Hey, there! Log in / Register
Tall Ships $2M public safety cost not funded
By neilv on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 5:09am
Menino says the City will not cover the estimated $2 million public safety and cleanup cost of the July Sail Boston 2009 event, but the Tall Ships remain on course for Boston, the Globe reports.
An earlier Globe piece warned of the funding issue.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
So, let's have the event anyway
*without* any of the extra resources the city thinks it needs to deploy. I bet it will come off just fine. The experiment is worth trying once.
Interesting experiment
It would be great if the only cost to the city was emptying the trash bins that are filled by a million visitors cleaning up after themselves.
I've been conditioned to assume that large events need lots of police to maintain order and to handle the crowd in case of emergency.
Conceivably, things don't have to be that way, but an experiment otherwise could be very expensive if it goes bad.
You don't experiment with public safety.
You don't experiment with public safety... !Boston gets nothing but the bills... Mayor Menino is 100% correct...no funds, no ships! Let "do it all" Deval foot the bill, the state is the one that reaps the taxes from the million plus tourists. The city gets the bill and the state gets the "heads on beds" tax and meal tax.
I am all for making and maintaining Boston as a major tourist attraction but not pon the backs of taxpayers and most certainly not when folks are losing their jobs. Tell Dusty Roades the free rideis over... Good for Menino!
No brainer
Nice to see the Mayor is putting his foot down on this. The State should be ponying up most of the money to handle this as Deval will see most/all of the revenue.
Those businesses that
Those businesses that benefit from events like this pay taxes to the city of Boston. Two of Bostons biggest rev boosters are schools, and tourism. While the state should help out with big tourist related events it is not like the city of Boston gets screwed. If big events did not happen here and we did not have tourists how much money in annual real estate taxes do you think Boston would get if those hotels were warehouses or vacant instead?
How to raise the money
The Outraged Liberal says the Tall Ships should be outfitted with cannons and then demand tribute from other vessels in the harbor.
Pirates of the Hahbah
They can slug it out with the Coast Guard Menino has threatened to call to block the harbor to the Tall Ships.
Now that would draw a crowd!
But first we have to escalate the rhetoric. Menino hasn't even called the Tall Ships "pirates" yet.
Il Duce attempts to squash fun again
What is it with this guy Menino? It seems like he has to squash any freedom or fun in this town. Everything becomes grim threats and pandering to the basest resentments with him in the mayoralty.
Things like Sail Boston help give the city whatever cachet it has. I should not even have to mention the tourism angle, the hotel, meal and car rental tax revenue, because the freedom to hold public events is not subject to revenue considerations. Freedom isn't free.
The reason why we have a government is to provide public safety for public events. That is the definition of "public," isn't it? The truth is that the city has been holding up groups for years for payments for permits for any public event, along with mandatory exclusive licenses for Menino's favored sausage vendors. Let him not provide public safety, and then throw him out of office.
When will be rid of this tedious dictator? Boston after Menino will flower like Spain after Franco, I think. Flaherty, Yoon, McCrea, somebody save us!
That's what I'm talking about!
Dictator!
Franco! Mussolini! All we're missing is Salazar, Trujillo and Somoza for a full house!
My turn!
Menino only wants law and order in Boston. These foreign powers, these Tall Ships, these pirates can't impose themselves upon Our Fair City. They can't just blithely sail into our harbor to rape our trash cans and pillage our sausage vendors. They want to despoil our city, hold our city hostage like highwaymen, taking what they want and leaving their waste behind them. Like Vikings, like Barbary Apes, they will slink down their filthy hawsers to invade our city with their cohort of Rattus Norvegicus and Yersinia Pestis! The ruddy cheeks of the vernal Bostonian will fester with buboes! It must not be allowed!
Menino must hold the line! He will hold the line against these invaders! Chain the harbor, I say! Nay, mine the harbor! Our Fair City will not fall to these Tall Ship Ruffians!!!!!! !!
Viva Menino! Viva El Jefe!!
