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Yoon: Smash the BRA
By adamg on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 8:05am
Mayoral candidate Sam Yoon says he's filing legislation to eliminate the Boston Redevelopment Authority and replace it with "a comprehensive City Department for Community Development & Planning." He said the city needs a planning department that can help guide smart growth and development centered on pedestrians, bicycles and public transit rather than cars.
Our disjointed, dysfunctional planning process is choking the city's development. Boston's future needs to be guided by better planning and real public participation. ...
Boston is the only city in the United States without a planning department separate from its redevelopment authority. The Boston Redevelopment Authority has outlived its usefulness and it should be disbanded. In its place, we need a comprehensive city planning agency which is accountable to the public, not just the developers and the Mayor. Boston's development should benefit the entire city and that requires a public process, not a political one.
It is high time to stop being defensive and secretive - let's open the doors and invite in people with fresh ideas to participate in planning for a new, forward-looking Boston.
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Comments
I think Yoon's kind of an
I think Yoon's kind of an ass in general, but he's right about this. There really does need to be a separate authority, and frankly, Deval is laying the groundwork for a congestion tax (far fucking overdue as far as I'm concerned), so the sooner the city gets ahead of the curve, the better.
Ur Duin it Wrng
Its BURN the BRA!
Unless you are Diane Wilkerson, of course ... then it is STUFF the BRA.
OK, one of these days I will do a dainty-underthings pun
And then you'll be sorry!
Like, um:
Yoon: Boston go BRA-less!
See?
Yoon doesnt think the BRA
Yoon doesnt think the BRA supports and restrains the boobs running City Hall. A proper bra lifts and seperates.
But then you would owe me a royalty
http://www.abnboston.org/publications/2008/0409-bu...
It was a mistake
It was a mistake made years ago to go with the Boston Redevelopment Authority instead of a city department for Community Development & Planning.
If I were around Boston in 1957, I would have warned you about it:
Err and go BRA.
It's like the enchanted village
It had its time and place - but is now an historical anachronism - unfortunately in an attempt to keep it relevant they keep giving it more responsibilities - now the mayor wants to roll the transportation dept into the BRA. Pretty soon we won't have a govt - we'll just elect a mayor and the BRA will run everything.
OK, now Yoon...
...is sounding like a more serious alternative to the Mayor.
He needs to articulate further a mission for this new development and planning department, and then to tie it into a broader vision for the city.
Talking to those who favor public transit systems and pedestrian & bike traffic definitely carves out an identifiable constituency.
This could be the beginning of a real theme to his campaign if he builds on it.
McCrea as Yoon, Flaherty think tank
Kevin McCrea wonders how many more ideas of his Yoon and Flaherty will steal:
Poor Kevin...
If McCrea's ideas were so great, maybe he would have got more than a couple thousand votes when he ran At-Large. McCrea throws bombs. Yoon offers well-thought out ideas.
Steal?
I hardly think that looking to other cities for obvious ideas and then touting them is stealing from somebody who mentioned the general vague topic area a little earlier.
Reminds me of when Gerald "Ronald Mc" Gnazzo would take a good idea piloted and proved out elsewhere for decades, and announce its long awaited availability at the RMV as if it was his own recent brilliant revealation to take a number at the registry or renew one's registration by mail.
From where I stand McCrea
From where I stand McCrea spouts out all sorts of "ideas" and then moves on to the next one. What people like him do is lay out the mine field so no matter where anyone goes reform wise he has already been there.
Yeah - but he has an annoying and uncanny knack of being right
As you all know - I'm supporting Kevin - so disclosure/politics aside think for a minute-a few examples.
-He has been calling for exactly what Yoon is proposing since he ran for council (and I think Flaherty and Menino are about the only people outside the BRA itself that want to keep the BRA)- politics aside he was WAY ahead of the curve on this one
-He has been saying since January that we wouldn't be laying off any teachers or cops - lo and behold the current plans are for zero cop layoffs (although I think we delayed one training class) and like 25 teacher layoffs (who will probably get rehired through attrition by the time September rolls around)-and that's without even a wage freeze on the teachers that the mayor was screaming about a couple of months ago!
-He puts his finger on the "trick" to charter school success - longer days and more days in school, discipline and high expectations - I disagree with him on charters (I think they are fine) but I agree with his point we wouldn't need them or at least fewer of them if we just implemented some of this in the schools we have.
-His suit on the open meeting law against Flaherty was one more example - he basically forced the entire city council to obey a simple law to conduct public business in public. Flaherty's "judgment" was to fight this for 3 years on the city's dime until the bitter end despite numerous opportunities to just settle by agreeing to obey the law.
-All the other guys are saying the city's broke - even though the budget has increased 58% in the last 10 years (about double the rate of inflation) and residential property taxes have gone up almost 100%. How can the city be broke with that kind of funding increase and how is that plus all the new taxes they are promoting sustainable?
None of this is rocket science.
Anybody can have ideas - and you can criticize him all you want - but I'm voting on leadership, judgment and an ability to get things done - and looks to me like he's half way down the block on all these issues (laying mines?) before the other guys even get out the door. If he doesn't get elected - too bad for all of us because Menino, Yoon and Flaherty will tax us all to NC in the process.