With four terms under his belt, City Councilor Michael P. Ross shows no signs of slowing down and will run for re-election in the fall.
“I still feel truly blessed that I have this awesome mandate to play a small roll in this great city,” said Ross. “I am still excited to show up for work every day.”
Ross, 35, said his years on the council have taught him how to be more effective at solving problems for his constituents. “The learning curve is so immense in city government, it takes a while to even be effective,” he said. “I have learned to deal with people. There are a lot of complex personalities in City Hall and to navigate through that and get results is not a simple exercise.”
But it is one at which Ross has managed to succeed. In his eight years in office he has dealt with a number of different topics and had trouble narrowing down a list of what he is most proud of.
He created and now chairs the Committee on Youth Violent Crime Prevention. While the problem doesn’t directly affect Beacon Hill as much as other areas of the city, Ross argues that the crime has a trickle-down effect on the quality of life for residents here. “There is a spillover effect,” he said. “When we are experiencing increased property crimes, those crimes will not be solved until we solve some of the bigger, more violent ones.”
Quality of life issues are important to Ross and he said he will continue to focus on them. “We have an office that responds and has a reputation for being effective.” If re-elected, Ross hopes to try to recognize some of the larger issues and be more strategic in dealing with them. “It is about being on top of the issues,” he said.
In response to neighborhood concerns, Ross created the Problem Properties task force and continues to meet with residents and landlords both on Beacon Hill and in the North End to solve student housing problems.
He has worked for years to increase towing on street cleaning days — a simple act that means cleaner streets for the entire neighborhood.
Ross said he is also proud of earning his law degree, which has already proved invaluable on the job.
Candidates can apply for nomination papers at City Hall on April 18 and Ross may not be the only one signing up to run in District 8. Insiders have heard rumors that Hereford Street resident Shirley Kressel, founder of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods, may throw her hat in the ring. Kressel, who has never run for office before, said she has not made a decision to enter the race at this time. Candidates for District 8 need to collect 128 signatures by May 22 in order to run.
Ross said he welcomes the challenge. “That is what democracy’s promise is, for a spirited contest,” he said. “And the candidates are made better as a result.”
Local nurse runs Boston Marathon for patients by Colleen Walsh
credit: Colleen Walsh
caption: Andrea Evans will run in this year’s marathon.
As thousands prepare for the famously grueling 26.2-mile race on April 16, one young runner is taking it all in stride.
Andrea Evans, a nurse at Shriners Hospitals for Children, Boston who works on the reconstructive surgery unit with children preparing for and returning from surgery, is part of the four-person Shriners’ team that will take to the Boston Marathon course to raise funds for the care of patients at the hospital.
Evans responded to an email in the middle of February from hospital officials looking to start a team.
“I thought, ‘this is my chance to be in The Boston Marathon,’ I immediately wanted to do it,” said Evans. “It’s always been a dream of mine to run a marathon but I never thought I could.”
An athlete and runner throughout high school who played a variety of sports including soccer and basketball, Evans concentrated on track in college, specializing in the 400- and 800-meter distances. After her school years of racing left her with aching joints, she decided she needed a break from running and took a year off.
But when she received the hospital’s email, Evans immediately phoned her college track coach and asked him if he thought she could be ready in the space of a couple of months.
“I didn’t want to have to walk fifty percent of it,” she said. “He told me I could finish but not to run for time. That was all I needed to hear.”
Evans has been running regularly about fifteen miles a week with longer runs mixed in. Recently she completed a 20-mile run, which included the daunting, heartbreak hill section of the marathon course.
“After I ran the 20…I knew I could finish six more,” she said.
Evans and her team are aiming to raise $10,000, $2,500 per team member, with ninety-five percent of the funds raised going directly to the care of Shriners’ patients. The remaining five percent will cover administrative costs.
The team will wear shirts with the motto “More for Miles” printed on them and run with electronic chips attached to their sneakers so fans can monitor their progress.
For inspiration, Evans said she will rely on support from her boyfriend of five years Tony, whom she calls a great mentor and motivator and who will be at the race along with his parents. Also in her fan club will be her parents, grandparents and cousin from Maryland as well as friends and co-workers.
Evans said when she runs she remembers the money raised will go directly to the care of the children she works with on a daily basis.
“It’s a motivating factor,” she said. “I know it will make a difference in someone’s life and that will make it easier.”
Happy that she lives on St. Botolph Street, just around the corner from the race’s finishing line, Evans joked, “If I need to come home and collapse, it won’t be far.”
Beacon Hill’s National Historic Landmark status updated by Suzanne Besser
Last Wednesday the United States Department of the Interior announced the designation of a dozen new National Historic Landmarks in recognition of their importance in interpreting the heritage and history of the United States. Despite the fact that the state and local preservationist had little to do with it, one of those designations went to the Beacon Hill Historic District.
The new documentation was submitted by the National Architectural Trust (NAT), a non-profit organization whose mission is to foster architectural historic preservation by assisting homeowners in obtaining tax deductions for façade easements. They sought to revise the landmark definition by adding architecturally significant structures built or altered between 1916 and 1955.
“Perhaps as many as 10 to 15 percent of the property owners [on Beacon Hill] are currently left out of these [federal] historic preservation and financial incentive programs,” said NAT’s Boston representative Mory Bahar in a press release.
