Nothing from Nothing.
By Jim Conley • Oct 15th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline Schools, Brookline SelectmenWhat do you get when you divide zero by zero? Nothing.
So it’s more than a small curiosity that the Brookline Selectman will take up an item at tomorrow night’s meeting to create an “Economic Development Division in the Department of Planning and Community Development.”
Here I am thinking that the hundreds of thousands spent on [...]
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Parallel Universe.
By Jim Conley • Aug 31st, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenRemember when the Brookline Selectmen allowed the town’s chief engineer to negotiate a debilitating fee increase on the local farmer’s market? And remember how Selectman’s Chair (and Brookline PAX board member) Gil Hoy dismissed the fee increase as “rumor” (even though it had been memorialized in a document)?
Remember that farmer’s market debacle?
While reading the [...]
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The Shameless and the Shameful.
By Jim Conley • Aug 2nd, 2007 • Category: Brawl at Town Hall, Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline Selectmen, St. Aidan'sArchie raises a good point in the comments below on the subject of the Brookline ZBA’s decision on One Somerset Road. It’s hard to see the decision as much more than a general transcript of the proceedings conducted by the Board, including those of May 24th. And with that, there is no indication [...]
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Incalculable Incompetence.
By Jim Conley • Jul 31st, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenRemember how the Town of Brookline triggered a Farmer’s Market debacle by telling the organizer of the event that, because of the market, the Town lost $14,300 in parking revenue from the lot where it sets up?
And remember when this site reported that the Town’s chief engineer had recalculated the lost revenue, but couldn’t say [...]
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In the Company of Men.
By Jim Conley • Jul 27th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenI’ve reported previously that the Brookline Office of Official Obfuscation (doing business as Town Counsel Jennifer Dopazo’s office) replied to my public records request on the Farmer’s Market debacle by sending me a handful of documents I could have easily found on my own.
I did receive copies of a few e-mails, though. And all [...]
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Ask a Simple Question…
By Jim Conley • Jul 26th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline Politics, Brookline Selectmen, Campaigns, The Allen FilesA week ago yesterday I asked Peter Ditto, the Town of Brookline’s chief engineer for the new calculations of lost revenue from the Centre Street West parking lot on the days the local farmer’s market sets up there. He told me he gave the information to Town Counsel Jennifer Dopazo as part of my [...]
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How “Rumors” Get Started.
By Jim Conley • Jul 24th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenGee, how would anyone come to believe that the Town of Brookline had plans to raise the fee it charges the local Farmer’s Market? Maybe it has something to do with this memo from Marge Amster, the Town’s Commercial Areas Coordinator [click here to read].
Seems pretty clear to me that a case was being [...]
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Rumors.
By Jim Conley • Jul 18th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenTomorrow’s front page TAB story couldn’t be worse for the Town Hall team. The three-inch headline carries Selectman’s Chair Gil Hoy’s “rumor” explanation over the Farmer’s Market debacle. That’s some rumor, being memorialized in a memo and all. A memo that was given to the Selectmen, incidentally.
But get this. Earlier today, [...]
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Carry the One and Total the Column.
By Jim Conley • Jul 18th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenI’ve been told that Brookline’s chief engineer has “recalculated” the lost revenue from displaced parking at the lot hosting Brookline’s Farmer’s Market. The new calculations are reportedly lower than the $14 thousand presented to the Selectmen. Imagine that.
Seems like a lot of trouble for something that is “nothing but a rumor” (to quote [...]
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Postcards from the Clueless (2).
By Jim Conley • Jul 18th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenWho is Gilberto Hoi and why is he sending me messages like this one concerning the Farmer’s Market debacle:
“Your writing on this was both irresponsible and baseless. As you surely must now know, the Town never had any inclination whatsoever [emphasis added] to do what I understand that you printed as fact.
I also [...]
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Centre Street Hotel Prologue?
By Jim Conley • Jul 17th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenCan’t wait for the day - if it ever comes - when the Brookline Selectmen and their flunkies on the Town’s Economic Advisory Board announce plans to put a hotel, or other such monstrosity, where the Brookline Farmer’s Market currently operates.
This week’s flare up over a fee increase will seem like a barn raising should [...]
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Webster St. Redux.
By Jim Conley • Jul 16th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenAh, the good old days. Back in 1998, the Brookline Board of Selectmen were trying to gin up public support for their hotel project on Webster St. (where the Marriott nows stands). There were lots of problems in using this site and in November of that year, the Town’s Development Director Amy Schectman [...]
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Postcards from the Clueless.
By Jim Conley • Jul 16th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline Politics, Brookline Selectmen, Campaign FinanceHere’s Brookline Selectman’s Chair Gil Hoy reporting on his inquiries into the Brookline Farmer’s Market debacle:
“I have checked further into this and there is no merit to this rumor. The Selectmen discuss this license fee once per year, and we have not discussed it since last year. The amount of the fee must [...]
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Squeezing the Tomatoes.
By Jim Conley • Jul 16th, 2007 • Category: Brookline Farmer's Market, Brookline SelectmenGet ready for the town hall spin on the farmer’s market debacle [see previous post]. It will likely go this way: “We’re not imposing a $14,000 fee on the farmer’s market, we just did an analysis of how much coin was lost from meters in the Centre Street Parking lot. We’re still negotiating [...]
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