A Salem Blog

Charlie Reardon has passed on

2012-01-12T14:42:00.002-05:00

Essex Street Fair 2007 012 BW, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

The Salem Con Disabilities is sad to announce that one of our long-time members has passed away.

Charlie Reardon is no longer with us.

When I first started filming disability meetings, Charlie was one of the first people I met. He and I would go to various city meetings in one of his vehicles so I could record them. He was on a lot of shoots with me.

He also ferried around my blind colleague Andy quite a lot--Andy's late guide dog, Elliot, adored Charlie!

We both lived in Ward 2 and we shared the same "opinions" on the Salem Common Neighborhood Association that I have long aired here.

We will miss Charlie.

Is My Councilor Better Than His Voters Because He Served?

2012-01-01T22:49:00.001-05:00

Dedication of the James Ayube Memorial Riverway, September 30th, 2011

A few days ago, I was reading the threads on Salemweb, and ran into Lloyd’s political commentary mixed amongst his Christmas best wishes. (Christmas is not my favorite holiday, but I hope everybody had good festivities nonetheless.)

I don’t pay a lot of attention; most of the threads on that board rehash old arguments that would never be settled even if Kim Driscoll were hit by a meteorite in bed tonight.

And why would I take issue with best wishes anyway, even if they’re satirical? But Lloyd, in this thread, said something that has bothered me enough to stick my head out on a topic I never felt safe to bring up before.

Lloyd:

To Mike Sosnowski - Many thanks for your hard work in the face of dealing with individuals who have little or no appreciation for your service to your country, or your dedication to the ward you live in. Semper Fi.

I’m sure Lloyd didn’t mean anything negative in particular, except for criticizing those who don’t agree with Mike.

Or who don’t appreciate Mike’s service to his country as a Marine.

I respect his service. But I have disagreed with Mike on many occasions. I don’t approve of his performance. I don’t like how he toadies to the Common and the Federal Street associations. I was livid when he let someone from Northfields tell me what I should have or not have in my neighborhood.

But he’s a veteran. I should not speak.

Right?

One of Mark Twain’s best short works, “The War Prayer”, goes right to the heart of my unease. He describes the great swell of patriotism surrounding the Phillipine-American War, which he hated.

In a church, a fervent pastor is leading his flock in excited, vigorous prayer, praying for their young men, soon to go into battle, and for their total victory over their enemy.

In the middle of the prayer, a wild man walks in, and explains:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

If you pray for our victory, Twain says, you are praying for some mother’s son to die, for someone’s home to be bombed, for some child to die in fire. (It’s worth going back to read the whole piece; I do it no credit.)

I’m no pacifist. I’ve grown up all my life knowing a military and veterans and armed forces and I don’t see that going away. But war, as Sherman put it, is hell, and I hate sentimentalizing it or romanticizing it.

More to the point of my councilor, when I am told to support my councilor because he served, I hear these unspoken things:

“I served and I’m a better citizen than you!”
“You can’t tell me what to do. I served and you didn’t!”
“You’d act better if I sent you to boot camp, wouldn’t you?!”
“Yes, I can tell you what to do! Say Sir, Yes Sir!”
“You didn’t serve. You’re not really a citizen. Or a person.”

This last point is inordinately cruel: Though I did register for Selective Service and had no qualms or fears of the unlikely possibility that I would be called up, I would have never been able to pass the physical in any event; my early eye history and my hearing loss would have certainly disqualified me.

If my councilor is superior to me because he served, and if I could not serve, I would have to think I’m an untermenschen. (Societies that thought they had untermenschen they needed to deal with have all been stable and happy societies that have never made war within their nations or outside of it. Right. Sure.)

Mind you, I don’t think Mike himself thinks this of me. He might hate what I wrote. He could even yell at me as if he were my DI—and he’d be perfectly entitled to do so, given our disagreements!

But I’ve heard comments like Lloyd’s from so many people in the past few years. Several years ago on Salemweb, I had made a comment on Eisenhower (whom I admire) and how I would not necessarily vote for a veteran because none of them were like our former General and President.

I got an extended lecture on the Greatest Generation.

I suspect the person who gave me that lecture, which has become a catechism over the years, did not serve. Many people who are gung-ho about our military, who love our military above all else, the Fighting Keyboard types who would bomb Iran tomorrow, did not themselves serve.

To too many Americans, our soldiers are totems. We worship them. We use them to make ourselves feel better. We can stand next to the lowest Army private and be his or her friend and be better because we are associated with a soldier.

To hear people tell it, the late James Ayube died for our sins. I attended the dedication ceremony that named the bypass road for him, and I was dismayed about how my state rep, John Keenan, and my mayor Driscoll, just waved away the facts of Ayube’s death as if they were just a force of Nature. I am left thinking that ceremony was not so much for Ayube’s family but for ourselves.

I don’t expect a ceremony like that to be a discourse on our foreign policies, but we, the people, are responsible for the well-being, the safety and most importantly the prudent use of our forces, with our young people that we have asked to fight for us on our behalf.

We can’t take his death for granted, nor romanticize it, nor sentimentalize it. But I’ve given up on our politicians realizing that because they of all people benefit the most from standing next to a soldier.

Getting back to my point, I’ve heard from a lot of people over the past few years, and not a few of my Facebook friends, who love the idea of a military government, even though it’s against our Constitution.

The military will just make things work! In a military government, Lloyd can have me sent away for treason. The Army can kill all them liberals! Shoot illegal aliens all day, all night, with dogs and choppers and night vision, everywhere!

I have to think if I am going to toady up to my councilor just because he served, I am helping to insure that the military takeover that we have always criticized other nations for doing, that could never happen because we loved Freedom more than anyone else, will easily happen right here at home. To hear some tell it, we’re well on our way to welcoming our new Army overlords.

I won’t do it.

Mike can show up at my door anytime and give me General Patton’s method of discipline. I understand it. I’ll take it.

But I won’t kiss his ass just because he served and I didn’t.

My years of futility in Salem transit, part 2

2011-10-17T18:32:00.001-04:00

Following up on my last post, I’m wondering why we just can’t get things done to improve our public transit and make our streets safer for pedestrians and people with disabilities.

I’m signed up with the MBTA to get service alerts for bus routes I regularly use, which would be the 450, 451, 455, 456, 459 and 465. I just got an alert now:

Routes 455 & 459 are experiencing 15-20 minute delays due to traffic.

10/17/2011 4:07 PM

This has been a regular occurrence. Normally, I’m not concerned about delays here and there because buses run in traffic and are susceptible to the same delays that affect motorists trying to go down 1A and 107 on their way to and from Salem.

But there’s been a disturbing increase in traffic congestion that has happened in all months at most times of the day in the North Shore.

The MBTA schedules have been severely affected; looking at Route 456, the frequency of service is now 80 minutes. That means 1 hour and 20 minutes between buses. This route once ran hourly when it was established in 2002. (The 456 is a busy route that serves Central Square by way of Highland Ave., and the many Lynn residents who shop and use the medical offices in Salem.)

The 450 has been affected as well. In fact, during weekdays, none of the MBTA routes out of Salem Depot run hourly. The 465 that serves the Peabody-Danvers shopping area runs about every 1 hour and 10 minutes (70 minutes).

Even on weekends, the 455W, Salem to Wonderland, no longer runs hourly, but also slips 5 minutes here and there throughout the day.

This single bus route is the most frequent, and busiest, of all of the MBTA’s Salem routes. Before the 455 was split into the 455 and 459 routes (the latter going to Logan Airport and South Station on weekdays), it ran every 30 minutes, as does the 455W weekend service to Wonderland.

I have taken that route many times and I can tell you it is crowded. If you come home from Boston and elect to get off the Blue Line at Revere Beach (one stop short of Wonderland), you will not get a seat on the bus. (The bus shelter at Revere Beach is much nicer than the one at Wonderland so I board there any time I can.)

Remember also that the MBTA runs many, many other routes to and through Lynn, and to Swampscott and Marblehead.

Here is an exercise for those who doubt this: Drive down either Route 1A (the Lynnway) or Route 107 (Western Ave.) and pull into a lot somewhere before Revere. There are a number of Dunks around so pull in with a medium regular and your choice of donut. Normal business hours are fine, day or evening.

Find an MBTA bus that is marked for service on its LED sign (other than “NOT IN SERVICE” or “NO STOPS”). Count how many people are onboard; you don’t need to be exact.

Count the buses and count the people.

You’ll probably find a lot more buses and a lot more riders than you think. These people are heading to and from work, to and from doctor appointments, daycare, shopping and even church.

Critics of transit spending like to say that you can’t make demand by spending on big capital projects like, say, the Blue Line extension to Lynn.

But the people are already here! They’ve been here for a long time. They come whenever the latest condos get built on Highland Ave.

And those who don’t take the bus, drive. Yes, I know I am in the minority of people who do not drive and yes I am lazy, didn’t overcome my disabilities, and so forth. I know all that.

But I know, too, that in any urban area, when the density of people gets above a certain point, it’s time to consider investing in public transit, simply because the road networks will strangle the very communities that depend on them.

That time’s now. It’s been “now” for years.

No public official will say this, because the scariest thing they could imagine is to have Barbara Anderson and the Tea Party at their door screaming “NO NEW TAXES!” I’ve heard that before, I’ve heard it for years and years and years.

And, certainly, Salem is wealthy enough in the short term that the Tea Party platforms could “work”.

For a short while, anyway.

Will the shiny, happy, good, new (and rich) residents of Salem tolerate not being able to leave their driveway, not only in October, but year-round? The traffic jams of Halloween in Salem are legendary, but the dirty truth is that they happen just as readily on a cold twilight afternoon in January.

I fear something even worse: The Massachusetts Senate has approved a casino gaming bill. In the bill, which still has to go to a conference committee to be finalized, there would be three destination casinos in the state. One of them would be near Suffolk Downs.

The owners of Suffolk Downs have long looked to slot machines to provide the revenue they need to keep the horse track running; horse racing as a sport has been on a long slow decline for decades and the track was once known as “Sufferin’ Downs” for good reason.

The owners recently bought Wonderland, the defunct dog track near the Blue Line that was closed after Mass. voters approved a referenda to ban greyhound racing. Wonderland is where most people think a slot parlor may go on the North Shore.

It’s the northern end of the Blue Line. And it is the worst migraine headache for me and all of us on the North Shore. And it will happen. There’s too much money being tossed around in executive suites and the State House to think otherwise.

Both my mayor and my rep, Driscoll and Keenan, are supporting casinos. They’re doing so, I suspect, because of the hope of increased state revenue for cities and towns, the selling point most used by our state lottery, and they are hoping for infrastructure (roads & transit) improvements.

I’m not going to guess on the revenue, but I will guess that the casino operators won’t invest as much in the infrastructure as we would like. They don’t need to.

They don’t need a Blue Line extension; most of their customers will drive, and the few who don’t can be served by leasing a few dozen shuttle buses. We’ll see them everywhere once the casino opens. (They will also become the default recreational option for senior centers, but that is another matter.)

They won’t need to invest in anything else; the casinos of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are, like most, self-contained so the visitor doesn’t need to go anywhere else. Nowhere else but there to spend money!

Mayor Driscoll is deluding herself if she thinks this won’t ripple into Salem’s tourist revenue.

What casinos will surely do is clog up the roads and make it impossible for anyone in buses or cars to get around.

Unless, of course, you are going to the casino yourself. That will be easy.

Otherwise, not so much. The decay of the T will continue and no one will care. What have I been doing for 4 years, again? Will it matter?

My years of futility in Salem transit, part 1

2011-10-17T15:51:00.001-04:00

In my last post, I updated the status of Salem Depot and its endless revisions and delays. A little further south of downtown, there’s another situation that I am reminded of again and again.

I’ve long wrote about the Market Basket bus stop and the problems navigating to it in the winter. Around this time of year, most of us are shopping for new winter boots and hoping against hope that the upcoming winter will be mild, or at least with little snow.

This picture outside Pep Boys showed that this was not to be, early in 2011. In 2010, the Commission hoped that the MBTA would route buses through Market Basket to eliminate the problem.

That was also not to be; the MBTA declined the idea. The Market Basket plaza was never designed for buses, the routes would be delayed going through there, but most importantly, the abutter to Market Basket—the adjacent shopping complex with Shaws and TJ Maxx, objected.

There will be no new bus stop in the winter of 2011-2012 and, I fear, there may never be.

Since I’ve started this blog, I have heard regularly from a gentleman, a former city councilor, who’s been upset over the bus stop and its snowbanks.

Like clockwork, I’ll hear from him when Mayor Driscoll announces funding for some new project (“She can spend $XXXXX for something but not on the bus stop!”)

Repeatedly.

He’s made me even more cynical than I am already. I have seen and known enough about government to know that the fact of Mayor Driscoll seeking to start some project or another is totally orthogonal and unrelated to that bus stop. I didn’t even vote for her but I have expressed my thoughts on transit to her and other elected officials regularly.

Most people who’ve been outraged over this issue have cars and don’t need to wait in the snow for the bus!

I use that bus stop regularly. If I get run over standing next to a snowbank one gray chilly day, isn’t that poetic justice? Given what the Tea Parties say about government and those who work for it, I wouldn’t expect an ounce of sympathy from anyone if that happened! I don’t know the politics of my correspondent, but I do know a lot of people his age who parrot the “hard work and personal responsibility” trope of the Tea Parties so often that it is just screaming noise. (Obviously, I didn’t work hard enough to overcome my vision problems so I could drive!)

And my correspondent is an ex-city councilor! I feel that if you are a current city official or even a former city official, you have an obligation to answer when someone asks, “What did you do to make Salem better when you served?”

I’d like to ask my correspondent what he did when he had the reins.

I know that in 4 years and 1-1/3rd terms into my service on the Commission on Disabilities, I have to ask myself that question every time I get up in the morning and every time I sit in our conference room at SATV every third Tuesday.

I’m beginning to wonder if I can really answer that. Thoughts in my next post.

Salem Depot Update

2011-10-16T12:18:00.001-04:00

Two updates on Salem Depot: Several of us from the Salem Commission on Disabilities met here at Salem Depot with representatives from the Salem and MBTA Police to discuss handicapped parking problems at the station. The Salem News wrote about this in some detail.

There wasn’t much that the police could do at the moment, since there is no continual monitoring of the area, by video or otherwise, but the T placed a message board, seen in in the image, for the interim. October and Halloween represent the biggest month that this station sees in car and foot traffic, so this sign is not or should not be an unexpected expense for the T.

I never read the Salem News comment section, but there was one comment to that article I want to address: The commenter believes that, instead of enforcing HP parking, that people with disabilities should use the T’s paratransit service, The Ride.

Um, they could. But as I’ve written before, that service is very expensive to provide. Using The Ride for direct service from, say, North Salem to Boston is just nuts if one can make the commuter rail. And using The Ride as a shuttle to the station itself is practically a non-starter with Salem’s downtown traffic as bad as it is.

It turns out to be much cheaper, in the long run, for the MBTA to make their regular service accessible to people with disabilities. The current management at the T seems to realize this, only after decades of neglect—and lawsuits.

My second update is more disturbing. There was a robbery at the station one night last month. A student was robbed of his laptop and iPod to the tune of $1,400, while waiting for a ride around 9 PM.

On reading this in the News, I can imagine the good people of Federal Street locking their doors in unison. It’s not safe at 9 PM, after all.

I have been at the Depot late at night getting off a train. It’s not at all unusual to call for a ride or a taxi. 9 PM is not a “wrong” time to be on the T.

My Mom told me stories of the old Salem Depot, not the famous headhouse that was demolished 50 years ago, but the two that sat under the south end of Riley Plaza.

A platform that was virtually invisible from the street.

There were crimes and assaults on that platform up until it was closed in 1987 when the current station opened.

It is not acceptable to have someone minding their business at the station, waiting for their ride home, and being robbed.

It’s intolerable that we should be taking these events for granted, but many do. I know, we’re in a recession, government is ineffective, and can’t we just wait for better days? We’ll build a better Salem Depot to the shrine of Sammy McIntyre someday soon!

I’m coming to think that nobody in Salem wants a new train station, not the politicians, not the Salem News 101st Keyboard Brigade, not the neighborhood groups, or the “government-is-bad” people, nobody.

Salem’s ADA Day, 2011

2011-07-27T20:57:00.001-04:00

Monday marked the 21st anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Seen here are David Tracht, Salem Commission on Disabilities co-chair, Mayor Kim Driscoll, David Martel, Salem Commission on Disabilities and Mary Margaret Moor, Independent Living Center of the North Shore and Cape Ann.

Salem Schools Looking For a Home—and Accessibility

2011-06-08T21:51:00.001-04:00

As reported by the Salem News, the new charter school, Salem Community Charter School is looking for space. Museum Place is one possibility they’re looking at; the former Saint Joseph’s Rectory is another.

As well, the Saltonstall School is being renovated and Salem is scrambling to find space for their students, and for a special-needs program at the Collins.

The rectory will need a year’s worth of work before it is useable as a school. The Boston diocese did not offer their other properties such as St. John’s School and one official has speculated it is due to ADA issues.

A regular member of the commentariat at the Salem News weighed in on both stories with a refrain I am too familiar with as a member of the disability community in Salem. To paraphrase: “Why do we have to serve a small minority of students. Forget that touchy-feely stuff of [disabled kids]. It’s an emergency—use the parochial schools!”

(It’s an emergency; does that mean emergency no-bid contracting? The member of the commentariat is a Tea Partier and I presume for less government and taxation and against the charming “emergency” measures that have often concealed thefts of the public purse. I’m getting off the point here.)

Here’s a scenario the hardest-bitten conservative can relate to:

John Jones is a decorated veteran. A wounded veteran who came home from Afghanistan or perhaps Iraq. There’s no way he’s gonna get up and down stairs unless he rolls. Downhill, possibly not under his own control.

He has kids. He has a daughter, a true daddy’s girl that goes to the Saltonstall, or perhaps the new charter school or the Academy charter school.

His girl isn’t one of these special-needs snowflakes; she’s a normal active girl. Except that she’s an athlete and a ball player and there was that unseen posthole in the outfield one day when she was running out a grounder.

She’ll be hopping around for some time.

Now, Dad is deciding on schools, perhaps his family’s moved to Salem or his girl is making a change. Remember choice? That’s what the charter schools were supposed to be about. Choice, choice, choice!

You will tell Dad the vet, wounded for our sins (“freedom isn’t free”, mind?), that he and his daughter cannot participate as parent and child in their own school system?

Good luck with that.

While many people use patriotism to ~~worship~~ respect our soldiers, few of them realize something I’ve thought of.

If you count all the veterans still living from all wars, and those that are wounded and disabled, I suspect they don’t make up a large number.

In Salem, I have heard estimates that 20% of Salemmites have a disability. Not all of them are of school age, of course.

I am certain that the 20% is not all made up of veterans.

Yet if I suggested that veterans should not get help because their numbers are so few, I’m certain I would be assaulted in an alleyway. (Freedom isn’t free…)

I have no animosity towards veterans—I’m too young to have ever spat upon a Vietnam veteran, and have never said a word of disrespect to them (perhaps, I have done this to the politicians who task them, but…) Salem’s veteran groups are natural allies of the Commission on Disabilities and always will be.

I have to wonder why the diocese of Boston is not aggressive with its surplus properties. Despite what Rand Paul would have you believe, in Massachusetts, any given building does not have to be made ADA accessible to current codes merely as if the authorities waved a pixie wand and made it so.

The requirement to make a building ADA compliant per current code very much depends on the use of the building, the age of the building and the intended use of the building. There were several revisions to Massachusetts building codes for handicapped access and by the current law, a building constructed say, in 1978, only has to meet accessibility requirements for 1978. I have several large (and large-print) binders with all the laws to date.

If a building is used for general business purposes, it may or may not need to be brought up to ADA access. Often in Salem, buildings have been repurposed and have never been made accessible because there were very few if any renovations performed.

A benchmark the Commission often discusses is the “one-third rule” or “30% rule” or “hitting 30%”. That refers to the current value of the building. If any proposed renovations exceed 30% of this value, the building must be brought fully up to ADA and Massachusetts code.

Even then, developers and architects have considerable wiggle room. The law does not say absolute accommodations, merely reasonable accommodations. The Mass. Architectural Access Board (MAAB) will grant variances if the regulations are burdensome or do not benefit.

A few years ago, the state renovated a home in North Salem to use as a group home. By the letter of the law it would have needed an expensive elevator. The developer convinced the MAAB that the only space that the public would access was the ground floor. The ground floor of the building was brought up to code with HP parking and no steps, but there didn’t need to be an elevator.

I’ve been in St. John’s School before, and is not so much a charming old fashioned parochial school as it is a dump, no disrespect to Catholics meant. There are stairs everywhere. It could be impossible to get variances for this or any of the other school buildings involved.

Don’t forget, too, that the staff and teachers have to use the space as well. People get old and infirm, or have a negative encounter with an icy front step. If you think there’s controversy over accommodating students, just wait until it’s a teacher with a grievance!

