On Brookline

Perhaps we can use the precedent that has been set by demoting long time Brookline Preservation Commission Dennis DeWitt toward actually improve other corners of town government.

Let’s start with the Brookline Building Commission.

The DeWitt demotion appears to be the product of Selectman’s Chair Robert L. Allen’s public responsibilities extending into his corporate attorney’s role for developers at 71 Spooner Road (see report). Not too legit, is that demotion.

But there is cause to boot two members of the Building Commission - George Cole and Kenneth Kaplan - who are up for re-appointment in 2007. Let’s start with blowing $3 million on the Lawrence School renovation because the building department (with the help of Selectmen’s Lawyer Jennifer Dopazo) selected a lousy contractor and then failed to adequately supervise the work.

I chose the headline “The Thanks You Get” for the DeWitt series (available here) because he apparently took his preservation responsibilities seriously, and tried to make it work for staff and residents.

Oh, how we could use that from our Building Commission members.

Maybe members of that Commission could adopt a similar approach to Brookline Building Commissioner James Nickerson. Starting at 71 Spooner Road. His department issued a building permit for new construction there after the developer counted a second floor bedroom as part of the third floor attic, making the project fit within the site’s floor area ratio. The Department also “decommissioned” an attic on the adjoining site of the subdivided parcel to further drive down the FAR.

Add to that, the botched renovations at the Coolidge Corner library branch, at the Widow Harris House and at the high school (roof). There are pipes bursting at schools and plaster ceilings collapsing in pre-school classrooms. The Town nearly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace a malfunctioning heating system at Driscoll School before it was realized (by an outside source) that the wrong fuel grade was being used.

The list goes on and on. And then, if you ask Nickerson a simple question (as I did) on whether he was influenced by the Selectman’s Chair to take no action on the ZBA’s order to rescind the building permit at 71 Spooner Road, you get no response.

That’s how it works in a system defined by cronyism. And mark these words, Building Commission members Cole and Kaplan will be congratulated by the Selectmen for a job well done should they seek re-appointment.