Originally designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 by the National Park Service, new documentation was submitted that expanded the district’s significance, but not its boundaries, according to material published by the DOI. While the original nomination provided recognition for the district’s Federal and Greek Revival architecture and its early urban design, the new documentation incorporated recent scholarship and extended its period of significance to include late 19th century and early 20th century architectural styles, primarily as seen in small apartment buildings. It also documents Beacon Hill’s African American history and its role in the abolition movement.
The DOI also took into account the historic preservation and protective zoning associated with the Hill, such as the restriction on the height of its buildings. Beacon Hill was designated a local historic district in 1955, bringing all renovations and new construction under review by the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission.
Neither the Boston Landmarks Commission nor the Massachusetts Historical Commission was involved with the process, although both submitted comments on the application. Ellen Lipsey, executive director of the Boston Landmarks Commission, said the 50 years immediately preceding the date a building is landmarked cannot be not taken into consideration. This new designation, therefore, could not include information more recent than 1957.
NAT was assisted in its efforts by Boston Affiliates, a local historic preservation consulting firm led by Pauline Chase-Harrell, a former Boston Landmarks Commission chair. Some examples of properties built or altered between 1920 and 1955 that Chase-Harrell believed deserved consideration as contributing to the historic district are 21 Brimmer Street, 50, 56, 60 and 97 Mount Vernon Street and 43A Joy Street.
Joel Pierce, chair of the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission, said last spring that the expansion of the national landmark eligibility would not affect the jurisdiction of the local architectural commission since it is based on the location of the building, not its age.
The Beacon Hill Times gets its information by direct observation and from Mass. Highway’s project manager, John Lepore.
Traffic lights: Workmen have removed the foundations for the old lights at Blossom, and have begun work — pulling wires — on the traffic signals at Joy Street.
Brick work: Now that the traffic signal foundations have been removed, the brickies should be out this week filling in the holes.
Plantings: Last week Lepore met with Corbett Engineering, which will install irrigation, probably this coming weekend.
Watch out for steep drops in the median: In preparation for planting, workmen will remove about 18 inches of gravel fill in the median. Shortly thereafter they will dump in the dirt. But in between those times there will be a shallow drop. So if you are jaywalking and running across Cambridge Street where there is a median, you’d better watch out for uneven terrain.
The future: Lepore plans for trees to go in within the next few weeks. Then the irrigation system grid will be installed, after which the other plantings will go in.
Lepore has been erroneously optimistic before, but this time he says he “sees the light at the end of the tunnel.”
On February 12, 2007, the Supreme Judicial Court decided that the Department of Environmental Protection needed legislative authority to spare homeowners and businesses on landlocked tidelands from having to secure a license under Chapter 91, the legislation that protects the public’s access to the state’s waterways.
This could be a bureaucratic nightmare for homeowners on the flat of the Hill, the West End, the Bulfinch Triangle, the Liberty Hotel and MGH, to name a few groups affected. The Legislature should act immediately to pass House 3757, which would confirm DEP’s legislative authority to limit Chapter 91 licensing to the current waterfront — as DEP has done without controversy under Chapter 91 regulations to date.
A little history first. In the 1600s, extensive tidal flats and shallows surrounded many Massachusetts port cities. Under rules derived from earlier English law, the public enjoyed a right to fish, fowl and navigate over these areas.
Over time, many of the tidal flats and shallows were filled in and built up. They came to be so distant from waterways that any right to fish or hunt ducks and geese there, let alone navigate a boat over them, no longer existed. These filled tidelands, often far from the modern waterfront, became known as "landlocked tidelands."
When the Dukakis Administration toughened Chapter 91 in the 1980s, a “grand bargain” was struck among DEP, environmental groups and the business community. To correct title uncertainties for the many homeowners and businesses on landlocked tidelands and to focus state licensing resources on public access to properties that continued to have a practical connection to the waterfront, DEP exempted landlocked tidelands from licensing. The DEP’s exemption regulation took effect in 1990 and has been non-controversial ever since.
The result of the recent SJC decision is to require ALL properties on landlocked tidelands to obtain Chapter 91 licenses from DEP, regardless of when the land was filled or buildings built or uses started or changed. DEP estimates that approximately 3000 acres of such landlocked tidelands exist in Boston and Cambridge alone.
Under the SJC ruling, homeowners and businesses on the city’s filled lands far from waterways would require Chapter 91 licenses on properties that are now high and dry. Without such a license, a homeowner on Brimmer Street who wants to refinance could face problems with his or her lender, since the property would lack a necessary state permit, even though it is more than 100 years old.
Unless the legislature acts.
On March 1, 2007, Governor Patrick filed legislation, prepared by DEP, to seamlessly authorize and continue DEP’s landlocked tidelands exemption.
Opponents of the Governor’s bill have thrown up certain accusations to distract the press and the public. They started with personal attacks on members of the Administration who had already disclosed any conflicts of interest and recused themselves. Then they claimed that the bill gives up public parkland or cuts back wetlands protections, when it does no such thing. Then they claimed that requiring Chapter 91 licensing might affect groundwater levels in Boston. As Boston residents know, the city has already addressed this issue with zoning, an appropriate local tool for a serious local matter. Chapter 91 licensing would have no effect on groundwater.
Enough. The Legislature should act promptly to approve the Governor’s bill to avoid clouding the title of thousands of homeowners and businesses in eastern Massachusetts and to protect the public’s rights to use the waterfront where they matter most — on the current waterfront. The grand bargain struck in the 1980s was wise and has been properly relied on by many property owners over the years. The DEP’s landlocked tidelands exemption wasn’t broke. And as all New Englanders know, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just put it back the way it was.
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