I have to wonder if the diocese fears that the values of their properties have fallen so much that any renovations at all to them would require them to be fully up to code. After all, it isn’t only handicapped access at stake but also electrical, plumbing, fire safety and communications cabling that need to be upgraded as well.

Whatever the case, this is something you can’t blame on the special-needs snowflakes, “those people” or the ADA activists. Salem schools are indeed in a pickle. But they would be anyway even if you deported all the disabled to Lynn.

Four Years Blogging

2011-06-08T19:00:00.001-04:00

As is my tradition, I pay tribute to my late Mom and mark the anniversary of my blog. As is also my tradition, I am tardy with it. By at least two weeks!

Before I explain the picture, I want to give my belated welcome to Keep It Klassy, Salem, a relatively new blog that has been around for several years. I don’t agree with the blogger on many things but I am delighted that someone is following Salem politics after the demise of the old Salem Politics blog. His blog is in my blogroll now, as is the new Salem Patch, which has flashes of excellence and could be the future of news media on the North Shore, at least if AOL lets it.

Now, the picture. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, I came from a foster home, and Jeannette Moisan was my foster mom and for all purposes my defacto Mom. On the left is Pauline, Jeannette’s biological daughter. If we were related by blood we would be brother and sister. But she wasn’t my foster sister; we had many girl foster children but none of them was ever, or ever could be, a “sister”. So Pauline was also my defacto sister.

The cute little toddler with her is Monique. Mom looked after many kids like her, but she was one of the sweetest. She would turn on the charm and be manipulative as only a toddler could. We had a dozen Monique stories, such as when she learned to say my sister’s name—and then kept her up all night saying “PAU-LYLINE!” Or the time Pauline was in a fruit stand in Peabody and Monique yelled “DA-DA” (her name for me.) Pauline tells her, “Da-da’s not here!” Unknown to her I had, for whatever reason, walked down from Varney St. to find Pauline and walk into that same fruit stand…

What a sweet kid she was. It was hard to see her go back to her Mom. I hope she’s doing well today.

One last picture with Jeannette:

Back after an absence

2011-05-26T20:13:00.001-04:00

Essex Street Mall 2011-05-26 007, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

Via Flickr:
Nature finally turned a switch to "Summer" today, as these folks are realizing.

And I've turned a switch, too.

I haven’t posted in almost six months. I’m dispirited.

Last winter, my building had the bedbug hysteria that has affected many households in recent years. Dealing with bedbugs has combined the worst aspects of moving and losing your house to fire or flood. The Salem News covered the story in my building and it brought out the worst aspect of pest infestations—the moral opprobrium that comes when your betters can look down on you for being “dirty” and “unclean”, even though bedbugs, roaches and mice are blissfully unaware of class distinctions.

In a building with a shared laundry space, like I have, I’ll never know how I got bedbugs and I just don’t care who or what “gave” them to me. I just know that pest infestations don’t make me or my neighbors “immoral” or “unclean” or “lazy”, but that was on the minds of many of the Salem News commentariat.

There’s more, too. Last spring I had quite a screaming match with my ward councilor Mike Sosnowski over a parking proposal at the Jail.

What I learned from that affair is that it doesn’t matter what neighborhood I live in, or what stake I have in anything, if someone more important than me thinks different. At that meeting, a person from the Northfields neighborhood association asserted that me and my neighbors did not want commercial use at the Jail no matter what.

It doesn’t matter that that Northfields guy probably doesn’t even have a view of the Jail from his house. And he never cared before about the apartment complex I live in.

As far as I can see, Mike Sosnowski has more or less aided and abetted groups like Northfields. If you live in cheap rental housing, you will not get representation in Salem.

You will not get it.

Better that you show Mike your mortgage statement—or proof of McIntyre architecture—before coming to him with a problem.

I was at a meeting this past Saturday of the Alliance of Salem Neighborhood Associations. It was held at the function room of Beverly Cooperative Bank, which is where the Downtown group meets.

I had my own problems with that group, and didn’t want to attend this meeting, except that I made a verbal commitment on recorded video and had to go.

(I know the camera is on during our Commission meetings. If I make a gaffe or a curse, then I do. I don’t try to walk back what I said. I said it and it’s on tape and that is that.)

Several people in the Alliance complained about being “outsiders”. I wanted to say to them: “Where’s Lucy [Corchado, head of the Point association]? Where are they? The Point is a neighborhood, isn’t it?”

Those people have their own advisory board at the highest level of city government. They have Jason Silva’s [Mayor Driscoll’s chief-of-staff] private number on speed-dial. I have no doubt that someone like Michael Coleman can have Mike Sosnowski swing into action at 3 AM on a Sunday if he so commands it. If Teasie Goggin wanted to repeat Mike Bencal’s Al Haig moment (“I’m in control here”, after the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981) when he tried to take charge of City Hall when the mayor was away a few years ago, she has more than enough social capital to do so!

They have that advisory commission in addition to the Alliance! Tell me they are outsiders again?

As it happened, the meeting was a waste of time for me and and my colleagues on the Commission on Disabilities, since it was supposed to pertain to the MBTA parking garage, but was instead an unfocused rambling about pedestrian access and getting traffic usage stats, only to find out the state had already done that but nobody from the Alliance even read the report. The Commission probably could have used that, but the person presenting that report didn’t bother to tell us where we could find the data from the state website.

(I’d filmed video of the meeting. It would have been nice of them to tell us when the MBTA part of the meeting would get under way so I wouldn’t have to guess how long the batteries in my camera would last. Not long enough as it turned out.)

If I can’t be involved in the workings of my own city, the one that I have spent 47 years in, I think, why am I bothering to blog?

I’ve asked myself that question over and over during the past six months.

The only thing keeping me going is the Commission—whose purpose I believe in with all my heart and soul—and Salem Access Television, where I have been applying my IT talents for 11 years.

I’m very proud, in fact, that SATV now has much of its local programming available over the Net. Public meetings—including the Commission’s—are now available through our Government page.

I worked very hard with Sal Russo and the staff over the past year to make this possible and I am inordinately prideful. I’ve been delighted to flip the figurative “bird” to a few former board members who thought this was a “fad” or “something for Dave and Sal to spend money on”. (In fact, video-on-demand has been a roaring success at SATV.)

There are many other thoughts, ideas and initiatives at SATV and the Commission to make fodder for many more years of blog posts, which is why I’m continuing to blog.

But I will never, ever, let myself believe that I have a stake and a say with what happens in Salem.

I don’t. And I won’t.

Political Violence Should Be Scary

2011-01-22T09:13:00.001-05:00

[Creative Commons photo by cjbrenchly]

Nelson Benton, editor of the Salem News, is scared of the Second Amendment advocates of violence:

One of the more disturbing aspects of all the back-and-forth about the tragedy in Tucson is that there exists an element | and it may be growing | that views the right to bear arms as an essential adjunct to their right to overthrow the government by violent means.

Nelson, you’re right to be scared. The attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords of Arizona, and the deaths of a federal judge, and a nine-year old girl, is intended to scare us all. It was an act of terrorism no less in its emotional impact than Oklahoma City or 9/11.

You’d be wrong to assume that this has happened out of nowhere. And you’d be wrong to assume your own paper didn’t have at least a small role in the violent rhetoric.

This goes back at least 30 years.

When I was in college in the early 1980’s, Massachusetts government was in bad shape. We had, and still have, a legacy of corruption, patronage and just plain incompetence. Our state buildings were constructed, and fell down, on the take, while numerous connected contractors had their hands out.

It was, and is, shameful. The anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson made her bones during that era.

So too did talk radio. I, and numerous other Salemmites and Bostonians, listened to the triumvirate: Jerry Williams, Gene Burns and David Brudnoy. They were all libertarians.

And they all preached that government was bad, private sector was good and the best government was the least government. That philosophy influenced me almost to this day.

We’ve heard the narrative against public employees, politicians and government for so long we take it for granted, and take it as truth. We’ve taken these beliefs as faith for 30 years.

Second Amendment advocates have been promoting the right to bear arms for just as long; indeed, libertarians have often been natural allies in their fight.

Now, Nelson, you’re surprised and alarmed by the violence?

In recent years, your newspaper has been an unpleasant one to read. Barbara Anderson has written op-eds for the News for years, and they are not of the mild-mannered housewife I often heard with Jerry Williams, but of a harder, almost insane tenor. She started going off the rails with her 9/11 column, but her most recent column on the Tucson shooting is just nuts.

Another of your op-ed writers, Taylor Armerding, was once a fiscal conservative, though a hard one. Nowadays I’m afraid that he has a carry permit and will make headlines like Jared Loughner did.

And that says nothing of the cesspool that is the comments section of the Salem News web site.

I fear, Nelson, that your paper has done its part to further today’s political violence and that your paper’s owners are OK with this just as Roger Ailes and Fox News are fine with Glenn Beck.

Nelson, don’t look to Tucson for the Second Amendment Brigade. Look to Arlington, and perhaps, even Salem.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T14:25:00.001-05:00

bewitchedtree, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

Salem City Hall Elevator Dedication

2010-11-13T19:32:00.001-05:00

Salem City Hall finally has an elevator! We saw the elevator under construction when the Commission attended Mayor Driscoll’s proclamation of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act this past summer.

Here is the ceremony:

And here is a walkthrough of the new elevator. Notice that there are two elevator doors, as you sometimes see in hospitals; one door covers the ground floor from the sidewalk while the other is at the level of the existing ground floor at City Hall.

This is "The Whirlybird", the old chairlift on the front staircase into the Council Chambers:

Beth Rennard, our city solicitor, used this lift every day.

She won’t miss it.

Haunted Happenings Grand Parade Tonight!

2010-10-07T10:49:00.001-04:00

It’s our yearly ritual, and mine, the 2010 Haunted Happenings Parade. Once again, I will be working at SATV to broadcast and webcast the parade. I will be posting pictures as we set up for the day.

Charlie Baker, Moral Auditor

2010-09-20T15:01:00.001-04:00

A few months ago, Charlie Baker, the Republican candidate for Governor, proposed his “Baker’s Dozen” for cutting costs. I’d read about it in Blue Mass Group when he first proposed these measures but initially I didn’t take them seriously; candidates say things or are reported to say things all the time that turn out to have too little context to reasonably comment on. Besides, most day to day political coverage is noise.

I reread the post on BMG that first caught my attention, Charlie Baker proposes new government bureaucracy to approve lifestyles.

Charlie Baker’s Dozen ideas to eliminate government waste is still on his campaign’s website so I’m going to assume it is on his ongoing platform.

Point 8:

8. Conduct forensic financial analysis for benefits eligibility – Between $10M to $20M in savings
State agencies need to consider more than just tax returns when determining individuals’ eligibility for public benefits and services. A lifestyle analysis quantifies the living expenses of individuals - such as credit card bills, recreation activities, auto loans, grocery bills - and compares the expenses to known sources of income. If the money spent during the period analyzed exceeds the known funding sources, it is quite possible that there is another source of income. The state should conduct this analysis on a pilot basis for a few services – such as public defendants and public housing - before individuals are deemed eligible for the benefits.

Baker’s idea came from, amongst others, Dan Winslow, former legal counsel to former governor Mitt Romney in an article for Commonwealth Magazine. Beyond Red and Blue wrote about this in 2008:

For state entitlement eligibility, a simple LAF checklist can consider discretionary spending such as whether persons or households seeking free or discounted state services own property, have credit cards, hold bank accounts, or own a new car, multiple cars or a boat. The checklist could also consider whether an individual purchases cable television, Internet service, or premium cell phone service and whether they buy airline tickets, possess illegal drugs, or smoke a pack of cigarettes daily.

On the face of it, Baker’s proposal seems to be just a financial audit, like the ones Social Security does on SSI recipients. But Winslow’s association with the Romney administration makes me recall Eric Kriss’ infamous “Givers and Takers” speech of a few years back.

With that history I don’t think this provision is a financial audit.

It is a moral audit, and Baker wants to be our moral auditor.

Many, many people in the disability community, and outside it, get public housing, health insurance and food benefits. There are people who may get any of the three without ever having set foot in a welfare or Social Security office.

There are working people who live in Pioneer Terrace, a much-maligned housing project near Salem State.

Many will be affected. Charlie Baker, in his ads, brags about firing 5,000 state employees if he’s elected. How many people would we need to staff his new moral auditing division? How many of the 5,000 would need to seek public assistance?

David, of BMG, makes the point that “lifestyle analysis” requires expertise and not cheap at that, based on how the IRS goes after people with yachts. I think he’s wrong on this point, though.

The Baker administration, if elected, wouldn’t go to that length; It would outsource the new agency to one of the Indian or Chinese shops to which most of our customer support calls end up. The outsourcers would get a directive to flag as many people as possible for fraud for the cheapest possible price, working through their backlog as fast as they can, however they can.

Someone in public housing would get a thick envelope and a threatening letter, and a request to account for all the spending they made over the past five years, say, all in longhand with a 10 day filing deadline. A representative would follow up with questions, all along the lines of: “Why did you get that?”, “Why do you need a computer—can’t you go to the library?”, “Why did your son pay for dinner out?”, “Why aren’t you getting a better job?”, “Why are you still in public housing?”

And then the eviction notice would come. Maybe there’ll be an appeal process. If it’s funded.

I think Winslow’s, and Baker’s mindsets are such that they would not stop at a merely fiscal audit, even if they might not say it out loud. Certainly, Romney only disavowed Kriss because he made his own reputation look bad; Romney hired him, as he did Baker and Winslow, and he damned well knew what they were all about.

It’s a “small government” nanny state and it will demean many people in the disability community. Many of them already fear they are somewhat “less worthy” than an able-bodied person.

If we vote for Baker, we may be telling them, as well, that because they are often on the wrong end of the economic scale, they should not be allowed to manage their own lives either.

There will be the stories that come out with this, like the little old lady who gets audited (“But I voted Republican!” “Oops, our bad!”) or the disabled war veteran (“Say, son, you sound like you’re old enough to enlist. Don’t you love your country? Why aren’t you in the service?” “Um, ah, err…” I’d love to hear that one.)

But first, the dignity of the state’s disabled community will be degraded. And a lot of money will be spent. Baker won’t care, as long as he’s spending it.

Restaurant at Jail to open next week

2010-09-15T22:17:00.001-04:00

Reported at Salem Patch, the restaurant at the Jail, The Great Escape, will open Monday.

When I saw this in the open house, I had wondered if this would be the restaurant. I seem to have guessed right.

Despite the guy from Northfields and the associated controversy over the green space, a restaurant operator came through after all.

I’m not sure how they’ll do long-term, and I don’t know if I’ll afford to eat there myself, but I wish them luck. Hats off to New Boston for their tenacity in seeing this through.

Not Remembering 9/11

2010-09-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

As we mark the ninth anniversary of Al Qaeda’s attack on September 11th, I’m proud of this artwork. I produced it for my friend Leo Jodoin and his TV show, Salem Now, which I have been a crewmember for the 13 years it’s been produced. It features the improvised, informal, but now established, 9/11 memorial at Market Basket.

I’m proud of my art.

But I’m not proud of what has become the fetish of worship and hysteria that now defines September 11th.

Over a very long summer, we have been hearing about the imam who plans to build a Muslim cultural center a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. His plans have gone through and before a large number of boards and commissions in Manhattan, as any other project would.

In Salem, I know this process well, and the Commission on Disabilities is one of the participants in the rituals that developers go through to get things built.

The imam’s project has gone through all the hoops and hurdles in Manhattan. But a lawsuit from one of the relatives of a 9/11 victim is reportedly pending.

To say what I think of this, I need to go back to last spring, when the developers of the Salem Jail wanted to turn the greenspace fronting Bridge St. into a parking lot as a condition for a restaurant on the premises. There was a heavily attended meeting about this that saw nearly all of the neighborhood groups come to testify.

I wrote about what happened in that meeting but I’ll repeat it: A guy from Northfields spoke out against the proposed lot. But more than that, he went into a long speech about what kinds of development would be suitable in the neighborhood.

My neighborhood.

And he told us that the elderly complex—my building—would not be in favor of commercial development.

I was livid. Beyond mad. Angry. Pissed.

The Northfields guy was telling me and my neighbors what was right for us. I can’t even speak for my neighbors! We have, in fact, been living next to a commercial office building for many years.

Now, how am I going to tell that imam that he cannot build his center because I believe Muslims brought me pain on 9/11? I don’t consider myself to have any standing; as of now, it’s not even clear if the courts will give standing to any relative of a 9/11 victim to bring suit against the organization that plans to build there (a former clothing store that is not even within sight of the WTC block.)

I didn’t like that guy from Northfields presuming to speak for me or my neighbors, so why should I have a position on that cultural center?

There is no rule of law that could enable me to go to Manhattan and stop this. It’s gone through all the permitting down there and that should be that. The First Amendment has no asterisks saying “except some religions we don’t approve of”. (Catholics who oppose the cultural center might want to look at their own history in America first.)

In the next town over, there is a political activist, famous for her anti-tax, limited-government advocacy. She writes for the local daily, whose editorial board shares her opinions. She has spoken out against the cultural center (it is not a mosque.)

Does she really think that is in her limited-government bailiwick, to just reach out and tell a municipality in another state even that they must deny a project just because she doesn’t like it? That is by no means small, limited government!

If she were consistent with her desire for small government and private-sector development (and the imam runs a private organization), she’d advocate for someone like the Koch brothers to buy the Ground Zero site, an enormous parcel of land that much of Salem would fit into, and turn it into a martyr’s center to the sacred 9/11. (Newt Gingrich also wants to “federalize” the site to create such a memorial.)

There is already a 9/11 church at the site, and their pastor has the hate for Muslims.

And that is the other reason I feel shamed this day.

For some years now, the Republican party has become more radical and more religious, throwing many moderate conservatives, particularly those in the Northeast, out the door.

They have all but encouraged Christian fundamentalism. This atheist does not see a lot of distinctions between Al Qaeda’s apocalyptic Islamism, and what Christianism is said to be by many fundamentalist pastors.

Pat Robertson said that “9/11 happened because America looked away from God”. Was God rooting for Islam that day?

A few years ago when Janet Jackson “performed” at the Superbowl, one columnist from a Seattle paper said that “Al Qaeda had a point!” We fear jihad, but we now have our own “prayer warriors” in Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, Fist of the North Star.

We all were happy to see the Taliban in Afghanistan, and their theocratic government, brought down. But I’ve come to think that, to prominent Republicans and Christians, amplified by Fox News, the only sin that Al Qaeda and the Taliban have committed is, is doing terrorism in Allah’s name rather than in Jesus’.

I have recalled General Boykin’s words:

.' Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

And that man was a high-ranking officer in our Army.

We even have our own apocalyptic movement in America. Osama Bin Laden had to inherit his wealth, but Tim and Beverly LaHaye, authors of the “Left Behind” series, have made their millions convincing people that God will take his own people and leave the world to rot for Satan—and that a good Christian should wish for it!

Afraid of violent Islamism? From what rhetoric I’ve seen over the past few years, we have more to worry about from our own people. The Tea Party, whose copies of the Constitution only seem to have the Second Amendment in them, loves its armaments. Prayer warriors, backed up by Browning, Smith and Wesson. Someone flew a plane into an IRS office in Austin, Texas.

If Tim McVeigh bombed the Murrah Building in OKC today, rather than in 1995, I am certain people would be excusing what he did. “It’s too bad about that dead baby but her mommy shouldn’t have worked for the government!” McVeigh himself would be a prisoner of conscience. Not only would the Tea Partiers call for his freedom but also not a few editorial boards, perhaps even our activist next door.

All because Bin Laden happens to be a Muslim instead of a Christian. I wonder if he’s for limited government in that world caliphate he wants to build? If anyone is concerned about the moral state of the world, he certainly is! He could convert to Christianity tomorrow—as extremely unlikely it may be—and he’d fit right in with some!

That’s why I don’t want to “commemorate” or “remember” or “memorialize” this day. We put Japanese-Americans in camps in the name of December 7th, Pearl Harbor and we were wrong—and we knew it. I don’t want to see what we’ll do against Allah—or for Jesus—in the name of 9/11.

UPDATE: I haven’t read Dinesh D’Souza’s book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, or heard of it before this week, but Andrew Sullivan reviewed it for Powells a few years back. I’d still like to find it at the library and read it, but from what I read from this review, and other blogs I’ve seen online about D’Souza on his most recent book, he’s virtually shaken hands with Bin Laden, and he recommends his ideological peers in the Republican party do the same. That has only reinforced my commentary.

Salem State University

2010-08-02T19:48:00.001-04:00

I got this postcard in the mail over the weekend. Governor Patrick signed the legislation Wednesday that made Salem State a university. The bill had passed a week before the signing so there was enough time to get the cards out.

Changes at the Commission

2010-08-02T19:17:00.001-04:00

Mayor Driscoll with the Commission on Disabilities, with our former chairpersons, Jack Harris, and Andy LaPointe, and new chairperson David Tracht (back turned to camera), in front of the new elevator at City Hall. Also here were David Martel (behind Mayor Driscoll), Jean Harrison and Charlie Reardon (in red.)

