City Councilor Sal LaMattina (East Boston, North End) warns our status as a world-class city is threatened by inadequate funding for our parks:
I know that we recognize that protecting, preserving and improving our parks is vital to continuing to grow Boston's population and maintaining our status as a world class city.
Unfortunately for him, he didn't want to go back. But he lost the Register of Probate Democratic primary race to Patty Campatelli, 51-49. The results also signal, again, that Tom Menino's coattails don't extend very far.
Maura Hennigan staved off Robert Dello Russo rather handily in the angry Criminal Clerk race.
You'll be one of the few and proud, in today's generally low-key Thursday primaries. Some Boston-related races (all Democratic, natch):
Maura Hennigan vs. Robert Dello Russo, Suffolk County Superior Court Criminal Clerk. They hate each other.
City Councilor Sal LaMattina, who represents the increasingly student heavy North End, is proposing a new city ordinance that could lead to penalties against landlords whose tenants hold parties that bring a police response - and against repeat party givers.
"Loud parties and gatherings cause disruptive behavior leading to sleep disturbances and anxiety creating a substantial disturbance of the quiet enjoyment of the neighborhood," LaMattina writes in his request for a formal hearing on his proposed "ordinance regarding nuisance control."
City Councilor Sal LaMattina wants to slap some sense into Dish Network: Either they voluntarily clean up the eyesore East Boston has become with their goddamned satellite dishes haphazardly hanging everywhere or he'll introduce an ordinance to make them try to install the dishes somewhere other than the front of buildings across the city, the East Boston Times-Free Press reports.
The Dorchester Reporter breaks the news on City Councilor Sal LaMattina's ruminations. Like the city clerk's job, the register job has traditionally been a haven for city councilors who want to move on - if he runs and wins, LaMattina, who now represents East Boston, Charlestown and the North End, would replace Richard Ianella, who retired last year.
(This post originally appeared at www.BostonBastard.com)
Just in time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Boston City Council readily presented their version of Boston race relations by making an example out of Charles Yancey, a black City Councilor who committed the egregious offense of actually trying to do his job and look out for his constituents.
The annual release of City Council Committee chairs is always a good way to get a sense of where the councilors stand in the eyes of the City Council power structure and this year was no different.
When Council President Stephen Murphy released his assignments last week, we learned that Matt O’Malley has proven himself as a willing stooge of the status quo, so of course he was handed the chair of the Government Operations Committee, which had been left available when Maureen Feeney finally decided to drop any pretense of giving a shit about her Dorchester constituents and went after a major pay raise.
Another major change was that Charles Yancey was removed from his chairmanship of the Post Audit and Oversight Committee.
Among councilors, Yancey is often criticized for not doing anything, but only because trying to improve the community in Mattapan doesn’t count among City Hall’s paler politicians.
City Councilor Sal LaMattina (North End, Charlestown, East Boston) says it may be time to require North Enders to put their trash out in metal or plastic barrels rather than bags that can be easily ripped open by rats, NorthEndWaterfront.com reports. There's a hearing on Thursday.
Matt Conti reports the councilor for the North End threw water on a North End Chamber of Commerce idea to stuff more tourists into the neighborhood by turning Hanover into another Charles or Newbury. LaMattina also discussed vexing Hanover issues, from double-parked trucks to selfish valets and taxis that just circle the block, at a recent residents association meeting.
Councilors Felix Arroyo (at large) and Sal LaMattina (East Boston, North End, Charlestown) say it's time to ban smoking at both city and state recreation sites in Boston.
The two say second-hand smoke poses too much of a health risk to other park goers and that "careless smokers who choose to litter their used cigarette butts threaten the environmental integrity and cleanliness of our cherished public spaces."
The city council considers their request for a hearing on the issue today.
Councilors Mike Ross and Sal Lamattina propose up to 25 new licenses for food trucks to roam the city, bringing fresh, hot, inexpensive meals to the masses.
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports city councilors Mike Ross (of course) and Sal LaMattina are working on an idea to "have students sign leases where certain loud party' terms are included." The idea is to then enforce those terms with fines or outright eviction.
Why is NorthEndWaterfront.com reporting on this? Seems the North End might soon have to rename itself East Allston, based on a rising number of complaints about out-of-control parties run by college students (the more enterprising of whom charge admission).
The East Boston Times reports a "frenzy in the neighborhood" over the possibility that Councilor Sal LaMattina would become city council president, which would make him mayor when Menino quits in the middle of his current term - just like what happened to Menino, except the mayor's expressed little interest in becoming ambassador to the Vatican.
The Wild Bunch set, still fuming over a LaMattina-backed ordinance that dares to tell them how loud their bikes can be, is trying to come up with ways to express their disgruntlement.
A pair of California bikers propose taking all the parking spaces on Hanover Street at 5 p.m. on a Friday to show the restaurants what's what:
Matt Conti reports a proposal that would have limited North End residents to 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. for putting out trash died because the city and the contractor couldn't work out the union and contract changes that would have required. Councilor Sal LaMattina initially proposed the idea as a way of reducing the hours during which rats can gorge themselves silly on neighborhood garbage - residents can now put their trash out as early as 5 p.m. the night before each of the neighborhood's three-times-a-week pickups.
City Councilor Sal LaMattina (East Boston, North End, Charlestown) says he knows firsthand what it's like to get run into by a Segway - and wants to keep it from happening to people on busy commercial streets in Boston.
LaMattina told the council today that when he worked for the city transportation department, when Segways were new, he and transportation Commissioner Tom Tinlin went to Segway headquarters in New Hampshire to check them out. Company officials told them a pedestrian couldn't get hurt if hit by one - but he wanted hard proof, so he told Tinlin to get on a Segway and ram him.
Mike Ball, who actually attended yesterday's City Council vote on term limits (I couldn't take another day of those alleged seats in the council chambers and so watched the procedings from our comfy couch on Comcast Channel 51), didn't think much of Maureen Feeney's performance as chair of the committee on government operations - which had bottled up the term-limits issue for months:
Comcast told the City Council today it could begin wiring the Mission Main project by April.
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on a two-hour neighborhood meeting about trash and rats; says Councilor LaMattina has made some calls to particularly offensive property owners to get them to clean up their property. Other offenders get a "Letter from the Councilor" with tips on making their refuse less rat-happy.
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.