Old ships require old tactics
Take the USS Constitution and a few other tall ships out to the narrowest point in the channel, turn them longways and sink them. Instant barricade against wooden hulls. It's the only way.
Also, mmmmmmm, Somozas, argghghghllhghll...
..But the city had a quarter
..But the city had a quarter million for the St Patricks Day parade (less money in total but much more per person attending)?
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?arti...
So Menino is fine to provide extra money for a drunken parade that draws frat boys but a event that drew 6 million people last time cant be done?
whine, bitch and moan
Really, was the parade just a draw for drunken frat boys? Because I saw all sorts of people there - young and old and in between, plenty of whom were not wasted.
Nothing draws in riotious
Nothing draws in riotious drunken frat boys like a bunch of slow moving sailboats. The city doesn't need extra security for this.
Opera buffa of Menino the Rude
Among the ships planned to arrive are the sail training ships of several navies, including NATO allies.
Freedom of navigation and hospitality to maritime commerce in the broadest sense are what this city and country were built on. For his usual petty reasons, Menino is flouting this tradition. Revere, the Adamses, Hancock and Donald McKay are spinning in their graves.
The shocking presumptuousness of the mayor of a rather small city asking the Coast Guard to block the harbor sinks to the level of low comedy. Especially since the Coast Guard's own Eagle is one of the tall ships coming.
Let me get this straight
We have a mayor who thinks he has authority to close the harbor.
Right. Um, Right. Uh huh.
Welcome to another Classic Boston "but what's init fer MEEEEEEEE" moment, which usually follows a "but nobody asked MEEEEE" declaration of faux injury in complete ignorance or defiance of laws that truly govern the situation.
I'm waiting for Mennino to tell the federal government to close the Navy Yard and tell the Navy to move it's tall ship out of HIS harbor because his feelings are hurt!
You mean what's in it for me, the average Boston taxpayer
Boston got stiffed the last time the Tall Ships were here. Maybe we should put up tollgates at all the major entrances to the city and charge an entry fee to non-residents who want to enjoy the day without worrying about being mugged or dropping from a heart attack or heat stroke?
$1.7 million or whatever the amount is would pay for quite a few teachers.
The BAA has figured out how to reimburse the cities and towns along the Marathon route ...
As an out of towner I would
As an out of towner I would expect that any event I went to in Boston would have some sort of police protection, and enough fire fighters on duty to deal with emergencies. If Boston does not think they can afford to protect people at an event then its in their right to stop the event from happening. Plenty of other large events happen around here that are fully funded through the non profit running them why should Sail Boston be any different?
Money is your issue
I think Mennino's issue is that he hasn't been offered what he personally thinks is his due, and people want to negotiate. Nor is he being taken at face value for what he thinks the event should pay him.
Then he went and pulled an amusing tantrum and lost much of the credibility he could have used to talk it over. I just find it highly amusing that he thinks he has all these supuh powahs of mayuh that he doesn't have. Like, grow up already.
I also think the estimate for security is more than a little padded. The comparisons to the needs for the southie parade are apt - considering the crowd and the use of federal facilities, and the length of the event, it sounds like a bit much. It isn't that security isn't needed or shouldn't be paid for, it is that Mennino thinks he can just demand whatever those that benefit tell him he can demand or order the federal government to close the harbor to its own ships.
During the last Tall Ships event, there were Boston Cops who were essentially paid to nap in the Navy Yard. The city sent them, but they were not needed because the National Parks people were running the show.
The dispute has its roots in
Sooooo if I was to lets say borrow your house for a party I was throwing with the promise that I would pay you 250 dollars, and that I would pay for any damages to your house you would be fine with me skirting the bill. I can also assume you would let me use your house again even though I failed to reimburse you for the vases I broke, the furniture I destroyed and the food we all ate? Sail Boston owes the city of Boston 1.6 Million dollars from 2000, with interest added in Im sure that number should be closer to 5 Million dollars at this point. Boston seems to be willing to write that off as a loss, and just wanted a report on how Sail Boston was going to pay for the event this year, and Sail Boston can not provide that info???