The Commission on Disabilities is going through our summer break, and meeting again in September with a different organization.

Jack Harris, after being on the Commission for over 20 years, is hanging it up at the end of the year when his term expires. He announced his decision in June and called for an election of two co-chairs at our July meeting.

Here are his comments, from the meeting video:

I've known Jack for a very long time. His two little girls have virtually adopted me! Like many people who have served long terms in a job, it is inconceivable to think of his leaving.

But 20 years is a long time and I don't begrudge him.

Jack represents 20 years of very hard work to make the Commission as successful as it has been. This is a position more for duty and love, than it is for prestige.

I've often wondered how I would fare as chair. It's something I have to think about as I start my second term on the board.

I didn't nominate myself in the vote as I didn't feel I had enough seniority or experience, but as time goes on, if I continue in the job, I have to prepare for that possibility, and prepare to step up in his position someday.

This is what I said to Jack when he announced his decision:

Our new co-chairs are David Tracht and Debra Lobsitz. I and my colleagues will do our best to support them both.

Mayor's Proclamation of ADA Day

2010-08-02T18:55:00.001-04:00

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS: July 26th, 2010 marks the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); and

WHEREAS: The ADA set regulations that have made it easier for people with disabilities to work, shop, go to school and enjoy recreational activities with their neighbors; and

WHEREAS: Community leaders, businesses and government officials should celebrate the contributions that people with disabilities have made and continue to make to our community; and

WHEREAS: We should acknowledge the rights of all persons with disabilities under the ADA and their daily activities, struggles and triumphs; and

WHEREAS: The City of Salem is commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

NOW, THEREFORE, pursuant to the authority vested in me as Mayor of Salem, I, Kimberly Driscoll, do hereby proclaim Monday, July 26th, 2010 to be:

SPIRIT OF THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT (ADA) DAY

In the City of Salem, and urge all of the citizens of Salem to commemorate this anniversary by renewing our commitment to uphold the nondiscrimination principles of the ADA and to support them in their efforts to become as independent as possible.

Signed,

Mayor Kimberly Driscoll

July 26th, 2010

No New Bus Stop at Hawthorne Square

2010-07-03T10:46:00.001-04:00

For some time, I and the Commission have been trying to get the MBTA to establish a bus stop inside the parking lot at Market Basket.

Last fall, we thought we were making progress.

A colleague of mine got a response from Keenan’s office, quoted here:

In a message dated 2/1/2010 10:22:55 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Lynne Montague writes:

Hi Rich,

I wanted to get back to you with the latest information provided by the MBTA on the Highland Ave Bus Stop. John Matthew at RMD , Hawthorne Square Mgmt has withdrawn its proposal to build a new bus shelter as the company stated it could no longer justify the expense. The company further noted that the path for the bus, that the MBTA had agreed to, was objected to by the neighboring shopping plaza.

Mr. Matthew said he would contact the MBTA if he learned anything new or if the management company wanted to make a new proposal. The city of Salem has instructed RMD, Hawthorne Square Mgmt that the bus stop must be cleared of snow.

I will let you know if there is any additional information on this proposal.

Best,

Lynne

Firstly, I’m uncertain as to what kind of expense is involved. We never heard any kind of dollar figure; was this to be an actual physical shelter? I’d understood this would be just a bus stop in the vicinity of Market Basket.

Since I first drafted this post back in February, I've gotten some more information that puts a little light on this story. The Commission got a copy of a letter to the Mayor's office from the MBTA, specifically from a senior planner/analyst:

The layout of this shopping center does not support a regular bus service. This facility is designed with a large parking lot, few walking paths, and multiple storefronts that would create conflicts between buses, autos, and pedestrians. With the present layout, there is no appropriate place for passengers to board, exit, or wait for the bus. We would be interested in discussing this situation with the management, owners, and/or tenants of Hawthorne Square to see if there are possibilities for making changes or additions inside the center which might create an appropriate bus waiting area area and safe path for the bus to drive through Hawthorne Square.

The Service Planning group is also concerned with the additional trip time a rerouting would impose on existing customers. We estimate that each customer trip would be lengthened by 4 minutes or mour if routed via the shopping center. Extending selected trips during weekday midday hours or on weekends could minimize the additional passenger-travel time, since there are fewer peak-period commuters who would be negatively affected by such an extension and delays from traffic are less severe.

Snow removal is a serious issue that affects the quality of a bus customer’s trip; ordinances vary by municipality. In general, snow removal on sidewalks or at bus stops is the responsibility of the abutting property owner.

The Route 107 corridor has never been quiet, except perhaps before I was born, but it is true that it has gotten more congested. In fact, the T has had to run fewer buses with increased headways (80 minutes on weekdays) on the 450 and 456 routes due to heavy traffic on Highland Ave.

Ms. McCoy is also correct in asserting that the Hawthorne Square parking lot is not really laid out for pedestrians--there are no reserved pedestrian paths between stores.

This problem is much more than just one elderly person trying to get to the grocery store from the bus.

It's about how we have emphasized the personal car above everything and arranged our city planning around the car and its needs for parking at peak periods.

The only answer we seem to have is "more development". While I (personally, not the Commission) cautiously favor the new Wal-Mart proposed on Highland Ave. (and disfavor Lowes), I'm not sure how this will help.

As it is, the Commission has de facto "adopted" Rt. 107, 1A, 114 and all the other entrance corridors in the city where pedestrians and people with disabilities travel.

MassHighway has control over many of these corridors, so city councilors cannot do a lot. Jean Pelletier and Jerry Ryan are the nominal councilors over Rt. 107's path; I have not spoken to Jean but Jerry knows my thinking on this and we have spoken numerous times.

I recently had to contact MassHighway to fix one of the new audible signals (ironically near Market Basket). After two months it's resolved, but someone needs to go out there to adjust its volume.

A call here, an email there, a tweak. Until the next issue.

Now, the talk of my state rep and my mayor is on casinos and pledges to improve 1A and 107, which will certainly serve the proposed resort at Suffolk Downs.

A tweak here, a tweak there.

People won't like this solution, but the community leaders in the region will have to push for the Blue Line to Lynn. Just stand on the Lynnway near Wal-Mart or on Western Ave. past the bus depot and count how many buses with passengers go by. It's more than you think.

With due respect to my colleague Rich, who never fails to give me a word against the city on this issue, it's a tough one.

And the Commission seems to be alone in fighting for this.

Salem Commission on Disabilities, Unofficial Minutes for June 2010

2010-06-30T18:26:00.001-04:00

City Hall elevator, under construction

Salem Commission on Disabilities Minutes for May 15^th, 2010

The Salem Commission on Disabilities met at 4 PM on June 15th, 2010. Present were Jack Harris, chair, David Martel, David Tracht, Debra Lobsitz, Jean Harrison, David Moisan, Mike Sosnowski, City Council Liaison and Charlie Reardon, co-chair.

Jean Levesque is recovering from surgery. Andy LaPointe had a personal matter at home to attend to; Michael Taylor is having an accreditation review.

Old Business

Update on Jean.

Jack: He is set to go home soon, by Thursday the 17th. Michael says he’s doing very well. He’s being monitored, so he can’t go home yet. Jean expresses his gratitude at all the cards and well-wishes he has received. He hopes to be home soon.

Market Basket

Jack: I heard from John Matthews. I’m setting up a meeting with him, the mayor's office and the MBTA. Jennifer [his assistant] has offered to get the contacts for us; my contact at the T has moved on so I need to get a new contact. As soon as we get the meeting arranged, we can check off that one, we hope.

Salem Ferry wheelchair access

Jack: The Salem Ferry had a problem during the March storms. A section of pier, essential to wheelchair access, was damaged and needed to be replaced. Tom St. Pierre got in touch with me to let me know the part has gone out to bid to be fabricated. Service started on Memorial Day, and the part was to be replaced on the 15th.

Salem Ferry MBTA passes

Jack: The other part of this—I was at the BCS office in Lynn and had to go up the steps to the train station in Lynn. I fell on the steps--it was a very dark area and no yellow markings or stripes. Anyway, I spoke with a friend at the BCIL and he referred me a person at the T—Gary (can’t remember his last name)--and the T will do a site visit to see what needs to be done. I also got into some other discussions about the Ferry. We sent an email higher up to get T passes accepted on the Ferry. People may have seen a newspaper report about the lower fares this year.

Charlie: The wheelchair access repair? How is it going?

Jack: The MAAB was notified. It was hoped the wheelchair access ramp would be fixed by now but I understand it is a special part.

Jack: Please ride it if you can—it’s a great experience!

David Martel: The ferry's great.

Charlie: It is so smooth and comfortable.

Charlie: Andy and I were on the Ferry and were passing by Logan Airport. There was a very loud roar—a plane flew over us!

Jack: If the wind is just right and depending on the aircraft it is very loud.

Charlie: Andy's dog wanted to dig a hole through the bottom of the boat!

Jack: Some background—we (the city) own the Ferry (the boat) and a private operator runs it.

Jack: The city has been able to get Dominion to sell them the Blaney St. pier; the city is working on grant money to build a new pier for cruise ships there.

Charlie: There have been cruise operators there before.

Jack: But this project will create new opportunities for larger ships.

Jack: The city will need to open up its public transportation options. The Trolley does a good job. I was reading that a cruise ship in the new terminal could carry 600 tourists. That may be a bit much for the Trolley. We hope this opens up transportation options and the Commission will be there to support them.

Salem Common Playground

Jack: The playground is complete. It was a great dedication. Charlie was there.

Charlie: I was there, Jack and Donna (Harris) was there. We were there with Steve Dibble when he built it. We had a crew of over one hundred people for three days. The floor surface is deceiving, it's very soft. Kids fall down and literally bounce back up.

There are two regular swings and two swings for disabled children. It's a great project. A lot of people will enjoy it.

Jack: The group behind it is Parents United. I have to admit they did a great job. They are selling engraved bricks on a new walkway to donors if anyone is interested.

They are holding a dance fundraiser Friday.

They did a great job working with the city.

I also praise Steve Dibble for his efforts, and his sacrifices, to put this together.

But it’s done. We have been talking about this on the Commission for a long time.

Salem MBTA Station

Jack: There's been a little trouble implied by the press, where it was suggested the project was in turmoil. Governor Patrick says the project is still on track.

There was a newspaper article about Beverly’s depot project and the new scheme they will use to build it.

But again in my previous discussions about the Lynn station with my contact at the MBTA, if the Commission wants to look at any accessibility aspect of the Salem design, he will help us to review it.

I don't think it is so much the details that have been already proposed that are already on paper, but the details that have not been committed to, like the covered platform. The raised platform is supposed to be a done deal.

David Martel: Thy MBTA uses a common cost-saving cookie-cutter format for their designs. They used it to build a garage at the Museum of Science, but didn't look at the plans closely enough and had to cut concrete and rework several of the floors and it was very expensive. The cookie-cutter design is cost saving to them but if they make a mistake it costs.

Jack: I think most of what the city has asked for has been supplied. It is just issues like the covered platform. Because of where it is, it gets cold in the winter. I think we’re headed in the right direction. Whether this continues, we will wait and see.

Jack: The courthouse is exposed now. I have not heard a lot about it.

David Martel: We don't hear about it except from the newspapers.

Jack: They will try to get it all done at the same time. I don't think that will happen.

Charlie: They have underground parking, it looks like.

David Martel: Secured parking for prisoners, judges and such.

Jack: Sidelight on that, a new restaurant has been approved for the Jail. Open in August. There will be no parking on the green space--that has been settled. The space will be cleared as soon as the Bridge St. construction is complete.

Most of you are aware that Boston wants to raise its HP parking fines to increase revenue; that has been in the news lately. The mayor has been very vocal recently about parking.

MAAB Update

4 First St.

Jack: I spoke with Tom Watkins. The developers have been directed to make a curb cut by the MAAB. It should actually happen, within 45 days. I haven't gotten the ruling yet.

Parking Issues

David Martel: Woman got a ticket in Danvers for parking in an HP space. She claimed to be disabled but had no placard.

Jack: I guess she went there, twice, and the 2^nd time around she parked in the HP space.

When she went into Superior Court to file suit, I guess the court waived the $250 filing fee but her husband couldn't represent him because he'd lost his law license. Point is, she got the ticket, she's got the right to fight it but probably she won't win.

Jean Harrison: Has there been discussion about the HP parking fines? The fines are too small in many communities.

Jack: There has been some discussion resurfacing about increasing our HP parking fines.

David Martel: Some communities like Saugus put the money back into enforcement.

Jack: Yes, Waltham. This funds an off-duty officer on behalf of the city's Commission to find violators. They found that that money comes back threefold what they pay the officer.

Jean Harrison: I have troubles regularly with people parking in the HP space that I need. Several times I have had to find an officer.

Jack: Any time you have problems like that, try to take down the license plate. The police are good about that.

The weird thing: If the woman in Danvers had parked in the fire lane it'd only be $20!

Jean Harrison: Exactly!

Jack: I’m revisiting certain parking lots in the city. One of the areas I have been revisiting is the 400 Highland Ave strip mall. There are spaces there for HP but they aren't appropriate. We actually sent a letter out to the owners and hadn’t heard back. Tom [St. Pierre] is going to follow up. Parking is an issue, is always an issue, will always be an issue, and won’t be resolved.

I want to reiterate quickly: As most know, if you have a HP plate or placard and use a metered space—no fee! If you park in the Almy's lot or the garage [both?], you need to pay. There are HP spots in those places but you need to pay.

A year ago, there was talk about putting a garage on 10 Federal to include HP parking. It didn't happen. There was an offer from Jim Hacker about putting a few HP spaces on the Church St. side of the lot. But there are no curb cuts in that area from the parking lot to the sidewalk; we were working on that but it hadn’t been resolved. There is a new crosswalk in the area—it’s just a matter of curb cut access to the lot itself.

David Moisan: Many people don't have pen and paper. But many do have cellphone cameras. You should use them. It would be a good idea to learn how to use your camera phone and how to send pictures in email to yourself, or transfer the files to your computer via Bluetooth. It’s good not just for parking violations but for curbs, broken sidewalks and etc. Just take pictures before the owner comes back so the owner won’t be tempted to confiscate or destroy your phone or camera.

Charlie: The police told us, never, ever, ever, get into a confrontation.

David Martel: Does the camera really help?

Jack: Oh, yes, the MAAB has gotten photos and taken action on a parking issue based on that.

Debra Lobsitz: I was at a meeting this morning on ways to get funding. The Watertown Commission on Disabilities gets funding from parking fines and puts the money back into communications and other projects to improve accessibility in the town of Watertown.

Jack: Absolutely true. As most know, when those fines are paid here [in Salem] it goes back to the general fund. But in Waltham and other towns, the city realizes there is revenue generated that can be used to improve access. We need to put a bigger bite into HP parking fines.

David Martel: Like Saugus as an example.

Jack: The hope, my hope, is that we can split the funding between the city, the Commission and an off-duty enforcement officer. At least that's what we want.

David Martel: My problem is with the temporary signs for street sweeping that aren’t taken down. People ignore them.

Charlie: They don't take the signs down when they're no longer in effect. They look at the signs three months later and ignore them!

Jack: Debra’s correct. Many commissions have done this and it is an option. Some communities have done that but the disability commissions have been isolated and many feel, unfairly, that the commissions are just collecting fines. But we have been very open and have great relationships with the rest of the city government.

Charlie: The city has been very responsive when we needed to put an HP sign up.

Jack: In fact, the Mayor's office has actually been suggesting these initiatives.

David Martel: We got a significant number of curb cuts installed in the city last year.

Jack: I've never seen as many wheelchairs and cane users as I have seen in the last few years.

New Business

Election of Co-Chairs

Jack: I have called for an election of two co-chairs. This is happening because my term is ending in January [2011] and I do not want to pick it up again. I’ve been here for 15 years. You will get a letter on this. It’s time.

I nominate David Tracht and Debra Lobsitz. You have the nomination sheets; I will print a ballot for next month.

You and all who have come before you have worked hard to bring the Commission to where it is today. On another note: I congratulate David Martel and David Moisan on their reappointments to the Commission.

David Martel: I really didn’t know what our group did until I joined it. This city is held to a higher standard--that came through very clearly during the access training last year.

Jack: The one thing I want to pass along and emphasize is our relationship with the city. Politics is a factor of course, as it is in everything, but if you can work around that you can get a lot done. I'm proud to have worked with various mayors, the licensing board, city inspectors and planners over the years.

David Martel: All of these commissioners now, when they do site visits, do these just for the point of catching mistakes people miss in design and planning, before they get stuck with the mistake afterwards.

Jack: We gave owners and stakeholders the opportunity to go to the AAB. Sometimes, they had a different take on the issue than we did and that is fine. I do the best I can--but people can see things differently. We want different perspectives.

David Martel: As a newly-disabled person, I’ve seen things a bit different. Entertainment is very important to us, as it is to able-bodied people.

Jack: I don’t want any of you to feel you aren’t a part of the Commission because you aren’t working actively on something at the moment. Your time will come. The mayor has recognized that each of you has skills that the city needs to make accessibility work and contribute to the success of the Commission.

Disability Policy Consortium

Jack: There will be a Disability Policy Consortium regional meeting. June 29th, 6 PM, Wilmington.

If people would like to go, let me have a sense. I gave a heads-up to Doug Bollen, if you want to go and there are enough of us we can get a right. I don't think MOD is going to do a regional meeting in the area anytime soon. It's a good time and place to network.

Another sidelight: In the Globe, this group submitted a lawsuit when the water emergency took place a month ago; there wasn't notice given to people with disabilities.

Let me know tomorrow--if there are enough people I will get Doug Bollen to get a van.

This would be a very interesting meeting for the Commission to go to.

4th of July Fireworks

Jack: Charlie and I have been talking about accessibility on the lawn at Derby Wharf. I mentioned it to the city a few years ago and also last year, but it was too late to get something done.

They're still trying to figure it out. But there will be an access aisle on Derby Wharf and an area on Derby St. for mobility-impaired folks.

What I told Ellen [Talkowsky]: Let's try this. It should be publicized on the city website. It's hard to judge exactly how much space we need. The other part of that: at the end of the night; I have two disabled daughters in wheelchairs. It's scary trying to get out of there at night with them. I've been in touch with the PD and asked them if there is a free officer, if they could assist people in getting out of there.

The other thing put in place: There'll be a portable toilet for wheelchairs. There are disabled restrooms on the park service space but we wanted another one.

Objective: We want to see how well this works. We don't want to use more space than we need nor make it inconvenient for non-disabled people. If people aren’t going to use the space, we don’t want to go to the effort.

Charlie: If they take a two-foot line from Derby St. to the lawn, the visitor’s center and fence on the left side and mark it off with chalk as for football lines, we can make a no-blanket no-sitting area.

Jack: That's not nailed down yet. There will be access to the field by whatever means, chalk, fencing, flags, etc.

Other Business

Thoughts on the Commission

David Moisan: I want to thank the Commission for three great years. I didn’t know it would be like this when I joined. Of course, I was associated with the Commission for years before [filming meetings]. When all you do is film things, and the neighborhood associations have asked me to film meetings, you get burned out when you can’t get involved. I had to join the Commission and it was the best thing I ever did.

I have the greatest respect for Jack and for his two daughters who are my virtual godchildren. I understand Jack and his need to step away from the job; it happens. I’ve thought hard about doing his job someday just as good as he has.

Jack: I’m not going away!

David Martel: It’s been great.

Jack: The most important thing, as David [Moisan] says, is all the people I have met and the people that many don't know, all the people in the disability community who I have met who have affected me personally. A gentleman in Topsfield worked for a box company for years. He is deaf--but no one knew it, he taught himself lip reading. It's an amazing story. Those are the kinds of stories, the kinds of individuals it is amazing to learn about. These are the stories we need to bring forward.

Charlie: Salem has gone forward in a lot of ways. It's inconceivable to be without the Commission.

Jack: 20th Anniversary of the ADA is coming up. It would be good if you could review the history, see what was supposed to happen--and what actually did! Not only for people with disabilities generally, but specifically in the City.

We have a long way to go.

David Martel: If people run into obstacles and roadblocks and we don’t bring attention to them, they don’t get noticed. Even the mayor notices this.

A-Frame Signs

Jack: The other thing that people should know: The A-Frame ordinances from last month were approved. Look at them and make sure they conform.

City Hall Elevator

Jack: Some people have not known this--it's quiet--the elevator at City Hall is very close to being completed. In a few weeks it will be up and running. They kept me very well updated.

David Martel: What about Morency Manor?

David Moisan: The new elevator appears to be in service, reopened very quietly. The variance work was not done. I understood it to be an extra relocated control panel on the first floor.

David Martel: Correct.

David Moisan: It was quietly turned on, I used it last week. They told us, they would open the elevator when some surface treatment, laminate or something was installed in the elevator. I’m not sure if that referred to the new panel.

