A new day

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I’m voting for Mike Zullas and Nora Harrington on September 8th.

Maybe it’s because I, like both candidates, grew up somewhere other than Milton – Nora in the Bronx and Mike in Brockton. Maybe its because of the Berkshire County connection. Both Nora and Mike are Williams College graduates and I grew up minutes away in North Adams and have always had a great deal of respect for that institution of higher learning. But it is largely because I agree with them on the issues and have confidence that they will represent Milton well at the State House.

Nora is running to succeed Brian Joyce as state senator. And while we are on this subject, can we all just agree that Brian produced at an extraordinarily high level for Milton year after year AND engaged in some unbelievably unwise actions that caused him to not seek re-election? Both can be true. For now, let’s agree that he made some choices that are difficult for even his staunchest supporters to defend.

Nora, of course, is taking on Milton’s own Walter Timilty for the senate seat. Walter has served nearly 18 years as state representative from Milton and Randolph and is looking to move up to join his cousin, James Timilty, in the state senate. His campaign for higher office has been a Milton version of the Rose Garden strategy – engaging voters one-on-one at the doors but avoiding any direct interaction from his opponent. That’s just not good enough when you are asking voters for a promotion. It’s also not good when #whereswalter becomes a thing. Nora’s campaign has been hard-hitting, the kind you don’t often see in a local race. But her criticisms of his conservative voting record, his disappointing record of producing for our town, and his failure to debate are fair and completely above board. Her views and her campaign have earned my vote. She will be a strong, progressive voice for Milton.

The race for state representative to replace Walter has attracted a large field. If signs could vote (and any political consultant will tell you, they don’t), Tony Farrington, Bill Driscoll, and Mike Zullas would be neck and neck with Kerby Roberson, Denny Swenson, and James Burgess running in the second tier.

Mike has my vote because of his leadership on Milton’s School Committee. He has been a smart, thoughtful voice on that body and quickly earned the confidence of his colleagues by being elected vice-chair after only one year in office and chair the following year. His service as a Warrant Committee member has given Mike an understanding of the fiscal challenges facing Milton.

Bill Driscoll and Tony Farrington seem like upstanding members of the community and have impressive bios filled with a lifetime of service to others. Denny Swenson is campaigning as the candidate of “no” having risen to some degree of notoriety as the leader of the fight to block a Chapter 40B affordable housing development in her back yard. Her literature promises to empower other neighborhoods to say no to development. Unfortunately, Kerby Roberson and James Burgess

don’t seem to have the campaign resources needed to make their case effectively across the district.

As a town meeting member I’m definitely biased, but I prefer my state representative to be well-versed in the ways of Milton politics and town government and be willing to make hard, sometimes unpopular, choices on difficult issues. For me, Mike Zullas is the only candidate that fits that criterion.

One last comment. The title of this blog post is a double entendre – Mike and Nora would both be a welcome change in our town’s representation and it is meant as a reminder that we go to the polls this year on Thursday, September 8th. Don’t forget to vote.

Citibank in Boston – a postmortem

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Much was made of Citibank’s entry into the Boston market in 2006. The bank splashily, and expensively, attached its name to the Wang Center which became the Wang Theater at the Citi Performing Arts Center. Citi opened its first branches in 2007 and soon had 30 in the greater Boston region.

And it had a strategy as well. We will “follow our Smith Barney customers” in Boston. So, the bank established branches in over-banked communities like North Andover (seven branches), Newton (over twenty), Wellesley (seventeen), Needham (ten), Lexington (sixteen) and Brookline (eighteen) eschewing comparatively under-served working class locations such as Dorchester, Roxbury, Brockton and Lawrence. By 2012, Citigroup had sold Smith Barney to Morgan Stanley taking a $2.9 billion write-down in the process.

Citi also never seemed to understand the Massachusetts market. The bank did not offer first-time mortgage programs through either MassHousing or the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. Instead, Citi made feeble attempts to offer “HomeRun”, a promising portfolio mortgage product that could not be used to purchase triple-deckers that populate many urban neighborhoods here.

What lessons have been learned for mega-banks trying to make it in Boston? Don’t come if you are not ready to embrace the local market – the whole market, leafy suburbs and city streets. Don’t invite fair lending scrutiny by refusing to lend on a large part of our housing stock. Naming rights only get you so far. The hard work is building relationships one customer at a time and Citi was unable to make that work.