It sounds to me like they expect Boston to just take the hit for their fiscal mismanagement again and refuse to admit it. Why is the Mayor such a bad person for expecting them to either pay for the event or give the city credit for absorbing the price tag which would of course include city involvement in the project. I know you dont have much respect for political establishment or the state/city structure and agents of the state but at the end of the day the people elect the political leaders and if someone refuses to deal with those officials its essentially an F you to the citizens of that locale.
Appearances can be deceiving
After many years of watching politicians in these parts, I think the real story may not be as you interpret it.
Here's how it looks from a generic standpoint based on past involvement in organizing civic events:
Naive organizers thought it would be a good idea to include the city on preparations and organizing for a large event
Things were going along well with the appropriate agency, when the mayor or other local dignitary poked his or her nose in and started making exhorbitant demands and refused to explain or justify them
The organizers pointed out that certain things were likely unnecessary and asked for some explanations of why the city wanted them
The official threw a public tantrum and acted as if it was all dropped on his or her head in a big surprise and nobody asked blah blah
Sorry, Shady, but I've been involved in attempts to organize things where the local politicians see it as a chance to extract major payouts or showcase themselves, and throw fits and act like they are being disrespected when they don't get them. Yes, the mayor should protect the city from an unpaid tab, but that is best accomplished by collaborating with the organizers and stating demands in terms of standards and goals, not by throwing tantrums and making threats based on authority you don't have.
If you step back and look at it from the perspective of multiple events and multiple city mayors, this whole performance is so formulaic, it is trite. Nothing here but bush league, small pond grandstanding at it's best/worst.
Yeah, Shady
Swirly's imagination totally trumps your facts. That $1.6 million is for cops napping in the shade. It doesn't matter that the city paid them. They didn't have to be there, because Swirly says so.
In my experience with
In my experience with organizing events in multiple cities and towns I have found it works out quite nicely when you find out who the right people to talk to are and that includes grand standing politicians. You get a few on board early and they will protect you from the rest of the pack, because most politicians will not try to torpedo a project being worked on by other politicians. Politicians in these "bush league" parts also happen to have contacts in many different parts of the city and can open doors for you that you did not even know existed. Yes they also do crazy things like make sure your event doesnt trample the locals and will try to reduce the cost of the event on the local city as well.
As much as you hate grand standing many local residents and voters expect that their politicians will be showcased at major events, and believe it or not a few big local names will add to the cache of the event (Oh the Town Council President is on organizing committee! Maybe its worth looking at.) If you have an event and their are no local politicians its odd, and people do notice. Even worse if they see the local politicians in the crowd and they are not mentioned in some matter of fashion. The smaller the city/town the more important that becomes because as you surely know every local politician has their family, friends, supporters, well wishers, and hanger ons.
Get them on board early and they will tell you flat out what your problems will be. Also if they had slid a council member or two onto their organizing committee then those Boston Councilors would be fighting like hell with Menino to make sure this happened without a hitch. Sail Boston is obviously not well versed in financial management or political manuevering, or event planning for that matter.
True, but ...
That is absolutely true, particularly where cities are smaller and don't have tourism departments or events people. When you have a city as big as Boston, you might expect that the appropriate city agency or agencies might have the authority to help plan big events that bring in tourists? That they could arrange for all the appropriate dignitaries to be feted? That they could relay concerns and issues and negotiate for payments for security and EMS staff and do so without a seagull mayor popping and demanding that your event make up for the lack of police details since the Governor joined the rest of the US?
It is highly unprofessional to jump in and throw a tantrum when you have people who are supposed to be taking care of these things to help promote the city and bring in business. The last minute tantrum game tells the world that management is in serious trouble - that there are either problems with supervision and communication within government, or that somebody is hell-bent on micromanaging every last person, decision, and detail.
Just sayin.
And sockpuppet, it ain't my imagination. I have been involved with groups organizing events in smaller cities in this fair Commonwealth and there is always some sort of last-minute extortion game that gets played by someone who wouldn't return calls or respond to invitations to meetings at the opening gate. Towns don't seem to have this problem, at least not to this degree, because they aren't governed by single individuals.