They don’t tell me much of anything. I really wish they’d asked to do this when the construction crew was there—it would have already been rolled into the general construction and complete! The replacement for the old elevator is in design. When it gets torn out, I will ask the SHA if I can take pictures!

The meeting was adjourned at 5:21 PM

Starting a 4th year of blogging

2010-05-28T12:09:00.001-04:00

I have recently completed 3 years of blogging. By tradition, I have a picture of my mom, Jeannette. This year, I found pictures of her cat Frisky, her most recent and last pet. She is minding Mom’s motorized scooter; Scooters like hers are now commonplace but this was really something in her day that helped her independence.

Another Frisky picture:

She’s with me, her “daddy”. I could not leave the house without her at my ankles. (“DADDY GOES! DO NOT WANT!”) When I did leave, she would tell Mom endlessly and at length in many words, “PAPA GONE!” (And then, coming home, she would see me—and totally ignore me! “NOT TALKING! YOU WENT OUT”) It’s been 16 years and I miss them both.

My past year’s blogging saw an old Salem blogging duo go away, and a new one emerge. A dear friend of ours passed on. I saw a lot of rancor and strife, no small amount from myself.

We saw the design for a new Salem Depot go forward, and I also saw blogging burnout. I’m still fighting that—if it were not for SATV and my work on the Commission I would be lost..

My apartment was rearranged when a new elevator was built in my building this past year. It still isn’t open yet but hopefully soon…

Last year I missed the groundbreaking ceremony for the Salem Jail. The ribboncutting was yesterday. I missed that too. But I did go to the open house!

To another year of blogging!

Salem Commission on Disabilities May 2010 Unofficial Minutes

2010-05-26T19:25:00.001-04:00

The May meeting has been dedicated to Elliot. This is a collage created by Andy’s daughter.

Salem Commission on Disabilities Meeting Minutes for May 2010

May 18^th, 2010

Meeting Introduction

The Salem Commission on Disabilities met on May 18^th, 2010. Jean Levesque will not be present as he was scheduled for heart surgery this week. David Tracht is off.

Present: David Martel, Debra Lobsitz, Michael Taylor, Andrew J. LaPointe, Dave Knowlan, guest, Tom Boudreau, Verizon, and Jack Harris.

Guest Presenter

Mr. Tom Boudreau of Verizon:

Jack: It’s been a long time coming; Jean Levesque and I met with Tom, and Stan Usovicz, over the winter and felt he would be a very good resource for the community as far as what Verizon offers. I’ll let Tom speak.

Tom: Thank you all for inviting me here today. I can’t hear anything, so I brought an interpreter.

I work with the Customer Center for People with Disabilities. We serve people like the deaf with TDD/TTY phones. We serve people with hearing impairments with amplified phones. We try to use technology to help people. For example we help people with JAWS. Most people are concerned--is the service compatible with their line? We try to give the right authoritative answer.

[Verizon FIOS] has opened a lot of doors for people with disabilities.

Dave Martel: Not in Salem.

Tom: I live in Peabody. Not there either

Tom: It's a fantastic technology. Basically the phone is like a little tv or computer with a webcam. People with sign language can use it. If your kid calls you're going to want to see him to see that everything's fine. It looks easy, but what makes it work is very complicated.

It's internet based but you need a certain speed; too slow and the service becomes choppy.

So, what we need for that is download and upload speeds that are faster. Most people don't know their upload speeds; hey tell the customer their download speeds but almost never upload speeds.

FIOS offers an upload speed of 2 Mbps, and high-definition television.

What's interesting is that … you can reach out and communicate with anyone with your language.

We offer phones that the deaf can use to communicate with sign.

We do serve people who are hard of hearing. We have all kinds of technology for them. We have the Relay. How does that work?

The caller calls a third-party Relay service. The Relay operator will use the TTY to the deaf caller at 65 wpm--faster than the national standard of 45 wpm.

Now it is improved; the caller will talk to the relay operator who will transcribe text to the computer much faster at 150 wpm.

That's what I try to do. New things come up every day.

The important thing about my work about the center I work with is, what is the definition of disability: What I tell people is that when their [abilities] and the environment do not match, they have a disability..

It takes patience to work with customers, like blind customers who can't see the phones or things they're working on. I ask them to put their hands on the device. I don't claim to know everything. I get and give one to one training to deal with different customers and their different disabilities. If they can't hear, we can amplify our outgoing phones. We want them to be comfortable. We ask a lot of questions. How can you make the right decisions if you can't ask the right decisions?

People with motion disabilities, we have to make sure they have the right tools. I have many people come to me.

This is a center that is entirely devoted to people with disabilities. That's very important to point out.

Our products are great. But we are very proud of our customer service. It is only as good as we can make it and we are trying to make it the best. We want to make our customers very comfortable. Any questions about phone, TV, cable or Internet service, I would be very happy to answer.

We can't deal with things like TV commercials but we can deal with captions. The service in the 1990's was what was known as Line 21. Now, it is digital and Line 21 has disappeared. The law required that any device with video have CC built in. But many people found that after digital, the CC was turned off and they had to turn it on at the device.

The important thing to realize is that there's a place for people to call to find this information.

Jack: One of the questions I have is, do you have direct responsibilities for training your CS people about people with disabilities?

Tom: Yes I work on training ... And try to include that.

Jack: This is more of a business aspect than disabilities. Verizon seems to be a much more expensive product, in their landline services, than other products. Can people with disabilities get price breaks?

Tom: Two part answer: We do have discounts in some areas. Some blind qualify for free directory assistance. Verizon does offer a competitive price if you get several services together. We can get FIOS TV, internet, phone for $99.

Dave Martel: Not yet!

Tom: We are working on that. If there is competition, the prices will go down.

Jack: When you talk about competition, I think it is extremely important to continue or complete service to Salem not only for the residents but also for the people who live and work in Salem. The more leverage that can be brought to bear with VZ and FIOS will go a long way towards residents and tourists but also with VZ. Especially for the disability community.

Dave Moisan: FIOS access to multi-unit buildings? Especially public multi-unit buildings?

Tom: FIOS is still cheaper to the customer than other services with bundling. And DSL is limited by distance, FIOS is not.

Andy: $99? One year.

Tom: Two years. Every state [and franchise] has different terms and I don’t' try to memorize them all. Just call and see what deals they can offer you? All I can do is encourage you to make the phone call.

Andy: I had occasion to work with their [VZ] customer service and am very happy with it.

Tom: Thank you.

Andy: I can tell you I'm not happy with Comcast telephone.

Tom: I'm more concerned with their picture/TV service and the picture phones. The TV service looks much better, much more than some TV's can display. I've been very fortunate to go to a FIOS house and see all the things that can be done. Even refrigerators that can order food!

If you can save money and get the best quality service out there; people with disabilities will benefit. I'm very proud of my work. We have two centers in Marlborough [MA] and Oxnard [CA]. The baby boom generation has more people with mobility impairments and disabilities and we can make a strong business case.

I can tell you right now we are providing it.

Jack: What about videoconferencing? Hardware? Resources for people with disabilities? Costs? How?

Tom: Many, many Internet based providers. Most video phone companies will provide the phone free of charge but you must have internet service--it won't work otherwise. They make money on their relay service which defrays the cost of the phone.

Tom: 5 or 6 companies. Changes every day. Some are wireless and I am trying one right now--not that I'm trying to drive my car with it!

Andy: Sure you're not in Sales?

Tom: I'm not trying to push a product that's worse than the competition. I wouldn't push it if I weren't confident in it, because if you don't like it you won't be back.

Jack [and all]: Thank you for coming.

Old Business

Market Basket MBTA Bus Stop

Jack: I do have a small update: I talked to Mr. Matthews at MB and heard right back from a woman at the T. I’ll pass around two letters I got. MB and the City and the MBTA met. They did come to some agreement as to where the stop was going, who would pay for it, etc. MB sent back kind of a "threat?" to that deal. So, I said to the lady from the T that I would get back to Mr. Matthews and look at the bus stop issue again.

Options we have: The other half of the plaza is owned by a different company. If MB can't do it, perhaps these people can. Our ultimate goal has always been the safety of the passengers using MB and Shaws. I will keep people updated and am working with Jason Silva to get something done by the time the snow flies.

Salem Common Tot Lot

Jack: As some of you may have been aware, through the city's website and a piece in the paper, the Salem Common Tot Lot is being built this weekend, Thurs.-Saturday 7 AM through dusk.

The Salem Gazette article claims Steve Dibble is involved in the project but no confirmation. Hopefully this will be a successful project.

As some of you may know there was another tot lot project that happened over on High Street. Check that out.

Tavern in the Square

Jack: There’s been a new development in the Tavern in the Square situation. As you know, the sidewalk is blocked when the outdoor seating is opened.

David Martel: According to yesterday’s Salem News, The TITS in Central Square Cambridge does NOT block the sidewalk. Beverages can be carried to and from the restaurant across the open sidewalk.

Jack: That would help much. Beth Rennard is looking into this. Also, the News article had a complete list of sidewalk dining areas. Very helpful!

Dave Martel: Lots of people in Salem love and use outdoor seating.

Jack: No one wants to take away from outdoor seating but public access to public areas is still very daunting. TITS presents one important issue but not the most important one.

Jack: Some business owners were saying: It was only a "little" inconvenience for people with disabilities. I disagreed. Strongly. I got up and let them know that in no uncertain terms. The more [stuff] thrown out on the sidewalks, the harder it is for everyone to traverse.

People got the message We may be stuck with [the arrangement] of TITS because of certain political decisions, but we will continue to try to develop a clear path of travel.

David Martel: People are wondering just why the situation is different in Cambridge. There was more of a enclosed seating area, though I could be wrong.

Jack: This is, too, there’s not a lot of difference between the two. The other thing to be aware of, I let them know the other issue that they and the city need to be aware of is, there needs to be a 36-inch clearance in the seating area itself [for diners with disabilities]. Someone can file a complaint. Enforcement is going to be a big issue. Of course, I was reassured, “oh yes, we will manage that etc.”

Jack: I want to make all of you aware that you may hear of violations, not only from residents but also visitors.

Dave Martel: Adriatic took over the Edgewater; I got many complaints when the Edgewater was in operation; they would move barriers when Tom St. Pierre called, but then they’d move them back.

Andy: Laws different in Cambridge vs .Salem?

David Martel: Supposedly it was the state board making the rules.

MAAB Updates

Vinnin Square

Jack: I called Mark Dempsey, who does the survey, to schedule a site visit to Vinnin Sq. that had an access problem some time ago and 4 First St. and he will come in a few weeks.

The Vinnin Sq. property has been a problem for some time; they promised to fix the problem but nothing has been done as of this spring. We concurred that we should file a complaint and Mark Dempsey will be paying a visit.

Salem Housing Authority

Jack: Dave Martel & David Tracht made the site visit [at 45 St. Peter], made recommendations to the MAAB. The variance was approved.

Jack: Is the new elevator up and running?

David Moisan: Not yet. I understood the variance involved a new control panel on the 1^st floor?

Jack: Correct.

David Moisan: I know when the new elevator is operating, the old elevator is going to be replaced. The old elevator replacement is in the design stage. I don’t know any more than any other tenant.

Andy: Dave, how many floors?

David Moisan: 5.

Jack: That’s why the second elevator was needed. The old elevator was breaking down constantly. \

76 Lafayette Street (The Howling Wolf)

Jack: This is going to be a taco restaurant, down the street from SATV [in the West Coast Video building]. I wrote the MAAB. The variance--ramp, restrooms and signage—is completely approved.

Berba Dental

[Wilson St. @ Highland]

Railings on HP ramp are not in compliance. When Jean comes back I can check the slope with our scale. They are getting an architect and the MAAB is giving them til August.

Dave Martel: Plenty of spaces near the ramp--but none of them marked.

Charlie R.: Mount the signs high enough over snowbanks, and paint them blue.

City Hall Elevator

Jack: An update on the City Hall elevator. It’s under construction. The power is installed, and the elevator cab is on its way. Hopefully by July it will be in service. Natalie Dill has been giving us regular and very informative updates. Excellent job!

New Business

A-frame signs

Charlie: A matter on the A-Frame signs. We gave our version of how dangerous the signs can be to people with canes; they can get their canes stuck on it and break it. There's no consistency on A-frames. There is a regulation for allowed square footage of signage per running foot of building. That should include A-Frame signs. I'm talking with Mike Sosnowski.

Marie's Sweet Something has a sign that is very well designed, with a colonial style that does not obstruct the building. It's very attractive.

Marie was there at the meeting and appreciated my comments.

Dave Martel: Businesses on Front St. at her location have followed the same convention so that Front St. looks very consistent and unified.

Charlie: As long as they don't interfere with the path of travel.

Also mentioned: Cobblestones on Essex Street Mall are HORRENDOUS! I've seen children in carriages being pushed down the street--there can't be a worse torture for them!

Andy: The thing is they're looking for a path of travel to be at least 5 feet (wide). They will bring the Commission in for any variance. 95% of the meeting was based on the MAAB and concerns of people with disabilities

It was a good meeting. I have a copy of the committee report which I will email everyone. . I did tell the committee that it is very important they use us [the commission] a lot more as it is much easier to deal with issues before they actually come out there.

We can even go to the businesses to talk with them individually.

Charlie: One thing I brought up at the meeting: When the new high school was built we went to many meetings--but this was well before anything was built! We had a lot of changes, but they were minor and didn't cost much. Everything we do is for the benefit of the City of Salem and the citizens of Salem and the visitors to Salem. This is all volunteer work!

David Martel: If people utilize us more, people see us more involved and that is good.

Andy: [About service dogs] Not all dogs are the same. Consistency is really a must. I brought up using a cane--as I have to now use one--I have memories of using canes and it tells me that people often step on the cane and break it, especially if you have [just] a 36 inch path of travel. They don't pay attention to the cane, where they would pay attention to the dog.

Especially Heritage week, Haunted Happenings, etc. Salem is a big attractor to many people with disabilities. So I think this is going to work out good.

Elliot

Andy: Back in February, my daughter made a collage for her class project on Elliot. She asked me for help and my wife Cheryl helped put together the pictures. The project got an A.

Disabilities Policy Consortium

Jack: Debra L. and I have been working on this. We would like to host a future meeting of the Disabilities Policy Consortium. I don’t know as much as I should; I know something about it, but not enough.

Debra L.: I have a contact with the DPC; I contacted her about the possibility of using some venues Salem to host an event. She told me the next meeting of the DPC will be in Wilmington—June 29^th, 6 PM—and invitations will go out soon.

Jack: If you can get the information and invitations, we might be able to get the Council on Aging to transport commissioners to this meeting. It would be very worthwhile to go and a great networking experience. There’s not a lot of consolidation of disability-related resources. I am told Jeff Dugan of MOD will be there. Hopefully this will be productive.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 5:40 PM. Next meeting, June 15^th, 2010

Tavern in the Square has an open sidewalk—In Cambridge!

2010-05-17T11:37:00.001-04:00

Very interesting development in the Tavern in the Square situation: Apparently, the Tavern’s Cambridge location at Central Square also has a sidewalk running through it—but it’s not closed off, unlike in Salem!

Here it is in Bird’s-eye View:

The outdoor seating can just be seen behind the white van in the center of the frame. I have been to Central Square a number of times before the restaurant was there and I can say it would be virtually impossible to close off that section of street for the restaurant as there is much, much pedestrian traffic passing that point.

The seating seems to most resemble that of Rockafella’s, which makes me wonder all the more how this restriction in Salem came about.

Without speaking for the Commission, I can still say that this is a very interesting development that we will be pursuing for sure.

Remembering Elliot

2010-05-14T10:45:00.001-04:00

[Courtesy photo from the Salem News used without permission.]

Last week, my colleague and friend on the Salem Commission on Disability had sad news: His longtime guide dog, Elliot, passed away.

We have plenty of stories on the Commission about Elliot. He was Andy’s second guide dog, following the retirement of Yates, both dogs having been fostered and trained by Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation.

One of the hardest things to remember when meeting any service animal—and I have met many over the years—is that the animal is “on the clock”. It’s working for its owner, doing its job. You can’t pet the animal or talk to the animal or interact with it as you would a pet.

As a pet lover in general, this is hard for me to remember.

Elliot made it even harder.

Elliot, like many dogs, loved most humans and wanted very much to meet new friends. Whenever I got into a car with Andy to go somewhere, Elliot would jump in the back seat, but not before giving his fellow passengers a kiss and a lick with his tongue as if to say, “Hi! You can be my buddy?!”

During Commission meetings, Andy would often pick the seat next to mine, near the center of the table.

Elliot would turn to me, lick my hand and look at me for acknowledgment. It was hard to ignore him, yet I had to gently nudge him to curl up next to Andy for the remainder of the meeting.

Which he did. Fidelco is not only good at socializing its foster dogs, but also training them.

Elliot was a great dog.

He will be missed, and not only by Andy.

The 2010 Fidelco Walk next week is dedicated to Elliot.

My colleague, Jean Harrison, had this memory of Elliot:

I really thought of Elliot as an under the table commissioner. He was a dear, sweet dog. I occasionally had the good fortune to have him rest his head against my leg or on my foot. Which was very nice & made me feel welcome as the most junior commissioner.

Very sweet. Thanks, Jean, for letting me repost this.

Tavern in the Square sidewalk controversy

2010-05-13T15:20:00.001-04:00

Update on last summer’s controversy over Tavern in the Square. The tavern’s outdoor seating has been completed and is now open for diners.

But as mentioned in the Salem News, it’s not necessarily open for pedestrians. Due to state liquor laws, the sidewalk is closed to public access while the outdoor seating is in use.

The Commission on Disabilities has been very concerned about the blocked sidewalk for some time. Our co-chairs spoke out last week.

SRA chairman Brennan says, of the detour:

"You might take 20 extra steps before you get beyond it," said Salem Redevelopment Authority Chairman Mike Brennan. "It's not a major impediment. I don't see this as a major problem. We're not asking you to walk a quarter of a mile."

Mr. Brennan, I have colleagues who have to count every step they have to take. 20 extra steps is not a problem for me but it is a problem for many cane users and those whose knees have given out.

But I can speak as a visually impaired person and I believe there is a problem.

Several years ago I nearly lost my sight: My right eye’s retina tore, followed several months later by my left eye’s retina. It was nearly two years and five operations before my sight was stable again.

During my recovery I had to perform many daily tasks with 20/100 vision or worse. Tasks which included taking walks on sidewalks downtown and boarding buses. You might think I should have just stayed home, but I and many others don’t have servants or even many family members to help. There are many people walking their way through Salem with bad eyes; I would not be the first nor the last.

To this day I have little usable vision in my left eye (20/200).

To illustrate the problems around the Tavern in the Square area I took some photos, at noon and at dusk. I’ve blurred them to approximate what and how I see out of my “bad” eye.

First, here is Tavern in the Square, from Washington St. walking south:

Here is the same view, through my bad eye:

Now, Tavern in the Square from New Derby St.:

And blurred:

These pictures were snapped around high noon that day. I came back at dusk a few days later. When your eyesight deteriorates, perhaps later in life, you may first notice it at dusk, a very challenging time to see, even for those with normal sight.

Tavern in the Square at dusk, Washington St.:

Blurred:

From New Derby St. at dusk:

And blurred:

The sign directing diners was blown down—it was gusty that day.

When your sight is bad enough that you can only see lights and darks and vague shapes, it’s a very different experience than most are used to. Many can imagine being sightless—just by closing their eyes—but few realize the problems faced by the visually impaired.

Much was made, during last week’s meeting and the comments in the News, about accommodating “just 4 blind people” who walk through the intersection. I have no idea if that count is accurate, having been thrown out by a reader on the News page. But I do know there are many more visually impaired out there. Probably someone you know.

Here’s one last set of photos:

This is, for lack of a better term, a curb structure put in during Tavern in the Square’s development. I don’t know what purpose it was originally for. The Commission has been told this was “a mistake”. Here it is blurred, and at dusk:

This is the quintessential problem I face as a visually impaired person. Even though my sight is a good deal better than this, I have a very hard time seeing slight contrasts as represented by this sidewalk structure.

(This was blocked by sawhorses after this picture was taken.)

I occasionally attend seminars in IT as part of my field, and there is a hotel in the theatre district in Boston that I will never go to again because they insist on having steps into and out of the lobby that are black and completely unmarked. I hate falling. I have many other examples, of which this is only one. (Another reason I hate cobblestones.)

I have no position on Prevey’s proposed fees on sidewalk access, and I don’t think the Commission will have a position either (at least until we next meet, if even then.)

I have no animus whatsoever towards Tavern in the Square, either, and I understand the other factors involved.

But I think there is a problem here, and I suspect the Commission will see it that way at next week’s meeting.

The resolution may involve orange barriers (at least, yellow or orange ropes, not necessarily construction barriers.) Or it may involve redesigning the New Derby intersection, which has been on our wish-list.

But the one thing this is not about, Mr. Brennan, is “20 extra steps”.