Another Boston vs. New York chapter

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New York came into Boston in May and swept the Red Sox at home. Boston is in last place in the AL East while New York is at the top of the standings. Tomorrow night, the ancient rivals will begin another three-game series at Fenway Park.

Unfortunately for Boston’s beleaguered renters and homebuyers, New York is threatening to beat Boston on the affordable housing front as well. Last week, Boston 2024 released its so-called “Bid 2.0,” which included an ambitious plan for an Athletes’ Village at Columbia Point. The updated plan calls for 2,950 units in addition to another 2,700 beds that will serve as dorms for UMass Boston.

Exactly 385 of those spaces will be affordable and, apparently, all will be rental. That figure is 13 percent of the total and that is what is called for in the city’s Inclusionary Development Program. It is also what the developers at DotBlock have planned for their project at the intersection of Hancock DStreet and Dorchester Avenue. In fact, it is what all developers in Boston plan to do because they have to follow the existing standard set by the mayor’s office.

But it is disappointing to see Boston 2024 set the bar so low. Olympic organizers have promised long-term benefits to area residents from hosting the Games. One of those benefits should be more moderately priced housing in a city that desperately needs to retain its working-class residents.

Let’s look at the plan. First the benefits: It creates a new neighborhood in Dorchester with easy access to downtown, the beach, and the existing attractions on the Point. It also calls for a badly needed overhaul of Kosciuszko Circle and dorms for UMass. And it creates a neighborhood with upscale amenities that is designed to attract young professionals who have already been priced out of the South End or Jamaica Plain.

On the downside, it dramatically up-zones an already busy corner of the city and it fails to deliver much in the way of affordability for existing residents who want to stay in the neighborhood.

If we look 200 miles to the south, we can learn a lot from the experience in New York when the city made a bid to host the 2012 Games. Hudson Yards on the West Side of Manhattan was chosen to be the site for the Olympic stadium. When the bid came up short, Hudson Yards was turned into the site of a new neighborhood where New York hopes to build 20,000 housing units with nearly 5,000 of them being affordable.

The turnaround is also a cautionary tale because reports show that just 16 percent of the units already built are affordable. With increased pressure from Mayor de Blasio, both developers and advocates agree that the 25 percent figure is attainable. Still, the bar in New York is set almost twice as high as the one laid out by Boston 2024.

We may be resigned to the Red Sox finishing behind New York for second year in a row but we shouldn’t accept the same status in an Olympics competition. Boston 2024 should aim higher and show residents that permanently affordable housing, and not increased gentrification, can be a true legacy of our bid to host the Olympics in 2024.

This commentary appeared in the 7/9/15 edition of the Dorchester Reporter.

How to fire a coach

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A local high school coach has caused a mini-uproar in the media this week. Kirk Fredericks, the fourteen year veteran baseball coach at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was informed by administrators recently that he would not be invited back to coach next year.

Fredericks won three state titles in 14 years, made the state tournament every year and posted an enviable 269-68 record during that time. So why was he fired? According to many in the sports media, it is because of entitled parents who prefer an environment where their children are coddled instead of being driven to be the best.

No one knows this, of course, but sports media types are off and running with these theories anyway. And, full disclosure here, I have no idea why Fredericks was fired. This may be the most unjust decision in sports since Tom Brady was suspended four games for… what again? But can we not consider an alternative?

I get it. L-S makes for a waaay too convenient foil. Leafy and tony, both towns play right into the stereotype of entitled and connected parents. As the brother and brother-in-law of longtime high school coaches, I have heard for decades about complaints from parents that challenge even the most experienced and thick-skinned coach. And tales of school principals and superintendents unwilling to stand up for their coaches are legion.

But what about the other scenario? What if Fredericks did call one of his players a douche as alleged? What if that was a pattern with that player and others? It happens. All the time. Bad coaching at our youth and even high school levels is an epidemic in the United States. Too many “daddy” coaches channeling their inner Bill Belichick or Knute Rockne.

We know something about this. When our oldest daughter was ready for summer travel teams, we ended up seeking out teams that were an hour or more away from home because we wanted to make sure the coaching fit was a good one. And that was because her high school coach was a bully. Oh, he could coach. His record was similar to Fredericks’ minus the state titles. But he had skated for years because he was successful.