The real issue: Sail Boston demands very few direct resources that the City of Boston controls, and Hizzonnah has very reduced leverage to stop the event.
Just your imagination
It's really cool you can make up neat stories about what people always do (but not in Portland, am I right?) and not being invited to parties and tantrums and such. You've got an awesome imagination and should totally write a children's book about it.
But Menino's saying the last time these fancypants came to town, they ran out on the check and stuck the city with $1.6 million dollars in costs. Is he making that up?
The winner is...
Swirly wrote a lot more than you...twice...so I think she's right here.
The state stiffed the city BTW
I understand why the money is important.
Do you think this is JUST about the money? Really?
Because if Boston participated in the organization of this event, these issues should have been handled already by people who are tasked with handling them. Boston is supposed to have a government that is more than the Mayor - you know, agencies that work on this stuff for the benefit of the city?
The second issue is that the mayor just threw yet another embarassing tantrum. The money is a huge issue - granted - HOWEVER that issue could have been raised in a PROFESSIONAL manner much earlier in the game with the organizers through the appropriate city agencies who deal with these events. Oh, but that means having to negotiate and justify budgets - can't have that.
My guess is that the "security" costs he is demanding go well beyond an objective estimate of what is required - especially since a lot of the Tall Ships event takes place in facilities that are not owned or controlled by the City of Boston. Sleeping cops in the shipyard - I should dig up that ancient Ofoto roll?
(BTW Shady - you are correct on all counts and people who work to organize a successful and satisfying event most certainly deserve to be called out and honored for it ... but a well deserved thanks isn't the sort of grandstaning I'm talking about here ... I'm talking about what could be called Pentagrandstanding, as it were - the staying out of a process until the last minute and then attacking to kill it when you were invited to participate all along)
Trying again
Must be some problem with the transmission.
Menino says the city got stiffed for $1.6 million last time. He said the Tall Ships promised to come up with a plan to avoid stiffing the city for $2.0 million this time. They didn't.
Is it true? (Yes or No)
RTFGA
- The Boston Glob
SYFPH
Your turn.
Justify $2 million
The event is held primarily if not entirely on state and federal and private property. How, exactly, does the city justify spending that kind of money on an event that takes place on the water and on non-city owned portions of the waterfronts? Lets see what and where they think that money will be spent and if it isn't just a big pile of union negotiation featherbedding.
Consider as well that the state may have refused to reimburse the previous tab of $1.6 million because it was either not justified or heavily padded with expenses that had little or nothing to do with the Sail Boston event. In other words, Boston may not have "lost" or spent $1.6 million over what it would have spent had Sail Boston not been around at all! It may simply have given the state a bill for a very large number that included everything spent that week in the general area, which the state then rejected. Now the city claims to have taken a huge loss as a result of their bill being turned down.
How much were the Boston Celtics charged for their playoff series games? The Red Sox? The Patriots? What about other events that bring people to the city - conventions, etc. Did the federal government pay the City of Boston a fee for Cheney's visit? What about the DNC and all the people who were massively inconvenienced by that?
I don't know about Cheney
But, yes, the DNC did reimburse the city for expenses.
Boston Marine Industrial Park is city property
and I recall a fair number of the last Tall Ships to visit Boston were docked there.
Not sure why you're bringing up the Patriots, as they play in a stadium far from the city (and the Super Bowl is never played there)
They got some parades, right?
One for each victory ... all the way to city hall. There was also security in place around college areas due to excessive celebrations.
Justifying $2 million
Simple. I'll justify it on a comparative basis. Let's see... the only other US city visited by the Tall Ships is Charleston.
Well, it sounds like the Tall Ships people came up with a finance plan for that easily enough!
Okay, they'll get 100,000 people and cost $50,000 for public safety. Let's use that as a baseline.
