October Column - The Parks Mob.
By Jim Conley • Oct 23rd, 2006 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Some readers are curious as to why I’ve taken to calling the preservationist community the “Parks Mob.” Well, it all goes back to the evening of January 24, 2006 when a mob turned out to shout down then-Selectman Michael Sher as he asked his colleagues to investigate the lack of controls in the Brookline DPW.
Reportedly, the mob was organized with the help of a very senior DPW employee, who has very close ties to the people who want you to pay more in taxes so they’ll have more to shout about.
For this month’s column, I’ve reprinted the TAB piece I did after that fateful night in January.
A word of caution before you read the piece. In calling out the boorish behavior of preservationists and town employees, I tend to lapse into uncivil discourse. And I tend to speculate on things, as in saying that the DPW Commissioner will try and have his legal bills paid by the Selectmen (which, of course, did happen).
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Jim,
I urge visitors to this site who may question your premise in this post and in your linked TAB column to visit the Selectmen’s website and download the minutes for its January 24, 2006, meeting that you address. The minutes consist of some 72 pages, plus an additional 30 pages of slides that former Selectman Sher presented to prove his case for an investigation of DPW. Better yet, your visitors might order the video for both enlightenment and entertainment, a display of Brookline municipal video noire. The Parks Mob you describe I had described as the “Greek Chorus” in my Guest Commentary in the TAB, Sept. 28th, on the ‘DeMaio Indemnification Part III Roman Circus.” The Parks Mob, or professional preservationists as I tend to describe them, are not “flower people” of the 1960s; no, they are in this for professional gain, at the expense of others. They are not conservationists. They surely are not liberals or progressives. They want to impose their tastes on the entire Town at our expense. They have been protected over the years under the umbrella of DPW, which can be leaky at times; in turn, these professional preservationists protect DPW when it is challenged.
[...] Some in the Parks Mob are so enthusiastic about the prospect of CPA tax surcharge in Brookline, that they’ve endorsed it twice on the pro-CPA website. [...]