Home Page      Who      What      Where      When      Why      How      Newsletter Index     

SOMERVILLE AT LARGE

An e.newsletter from Denise Provost, Alderman-at-Large


Vol. 4, No. 2
February 2, 2004

Contents

1) ASSEMBLY SQUARE MEETINGS SCHEDULED
Committee Meetings Scheduled
The aldermanic Committee on Legislative Matters will once again be meeting to discuss the proposed new zoning for Assembly Square. The Planning Board on January 8, 2004, voted to recommend "as amended" approval of the zoning proposal submitted by then-alderman Curtatone on December 8, 2003. I don't know if the Planning Board report and recommendations are on the city's website. You can request them from Planning staff member Scott Walker at (617) 625-6600, ext. 2500; swalker@ci.somerville.ma.us. The proposed amendments are numerous, but mostly fairly minor, in my opinion.

Steve Cecil to Return
On January 5, 2004, Steve Post left his position as the city's Director of Housing and Community Development, and has not yet been replaced. Since the Planning Board made its report, Mayor Curtatone has hired planning and design consultant Steve Cecil as the "de facto project manager" for the Assembly Square zoning effort. The Cecil Group performed the 2000 Planning Study of Assembly Square on which the city's subsequent efforts have been based. The Committee on Legislative Matters will be meeting with Mr. Cecil and other experts in its efforts to finalize the new zoning.

The Public is Invited
While not public hearings, these meetings will be conducted pursuant to the state's Open Meeting Law, and the public is most welcome to attend. The meeting schedule for February will be on Tuesday evenings the 3d, 10th, and 24th, all at 7:00 p.m. The meetings will be held in the aldermanic committee room on the second floor of City Hall.

2) DISPOSITION OF CITY REAL ESTATE - AN UPDATE
At the start of this new year, I looked over the back numbers of SOMERVILLE AT LARGE to remind myself of the issues that have come up during my tenure on the Board of Aldermen. An important theme has been the fate of "surplus" city properties; their re-use, sale, and redevelopment. The city itself is a major landowner in Somerville, and has the ability to dispose of surplus properties in a strategic manner, to stimulate economic development. Recently, as state aid has shrunk, the pressure to liquidate real property assets to fuel the city's operating budget has intensified.

What follows is a quick summary of the current status of ten of Somerville's publicly owned, mostly 'underutilized' parcels of real property:

A) Bow Street Police Station, Union Square (Ward 3)
Last fall, after an RFP (Request for Proposals) process, the city, with the input of a Re-use Committee, awarded this historic property to Urbanica, Inc., for re-development as residential condominiums. A Special Permit with Site Plan Approval for the project has been granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). The closing on the property is expected to take place on schedule this spring. The appraised value of the property at time of award was $900,000; the city accepted a bid of $750,000. The proceeds are going directly into funding this year's budget.

B) Broadway Theater, 83 Broadway (Ward 1)
This historic theater was in use until the 1970s, and came to the city for non-payment of taxes. As Mayor, Michael Capuano hired an architect to re-design the space for artist's studios and performance/gallery space. Mayor D.K. Gay decided not to go forward with this project, and set up a Re-use Committee to create re-development criteria. Two years ago, after an RFP process, and with the input of its Re-use Committee, the city awarded the property to Mudflat Studio, a non-profit pottery school/studio that had outgrown the available space in a building it owns on Broadway, a few blocks west of the theater.

A disappointed bidder brought a complaint first to the state's Inspector General, arguing that the bid process was unfair. That complaint was dismissed. He then brought a complaint to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), charging that his bid was rejected because of his national origin (he is from Libya). MCAD held that complaint to be without merit. The complainant then filed an appeal of the ZBA's grant of a Special Permit for the Mudflat renovation project, which is scheduled for trial in March. Because of the litigation, no closing has occurred.

C) Conwell School, Capen Court, off Alewife Brook Parkway (Ward 7)
Because proceeds from the sale of the Conwell figure into the revenue assumptions for Fiscal Year 2004, the RFP for the sale of this property was issued on January 26, 2004. Bids for the property, which will be restricted to residential use, are due February 27. The appraised value of the property for residential use is $2,260,000; the minimum acceptable bid will be $2 million.