Before our daughters entered high school, I witnessed a spectacle at a state tournament game that I was sure would get him fired. It didn’t. Once our daughters were playing at the high school level, we saw up close his bloodied hands from punching chain-link fences and his inappropriate behavior in-game and after games – whether it be directed at umpires or his own teenage players.

For all of the perceived power of parents, it is hard to fire a coach. Especially one that has had success. Who speaks up and when? We were cowards. We waited until our oldest daughter graduated and could no longer be hurt – in terms of playing time or self-esteem. We did it because he crossed the line. He had taken his two best players, the two players who loved the game more than anyone and made them contemplate quitting. He squeezed all the joy out of the game for them and the team. He demeaned them and made them question their abilities.

We finally spoke up. And when we did it unleashed a torrent of similar comments from other parents as well. It took some months but the administration told him that he was no longer welcome to coach at Milton High School. Hooray. We had won.

This week, just four years after being let go by Milton, that coach will attempt to win a state championship with another high school, another group of teenage athletes. Our own program here in Milton has struggled through four years with losing records.

Did we win? Or like much of our policing activity, did we just push the crime into a different neighborhood? Here’s hoping that he learned a lesson and that this new group of high schoolers wants to win, in part, for their coach and not in spite of him.

Coaches, take care with your players – you are molding young men and women. Parents, please don’t complain about playing time or when the coach criticizes your son or daughter. But do speak up, loudly, when your child is being demeaned, belittled, bullied. Wins are not worth it. Character is.

Lewiston and Bates; Muhammad and Brenna

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Our daughter graduated from Bates College last month, 50 years after Lewiston, Maine had its moment in the national spotlight as the location of the second heavyweight title fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali. Graduation was a special time marked by ceremony, plenty of emotion, and good old-fashioned parent pride. Brenna was recognized by Bates for being particularly involved in the Lewiston community during her four years there. She involved herself through the Harward Center and helped to coordinate Project StoryBoost, a volunteer led program that had Bates students reading to early elementary aged kids in the Lewiston public schools.

These days in Lewiston some of those kids are young Somalis named Muhammad. In 1965, that would have been unimaginable. Then local news accounts of the Ali-Liston fight used the name Cassius Clay to describe the fighter that had recently converted to the Nation of Islam. Lewiston, and much of white America, could not accept the change.

In 2001, the first Somali immigrants arrived in Lewiston after escaping a dangerous environment in their homeland. Soon many other Somalis followed. Before long, it became a full-blown crisis with the then-mayor issuing a call for the Somalis to stop coming. Bates College and many others took the lead on welcoming the city’s newest residents in the face of growing hostility. Just fourteen years later, real progress has been made. Somalis have opened businesses along Lisbon Street, work in increasingly visible jobs in the hospitality industry, and have steadily increased their participation in the civic life of this formerly predominately white working class city.

Much more remains to be done. Somali children enter an underresourced school system still ill-equipped to accommodate their needs. Until fairly recently, it was impossible to find a children’s book in the Lewiston area that featured a Muslim character or pictured a woman wearing a hijab. Thanks to Bates professor Krista Aronson and children’s book creator Annie Sibley-O’Brien, the Bates College Picture Book Project now features hundreds of books published in the United States since 2002 with characters of color.

Some whites in Lewiston still are suspicious of the Somalis. Cultural divides abound.

But Lewiston has changed a lot since 1965 and changed for the better. Baxter Brewing and a LL Bean call center now call Lewiston home. The city rejected a gambling referendum In 2011 that would have brought a casino to the Bates Mill complex. Instead, Bates College is free to ponder what an investment in downtown Lewiston might look like for the school. Dorm. Offices. Museum. Community space.

It’s challenging for a small liberal arts college with just 1,700 students to make a significant economic impact in its local community. Bates has done a good job in the last decade of building strong ties to Lewiston and to the Somali population. Now is the time for Bates to take the next step and invest in downtown Lewiston, home to many Somalis. Such a commitment would signal a lasting partnership between an elite institution and its working class host.

Good neighbors

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What makes a good neighbor? Someone you can rely on in a pinch? Someone that will keep an eye on your house while you’re away? The type of person you would invite over for a beer and a barbeque?

What about a neighbor who will support an affordable housing “monstrosity” when others in the immediate vicinity of said development are opposed? Certainly, he can’t be a good neighbor.