Update: EyesOnStreets has commented on my post.. I don’t agree with everything said there (I’m not a fan of Kunstler and, I can see the back side of the new courthouse from my house and don’t think it’s ugly) but I appreciate the kind words nonetheless.

Salem Commission on Disabilities April 2010 Unofficial Minutes

2010-05-09T10:04:00.001-04:00

[Sorry for the delay. No pictures this post—DM]

The Salem Commission on Disabilities met on April 20^th, 2010 at 4:00 PM.

Present: Jack Harris, Debra Lobsitz, Andy J. LaPointe, David Tracht, David Moisan, Charlie Reardon, David Martel and Jean Harrison.

Mike Taylor was unable to attend. Jean Levesque and Mike Sosnowski were not present.

Old Business--MBTA Bus stop, Market Basket

Jack: As most of you know, with the help of David Moisan, we’ve brought attention to the T bus stop at Market Basket. The city, with the help of Market Basket and the MBTA put a meeting together with suggestions. It has stalled. Not sure how, but in my discussions with Jason Silva, it ran into a roadblock. Market Basket and the T had a discussion, thought it was a good idea, MB offered to construct a shelter. But the T backed off, didn't like the location of the shelter.

I called Mr. Mathews to arrange a meeting with Jason in hopes of getting this done. It’s a safety issue.

Dave Moisan: I’d gotten a message from Richard Swinuch that he’d got from Keenan’s office; the abutter of MB (Shaw’s plaza next door) did not approve of the bus routing.

Jack: MB was going to pay for the bus shelter to be on their side of the mall.

Watch the Walmart/Lowes project--new stoplights and crosswalks are in now in the area but there could be reconfiguration. Several other stops on Highland Ave. present the same problems but the MB stop is the most notable.

MBTA New Garage at T lot

Jack: As some of you know, we won part of the fight: There will be a full-height platform--walk from the platform straight to the train (no steps). Now, we want a canopy over the whole platform. Previously, the T was citing money issues, plus the platform is on a curve and they didn't want to do it. From discussion with several people from the state, this is a win-win.

Charlie: There will be more wheelchair passengers, now that they can more easily board. Scott Maguire (friend of Charlie’s) once had to ride in the back of a baggage car.

Jack: This will help people on foot who won’t have to go up on steps.

David Martel: Will the boarding area be enclosed?

Jack: The T is still accepting comments.

Jean Harrison: They are more aware of the disabled.

Jack: A $300 million judgment (against the MBTA) will do that.

David Martel: Not to mention the curb cuts all over Salem. People take them for granted and if we took even half of them out, people would notice.

When we did the Access Monitor training, so many people from outside came to Salem and realized how good our access is compared to other places.

Charlie: The Witch Museum is accessible.

David Martel: Many of these people could grandfather out of the ADA requirements but they go ahead and make things accessible. Biff Michaud did that with the Witch Museum.

They put a lot of reenactments downstairs to make them accessible.

Andy: Another comment on the train platform; you may go on the train several times and not have any problems, but once you may have a problem. I had to call for my stop once and the train stopped halfway to Beverly. They had to back up to the station.

Jack: First rule: Disabled people need to let the conductor know where they will depart the train.

Andy: I did do that.

David Martel: Flight attendants do that too; I asked for assistance on a recent flight. You might hate doing that if you’re disabled—we’re all proud people—but we must do that.

Jack: Self-designation certainly helps. Safety, plus it helps them get to where they need to go.

David Tracht: The conductors must help too.

Andy: Blind people who get the ambition to travel, can get that ambition lost very quickly when they have a problem.

David Tracht: The train put me to sleep on the way home and I always woke up before my stop. I always wondered what if I didn’t? Partially-sighted people have particular problems in the fall and winter.

Jack: I ran into a new system today. They have automatic stop announcements that you may have heard in the subway (“Next stop...Government Center"). There is now a system on the commuter rail—but it has a female voice, which I don’t like.

Those who get a Blind Access Pass for the T: It's no longer good forever. It needs to be renewed every five years.

Renewal reminders aren't sent automatically.

Charlie: A blind person or a sight-impaired person can’t possibly read the fine print on the pass! What is he/she supposed to do?

Jack: I called the T to get a new one. They said they’re backed up. What do I do in the meantime? The phone rep told me something interesting: “Try the pass and maybe they’ll let you on!”

David Tracht: Won’t work on commuter rail.

David Moisan: I remind people that about five years ago, the T went to their Charlie Card system. They may be hoping people will fall off the rolls because they are deceased or they are no longer impaired.

David Martel: Where can you reload a Charlie Card in Salem?

David Moisan: Register the CharlieCard online. If you’re comfortable using debit online, this is best. All the buses have fare boxes that can be used to reload cards.

Most drivers are patient. Or you can go on the bus a few minutes before the trip. There are a few extra steps that involve tapping a button, tapping your card, inserting your money, tapping the card again and finally tapping the card one last time to pay the fare.

Jack: One of the drivers will help if you ask.

MAAB Update--4 First Street

4 First St. will get a site visit from the MAAB to review the parking lot access problem. We were hoping to do it this week but things came up. We’ll let everyone know when this is happening.

Variance at Morency Manor, Salem Housing Authority

Jack: The Salem Housing Authority asked for a variance. I handed this to David Martel and David Tracht since it would be a conflict of interest for me (and David Moisan) to handle it since I (and Dave M.) are SHA tenants.

David Martel: SHA wants a variance for Morency Manor. The control panel for the new elevator is in an alcove, but they want to put in a 2nd control panel. There should have been a variance in the first place from the contractor.

Variance at 76 Lafayette Street

Jack: Taco restaurant has been proposed for the unrented part of West Coast Video. The variance was requested before the building was even permitted, which we really appreciate. We will make a recommendation and send it along

Burba Dental (Highland Ave. @ Wilson Rd.) Variance

Jack: There are no HP parking spaces and ramp is not compliant. Tom St. Pierre will be back and we will discuss this. We want to know why the ramp is not compliant. I will let people know what’s going on.

Jack: The SRA had a meeting about outdoor seating. I talked about the direct path of travel. There was a problem involving the old Edgewater Café. They had seating that blocked off the sidewalk and got two complaints about it.

We will have to revisit this.

Dave Martel: Tavern in the Square: They flattened the traffic island and relocated the traffic controls. They did a very nice job and there are no access issues or trip hazards. They did listen.

Jack: We will have to watch this; summer will wind up quickly.

New Business

ADA Observance July 26, 2010

Jack: This year is the 20th anniversary of the ADA. I would like to put together some sort of good observance. The ILCNSCA is putting on an event. I'd like to have an event here, at Winter Island or Old Town Hall or the Ferry.

There are many accessible areas that are new in Salem that we should or want to highlight.

David Martel: Access training again?

Jack: Jeff Dugan is trying to visit every Commission on Disabilities in the state (200?). And is asking for an invitation (we will invite.) Regional meetings have happened, and the Disability Consortium Council has been doing some of these meetings.

Debra: Regional meeting in Salem?

David Martel: It’s possible. Visitor's Center is one possibility.

Dave Martel: For people starting up or reactivating their Commissions, Salem is an excellent model.

Incident on Bridge Street

Jack: There was a small article in the paper last weekend. A young lady in a chair was trying to get up Bridge St. near the motel with the MassHighway construction. A truck was parked on the sidewalk in the way, so she went around and the flagman on duty was very upset with her. Not that it’s necessarily the flagman’s fault, but the pedestrian should have gotten assistance. I brought it to the attention of John Jodoin about this.

Charlie Reardon: I talked about this with the construction crew on Bridge St. The flagmen don’t want to work on Bridge St. Officers will work Bridge St. while the [civilian] flagmen will do side streets.

Jack: My interest in this is that the flagman was obviously unhelpful. The truck should not have been parked there.

David Martel: It brings up a thought about school crossing guards. I wanted to cross the street at Boston & Essex Sts. and there was a crossing guard. I asked the guard for help crossing, and he told me I wasn’t a kid. Well, I’m not a senior citizen but still the traffic is horrendous.

Jack: Is the crossing guard solely for children? There needs to be clarification one way or the other.

David Moisan: I have had the opposite—crossing guards who insisted I cross the street with their assistance.

A Frame Signs, City Council Committee Meeting

Jack: Regulations for A-frame signs are being reconsidered. Joan Lovely is heading the committee to govern over these. We have asked for an invitation to a meeting. These signs directly impact the path of travel.

Andy: Nothing specific in the ordinances about disabled or blind, only the general 36 inch rule. If there needs to be consideration for the disabled with those signs, we need to speak out.

Charlie: I suggested to Rinus [Salem Chamber of Commerce] that the red line at Daniel Low's (now Rockefeller's) be cleared of any signs, seating and etc. and make a clear path of travel. This was done last year and all but 2 merchants complied. Signs should be near a tree, pole or other landmark when possible instead of standing on their own.

Andy & Dave Martel: Suggested a map similar to the official visitor's map, but instead of the usual red line, a blue line detailing path of travel and accessible pedestrian signals. A woman from Winthrop told me she has no idea how to safely get from one point of interest to another in her wheelchair.

Dave Martel has volunteered to do this.

Andy: Salem is a great place to visit for people with disabilities. Just go to any place where people from around the state meet, like the Carroll Center for the Blind. They all say Salem is great!

Jean Harrison: Put a sign outside designated restaurants?

Charlie Reardon: I’ll make the sign. It’ll have the HP logo and “courtesy of the Salem Commission on Disabilities” (blue and white).

Dave Martel: The information is sent also to Shaugnessy for use by the patients and families.

Other Business

Independent Living Center of the North Shore and Cape Ann—911 Indicator Form

Andy: The ILCNSCA had no idea about the 911 indicator form; they are aware now, but for now we need to remind every disabled person in Salem to fill out the 911 indicator form in case of emergencies. All information is confidential.

Jack: 911 Indicator form has been on our website for some time. They just have to call us or attend our meetings. They have not. They've refused to work with us. They haven't even asked us to be part of variance requests. They know we're part of the process and they just don't want to do it.

Andy: If they don't know about it and I didn't know about the ILCNSCA, what's more important is that some disabled person needs to call 911 and it's a crisis--the person won't be thinking of that. Point is, when they fill out the form and something goes wrong, they will know the situation, you're in a wheelchair, you need rescue, etc. We need to bring it to everyone's attention. 25% of Salem's population has a disability. (!)

We need to get the point out.

David Martel: Can put out a flyer?

Andy: We need to work on this continually, and never stop.

Debra: Send the forms to the ILCNSCA?

Andy: I do my show for TIC and send the information everywhere.

Jack: The ILCNSCA gets this?

Andy: Not unless they listen. It's important enough that we need to make this a priority.

Audible Signal at Market Basket Southbound

David Moisan: The audible signal at the bus shelter outside Pep Boys (Market Basket southbound) broke several weeks ago. I notified Jason. The Polara signal was replaced two weeks later with a non-audible button. Need to check back with city engineer to see if audible signal will be replaced. The crosswalk needs audible signals at both sides for them to be effective.

David Martel: I’m surprised there are no audible signals at Salem Hospital. The sun obstructs view at sunrise and sunset.

David Moisan: There are no new signals north of Salem High--all signals between Essex St. and Wilson St. are the old non-audible signals.

Jack: Since you started this query, can you follow up with Jason?

David Moisan: Yes, I will check on that one. And I will ask about what will happen north of the high school. Boston St. is another issue entirely, but my immediate concern is the Market Basket signal.

Adjournment

Next Meeting is May 18, 2010,

Guest will be Verizon [Tom Boudreau]

Barbed Wire is Gone at the Salem Jail!

2010-04-07T13:31:00.001-04:00

As promised, the barbed-wire fencing around the Salem Jail has finally been removed! (A second, inner wall, was partially dismantled when the Jail was closed and demolished when the renovation began.)

In other news, the new courthouse is now easily seen from the same corner:

Salem Jail’s Open House

2010-03-29T12:03:00.001-04:00

There was never a time during the Salem Jail’s existence that people would be waiting to get in to the Jail, but it happened yesterday during a scheduled open house.

There were about 30-50 people in line at any one moment and about an equal number of people in the Jail itself. Several hundred people likely went through. (Relatively few people visited the other buildings in the open house, the jailer’s building and the (reconstructed) carriage house.)

There wasn’t much overlap between the areas we were allowed to visit in the open house, and the parts of the Jail that Dan Stanwood took me through two years ago. The open house took us through the eastern side of the building facing the parking lot; the tour was mostly on the west side. (Dan offered to take my party through more of the facility but we were short on time and I had had enough video to make the show out of anyway.)

The front entrance hasn’t changed much from then:

Now:

The pay phone pedestal is still there! If you’re observant, you may have noted the white metal wheelchair lift in the old photo. Inmates with disabilities were brought in with the lift (and stayed on the first floor as the rest of the building was not accessible.)

Today, there’s a ramp, or what appears to be one.

Inside, one of the old cells near the entrance has been preserved:

This will be part of a small museum.

The new Jail has an elevator:

Reportedly, the hook on the ceiling of the dining area upon which people were hanged, is still there in one of the units:

One of the units:

In a few months this could be someone’s home.

My Flickr stream of the old Salem Jail.

My Flickr stream of the Salem Jail renovation, including the open house.

March 2010 Unofficial Minutes of the Salem Commission on Disabilities

2010-03-22T20:33:00.001-04:00

Salem Commission on Disabilities

Minutes for March 22, 2010

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Salem Commission on Disabilities met at scheduled at 4 PM in the SATV conference room

Jean Levesque and Andy LaPointe will not be present.

Present were Lisa Cammarata, Human Resources (in Jean’s place), Jack Harris, Co-chair, David Tracht, David Moisan, Mike Taylor, Charlie Reardon, Co-chair, Debra Lobsitz, Jean Harrison, and Mike Sosnowski, Council liaison.

Jack: Meg Robertson from the Massachusetts Commission of the Blind called in sick and could not show for her presentation.

Capt. John Jodoin of the Salem PD is here to discuss the Right on Red law and how it affects pedestrians and people with disabilities. He’s going to talk about my “favorite” intersection, Riley Plaza.

Capt. Jodoin: History. Massachusetts passed the Right on Red law in 1980's in response to the (ongoing) energy crisis. We have the law but we apply it differently from every other state.

All other states allow right on red unless posted. We don’t allow right on red unless it is posted at individual intersections.

Crosswalk signals are not good for people with disabilities who often have to wait several cycles to cross the street.

The timespan for pedestrian crossing is very short; the normal way we evaluate an intersection is how quickly it can move traffic. But it must be able to allow pedestrians to move safely. This conflicts.

Many times, I’m in my car [cruiser] watching a disabled person try to cross and I pull over the car, get out, and make the traffic stop to let the person cross.

David Martel: How are seatbelt fines assess?

Capt. Jodoin: Seatbelt fines are tacked on to whatever other fines we assess. We have a course on brain injury that we have motorcyclists we find without helmets take.

You can count on Massachusetts to take federal law and interpret it in its own special way.

Jack: Right on red? Is it option for the driver?

Capt. Jodoin: No, not if the intersection is signed for no turn on red. It’s very confusing, especially the intersection near the post office. It’s marked so cars can’t block it, but even if there were a machine gun nest were there, people still do.

Capt. Jodoin: The state gets interested since it is a state route (1A and 114). We would have preferred two four-way intersections there, but the current Riley Plaza is still much safer than before.

Jack: That’s what Meg would have brought up. We have audible signals, but with right on red, how does the blind person know?

Capt. Jodoin: They don’t. That’s the problem. It’s a confusing mess and we don’t have an answer. We would have liked to have an overpass there.

Jack: How is the intersection [Wash. And Derby] accident stats?

Capt. Jodoin: Don't know. Don’t have figures but since Riley Plaza removal it is much better. Before the redesign there was at least one fatality every year.

Ultimately, the pedestrian is the controller. If he or she is in the crosswalk they have the right of way regardless if the driver has right on red.

Jack: Have we been told that? From blind community: "I'm in the crosswalk…but will traffic stay still for me?"

David Tracht: My problem, many of the crosswalks are not painted well. It’s especially bad in the morning and evening with the sun.

Capt. Jodoin.: Yearly ritual. We put down the hot markings, but they are destroyed by plows. It's New England. No good marking.

Jack: Cambridge has lighted crosswalks. How does it work?

Capt. Jodoin: The state is asking for the laws to be changed to allow stop light cameras. Right now an officer needs to monitor the camera at all times. They could also be used for pedestrian incidents.

Automated cameras take pictures of cars violating the red light, take a picture of the car again in the intersection, and another camera takes pictures of the plate.

Camera has a computer processor; if there's an amber alert or a BOLO and plate camera finds a match, it alerts.

Riley Plaza is ideal--it is the biggest longest intersection in Salem that pedestrians have to cross.

Jack: Other cities and towns, are they getting involved?

Capt. Jodoin: Yes. Unfortunately, the camera can only do one thing at a time, Amber Alerts or red-light violations. A person is still at police headquarters looking at the images to determine if there are real violations.

Jack: You have a yellow light, say. When does the violation start in the intersection?

Capt. Jodoin: The light has to be red when the vehicle crosses the stop line for it to be a violation. But, Massachusetts has a twist: If you see a yellow, you are supposed to treat it as a stop sign.

Jack: There was a news story recently, a lot of MBTA buses don’t obey the signals. Does this apply to state vehicles (MBTA)?

Capt. Jodoin: Sole discretion for determining violations is with the officer. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an MBTA vehicle or not.

Jack: I’d heard of a lot of violations re MBTA. Do you remember any?

Capt. Jodoin: A bus was coming in early in the morning, in Riley Plaza of all places, and it was 5 degrees out, and the bus’s brakes were frozen. They hit someone at Dunkin Donuts and kept going over the curb into the Riley Plaza parking lot itself. That’s the only instance I remember.

Capt. Jodoin: We have to follow what the will of the community is. An ironclad rule we follow: Enforcement is not a way to generate capital, but to insure safety.

The Commission could do an announcement, PSA, etc., on pedestrian safety. Like the one done for school kids, etc. We had cones on crosswalks reminding people to stop.

Jack: Remember those lime-green kid-shaped cutouts in Peabody that neighborhoods would put in the road? Those were controversial.

Capt. Jodoin: We could put a thousand of those. Anything that makes people stop, we’ll use.

We have another vehicle speed display we got used from the Avon police.

Jack: John has been a huge friend to the Commission and to the City of Salem and has served the Commission very well. I’m proud and humbled to say he’s been an excellent resource to us and the police department. I’m highly pleased with the expertise of not only the police department but also with the expertise of individual officers who have shown great sensitivity to people with disabilities.

Capt. Jodoin: You need to make more public service announcement videos and notices on the [SATV] bulletin board.

Jack: I remember hearing about a program where there were posters in businesses where kids in trouble could go into and get help. Don’t know what came of it but it could be done in conjunction with Project Lifesafer.

Capt. Jodoin: Project Lifesaver is Lojack for people. ~~In fact, Lojack bought the company~~. [Project Lifesaver is an independent nonprofit.] Because our program is named and modeled after the national program, they don’t charge the city for the equipment.

Andy got us $3000 to get started.

Person wears small device (like a gps bracelet).

2200 saves nationwide.

Average find time: 30 minutes.

100% success—everybody’s been found.

It cost us $3,000 for the startup and training [that we got from Andy].

We have one application so far.

Cost to the users is $99 to start up and $30 per month.

The bracelet is made of tough nylon that’s hard for the wearer to remove. It’s not a problem for Alzheimer’s patients but many autistics can’t stand the feel of it—they get sensory overload.

A few years ago, we had an Alzheimer’s patient wander off. We found the guy but we were about to get extra officers from out of town to help. Fortunately, it was during the summer. And the guy was found near his house in a vacant apartment.

For some strange reason, many Alzheimer’s patients go to the water.

We find them with the system with two radios, and find the nearest body of water. And narrow down the search that way.

David Tracht: The nursing homes with Alzheimer’s patients could use it; have they been approached?

Capt. Jodoin: Yes. A word about funding. A charitable account is being set up by city for people in need of it.

We’re trying to get it covered with Homeland Security money. Boston is signing up in the spring.

It’s a completely portable system. We can drive around in the car with the system, and then get out of the car and use our hand-held antennas to continue on foot.

Project Lifesaver is a win-win! We have over a hundred applications out there!

Jack: Woman in Waltham who went into the bank, left, and apparently died. If she had had something like that on her, perhaps she could have been found sooner.

Capt. Jodoin: It’s a great program.

If someone has the system, and passes away, the family can donate the bracelet to the city and it will be available.

Jack: It works with another program, Are You OK?, that the senior center runs. I think with the Salem PD putting these programs in place, we make the city more attractive, doing what we need

Capt. Jodoin: I was the least involved with the startup. Andy has done all the legwork and he and Friends of the Council on Aging have been great!

You can call Andy if you have any questions about the program; he’s done more than anyone else to get it going.

A search can cost $50,000 per hour, so this can save money as well as time.

Jack: It does put people at risk when you perform searches.

