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Not much change in Olympic polling numbers
By adamg on Fri, 07/10/2015 - 8:43am
WBUR reports the numbers from its latest Olympic polling in the Boston area and across the state.
Statewide, 42 percent of those surveyed said they support hosting the games in the Boston area, with 50 percent opposed. In June, it was 39 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v
"You'll do as I'm told!!!"
Today's Herald has Cro-Magnon Mayah wailing about the people who keep showing up at the Boston2024 "public" meetings to express their displeasure.
Just sit back and take it right up the ass, eh Mahty? Boy, those knees must hurt after a long day of criticizing citizens engaged in the process and servicing your masters, eh, Yah Honah?
Same five people
Yeah, like your cousin.
it's hard to have a
it's hard to have a conversation when the Boston 2024 presenters shut down any disagreement or question out of hand.
also pretty disingenuous to say that citizens are "crashing" a community meeting, the point of which is to have people attend.
Here, Marty, let me fix this for you
But that would require real work and transparency instead of safe, non-committal handwaving.
Awesome!
Try your hand at non-fiction next!
The Quincy Meeting was all about the residents
If you read the comments in the article in the Boston Herald there is a very intelligent and well written comment by a Quincy resident named Nancy. It's as true and accurate account of the meeting you can get from an extremely biased individual.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/mayor_ol...
I could go on all day about the sleight of hand and too clever by half tactics of Boston 2024 but people here already get it.
I came away from that meeting thinking "This is way worse than I thought!" They want four ferries an hour back and forth from Boston. Red Line stops at North Quincy every five minutes (I think someone said 12,000 people per hour at peak times) to take them down a back road to the park on trams. (Insert Simpson's Monorail joke here)
I struggle with the traffic on Quincy Shore Drive and the Neponset River Bridge already. My head spins at the thought of all those people descending upon my city.
OT: Wow, the Herald is a freaking cookie kraken!
It's been a while since I even laughingly entertained the idea of reading the Herald comment section, but I figured I'd give Nancy's post a look...
Never got to it. Wow. Just...wow. Of course I knew the Herald site would be full of tracker scripts - most commercial sites are these days. But the shear number and insidiousness of the scripts there is insane. And a whole bunch of 'flash cookies' installed as well (fyi, flash cookies, aka LSOs, are a type of tracking data that can't be erased from your computer without special sw).
After 3 or 4 minutes of trying to tease out which temporary permissions I'd have to allow to let the comments load, I gave up. [insert plug for add-ons like NoScript/AdBlock/AdFree & BetterPrivacy(for LSOs) here].
Nancy, if you wrote something that you think UHubbers would benefit from reading, might I suggest you just cut and paste it here?
Please....
My Tor browser won't even let me see the weather on the Herald site, let alone the comments.Same with Firefox and those add ons.
My Comment from the Herald
First of all, WOW! They replaced this morning's story and it wiped away all the comments. Lucky for me I posted it to Facebook and copied my comment from there.
I would like to note that last night's meeting was orderly and there was no shouting, no outbursts, no nothing.
What I wrote:
If this is in response to the meeting in Quincy last night then Mayor Walsh, who was not in attendance, and I see things differently. I live in Quincy and was shocked at the announcement that Boston 2024 would be dumping an 18,000 person stadium in a conservation area.
I went to the meeting last night and what I saw were a number of concerned Quincy residents with a smattering of what I suppose you'd call regulars.
What dismayed me the most about the meeting were the representatives from Boston 2024. Nikko Mendoza, Vice President of Engagement and External Affairs, was condescending and patronizing to everyone who spoke against the games. The more Mike McArdle, the traffic planner, spoke, the more it became apparent that there has been little or no traffic study done in Quincy.
Most insulting of all is their utter disregard of the conservation land on which they want to build. They referred to it as a beach, it is not. They kept on trying to sell us on legacy projects like a soccer field. It's already a waterfront park.
If I have to be 100% honest with myself, I have to say that last night's meeting was just a show to pretend that Boston 2024 cares about the residents of Quincy. They don't.
