run barges out to Winthrop when they were making MWRA sewerage facility , all materials got barged there so as not to run through Winthrop.

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Does he have the authority? Does the local city council have the authority? Does it make sense for Long Island to be solely the responsibility of Boston? Is Koch related either by blood or at least sentiment to the infamous Koch brothers?

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But he won't have much luck. Under state law, any truck restrictions must have a bypass, so if trucks need access to a certain point, there must be a truck route to that point. Most roadways are public property -not property of the municipality (or state), but held in trust by them- and access restrictions to them are very difficult to implement.

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It is appalling that Mayor Koch is doing this. The bridge was there before and needs to be replaced. I don't think that the bus to Long Island made any stops in Quincy, so I doubt that it would in the future, so what's the big deal? Some construction? All of Quincy Center is a giant construction zone. Also, Boston takes all homeless regardless of where they come from, so conceivably there could be people from Quincy being helped....this all seems very spiteful.

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Tell your police to stop shipping your drug addicts and the mentally unstable from Quincy station into Boston and find treatment for them.

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Milton
Brookline
Newton

Well? Thought so. Quincy already does more than it's share, as does Boston and Cambridge.

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Quincy already does more than it's share

really?

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for addicts and homeless in Quincy? And, have you been to Quincy lately?

Does Brookline, Newton or Milton have any facilities for homeless?

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Long Island is in Boston, so nobody's asking Quincy to do anything. If there was an island in the Chestnut Hill or Brookline Reservoirs that belonged to Boston, maybe we'd put treatment centers there. As it is, our giant island is in the Harbor, and it's near Quincy. Boo hoo.

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Can someone explain to me why it makes sense to bus the homeless to an island? Now we have to spend 25 million on a bridge to transport them there? With all that tasty bridge money can't we just build a facility on each side of the Neponset, complete with shuffle boards and swimmin' poolz? I think the old Ups 'n Downs could use a tenant.

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There's an answer to your question just a little bit up this thread.

So, is it NQHS that doesn't teach reading, or is it QHS?

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I'm with Plen-T-Pak on this one. 25 million to build a bridge to bus homeless, addicts etc? It doesn't make financial sense. Use that money to build a facility in the city somewhere. Less busing, less pollution, less money, win-win. Then open the island up to the public like the other Boston harbor islands.

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Or let's put the facility in Quincy!

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But doing treatment on the cheap might cost more in the long term. Hence, citing the facilities where patients are not in an urban setting is good. Isolation is a bonus.

But if Quincy wants to spend the money building a treatment center like that, they should. Perhaps out in Hough's Neck or thereabouts.

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