MBTA Garage update:

We won a victory at the 30% Design meeting: There will be a full-height platform. Next push: Covered platform. Security: Cameras would be in the new garage. I asked the head of security there if they would be working with the Salem PD? I got the standard answer (“oh, yes, of course.”), but I am going to ask the mayor's office for sitdown between T and SPD and ask for cameras in the new garage so that our technologies and the T’s are integrated. The cameras the captain is talking about may be similar to the ones the T will use.

Jean H.: I have a question about the 911 Indicator form? Can the homebound disabled fill out the form?

Capt. Jodoin: Yes. Call and tell the dispatcher. We processed 20-50 forms this week. [SATV produced and is airing a PSA on the indicator form.]

If someone indicates they are mobility-impaired, deaf/HoH, blind, allergic--puts a code on the dispatch form for that address.

Lisa C.: Promotion ran in Salem Gazette and Salem News.

Capt. Jodoin: Disabled people don't like to wave the flag. We got 20-30% of the forms returned. But it is voluntary and confidential. It’s all under your control.

Jean H.: It’s ironic the forms are at City Hall—on the fourth floor!

Lisa C.: Form (In PDF) is available on the city website (salem.com) on the Commission page amongst others.

Mike S.: Can it be filled out online?

Capt. Jodoin: No. It can’t be done on line; we must verify the address. It is a state form. It can’t be submitted electronically for that reason (at least not by the city itself.) I maintain the master file and have to change it constantly. We have several “0” addresses that front onto other streets.

Jack: A few days ago, a fire in Dorchester. Brother and sister. Sister was bedridden on 2nd floor (and the brother died too). How would the 911 indicator have helped? Are the forms specific?

Capt. Jodoin: No, it’s not that detailed. Computer screen is small and not enough room for detailed information. The dispatcher display will come up with the information on the owner of the telephone not necessarily person with disabilities.

Jack: Many people are giving up their landlines, which are in the E911 system. Cellphones connect to the state PD with 911. Are cellphones supported with this?

Capt. Jodoin: We’re making progress. Eventually, cellphones will be in the same system. We can track phones by 10-mile circles around cell towers now, but are hoping for it to be in the block level someday.

Jack: Peabody woman who ended up in a lake comes to mind.

Capt. Jodoin: She made a last minute phone call saying she was in the water. We narrowed it down to the cell tower but there were about 5 or 7 lakes in the area. We sent a dive team.

On the second search dive, we had a side-scanning sonar paid for by the family. We found an old rusted car, not much more than four tires and a mound of rust. But we found a second object, dropped an anchor and sent in a diver. It was the car and the woman.

Jack: It demonstrates the fact that our police department is involved in a lot of things and I am proud of that. We need to support them in any way we can. Including the new chief, who is doing a great job.

Capt. Jodoin: We ran after one guy once, we chased him to a marina and he’s hugging the piers. Bob St. Pierre (the Chief) was yelling at the guy and pointing his gun. And he was in his civilian clothes!

Jack: He’s on the Licensing Board now. It shows his dedication in not wanting to be idle.

Charlie: The Citizen’s Academy program: Will that come back?

Capt. Jodoin: It’s all about money. We are flatlined in the budget. We had a program at SATV, “Behind the Badge” which was great and won national awards. But we were shorthanded and didn’t have the funds to continue.

We had a program for sixth-graders to keep them out of gangs and people loved it—but it’s gone. We hope it and all the other programs come back. But we’ve had good budgets and bad budgets.

David Martel: The kids know everything. Cops would know them personally. And talk to their parents.

Capt. Jodoin: We teach the youth: YOU are part of the community, you have a role. You can be the Man, you can be part of the community. They’ll be in high-school and college and in the workplace before they know it!

We want to get them to be part of the bigger picture.

Jack: The Citizen’s Academy had accessibility features built into it. Andy participated in it, and a deaf person participated through an interpreter. It was great.

Capt. Jodoin: We want, need to, erase the us-vs-them mentality. The police are part of the community and the community is part of the police.

Jack: Anything else? Thank you, Captain Jodoin.

The meeting adjourned at 5:30 PM.

Next meeting April 20, 2010

My letter to John Tierney on the health reform bill

2010-03-20T10:45:00.001-04:00

No picture in this post. I just faxed this to my congressman.

Disclaimer: Does not represent an official stance of the Salem Commission on Disabilities.

Short and I hope to the point:

Congressman John Tierney

2238 Rayburn

House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Tierney,

I’ve followed the news on the health care bill and I understand that you’re undecided on it.

I urge you to vote yes tomorrow.

In your home town you may be familiar with the Salem Commission on Disabilities. We represent the interests of all of Salem’s citizens, businessmen and visitors with disabilities.

20% of the citizens of Salem have a disability.

Health care, and access to health care, are critically important. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 70%—this is a brutal statistic!

Many people on SSI or state welfare are trapped there, lest they lose their health coverage. More, still, become disabled and lose their jobs when their employers get the word and the premium hikes come—they can’t afford to keep people with health issues!

I am an unrepentant supporter of single-payer health care. But the current bill is probably as far as we’ll be able to get. There’ll always be another chance, if President Obama can be courageous.

I realize that, outside Salem, in the rest of your district, this is not a popular stance.

But it’s the courageous one.

You opposed the Iraq war, and expressed that opinion and got through it. You’re still in office.

I ask you to take a stand again, no matter how loud the opposition gets.

David Moisan

Commissioner, Salem Commission on Disabilities

How Big is Monopoly Park?

2010-03-17T23:44:00.001-04:00

UPDATE: Square footage for Lappin Park added—see below.

So how big is the Salem Jail greenspace?

The opening image in this post is from the original blueprint that Sue Cranney provided me of the bypass road project at St. Peter St. St. Peter St. is on the left. Howard St. is on the right. The Jail and cemetery are on the bottom of the image. You can clearly see the existing access road (to the old sally port) at bottom center.

The new access road that NBV is planning to build will cross the greenspace in the middle, exiting onto Bridge St. (An exit at St. Peter St. was considered but quickly rejected.)

I should note, very strongly, that this blueprint reflects the greenspace as MassHighway planned it. It is in no way an “official” plan for the space. I imagine NBV will be forthcoming with that very soon. I only hope I get an electronic copy, such as a PDF, next time around.

“Monopoly Park”, also, is not the official name although I’m going to do my best to make it so!

These are my estimated boundaries of the green space. I used the blueprint to get measurements. According to the scale 1 inch corresponds to 80 feet, and my pedometer confirms it, as walking from the corner at St. Peter to the corner of Veterans Riverway @ Bridge St measures about 250 feet; the blueprint says 240, but that is assuming a totally straight-line walk. It’s likely close enough.

For measurement purposes I had to split the space into two triangles, calculate the area of each and sum the areas together. I used the first calculator I found, CSG Area Calculator.

I calculated 35,476 sq. ft. for Monopoly Park.

Summarizing what I’ve found so far:

Armory Park: 21,316 sq. ft.
Gonyea Park: 23,452 sq. ft
Lappin Park: 11,480 sq. ft.
“Monopoly Park”: 35,476 sq. ft.

By comparison with the other ~~two~~ three parks, “Monopoly Park” is no tiny space!

The likelihood of Armory Park being reclaimed for parking is nil. Gonyea Park could conceivably be reclaimed for parking by some developer, but this would deprive the whole neighborhood of their greenspace. As it is, it is a very small space to serve what is now a very dense area with the nearby Jefferson complex.

If I lived there and a developer wanted to make it a parking lot I would complain no less—and more loudly—than the neighbors!

One of the most successful greenspaces in downtown, ~~one I didn’t visit for this post,~~ is Lappin Park, home of the famous Bewitched Statue. It is popular at all hours.

It’s half the size of Armory Park, making it the smallest park downtown. It was carved out of a vacant lot left when the building that was once there burned in the early 1970’s.

Lappin Park

To my experience, that had been a vacant lot up until Lappin Park was built. There was never any (successful) consideration towards making it a parking lot though in many ways parking was an anxiety even then to Salem.

It was never a parking lot.

Do we want to make it into parking? I’m sure Samantha’s statue could be accommodated somehow. Still want to? We could probably squeeze 15 spaces in there. Why not?

As alienated as I am with the neighborhood groups, they and I both agree we need to keep all the green space we can have.

“Monopoly Park” is no little dinky greenspace that people will miss.

Gonyea Park: Invisible Park

2010-03-17T22:29:00.001-04:00

Gonyea Park is one of Salem’s newer parks. It is also one of Salem’s invisible parks.

Gonyea Park

Gonyea Park was established in 1997 to serve the families in the Northey St. area. Before that park was built, the nearest public parks were Salem Common and, further yet, the Collins St. Park. Even the closer Common is “on the Moon” as far as Northey St. is concerned, separated by busy Bridge & Winter Sts over a half-mile away.

It’s a neighborhood park that’s so well hidden that you can’t even find it from nearby Howard St., which now has the northern end of the huge Jefferson complex. It is accessible from there through Woodbury Court, and it is on the very end of Northey St. @ Smith St.

Behind the park is the Veterans Riverway and the commuter rail tracks. There’s a buffer of bushes that effectively shields the park from the Riverway below. (Northey St. is one of a few streets along the Riverway that does not have an entrance to the bike path.)

It wasn’t the easiest task to calculate the square footage. Gonyea Park is a rough trapezoid (emphasis on “rough”) with a rectangular playground area. Between the winter-stiffened turf and the irregular shape, it’s a wonder I could get the measurements.

Best I could do, using PowerShell and the Bing math page on trapezoids, is 23,452 square feet for the park including the playground area and part of the entrance leading up to it. All of my square footage estimates have included sidewalks and driveway areas.

Next: How big is “Monopoly Park”?

Armory Park, Measuring Up

2010-03-17T21:00:00.001-04:00

Following up on my previous post, I’m visiting parks around my neighborhood and comparing their size to “Monopoly Park”, my name for the Salem Jail greenspace that some think is “dinky”.

This is Armory Park, dedicated in 2002 and built on the grounds of the former Salem Armory, which an arsonist burned in 1982.

Armory Park

Many people still have hard feelings about how the Peabody Essex Museum treated the Armory facade, which many people wanted preserved. I lived through this and the bitterness remains with older Salemmites to this day. Many of them vow never to visit the park ever again.

However, most users of the park are visitors knowing none of the history. It’s a popular area, now owned by the PEM, and a stop for tourist trolleys insures continuous foot traffic. I pass it every day and I would be lying if I said I never stopped there for a break in the spring or the summer. (Sometimes the PEM’s public Wifi leaks out the front entrance and into the park, on good days.)

Armory Park is a perfect square, measuring 146 feet on each side. It takes up 21,316 square feet.

Next up: An invisible park on the Bridge St. Neck.

Is the Salem Jail Greenspace really that small?

2010-03-17T20:21:00.001-04:00

Proponents of a parking lot for the Salem Jail green space all say nearly the same thing: “It’s a dinky little space near cars and traffic! Why do you want it green?”

Indeed it doesn’t look like much now, littered by construction on the north end (a backhoe was busy laying down sewer pipes, behind the black van in the photo, this afternoon) and that same van and many other vehicles parking on the south side, “my” side.

But is this space really that small?

I set out to take measurements to find out. I used my feet and a cheap pedometer:

This is a cheap pedometer one can find at Wal-Mart and like stores. The McDonalds chain was selling ones like these a few years ago as sort of an adult Happy Meal.

This one, like most, can be calibrated to your step size and show your miles walked; I use it to make sure I’m really walking that far when I go to Salem Willows in the season (which can’t start soon enough!)

To set a pedometer like this, the best way is to walk a known distance, say a city block, several times and average out the number of steps taken. Then divide the distance in feet by steps taken and multiply by 12 to get your step size to enter into the device.

Since there are few spots in Salem with mile markers accessible to pedestrians, I used Daft Logic’s Google Maps Distance Calculator to get the distance of a block I walk every day, the stretch from Essex St. from Washington Square to New Liberty. It’s about 446 feet, from the Philips Library corner to Armory Park outside the PEM entrance.

My pedometer and my notes say I walked this in 160 steps, so that corresponds to 33-1/2 inches. Can’t put this into my pedometer so 33 inches is good enough. Neither it, nor my feet, are precision instruments.

Combine this with high-school math and some walking to get a rough measurement of square footage.

I’m not a civil engineer or a surveyor, but this should be close enough to get some idea. Many people can’t visualize what square footage really means and this is a good way to visualize it.

I visited several parks in my neighborhood and compare them against the Jail green space, which people have suggested be named “Monopoly Park” (A name I would enthusiastically endorse!)

Is Monopoly Park really big enough to be a “real” park?

You might be surprised.

Smoking Ban in Public Housing to Be Discussed (UPDATED)

2010-03-15T22:00:00.001-04:00

Nearly a year after it was first proposed, the Council’s Committee on Public Health, Safety and Environment will take up Tom Furey’s proposed smoking ban on public housing in the city.

I loathe and despise the habit but as I said when Tom first proposed it, it’s bad law. And it’s condescending, encouraging people to think that “poor” (or low-income as the people in my building are) are “bad”. (If they have money they must be “good” or at least, well, “it’s their money they can do whatever they want with it!”)

Whatever your views on smoking, if you live in public housing and have an opinion, please show up at the meeting.

~~Tuesday, 6:30 PM in the Council chambers. (I can’t be there myself due to other commitments.)~~

UPDATE: Last night, the proposal was DOA.

Quote:

Earlier, Furey said that living in taxpayer-supported public housing was "not a right and an entitlement, but a privilege and a responsibility."

OK, Tom, what’s the next rung down? The poorhouse? The homeless shelter? I have been in public housing for 25 years. Yes that makes me lazy and irresponsible. Glad to hear it and will try to uplift myself and my neighbors right away.

Some other comments from the 101st Chairborne, Salem News Regiment:

peaceful_life

They have money for smokes because their rent, health care and food costs are largely taken care of by the taxpayer leaving plenty of splash cash.

OK, pretend it’s your mom or dad in my building. They probably are. A lot of middle-class people use their parents as tax shelters. They won’t want their inheritance wiped out by housing when Dad can’t live in the family homestead anymore. So they’ll have Mom spend down her personal assets and file for Medicaid.

And public housing. It’s not far from the truth to say that elderly housing is no less a subsidy to middle-class boomers with aging parents, and to old boomers themselves, than it is to dissipated people like myself.

In this economy, and even before, many who would think they were too proud to consider public assistance have come to plead for it.

And, once they have it, invent justifications for why they are more deserving for public assistance than those “others”.

Meanwhile, in buildings like the Jefferson built by the private sector, you can smoke as thou wilt. Considering the build quality of that complex, the first tenant to sleep in bed with a smoke may likely be the last one! (It was, after all, a disposed lit cigarette that destroyed an entire apartment building in Peabody.)

Not sure about you, Tom, but I am for sure “morally” concerned about that. As much as I hate the Jefferson, a fire in that complex will be catastrophic and my schadenfreude doesn’t extend to seeing body bags carried out of a smoking crater across the street from me.

Where’s your outrage? You didn’t think that far ahead when that project was green-lighted in the Usovicz administration?

Now you can grandstand about public housing and personal responsibility.

Tom,

Get your head out of your ass.

Salem Commission on Disabilities on Salem Now

2010-03-15T21:51:00.001-04:00

The Salem Commission on Disabilities will be the subject of Salem Now tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 7 PM on Channel 16. It’s a live call in so it’s your best chance to ~~yell at us~~ make us aware of important problems in your neighborhood relating to accessibility.

SATV’s Annual Meeting for 2010.

2010-03-15T21:44:00.001-04:00

Pictures from last week’s Annual Meeting

Bridge Street Reconstruction Begins

2010-03-15T21:04:00.001-04:00

Salem Jail Park 2010-03-13 006, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

Bridge St. reconstruction starts today. There'll be an informational meeting at the Carlton School tomorrow night at 7. I won't make that meeting. The neighborhood is no stranger to construction projects like the Veterans Riverway and the Veterans Memorial bridge, and this project is the end of an overall plan spanning over 30 years.

This Salem News article has the usual cynical commentariat about flagmen, corrupt officials and lazy workers. Yawn. I love how there are always magical private sector pixies about that would finish projects instantly if we only stood back and let them. I seem to recall, though, reading over the years of private sector, excuse me, Private Sector contractors getting paid by the day and padding projects.

My colleague Charlie will bear it worse than I will since I live a good distance south of the construction.

(For such a “tiny insignificant greenspace”, it’s remarkable just how much it insulates me from most traffic, especially since I’m just feet away from moving cars on the Ash St. side of my parking lot.)

Final Thoughts on Jail Parking and the Greenspace

2010-03-14T16:23:00.001-04:00

Final followup, I hope, to the ongoing Salem Jail Parking drama. The Salem News gave an account of last Tuesday’s meeting, and talked about it some more.

Any time the neighborhood associations get involved in discussions like this, I’m unhappy.

I say this even though I was in substantial agreement with those opposed to the parking plan.

Had New Boston Ventures came to the meeting with their original 39-space plan, I would have opposed it as well.

But NBV proposed what I thought was a very interesting compromise: 12 spaces and an access road. The access road is required by the fire department in any event.

During the day, NBV suggested that the new spaces could be used by the elderly housing complex in which I live next door. We have a serious parking problem. Whatever my views are on over-dependence on the automobile in downtown, there’s an undeniable need for visitor spaces in my building and the adjoining building next door. You can’t expect an oxygen delivery van to park in Museum Place.

I’d hoped that the committee would take that under consideration and table NBV’s compromise proposal until the next meeting. The neighbors would vent and rant a bit but that’d be fine.

I had wanted it to work out—having green space, parking and the restaurant all at once. Maybe it wasn’t possible but no harm in wanting it!

But that did not happen. Mike Sosnowski had come into the meeting against the idea and went out against it. The neighborhood groups were a big reason why.

I’d expected the meeting to have fewer attendees than I expected. I had thought this was a matter for my immediate neighborhood, the Bridge St. Neck association, and perhaps the few urban planning experts amongst us.

Over 100 people showed up, most all from various neighborhood groups around the city. They all spoke out against the proposal, whether they lived nearby or not. Despite what the News reported, there was no turn of opinion there. All came in against, all left against.

Low point—angriest point for me—is when a gentleman from the Northfields spoke out against the proposal.

That’s not what I was angry about; he had expressed many of the concerns I had had as well. If he had a view of the Jail from across the river, he may have even had a point. One point I’ve come back to is the great vista of the Jail from both northbound and southbound Bridge St. It is beautiful! I can only imagine what it looks like from the river and am looking forward to finding out when spring finally arrives.

But this guy started talking about how my building (and the building next door) didn’t want the restaurant and any commercial development.

He didn’t ask us. I know I didn’t coordinate my talking points with others from my building, but I wouldn’t pretend to speak for them.

He of Northfields, likely of a mortgage with five or six zeros in it, dictating to me and my neighbors what we think.

I was livid!

And he’s wrong about commercial development. Next door to me is 10 Federal.

10 Federal has been a commercial property for the 60 years it existed; at first for New England Telephone, then NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, Verizon and now a renovated private office building.

Ironically, it’s very visible coming down the Veteran’s Riverway from the north.

The associations are all of a piece, they all think like this man.

And my councilor has no choice but to go along. I’m very frustrated with him but ultimately I’m sympathetic—he has an impossible position to govern from.

He answers to the Downtown, Salem Common, Bridge St. Neck and Federal St. Associations. I’m certain that once the Jail is occupied, there will be the Salem Jail Neighborhood Association.

My greatest fear is that they can and will all speak for me, without actually needing or appreciating my input. It isn’t as though people in public housing have an “investment” in Downtown.

And that Mike is just going along, out of necessity.

[Note: I had posted an earlier draft online that was a bit too vituperative overall and particularly unfair to my councilor Mike. My frustrations with him have been long pent up because I have never been able to have that hard, though productive, conversation that clears the air. Perhaps we’ll have one sometime.

PS: Despite speculation on Salemweb, I doubt that Mr. Treadwell was the guy who spoke—Mr. Treadwell is an expert who would have well known the exact makeup of my neighborhood and that it was once all commercial.]

Salem Jail Parking Proposal Apparently Dead

2010-03-09T22:37:00.001-05:00

The City Council met tonight to discuss New Boston Venture’s proposal to reconfigure the greenspace triangle at St. Peter, Bridge and Howard Sts for additional restaurant parking.

The proposal is apparently dead.

Rather than give my opinions again, here are my notes. No doubt the Salem News will report this tomorrow; there was already a letter in today’s News opposing the proposal.

I couldn’t hear everybody who spoke—nearly everyone from the neighborhood groups showed up, but the important points are here as best as I could hear and write down.

The original proposal brought by New Boston Ventures (NPV) was for 37 parking spaces carved out of the greenspace near the Jail wall.

NPV came back with a compromise proposal of 13 parking spaces and a turnaround that would be on a new access road from Bridge St.

There are two restaurants currently interested in the space. They have indicated that additional parking is a prerequisite for their interests.

NPV talked a little about the sidewalk that bisects the current greenspace and will intersect the access road. Some thought was given to a crushed stone sidewalk recycled from the original granite blocks from the Jail.