I find it disheartening to have Mayor Walsh criticize a group of people who are fighting for a cause for which they deeply care. I wish I could say I'm surprised. Of the over 200 people there, around ten of them were what Mayor Walsh would refer to as regulars. Mayor Walsh, why not pay attention to the other 190 and listen to what we have to say?
Thanks...
... for your excellent report.
Ferry service sounds great!
Not that I'm for an Olympics in Quincy or anywhere else, but all of those ferries mean fewer cars on the roads and fewer bodies on the Red LIne. Increasing the Red LIne service to every 5 minutes on your branch would be sweet, too.
These changes are only for the Olympics
After that the Red Line resumes its normal service.
There may or may not be ferry service after the games. It depends on whether or not anyone wants to start it up. It probably wouldn't be the MBTA. It might be DHC or whatever they're called. We don't know what the ferry would be for or where it would go.
Outstanding!
This wreck has several hurdles to pass to even exist.
1. Firm site commitment. The key locations are still fuzz bound and tethered to the Widett Real Estate Grift Pipe Dream. Failure to nail real sites kills it right there.
2. Poll Numbers; Even if some change such as a pitch for the Suffolk Downs/Wonderland carcasses should resolve the site problems we still have an obstinate majority that wants nothing to do with the shit show, which kills it with IOC
3. Tax revenue. And if by some really remote chance miracle of Massholes changing heart and getting 2024 fever, we still have the Baker/DeLeo combine firmly opposed to spending a dime on anything for these idiots.
Now is the time to look out for signs of face saving exit kabuki.
"face saving"?
You mean like scrapping the bid and taking Widett Circle anyway? You mean Richard Davey and the whole Boston2024 crew getting jobs for the master developer, and John Fish being awarded a bunch of fat construction jobs?
Yeah, we really showed them!
2024 is getting nothing.
The whole gaggle will slide back under it's rock and resume the usual shit it does.
Taking Widett is a pipe dream mainly shared among people who live in the real estate speculation land of make believe.
Widett is happening
With or without 2024. I personally think we'll see a real estate slowdown before much happens - but there is virtually no land downtown left to develop at the scale that will keep the city lights burning. Remember - this city runs on real estate development. Those new taxes provide about half of all revenue growth. We literally have to build to survive. And putting up 75 mid market units here and there in JP isn't going to get you there. Widett buys the city another 10-15 years of growth and solvency. Personally I think 2024 is a pipe dream. But for anyone who knows how the city's finances work, Widett is a done deal. It's not a choice. It's a necessity.
If your only tool is a hammer
You'll solve every problem with a nail.
Real estate shills are a strange cult over full of themselves. This is like some urban counterpart to manifest destiny or rain follows the plow.
Tell us more about your religion. Does it have stats to underscore the utter essential-ness of Real Estate to the vitality of this fat thing loaded with more economy sectors than a real estate shill can readily count?
Do you have demigods like greed and avarice or is it like a sky god religion where Real Estate occupies the throne in Glitzmall heaven?
How do real estate shills sell their infinite growth doctrine to the uninterested. Will the cult survive a rebuke like a failure in courts that lets the owners of the property decide its fate?
It might be essential to your Boston and tax anxieties but it is hardly essential to the Boston many others recognize.
Utter essentialness
Here's how it works:
The city has 3 sources of revenue - property tax, state aid and everything else.
State aid hasn't budged in years - and when you net out what we are required to pay back to the state it's declining.
Everything else is tiny - and some of it is very susceptible to the economic cycle - so now we get no interest on the billion dollars or so we have in the bank. Collectively you might get a 2-3% bump annually in this - but it's only about 20% of the budget - it's not going to get you much.
That leave real estate taxes. We get an automatic 2.5% increase every year under the law - max. We get an extra 1.5-2% for new construction. It's hard enough to find that in good times with Southie pulling that train. When Southie starts to slow, we'll need a new engine. That engine will be Widett. The other solutions - where else can you build a large concentrated area like that, what else do you want to tax or a Prop 2 1/2 override (rotsa ruck).
The only people that don't believe that are either really bad at math or living on a cloud.
Huh?
They city apparently doesn't collect property taxes from existing properties? That's news to me.
Widett Circle
contains businesses that are part of our local and regional food distribution system. You can't just wipe these out because they aren't pretty to look at.