D) Durrel School, Beacon Street (Ward 2)
In November, 2003, Mayor Gay asked the School Committee to declare that this property is no longer needed for school purposes. One would have thought that such a declaration would have taken place, since the building had been leased since the 1980s to CASPAR for use as a detoxification facility. In July of 2003, funding cuts forced CASPAR to give up its lease, and the property has been vacant. The School Committee has not yet acted on the former mayor's request, and, if the property has been recently appraised, the outcome of the appraisal has not yet been made known.

E) Edgerley School, Bonair Street at Cross Street (Ward 1)
Long a site of early childhood classrooms, the Edgerley School lost most of its occupants when the Capuano Early Education Center opened last September, just a few blocks away. The building is still home to the Special Education administrative offices, and to the Next Wave and Full Circle schools, alternative junior high school/high school programs within the Somerville public school system. Last spring, the School Committee voted to rent space in the building for the CAAS Headstart program, under a short term lease, while CAAS constructs a new facility on Allen Street.

At the request of then-Mayor Gay, the Board of Aldermen approved the lease. I asked how the space could be used as Headstart classrooms when the city's office of Housing and Community Development had reported earlier in the spring of 2003 that the building had "[a]sbestos and lead paint present....[r]emedial costs unknown." Superintendent Argenziano stated that, "the space has been used for [early childhood] classrooms. It's going to be used for classrooms. I don't see any problem."

Headstart has been unable to occupy the space, however, although the program has been paying rent. The problem? A state Office for Children inspection revealed - the presence of lead paint. There are plans to de-lead the space this month - at the expense of the City of Somerville. At the January 26, 2004 School Committee Meeting, Superintendent Argenziano spoke of the Edgerley as a property which he thought could well be sold off to subsidize budgetary shortfalls.

F) Homans Building, Medford Street, near School Street (Ward 4)
This former light industrial/warehouse building was purchased by the city during the Capuano administration for $1.2 million, for possible use as a community center/youth center. Mayor Gay, during her administration, proposed that the building be rehabilitated into office space for city and school departments currently housed in the city-owned City Hall Annex, and in rented space at the Tufts Administration Building (TAB) on Holland Street (the former Western Junior High School) and the Boys and Girls Club on Washington Street (the former Pope School).

After much analysis and fine-tuning of the plan, the Board of Aldermen in the spring of 2003 voted to authorize the issuance of bonds for the approximately $7.5 million needed for the renovation project. The Board of Aldermen's analysis showed that the plan was financially feasible if it proceeded along a tight time schedule. While some design work was done, the project was not otherwise commenced during the Gay administration. Mayor Curtatone is currently conducting his own feasibility study of the Homans.

G) Kemp Nut site, Walnut Street, adjacent to bridge (Ward 1)
This former light manufacturing site was purchased by the city during the Capuano administration for re-development as open space/green space. When the state granted permission for locating the new Capuano Center in Glen Park, it required the city to create compensatory park land in Ward 1, and this was the site chosen. The Massachusetts Highway Department used the site as a staging area during the recent reconstruction of the Walnut Street Bridge; as far as I know, it is slated for eventual use as open space (a skateboard park is one of the specific uses that has been discussed.)

H) Kiley Barrel site, Prospect Street at Somerville Avenue (Ward 2)
The city's Redevelopment Authority purchased this site during the Gay administration for $900,000, as a potential redevelopment parcel for Union Square. The site had a history of contamination from its former industrial use. At present, it is used for parking.

I) Powderhouse School, Broadway (Ward 7)
Attached via a party wall to the former Western Junior High School (TAB), the Powderhouse is in active use. It houses a neighborhood school, as well as bi-lingual programs, the Spanish two-way bilingual Unidos program, the Parent Information Center, and the Somerville Family Network. At the January 26, 2004 School Committee Meeting, Superintendent Argenziano seemed to confirm current rumors about the fate of this school when he mentioned it (along with the Edgerley) as a school which might be considered surplus.