NPV expressed great appreciation for the effort that the city, the Council, and the SRA have put in to make the Salem Jail project work. Everyone agrees it has become a beautiful building and NPV is happy with their efforts so far.

The head of the Planning Dept. (Lynn Duncan, IIRC) has been inside the restaurant space. It is on a second level with a river view. She believes the parking plan is much improved.

If there is no restaurant, the space will be made into housing, 3 units.

But the City would much prefer the restaurant; she is concerned that if the Jail becomes all private housing, that will threaten or make non-viable the small Jail museum that is in the current plans.

One member of the committee (couldn’t make out whom) talked bout the spaces lost from Morency Manor use. [For a long while, while the Jail property was vacant, visitors to Morency Manor were allowed short term parking in the Jail lot. These were used by VNA’s, relatives, and other visitors who needed to stop by briefly.]

NPV proposed their lot to be used by Morency Manor visitors during the daytime hours (2 hr. parking.)

Councilor O’Keefe: The access road must be there on Bridge St. due to fire regulations. That is not negotiable.

Counicilor Pelletier: Are there condos [in the Jail]?

NPV: No. Apartments for now but if phase 2 is approved, the new building will be condos. Because of a complicated arrangment involving tax breaks for historic properties, this was necessary for the project to go through.

Question from the committee regarding National Grid’s transformer—why did that take three months to settle?

Transformer siting--National Grid changed their mind on NBV’s placement of the distribution transformer on site. National Parks Service rejected this placement, due to the sensitive granite wall around the Jail. National Grid then wanted to place their vault with other utilities, water, sewer, etc. and NBV thought that was infeasible. This went on for some time. The morning of this meeting [tonight], National Grid agreed to a compromise placement suitable to NBV, NG and NPS.

A committee member had a question: Is the road considered a private access road on what is public land.

Rules were suspended so that the public comment period would take place. Nearly half the room took their place to speak [including my colleague Charlie Reardon, and myself] so I didn’t get everyone and couldn’t.

The public comment was unanimous—No parking! The points came down to three.

1) Green space is very very important to Salemmites. No one wanted to lose any. People were very concerned over the original 37-space proposal, and very few people, if any, were mollified by the compromise, although people appreciated that NBV tried to change it. The quote of the night came from one woman: With the recent reconstruction of Bridge St., and the Leslie’s Retreat park space along the North River to the south, Salem has its own “Emerald Necklace”, like the famous green space of parks, rivers and walks in Boston writ small.

2) Why does a restaurant need additional spaces when there are already spaces available during the evening hours? Moreover, many thriving restaurants manage to survive without storefront parking. One committee member put it: “Salem doesn’t have a parking problem, it has a walking problem.”

3) If the restaurant can give up 13 spaces during the day to Morency Manor, spaces that it would use for delivery trucks and etc., perhaps it didn’t need the spaces after all.

Mike Sosnowski had the closing words before the vote. He had been present during the long planning process for the Bypass Road, some 35 years of effort, and the word [a new word to many of us at the time] was mitigation. That green space was mitigation for the road, amongst many other compromises that needed to be made.

Mike, continuing: I respect NBV very much for what they have done so far. But it is not worth losing that green space to keep the restaurant.

NBV: Offered and requested to withdraw their proposal.

The committee voted to give a negative recommendation to the full Council.

March 9th meeting on Salem Jail parking

2010-03-05T21:31:00.001-05:00

Salem Jail Construction 2010-02-06 010, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

Tuesday, March 9th, mark your calendar if you live in the St. Peter St./Howard St. area. The Council will meet to discuss this.
COMMITTEE ON ORDINANCES, LICENSES &
LEGAL AFFAIRS COPOSTED WITH COMMITTEE
OF THE WHOLE
RE: Matters in Committee, Authorize Mayor to enter
Right of Entry Agreement with New Boston Ventures (Salem Jail Project)
INVITED: Bridge St. Neck Assoc., Historic Comm.,
Howard St. abutters, SRA, Mayor, New Boston
Ventures, Planner, Solicitor

The meeting starts at 6:30 PM.

Salem So Sweet 2010

2010-03-05T21:16:00.001-05:00

I wandered about downtown for Salem So Sweet 2010’s ice sculptures. This the one outside Cornerstone.

But, oddly, my favorite was a new sculpture outside Tavern in the Square:

It’s commercial and not at all whimsical but I like it. Shrugs.

Last Signs of Winter in Salem, 2009-2010

2010-03-05T21:04:00.001-05:00

We’re seeing the end of winter. And ready to turn the page to spring, no doubt.

Morency Manor Elevator Update, March 2010

2010-03-05T20:52:00.001-05:00

The elevator construction in my building continues. A few days ago, I held the door for a five-man crew wrangling a very large item through the front door. Later that day, I’m with a neighbor and one of the contractors waiting for the elevator and they get to talking about the work. That big package I helped get in the building was, as I suspected, the elevator cab. This has to be assembled on site. I’ve been trying to find pictures of elevator construction on Bing and Google without much success.

That was the first sign of progress I’d personally seen, though I’ve heard the pounding and construction noises for the past few months. (My unit is neatly between the old elevator and the new one!)

The elevator shaft was finished in January:

And the permanent view from my window:

According to the contractor (and not an official announcement), the work itself will be done in a few weeks. A few weeks after that, the elevator will be inspected—there are only two inspectors for the whole state—and presumably open for service after that. So sometime in mid-April, we’ll be using our new elevator.

After that, the talk is that the old elevator, long prone to breakdowns and stalls, will be replaced. So the construction noise won’t stop for me.

Sign of Spring: SATV's Annual Meeting Next Week

2010-03-05T20:19:00.001-05:00

SATV Annual Meeting 2010 Prep 2010-03-05 (8), originally uploaded by dmoisan.

A sure sign of spring: SATV's Annual Meeting, set for March 10th. We're setting up a projection screen to show the entries in our PSA contest. We've had projectors set up before but this one is permanent this year; after years of talking about it, we finally have a projector.

Salem Depot Design Hits 30 (Percent)

2010-02-25T18:53:00.001-05:00

The MBTA held its meeting on the 30% Design Phase of the Salem Depot project last Tuesday night.

I wouldn’t characterize the opinions as “mixed”; there were a lot of helpful suggestions and not a lot of ranting as one can often hear at other public meetings. I thought Bill Luster’s comment was very thoughtful,

Bill Luster, a former Salem city planner, reminded MBTA officials to heed a local mantra — "in Salem, design matters." He suggested they put as much brick and granite on the garage as possible.

But for the most part, the particular appearance details are not my dog in the fight. This is what I thought was important, and what I will send to the MBTA, the mayor’s office and my chairman of the Disabilities Commission:

First, I was gratified and surprised to hear that the T decided on the full-height platform option. Last I’d heard, a half-full-height, half-ground-level platform was being proposed in the original design documents.

A full-height platform is the right thing to do for a busy station like ours.

Second, I am focused on the Bridge St. pedestrian entrance like a hawk. I use this entrance nearly every day. I was hoping for more details on the construction of this important vehicle ramp and pedestrian entryway.

I realize some still want a footbridge or a tunnel in that area. I’ve been in and around Boston’s numerous footbridges, enough to know that one cannot put in such a bridge without changing the local pedestrian environment dramatically. Many footbridges (the one over Huntington Ave. to Copley Place, for example) further isolate pedestrians and make their immediate area unfriendly. So I wouldn’t advocate for this—it may well make things worse.

I also remind the T that the waiting area is still an important part of the project that many of the riders will be close to every day, whether they mean to or not.

The current canopies, which are not continuous, should be torn down and replaced with a continuous canopy.

As well, recall what I’ve said before about electronic signage: We must see an electronic, easily read and continually updated train display. I also note that the T has started a pilot project to provide next-bus information. One hopes that by 2011, it will be expanded to include Salem’s service area.

The MBTA heard our comments, also, about security and safety. These are ever important, not only for people with disabilities but for all those who use the station at any hour of the day.

Lastly, I’m responding to some at the meeting who don’t want the proposed ramp, who are concerned about “walking further than they have to.”

I can understand being at the top of the steps to a train station and seeing your train leave. It’s happened before and will again.

However, Salem would not be unique in this. There are many stations in the T system that require a long walk to the exit, or to another train, depending on the location. On the Red Line, South Station and Downtown Crossing are notorious mazes, particularly to and from the Silver Line. On the Blue Line, if your car is parked west of the Wonderland platform, you need to go up and down stairs, quite a few of them, before you can even hit the turnstiles to leave. So don’t think Salem is put upon in particular.

I absolutely hate the current stairs. I fell down them once, and while physically long since recovered, have never stopped my hate for them in the least. There is no way I would tolerate a design that had me go down the existing stairs and across a roadway at ground level before I got to my bus stop. No.

Some at the meeting, and in the filed comments talked about the “few disabled people” who use and need a ramp compared to the “many”. This isn’t the most fair comparison.

A station like Salem’s is used by many people, big surprise there. But it is also used by visitors. Many visitors with disabilities have told us at the Commission on Disabilities how easily they were able to get around and how much they enjoyed their time in the city. About 20% of Salem residents have a disability—1 in 5 of us. We don’t know how many of these are mobility impaired, but we do know it is more than a mere “few”.

Accessibility on the T only works well when all the stations are accessible. Many disabled people travel to Salem with friends and family. If a disabled person has problems at Salem, he or she likely won’t come back—and nor will their friends! In a tourist-centered city like ours, that’s been unacceptable for quite some time.

I’m encouraged by the progress so far and we’re looking forward to the next phase.

Comments are being accepted through ~~March 5th~~. The comment deadline is this Friday, March 12th.

Contact Tom Rovero, MBTA Design and Construction, 500 The Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

or Karen Despirito, Senior Community Affairs Coordinator, (617)-222-6513

kdespirito@mbta.com

MBTA Meeting on Salem Depot

2010-02-18T09:13:00.001-05:00

First, I want to apologize for not blogging much recently. I’ve had a big computer project at SATV that we just finished. The Commission hasn’t met since December—our February meeting this past Tuesday was cancelled due to the weather, which was at its worst at 4 PM when we meet.

And I’ve been burned out: Politics have been very unpleasant recently; there’s an ugly undertone to civic affairs these days. And that doesn’t make blogging fun.

The MBTA will hold another public meeting on Salem Depot next Tuesday the 23rd, at the Carlton School. As promised last fall, this meeting is called at the 30% design point. The full plans are on the MBTA web site. Here is the current site plan:

I note that the covered pedestrian walkway that was in the original plans is not seen in this revision. Pedestrian access from Bridge St. is critical to this project since it will serve the new courthouse complex as well. I also note the architects went with Option 1 for the busway; I would have much preferred the busway be closer to Bridge St. So much for that.

I’ve recommended that the Commission on Disabilities take these points to the meeting:

We must have a full-height platform for the whole length of the platform; the T has favored a half-full-height/half-low platform.
The plans show partial canopies over the platforms, much like the existing station. There should be a full canopy over the entire platform.
There must be good pedestrian access from Bridge St. There is going to be a vehicular entrance ramp where the current stairs are now, and features like the ramp can be pedestrian-hostile.

It’s important, though, to keep this project in perspective. We’ve needed a garage and added parking at Salem Depot from the day it opened over 20 years ago. I’ve hated the appearance of the station, the platform at the end of nowhere, and most of all the stairs.

Some people in Salem want the perfect. John Ronan, the newly-elected Ward 5 councilor, filed some good comments that I quote in part:

First, I’m glad this project is funded and going forward. The station is in true need of additional
parking. Salem is extremely fortunate not only to have a train stop but to have one in the
downtown area walking-distance from many of our shops, offices and attractions.
Often, Salem planning issues get bogged down in search for a fanciful perfect solution. I saw
seeds of this taking root in the statements of a few attendees advocating a mixed use or an air-rights platform in lieu of a garage. Without any commitments or even any prospects for the private development aspect of such mixed uses, they simply aren’t viable. Even if the City agreed (as would be necessary) to couple its lot with the MBTA lot it may never find
a developer willing to build on top of an air rights-platform on conditions favorable to the City. All these components certainly would not come together by the December 31, 2011 deadline.
Therefore, I believe Salem is correctly positioning itself for the future by keeping its crescent
shaped lot separate from the MBTA lot. The garage project should proceed as a garage project.

If the idea of an air-rights project had been proposed in the early 2000’s, I would have supported it. Unfortunately, projects like that are subject to the vagaries of funding. We can ask the Columbus Place developers how well that is going. As it is, until the governor gave a commitment to Salem Depot, the project would have been a dream project, 5 or 10 years in the future. And it always would have been.

Because of the land situation, the MBTA probably won’t get to resolve all of the issues that were brought up at the earlier meeting. In particular, pedestrian access from North Street is a difficult and ugly problem that I fear won’t get resolved.

This is probably the best we’re going to get. The three points I outlined are the most important. If they can be resolved to my satisfaction, I’ll be happy with the result. As will most Salemmites.

Tom Rovero is the MBTA contact person for this project and he can be emailed at trovero@mbta.com.

Salem Jail Progress—and Parking?

2010-01-09T16:35:00.001-05:00

The Salem Jail project is progressing with coverage in the Salem Gazette, “Old Salem Jail Moves Towards Reopening”, and the Salem News, which is reporting on the developers’ recent proposal to reconfigure the greenspace at the Veterans’ Riverway for parking

This is the area:

At a recent community meeting (that I wasn’t at), the developers want to reconfigure at least part of this space for parking. Otherwise, they say, the restaurant long proposed and long desired, won’t happen.

Quote from the News:

"The way we'd envision it is to retain a large percentage of the green space and have it landscaped in such a way that it's attractive," said David Goldman, a principal at New Boston Ventures.

Goldman said the parking lot would be an important selling point to lure in a restaurant for the first floor, a requirement the city imposed to keep the historic building publicly accessible.

New Boston Ventures has wanted this from the start. They had wanted to configure this space in July 2008, when the bypass road was nearing completion and had gone to high-level officials in MassHighway (now MassDOT.)

The neighbors will be involved; my colleague Charlie Reardon was at that meeting and suggested parking for the senior housing (45 St. Peter/109 Bridge) across from the Jail.

People in my building have long wanted more parking, and one neighbor of mine even proposed the greenspace as parking lot well before Charlie did.

This is nuts.

That greenspace changes everything about the new road, moderating its influence and making a natural anchor and focal point for the immediate St. Peter St. neighborhood. It won’t be long before New Boston looks at the plans again and decides they want the whole area for parking. Who could be against parking?

But despite what the Salem News thinks in its editorial, this will happen anyway. No one wants to lose the restaurant, or incur anger from senior citizens. (And if they did lose the restaurant we can count on the Salem News to blame the city anyway.)

Stranding Seniors

2010-01-09T15:43:00.001-05:00

I’ve written before about transportation for seniors and the disabled. Another story came out over the holidays.

The Globe profiles one Marblehead resident:

It’s the spur-of-the-moment trips that June Casler misses most, the spontaneous decision to catch a 7 p.m. movie or to pick up a coveted book at the library. The octogenarian hung up her car keys for good when she moved from western New York to Marblehead in June because she felt that negotiating busy, unfamiliar streets could be distracting and dangerous.

Casler has since discovered that the local Council on Aging van doesn’t run nights or weekends and requires 24-hour advance notice. She doesn’t want to burden her son and daughter-in-law, who live nearby, for rides during the van’s off hours. But neither does she want to end up like one of her 90-year-old friends who could barely see but was still behind the wheel - until her family called police to intercede.

We have been heading for a collision for some time. We’ve built our society around the car and deemphasized other options so that the car and its needs have become a massive hidden subsidy imposed on cities, towns and the state.

At the same time, the cohort of seniors that remember life without easy transport—the car life—is dwindling. My late mom remembers streetcars, trains, walking, buses and even horses. Seniors today and those soon-to-be-seniors have few such memories and baby boomers have none: They have always enjoyed life with the car.

I wonder, as well, if the “nuclear family” philosophy of the boomers has contributed. I heard any number of stories in high school of students reaching 18 and their parents showing them the door, politely or not.

How can one square this with the sentiment I’ve also heard over and over, that “your kids owe you” to look after you in your old age? Many adult children are scattered across the country, since mobility is valued, preferred and even necessary for some.

There will be another attack of outrage when a senior is involved in a traffic accident, but I fear we’re not going to do much. Easy to be mad at some poor 80-year old that runs down a kid, but hard to admit that your city’s development philosophy is flawed or that we’ve been trying to segregate our seniors for 50 years and it doesn’t work.

Real resolution of this would be expensive. So we won’t see progress.

Truthfully, seniors have every incentive to dodge the eye doctor and drive no matter what. It’s the only way they’re really independent.

Ms. Casler took the high road; I just wonder if she’s regretting it.

First post and first storm of 2010

2010-01-02T13:54:00.001-05:00

First storm of 2010 is continuing as I speak. 5.5” as of noon today. Construction continues at the Salem Jail and the building is just about enclosed. New windows have already been installed. The building looks better and better every day.

Update: 9” as of 11 AM Sunday the 3rd. The snow is forecast to continue into the evening. There could be 10”-12” by Monday morning.

Christmas with my “godchildren”

2009-12-27T09:19:00.001-05:00

Katie Harris: “O Hai, I can has an uncle?”

For years now, I’ve known my chairman, Jack Harris, and even lived in his building. He adopted two special needs girls. They insist on being my surrogate nieces whenever I visit. Katie, the younger, paid her regards moments after I took my coat off and sat down!

Emily Harris, the older sister, gets a present here. She’s not as easy to photograph.

I much prefer a quiet Christmas with few gifts, but Jack and Donna gave me one that seems appropriate:

Note the size. OMG. I don’t even have a TV at the moment since I had to wait for the work in my apartment to be done before shopping.

But time with friends and family is my favorite time. Even if they’re “surrogate” family.

Snowy Sidewalk Survey

2009-12-21T12:55:00.001-05:00

Commenting on my last post, Rick asks that “they” clear the sidewalks, since he almost got killed walking the dog.

I concur. Totally.

The problem comes when “they” are defined. The current Salem ordnance calls for sidewalks to be cleared by the property owner.

In the photo above, Market Basket owns this sidewalk since they own and manage the supermarket and its associated parking lot that also includes Target. The adjacent strip mall and Shaw’s are owned by someone else.

I give Market Basket credit for digging out a path, though I still had considerable trouble getting on the bus after food shopping this morning. Last week’s news that Market Basket will work with the MBTA on a bus stop at the store is welcome, but as I had feared all year, it may likely come too late for this winter.

Across the street, the bus shelter has not been plowed:

There are sidewalks that are owned by the city, sidewalks owned by the state (like Salem Depot), and sidewalks owned by all sorts of private homeowners.

Our only recourse now as a city is to beg all the private property owners with public-facing sidewalks (which is nearly everyone) to clear their sidewalks out front.

Property owners, though, can’t only think of their own lots:

This is the Unitarian church at Ash St., next door to my building.

Its lot has been plowed and there’s a pathway, obscured by the snowbank, from the lot up to Ash St. off the image to the left.

What’s missing?

There is a public sidewalk at Bridge St. It is completely blocked. I use this path to get to Salem Depot when I am running late (inevitable on a morning like this) walking through my parking lot to get to Bridge St.

I had to walk in the street for half a block until the Federal St. condos, whose sidewalks were cleared out as usual, where I could re-enter the sidewalk and head for the Washington/Bridge intersection to cross to the station as I usually do.

The contractor who cleared out the church’s lot is on the hook for this.

Now multiply this by all the properties you might cross with your dog, whether it’s Federal St., Chestnut St. or Washington Sq.

The only bright spot, if anything, is that I am regularly in contact with Jason Silva (the mayor’s chief of staff) to monitor “my” block, the St. Peter/Church/Brown St. area that covers two downtown parking lots. That still leaves the two churches (St. Peter’s and St. John’s) and their rectories, 10 Federal, Museum Place, my building (owned by the state) and the Salem Jail.

Not easy and not fun. Yet we go through this each and every winter, complain about it, and do the same thing next year.

First Big Storm, Winter 2009-2010

2009-12-20T08:24:00.001-05:00

A lone car waits for the light at the Veteran’s Riverway. I measured 7-1/2” outside my apartment at 8 AM this morning.

Summary of Salem Commission on Disabilities, December 2009

2009-12-15T20:22:00.001-05:00

[Due to a technical problem, we lost the audio for the December meeting and cannot air it on SATV this month. This is a summary of what was discussed at the meeting]

The Commission on Disabilities met December 15th, 2009, 4 PM at SATV. Present: Jack Harris, Mike Taylor, Debra Lobsitz, Andy LaPointe, David Moisan, Charlie Reardon, Jean Levesque and David Tracht.