That can be arranged
Nobody said they will get wiped out - due to the importance of the operations they will need to be moved. The city can and should help with that. As for taxes - yes - they collect taxes - but we are talking probably a few hundred thousand a year. Redevelop this land to new use and the taxes grow to probably tens of millions - maybe more - and that compounds at 2.5% forever.
I'm not taking a pro/con stance. Doesn't directly impact me one way or the other. The city needs to do this to keep the lights on. Granted - there is the corollary that we have to keep generating high paying jobs so people can afford these places and have a place to work.
"it's a necessity", Ron.
"it's a necessity", Ron. Boston is desperate and these poor business will just have to give up or none of us will have a future.
And even though there is "no more land to build on" Boston will find a place to move these businesses to.
$50 million a year at 2.5% for infinity
That's what Boston has to generate annually in NEW taxes to balance the budget going forward. State aid is not likely to increase much if at all and all the other revenue sources combined aren't going to do much. The other option is to freeze salaries and budgets - good luck with that if you ever want to get elected in this town.
When I say "no more land" - I'm talking land suitably located for 30-60 story residential and office towers.
Again - I don't really have a dog in this fight whether they build it or not other than I want the cops and firefighters to come when I call 911. Others want schools and still others want parks. Oh yeah - trash pickup and working traffic lights are a bonus.
You don't build - start picking the lowest priority of those things you'd be willing to live without.
Plenty of other land available
Every surface parking lot in the city should be built upon before we even think of displacing healthy businesses that are part of our food system. Seaport still has a lot of parking lots, as do the Southwest Corridor and Charlestown. Not to mention the huge waste of land that is South Bay Plaza.
2027
Remember Ron - none of this needs to happen until after the Olympics - meaning you break ground in 2025 and it STARTS coming on line in 2027. We still need to build enough real estate annually between now and then to generate $50 million plus a year in new taxes. Most of the land you talk about will be gone by then - much of it is already in the pipeline.
We don't need Widett tomorrow -we will need it or something like it in 10 years. I'm sure that's plenty of time to find another home for the food businesses - which may not eventually be in Boston - maybe Revere, Everett, Somerville etc.
I thought these were going to get huge property tax breaks....
... for the first few decades and still sizeable ones for the next several after that.
According to today's Globe -- these businesses were already displaced once before (from Quincy Market).
One sided?
I think that's in the 2024 docs - I don't think the city has come out and said they would give them anything - at least not yet.
You think Walsh -- and his newly tamed BRA. --
have any intention of letting the market (with no by massive tax breaks) operate? The whole "one master developer to rule them all" concept now embraced by Walsh, Olympics or no Olympics, is premised on gigantic tax breaks.
A lot of water under the bridge
There's a lot that has to happen between now and then - I'm not too worried about it for now. Again - the city needs to generate about $50 million in new taxes every year just to maintain staffing levels - that's about $2.5 billion in development annually before tax breaks. The reality will come that we can't afford to give too much away. Rosenthal ended up with a token $5 million on hi air rights project - I'm guessing these guys will get proportionally the same or less.
The city overpays and grants
The city overpays and grants generous benefits for many bureaucratic positions which don't need to exist. It overpays for basic goods, contractors, and labor in other instances. The city can afford to figure out how to live within its means adjusted for inflation without exponentially extorting more of other peoples' money.
Boston has more city employees per capita than most other US cities of similar size with similar services. Changes can be made without the end of the world hyperbole spouted by self interested civil 'servants'.
Flimsy speculation doesn't cut it.
And of course you have a whole pack of dogs in the fight.
Your own luxury dump will get whacked by these tax increases and your various schemes for proliferating more luxury dumps will be at risk as the tax increase undermines luxury incentive.
Whenever someone trots out an argument that one particular thing is the magic answer while framing the whole contrivance in a perpetual growth mandate, it is very hard to take them seriously as it's like the monorail sell all over again.
Boston will muddle through as it always does and trying to play big city sims games with it is a fools errand.
https://youtu.be/xOpsZBkDVwA
Our "pet rock" mayor doesn't
Our "pet rock" mayor doesn't get it that the interests which bought him the election can't always buy the approval of the people.