J) Yard 21, Assembly Square (Ward 1)
The city's Redevelopment Authority purchased this site during the Gay administration from the MBTA for $3.1 million as a redevelopment parcel. After an RFP process, the Redevelopment Authority deliberated in Executive Session (closed meetings), and awarded the property to the Sturtevant Partnership for dense, mixed-use development, at a price of $4.1. Under the Land Disposition Agreement (LDA) between the parties that was signed in June, 2002, the Buyer may, by exercising extension options as stated in the LDA, defer closing until September 30, 2009. No closing has yet occurred.

3) SCHOOL COMMITTEE NEWS
A) Guidance Department Report Available
In January, the report and recommendations of consultant Charles O'Donnell on the Guidance Department for the Somerville public schools, grades k- 12, was distributed to School Committee members. It is now posted, with all grammatical errors intact, on my website

Since I was underwhelmed by the effort made to solicit parental (or student) input into the study when it was undertaken last fall, I urge anyone who has opinions on either the study, or the guidance department itself, to make these known while the study is still under discussion. The Matter is in the Educational programs and Instruction Subcommittee, chaired by Roberta Bauer. It would not go amiss to send a copy of any comments to Superintendent Argenziano.

B) Latest on School Closings
Political Signals, Management Statements
In her Inaugural speech, School Committee Vice Chair Charlene Harris spoke of the financial need to consolidate school programs in fewer building. Mayor Curtatone, in his speech, spoke of the deleterious effects of closing "neighborhood" schools, and pledged to keep the Brown and Cummings Schools open. At the January 26, 2004, School Committee meeting, Superintendent Argenziano surprised some in the community by suggesting that the Edgerley and Powderhouse Schools were potentially expendable.

Dr. Argenziano stated that selling these schools would be a preferable alternative to cutting what he referred to as the six "core" features of Somerville public schools, such as small class size. What the Superintendent states may be true, but no analysis has yet been presented to show that these are the wisest choices, let alone the only choices before the city. Yet again, the city appears to be responding, ad hoc, to the crisis of the moment, without engaging in long-term facilities planning.

When is a Facilities Plan not a Facilities Plan?
In March of 2003, I made my own analysis of the "facilities study" conducted in the previous three months by the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) for the Somerville School Department. (Read my report on my website.) I was amazed to discover that NESDEC ignored the population projections for Somerville, based on the most recent decennial census, made by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, metro Boston's regional planning authority. Instead, NESDEC simply tracked the previous year's kindergarten population up through the grades, with no effort to look at longer-term population trends.

The NESDEC "study" was an unfortunate example of the adage, "garbage in, garbage out." I look in vain for an appreciation of data and of demographic trending techniques by the School Department. Can't we, as a city, do better?

4) CELEBRATE FEBRUARY WITH PANCAKES FOR EDUCATION
On Saturday, February 7, 2004, the Duhamel Education Initiative formerly the Friends of Paul Duhamel) will hold its 8th Annual Pancake Breakfast from 8:30 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. at the First Congregational Church, at 89 College Avenue (enter church hall through Francesca Avenue side door). No reservations are necessary; the suggested donations are $5 for adults, $3 for children 10 and under, with a maximum of $17 per family - the same low price charged two years ago!

The food, prepared by members of this non-profit organization, is plentiful and delicious, and the company excellent. Besides the signature pancakes, the home-made coffee cake buffet can't be beat. The mission of the Duhamel initiative is to improve Somerville's public schools and reduce the drop out rate, through after school programs and mini-grants for innovative teaching approaches. For those who might not have known him, Paul Duhamel was a minister, organizer, activist, School Committee man, and widely beloved member of this community, who worked ceaselessly, though modestly, to make Somerville the better place we have become.

5) SOMERVILLE BRAINTEASER QUIZ
It's about time we had a little audience participation, again. Here's an easy quiz, to get warmed up on:

A) When did the present Somerville Public Library - the main library, on Central Hill - open?

B) Who was the architect?

C) In what style was the building designed?

D) Where was the city's previous main library, who designed it, what was its fate, and why?

E) How would you describe the present condition of our main library? What about its services? (This last bit is optional, but I really am interested.)

That will do for now. Happy Groundhog Day.

copyright 2004 Denise Provost

This file has been converted from WordPerfect
Using wp2html.exe by Andrew Scriven

     Home Page      Who      What      Where      When      Why      How      Newsletter Index