Great Moments in Municipal Reassurance.
By Jim Conley • March 26th, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Tomorrow’s TAB has a story in on the St. Aidan’s asbestos debacle and features this passage:
[Town Planning Director Jeff] Levine said the town was “closely monitoring the project” and believed POUA [the Boston Archdiocese] has “every intention of complying with state, local and federal requirements, and also some additional agreements.
“I think there has been some miscommunication [insofar as] most of the asbestos in the rectory building was actually removed a couple of years ago,” Levine said. “I can’t fault people for being nervous, but they don’t have anything to be nervous about.”
Oh really? Maybe the asbestos in the building has been removed, but it’s the material on the outside of the building that has people worried. And there’s between 4,500 and 7,500 square feet of material with asbestos in it.
And just because the Archdiocese has every intention of complying with environmental laws, that doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. It’s why we have enforcement divisions.
When a top administrator in Brookline town government tells me that there’s nothing to be nervous about, I get very nervous indeed.
Update: The TAB also runs an editorial calling for a meeting between the neighbors and the Archdiocese’s developers prior to demolition. Good idea.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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FORGETTING HISTORY
Dexter Park’s zoning history is not a proud chapter in Brookline governance. Never again? Well, there has been a lapse of over 30 years and now, directly across Dexter Park on Pleasant Street, we have the St. Aidan’s project. But residents in the area have fought back. Alas, the archaic Brookline governance has interceded in what is a political battle with non-secular overtones. Political egos are at stake. Brookline officials must be so embarrassed as they push this project despite serious environmental issues. Brookline officials responsible for this mess bring to mind George W. Bush who, despite the lies involving the invasion of Iraq, has said that even so he would do it again. Would these Brookline officials do it again despite the events of the past several years? Let’s say that the project does rise from the dusts of demolition. Then we would have a second chapter of misguided zoning decisions separated by a block of Pleasant Street. There must be accountibility of these Town officials’ accommodation of the Archdiocese. Never again? Ah, but this is Brookline.