That was me tonight. Tonight was hard. It was tough. It is always tough to be the lone voice in a public hearing. But when a dozen of your fellow townspeople are pouring their hearts out to the Board of Appeals about how this particular 90 unit mixed income development will destroy their quality of life, it is especially difficult.

They are wrong, of course. Well, not wrong on all fronts but their predictions of doom will not come to pass should this development get built. Studies and 40 years of experience with Chapter 40B in Massachusetts prove that predictions from critics (almost always abutters) never come to pass. There are almost always less children in the public schools than opponents claim. Traffic somehow manages to flow despite dire forecasts of gridlock and accidents. Trees grow, wetlands survive, and people adapt.

It won’t be the same, of course, but hardly anything ever is the same. And change can often mean positive change. It looks like the hospice on Randolph Avenue in Milton not far from the proposed 40B is a positive change. St. Elizabeth’s old rectory was a deteriorating eyesore that did nothing for the town or the property value of its neighbors. Goodness knows we all will welcome the change when and if the Hendries site is ever redeveloped.

But it is tougher when turkeys and deer occupy the woods surrounding the proposed site. It is harder to find the positive change. But 23 affordable apartments renting from $1,100 to $1,600 to households of modest means is a positive change in Milton. Moving the needle on the state’s Subsidized Housing Inventory from 4.9% to 5.8% with just one development is a positive change. Moving ever closer to joining towns like Canton, Dedham, Cohasset, Lexington, and Concord that have reached 10% on the state’s SHI is a positive change.

Tonight was hard. Some of the arguments made by opponents were over the top. “We will all have blood on our hands” if this development is approved, said one neighbor suggesting that people will die in traffic accidents due to the development. Route 28 is indeed a dangerous stretch of road and people do die in traffic accidents on that road each year. But implying that public officials (state and local) will have blood on their hands if this development is approved is demagoguery at its worst.

Police won’t enforce local traffic laws in the vicinity of the proposed development because “a source inside the department” tells Jonathan Hall (of WHDH-TV and a neighbor to the proposed 40B) that Milton backed off because of a Globe spotlight series on the racial imbalance of traffic stops in town several years ago. He went on to say that a disproportionate number of Blacks were being stopped “on their way to Blue Hill Ave.” Interesting sourcing on this story for someone who makes his living reporting the news. Also interesting given that both my wife and I have been deterred from violating the traffic laws by the presence of the same police department on the streets Mr. Hall claims that they don’t visit.

All of the criticisms weren’t over the top. Many expressed concern about fire truck access, school bus access, and pedestrian access to bus stops. Very legitimate concerns that the developer either has or will need to address. Addressing the housing affordability crisis in greater Boston happens on the ground in a seeming endless number of hearings like what happened tonight in Milton. Progress is slow and it is hard.

Go Irish!

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For my entire life, a 20+ point win for the Irish meant one thing. Notre Dame football had beat up on Navy, Pitt, Purdue or, every once in awhile, USC. Go Irish.

Today, media outlets are reporting that voters in Ireland overwhelmingly passed – by a 24 point margin – a referendum to legalize same-sex marriage. Go Irish, indeed. Ireland. Catholic Ireland.

It has been amazing to watch this latest civil rights movement. Public opinion has shifted so rapidly on the issue that even many gay marriage advocates can hardly believe it. And now, heavily Catholic Ireland has voted 62%-38% in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage over the objections of Catholic bishops but with the votes of millions of church-goers.

“I think this is a moment that rebrands Ireland to a lot of folks around the world as a country not stuck in tradition but that has an inclusive tradition,” said Ty Cobb, the international director of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Rebranding. Come to Ireland not just for the pubs and beauty and golf but because we are inclusive and concerned about equal rights for all. Run with that, Irish Tourist Board.

While Irish voters were preparing to go to the polls, my daughter and I took in after all the terrible things I do, a new play at the Huntington Theater by A. Rey Pamatmat. The play is beautifully written and acted and well worth seeing. It portrays how difficult it still is to grow up gay in America in 2015.

There is a line in the play that perhaps offers the most hope for progress. The Filipina shop owner discloses that it was her Catholic priest that tells her to just love her gay son. Don’t ignore it. Don’t try to change him. Don’t torture him. Just love him.

Activists and judges have led the way on gay marriage. But now millennials are convincing their parents and barriers are falling across the globe. Parishioners in Ireland have voted. Pope Francis is setting a new tone.  Is it impossible to imagine a gay marriage in a Catholic church in the future?