The Tall Ships organizers said they expected to draw about four million people in Boston and therefore should cost ... hey! Damn proportionality! That comes out to exactly $2,000,000! Jaysus! It's like they got the estimate through... multiplication!
Yarrr! Donuts! Featherbedding! Unions!
SYFPH?
...pie hole?
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Ahem...
Shut your F'in' ...yes, pie hole.
Im going to take my partial
Im going to take my partial concession and go to sleep. Ill just continue to read on in the back and forth between you and SP lol.
If Tall Ships gets canceled,
If Tall Ships gets canceled, I will expect Mayor Menino to personally call my father and explain why to a very disappointed 62-year-old man.
Everybody chips in
The city gets some money from jet fuel taxes from people flying in and I believe some of the hotel take. Calculate the need, let Sailboston eat 10%, let the city pay what it will collect on incremental revenues - hotel, jet fuel etc. and let the state pick up the balance (this event is a monster windfall for the state - and that's really what menino is doing - he wants them to pick up the tab because he smells blood in the water). This should have been hammered out around a table long ago. Come on boys and girls - let's play nice so we can all enjoy a great (and profitable) event!.
We need a benefit concert
We could get Styx to perform for the concert, and all the sightseers would have to pay the cost of the total event just to make them stop playing "Come sail away" over and over again.
I'm sure we could easily raise enough money that way.
Reply to ShadyMilkMan
You wrote:
It sounds to me like they expect Boston to just take the hit for their fiscal mismanagement again and refuse to admit it. Why is the Mayor such a bad person for expecting them to either pay for the event or give the city credit for absorbing the price tag which would of course include city involvement in the project.
Let me fix that for you:
It sounds to me like Menino expects SailBoston to just take the hit for his fiscal mismanagement again and refuses to admit it. Why is SailBoston so bad for expecting not to have to pay for overpriced police details and the usual trough-feeding which would of course be included in city involvement in the project.
Reply to adamg
You wrote:
Boston got stiffed the last time the Tall Ships were here.
You might add:
Boston got stiffed the last time the Celtics won the NBA Championship.
Boston got stiffed the last time the Red Sox won the World Series.
Boston got stiffed the last time the Pats won the Super Bowl.
Boston got stiffed the last time the Walk for Hunger was walked.
Boston got stiffed the last time Obama spoke on the Common.
Boston got stiffed the last time the St. Patrick's parade was held.
Boston got stiffed the last time the Gay Pride parade was held.
Boston got stiffed the last time the pot rally on the Common was held.
Boston got stiffed the last time Anonymous protested Scientology.
etc. . . . .
No, not that simplistic
Boston had agreements to get reimbursed the last time the Tall Ships were here. That's what makes this different than, say, the Celtics.
Bush said it best
Fool me once...
"Agreements" are not required
You mean Menino demanded money in a shakedown and SailBoston capitulated?
So, why isn't he demanding "agreements" from the Celtics and the Red Sox? A little arbitrary, isn't it?
The city can charge rent for the use of some property, but can't shakedown the organizers of an event on federally controlled or private property. It's called "freedom of assembly," and you can't charge for it.
Did you know that police details for these things are time and a half and a minimum of four hours?
This is totally bogus - almost all of the ships will be on federal (NPS, USCG) or state (MassPort) property.
How do they get to that
How do they get to that property?
Are you meaning to tell me that nobody, NOBODY will be setting up shop on city land?
What difference does it make if the minimum is 4 hours, the event is going to last for more then four hours so who cares if thats the minimum for police details. Also if you were working beyond your 40 hour week would you not want time and a half as well?
As for sports team championships I was always under the impression that the City of Boston worked with the sports teams to make the events happen and that Boston really wanted the rallies. Also the teams are always here and contribute on a regular basis. As for the actual championship games the Red Sox are not the ones that created the atmosphere that resulted in chaos. They had their games, they did not invite people on the streets... Sail Boston is essentially inviting people out onto the streets without a plan. If this was a neighborhood block party we would all be screaming that the city paid for a single detail officer to patrol, yet because they are historic ships Sail Boston should get a pass?