Jason [the Mayor’s chief-of-staff] met with officials from the MBTA and Market Basket to discuss rerouting the 450 and 456 buses to go through the parking lot. Market Basket was very supportive and is going to try to make this work. No timetable was given, but we are optimistic something will happen soon.
Project Lifesaver: Andy LaPointe has good news: The funding for Project Lifesaver is set and officers of the Salem PD will be getting training in mid-December (21st-22nd). The public announcement for Project Lifesaver will be given after the first of the year.
Congress & Derby: As noted elsewhere, the traffic signals at Congress & Derby have been approved.
“Sober House”/St. Jean’s (Salem & Dow Sts.). The owner has extended the completion date for his project to July 2010. The 2nd floor is supposed to be single family residential, with 1st floor retail. However, according to the city inspector, there are four (unrelated) people living there so the owner is in violation, currently.
4 First St.: A meeting has been set for Thursday, December 17th, 10 AM with Tom St. Pierre, Jack Harris and the management company at 4 First St. to try to get the access problem in the parking lot (no curbcut to the lot from the building entrance) straightened out. This has been ongoing for some time.
Bypass Road (now Veteran’s Way) bikepath: Two of four ADA-compliant access paths have been constructed; Jack will do a site visit with Dave Knowlton to verify this and check on the other two pathways. The Commission appreciates this and only wishes it were done during original construction, since it was more expensive to fix afterwards.
Highland Ave. Audible Signals and crosswalks: Andy is going to send a registered letter to the state (cc’d to city engineer Dave Knowlton) about two concerns of his (and ours). Several audible signals on Highland Ave., and one on Loring Ave. (Rt. 1A) @ Omega Pizza, are too soft (low volume) to be heard above traffic. Also, sidewalk access at Highland Ave @ Ravenna Ave. was very rough and unfinished and not really a sidewalk or curb cut at all. Andy visited the site with Tom Muxie several months back, and will revisit the area again before sending his letter.
The Commission has decided to cancel our January meeting, since it falls on the same day of the state’s special election for the US Senate and several commissioners will be working at the polls. All business will be deferred to February, but the Commission will keep the public informed of any developments through the city’s web site.
Tentative for February: Meg Robertson of the State Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired will be our guest, along with Salem police captain John Jodoin. Main discussion will be the right turn on red law as it affects blind pedestrians.
Next meeting: February 16th, 2009, 4 PM, Salem Access Television, 285 Derby St.

Bypass Road: Now the Veteran’s Riverway

2009-12-06T17:43:00.001-05:00

Finally, Salem’s Last Road has a name. Last week, the City Council voted to call it “Veteran’s Riverway”. It’s an appropriate name at that!

Not appropriate though, is the nearly two year delay to decide on a name. I thought it should be called the “Sosnowski Byway” because my councilor dragged his heels for a very long time before taking action on this.

It seems like a small matter when there are much more important matters facing the city, but naming a road should not take as long as it did. If the council can’t name it in an hour of discussion in what should be an uncontroversial subject, then I have no respect for that body.

I’ve always known Mike didn’t approve of the road. This wasn’t a problem; I didn’t approve either. And my friend Leo Jodoin is constantly harping on that, “It’s not a bypass road!”

I suspected Mike snubbed the mayor when she dedicated the road and he didn’t show up. That didn’t reflect well on him.

Neither does this matter.

At least the courthouse is already named after Mike Ruane. When I and my colleagues on the Commission attend the opening of the new Salem Depot, I’m not expecting him to be there.

It’s OK, Mike. Just don’t blame the mayor.

First Snow of the Season, 2009

2009-12-06T13:12:00.001-05:00

First snow of the season. I’ve never seen snow on tree branches this early in the season, in the sun no less! This after a very mild November when we broke the record for first freeze—formerly Dec. 2nd, 1975.

Sidewalks were passable since this wasn’t a big storm.

2009 Christmas Tree Lighting

2009-12-04T19:59:00.001-05:00

Salem’s Christmas tree is back at the fountain at Museum Place this year. The lighting was delayed a week due to bad weather—and delayed for several seconds more when the tree didn’t light up the first time.

November 2009 Unofficial Minutes of the Salem Commission on Disabilities

2009-11-23T20:32:00.001-05:00

[New curb cut outside 10 Federal]

The Salem Commission on Disabilities had its November meeting on the 17th, at 4 PM at Salem Access Television.

Present: Jack Harris, Chair, David Martel, Charlie Reardon, Co-Chair, David Moisan, David Tracht, Debra Lobsitz and Jean Levesque, Assistant ADA Coordinator.

Old Business: 4 First St. Jack: I have been in touch with Tom St. Pierre, who has been reminded repeatedly. He promises to get in touch with the management company. If anyone wants to email Tom St. Pierre, please do so.

David Martel: We have been trying to resolve this for the past 4 months, before the weather gets bad.

Jean L. & Jack: A new person has taken over Tom Watkins’ job in the mayor’s office: Her (first) name is Mary. Jean hasn’t met her yet. Tom is still taking charge of the website until Mary has completed training.

Market Basket proposed MBTA stop:

Reminder: MBTA is now part of MassDOT, the huge agency that now does all transportation in MA. Andy is trying to find out if the same people are in the same places in the new agency.

I have exciting news: As poeople know, a letter was sent to the MBTA requesting a reroute through Market Basket. Jason and the mayor’s office will meet with MBTA officials at the site.

David Moisan: I had a conversation with Jack earlier. Leo Jodoin forwarded email from the show [Salem Now]. I just met the one guy who’s more upset over the situation than I am. I have been wound up plenty over this, but I know how the MBTA works: To make the change, it has to be done in conjunction with their schedule changes which take place four times a year. The next change is the Winter schedule that takes place around New Year’s day. If it doesn’t happen then, it will happen in the Spring schedule. Only three months but our longest three months, unfortunately.

Jean Levesque: I have a question about Leo Jodoin and Salem Now. Have any Commission members been on the show?

David Moisan: Yes, Andy LaPointe has been on Leo’s show a number of times. Andy is Leo’s godchild. I know back when the mayor had a ceremony for me before I joined, that Leo got the video and aired it.

I can bring it up, but I know he’s slotted until at least March. December is Christmas, January is John Keenan, February is SATV, and March no idea. Andy is a regular and often on the show for one reason or another.

Jean L.: I don’t know about the viewership between us and Leo Jodoin’s show but Leo has a bigger audience, I think.

David Moisan: I know he does a field show, On The Road with Salem Now, but his camerawoman has had health problems.

Jean L.: We should have more than one person on [Leo’s show].

David Moisan: All I can do is talk to him. We probably won’t all be on.

David Tracht: My wife is at Market Basket a lot and people are parking in HP spaces [illegally] all the time.

Jack: Back to the stop, there was a committment by the mayor’s office to try to make this happen. I want to give them applause for staying on top of this.

Commuter Rail station: Jack: I got a call from Lieutenant Linehan, in charge of the north section. He has invited me and Ken to meet Thursday to review the signage that’s been recently installed on the lot. He will come down and see how that’s going, and pass out tips on how to avoid being ticketed.

Myself and Charlie went to the meeting on the new train station and were concerned with security: I asked the lieutenant if he had been invited; he wasn’t. It would have been very helpful for him to be invited.

The project is on a fast track and scheduled for 2011. The next public meeting will be around Christmas.

David Martel: MassDOT’s garages tend to be cookie cutter projects; problems in one garage tend to be replicated to other garages. Examples are the garage near Boston City Hall, and at the Museum of Science, which were designed without clearances.

Jean L.: Great point. There should be standard plans at the state house for schools and other public buildings, but instead they design from scratch every time.

David Martel: We have to stay on top of them.

Jean L.: That’s why it’s so important to get input from people like you who use the facilities.

David Martel: This past Halloween, there were 100,000 people in Salem. A lot of people used the train station.

David Moisan: I can relate. I did hear back from the mayor. She wrote me a standard form letter describing the process, which I won’t repeat, but she included a handwritten note that promised she would work with the architects to integrate the garage into the downtown. The area was never designed for this: It was industrial and belonged to the B&M.

I wait for a bus—and I feel closer to the Carlton School than to my house. There has to be a indoor shelter, it must be facing the tracks—and the bus!

You aren’t going to wait outside in 20 degree weather—especially if you’re Jack and have Emily & Katie with you!

The busway at Wonderland, for example, is really badly designed and there is no shelter near the buses. The only shelter is relatively far away so you can’t see your bus. I don’t want that here.

Jack: There was a lot of discussion on security. And a lot of discussion on a full-height platform, that we wanted. The tracks are on a curve so they wanted a half-height platform, but we made it clear we wanted full.

David Martel: I can’t understand how that guy drove into the tunnel [a year ago].

Haunted Happenings:

Jack: Haunted Happenings. It’s over. There was a real concerted effort to keep the path of travel open. There were a few things here and there but it was otherwise smooth. I went to the closing ceremonies and it was smooth. Not sure how it was from a disability perspective. We [Salem] made $250K after expenses so that worked out.

Charlie: A compliment: The city workers were very good at cleaning up, during and afterwards. The next morning you would never know there was an event.

David Martel: The horses came from Plymouth this year. People argue with cops but not on horses.

MAAB update:

Jack: St. Jean’s House: There will be a fine hearing in December. What we know is that the two businesses over there are still not compliant. The second floor is still being occupied by too many people.

David Martel: Was it a sprinkler issue?

Jack: It would have been if it had been a “sober house”, but the owner promised to make it a single-family. He hasn’t done this yet. Fines will start to be levied if this isn’t done soon. He’s met with his architect, but nothing done. The city and the MAAB has been lenient with him thus far.

Market Basket parking lot work:

Jack: The HP spaces at the Market Basket parking lot have been re-graded and the drainage fixed. Good work by Market Basket and their contractor.

New Business:

Tavern in the Square

Jack: We were invited to a special City Council meeting about the sidewalk seating at Tavern in the Square. I advised the committee that the Tavern’s seating blocks the direct path of travel. I have seen the area; it appears to be compliant but we won’t know until the tables are in place. The city can’t backpedal on this.

David Martel: Who’s responsible for the property [sidewalk seating area]? Snow removal? Is it property in lieu of taxes?

Jean L.: Salem owns the property.

Jean L.: Same issue with Rockafellas and snow removal.

David Martel: What about off hours and off season?

Charlie: They’re putting up heat lamps in the area; propane heat lamps. It could be open all year round.

Jack: My two contentions were a) not to block the sidewalk and b) if there is outside seating it has to be compliant, 36” around tables and chairs. That’s the only things we care about. But the other part that I said loudly and clearly, had the Commission been brought in on any part of this early on, as we have said, we may not be where we are today. I think the councilors heard that loud and clear that the Commission was not brought in.

I’m now starting to hear the design review board agendas and the planning board agendas.

David Martel: I have been looking at the new Riverwalk. It looks nice. But was there any review of the project on accessibility before it started?

Jack: It is accessible.

David Martel: But was it planned beforehand? I hadn’t seen its design.

Jack: Is there a problem?

David Martel: No, but I wanted to see the design. I still do.

Jean L.: The planning board has it.

Jean L.: I was working for Michaud Bus Lines years ago. I went to Quebec and there was a riverwalk. Every hundred feet, there was an emergency phone—and a lifesaver. It was a safety measure.

David Moisan: One other comment before we move on. I hope the guy who commented on the Salem News website is listening to the broadcast.

My comments were along the same lines as Jack: I’m not so concerned with what the restaurant is doing, but I am very upset that the SRA had just decided to do this and it was a done deal already.

Someone on the Salem News site accused me of being “reactive” instead of “proactive” and gave me a big list of sidewalk problems. They weren’t new to us! We’d been working on these problems. I’ll say it again: We’ve gotten blindsided again and again, “oh it’s already a done deal”. The SRA is very protective of the information they have and I am very upset. I took it very personally.

David Tracht: If it was a done deal, why were we asked by the Council?

Jack: The SRA approved the plans in February, but a few months ago there was a lot of discussion developing on this. People were wondering what was going on, and then we went in and said, “you can’t block the sidewalk”. Now, whether they can do anything about that is another question.

I had a comment: When the city gives out permits for sidewalk seating, there is no followup, the establishments have these permits in perpetuity. The council is missing an opportunity to look at these permits from time to time to see if there’s a problem.

Jean L.: The sidewalk at New Derby bothers me. It is a curb-stepped sidewalk with horses on it. It’s a hazard.

Jack: There is a plan in the works to eliminate the step. I hope this is done before the snow flies. I will ocntinue to revisit this.

Jean L.: It’s way out of line.

Jack: The building inspector wants this done now.

Jean L.: The Commission has never ever knowingly done anything to hurt business in Salem.

Charlie: We need to write a letter. Explain our position in this letter, what works and what doesn’t.

Jack: The city is, now, well aware, that the steps at New Derby were a mistake. We’re like the little mosquito that won’t go away.

David Martel: Or the squeaky wheel.

Bertinis:

Jack: As some of you may or may not know, there is construction on their side entrance. They are renovating the front of the restaurant. Tom St. Pierre will let us see the plans as soon as he gets them.

No word on the timeframe but it will look new.

Traffic Signals at Congress & Derby:

Jack: If some of you don’t know, there’ll be a meeting at the Seven Gables settlement house tonight on traffic signals. A consultant has recommended traffic signals at Congress & Derby.

Most of the wiring for the signals has already been placed in an earlier renovation of the intersection and the money seems to be there. It does seem like this will happen.

This is an issue we have been dealing with for a long while.

Charlie: Our city electrician put the conduit down years ago already. He saved the city $50K.

Jack: The other part of the support for this is that some of you know, the charter school is in the Shetland Properties, and there is another charter school starting in the same place. And the Boys and Girls club is there. And the hotel and the parking garage.

David Moisan: If the neighborhood let us. The head of the Derby St. Neighborhood association complained about an earlier traffic signal proposal: “Why can’t we have a flashing light?”. There’s much more traffic there nowadays.

There could be intersections, like at the Hawthorne Hotel that could have their signals removed, but others like Derby St., that are busier.

The Salem News will probably have an article in tomorrow’s paper, “Derby St. Controversy Bla Bla Bla”. Just to warn you.

Charlie: There is a hotel there frequented by visitors not familiar with the area.

Jean L.: Did the city get accident figures?

Jack: I imagine so.

Charlie: My grandaughter goes to the charter school there. It’s miserable to drive there. I get “salutes” every day.

Jack: Traffic signals, if you push a cross walk button and get the light, you cross. If there’s no light there, and you cross, you might get hit. But if you’re hit in a cross walk and have the light, the driver is liable. So that’s something in favor of the lights.

Winter Island

Jack: Dave Knowlton told me of a new sidewalk at Winter Island, from the Plummer Home to the gates. He asked me to look at it for access. It’s a wide sidewalk. It hasn’t been graded yet and it’s still a little steep.

The only problem I had: Nice sidewalk but it jumps back into the street. They need to have a plan to continue the sidewalk into Winter Island itself.

Jean L.: It ends 50 feet from the main gate?

Jack: Yes

Jean L.: People aren’t going too fast at the main gate.

Jack: On the other hand, the driveway has been repaved and not as bumpy—so people may go faster!

Charlie: A brick barricade?

Jack: I was waiting for Dave and watching. Most people weren’t going only 10 miles an hour. Not even those with trailers.

Jean L.: It’s an improvement though.

Jack: I’m thrilled there’s a section of sidewalk, but they asked for our position and I was not thrilled to have a section go back into the street.

Jack: Hope they get it before the weather is bad.

David Martel: But we won’t see much before spring?

Jack: That’s so; I don’t go there over the winter. We’ll see.

David Martel: Consider it one big curb cut.

Jack: There was some quesiton on whether this path would happen. But people can check it out. A woman from Cape Cod was watching this and asking Dave: “Is this a new sidewalk?” Dave said yes. The woman said “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time!”

National Grid Work:

David Moisan: One item of new business: National Grid has been digging a new conduit along Bridge St. I didn’t think this would pertain to us, but they’re doing more work. They’re redoing the curb cuts on my block: One in front of my house, which is inconvenient, but the other is very interesting: 10 Federal.

We have been talking about the curb cut at 10 Federal for a long time. That is now dug up. As most of us know, there is a problem with wheelchair users of the parking lot as they can’t get to 10 Federal and we have been working on this.

I have three construction projects in my neighborhood—the Salem Jail, the new elevator in Morency Manor and National Grid. It wasn’t the Jail—they’re done with sidewalk work for the moment. It wasn’t my elevator work; they have no sidewalk work planned. So it must be National Grid.

Jack: I’ve been looking at this. National Grid is on Bridge St. working up to Webb St. Perhaps the city got them to do this? Maybe a tradeoff for something. But it is being done. The city, so far as we know, is on the hook for the access work at the parking lots.

Charlie: They are doing the sidewalks. It’s a big safety problem outside my house [at Williams & Bridge].

Jean L.: They’re working at Town House Square too.

Jack: I’ll say it loudly: We have been wanting our curb cuts to be improved and more compliant. The city’s doing it! It’s great.

David Martel: They should continue to make curb cuts in the same style with concrete.

Jack: It doesn’t look like brick and I respect historic brickwork, but I much prefer this and that should be the way to go.

H1N1 Update:

Jack: I can give you an update: My family’s all had it. And we’re done with it. I’ll give you what I’ve discovered.

My youngest daughter had it and was in the hospital for four days. It’s the flu.

If you’re medically compromised, or you are in certain age brackets we won’t mention around the table, you have to be very careful. If you’re healthy, you’ll just get the flu.

This is just H1N1, the seasonal virus hasn’t come around yet. There’s no testing going on. They won’t test you unless you’re medically compromised; too many people and too costly. Doctors are making the diagnosis of H1N1.

And another thing: They won’t tell you specifically. My wife got it and she had to ask, “Was it H1N1?” They tell her: “Probably”

David Martel: My sister, Diane, is working for a company that will do a home test for H1N1.

Debra: The rapid test has a really bad accuracy rate with a huge number of false positives.

David Martel: I was given a seasonal vaccine. It’s somewhat like H1N1.

Jack: We were exposed to a strain of the swine flu once. I never got it, but my whole family did. I found people in my age bracket were exposed to swine flu in childhood so we were immune.

Don’t panic. If you’re medically compromised or someone in your family is, go to the emergency room. Get the shot.

My daughter Katie got a shot the day before she got sick so she couldn’t get tested anyway.

Debra: I participate in a weekly phone conference with the Department of Public Health, so if you want information I can send it. The interesting thing is that even if you contract H1N1, they still want you to get the vaccine when it becomes available in December.

Jean L.: There are two kinds of vaccines, I heard?

Debra: There’s an injected form and an aerosol form; the aerosol you have to have two doses.

Jack: Younger age brackets need two shots. I asked my pediatrician about Katie. He told me she should get the shot.

Jack: Keep up with it, but most important thing, wash your hands. If you get it, stay away from people. We live in an apartment building with other compromised people.

One question I had: My kids are transported in a handicapped van. Are there guidelines for sanitizing or washing the van as they go back and forth to schools?

There is none.

The H1N1 virus only lasts 8 hours so it’s not a problem overnight, but I was concerned about what happened during the day.

There is no program for sanitizing or cleaning for any school busses so far as I know.

David Tracht: What should people know?

Jack: I would remind people it’s just like any other flu season. They should keep in touch with their elderly neighbors or others who are medically compromised. Common sense, like any other year. Handwashing.

I’ve never seen so many hand sanitizers lately! Supermarkets, banks, everywhere!

Debra: On the other hand, if you can avoid touching eyes, and ears and nose, those are the places the virus likes to live.

Debra: Go to http://www.mass.gov/flu

David Martel: What about antibiotic overuse?

David Moisan: I buy liquid soap. I don’t get antbacterial soap because I ‘ve never needed it. But you cannot find soap without antibacterials anymore! I’m concerned.

Jack: If your immune system is healthy, why compromise it with a flu shot? We may have overly compromised ourselves by getting these shots. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it could be a problem.

Debra: The vaccinations are available in the state but are only available to limited people.

Jack: No other business? Our next meeting is December 15th.

Halloween in Salem, from the outside

2009-11-07T10:39:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, I had a nice chat with April Rueber, a country-crossing PR lady who visited Salem for Halloween.

Her impressions were mostly positive:

Being in Salem for Halloween is something I always wanted to experience. It is one of those once-in-a-lifetime festivals you need to see before you die similar to throwing beads for Mardi Gras in New Orleans and throwing back steins for Oktoberfest in Germany. This is as close as I have got to Germany. (Fun Fact: Going to Mardi Gras with some girlfriends next year; need to start planning!)

But there were some other things she didn’t like:

Sadly, Salem was more touristy than I imagined. I thought there was going to be more history, more historic buildings, more charm. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I still had a wicked good time.

There are several reasons, April, why you found Salem as you did:

The Great Salem Fire of 1914 took a lot of historic buildings away from us. Urban renewal took the rest. I am still grieving over the loss of the old Salem Depot—the same train station Hawthorne visited—that was demolished before I was born.

Another reason for the lack of historicity on Halloween: Haunted Happenings, just by being, has taken all of the energy in October. Most visitors are day trippers and with all the people we get, it really compresses the experience for the worse. I have taken day trips to Manhattan and I know the feeling.

Visit Salem on a summer week or even early fall and it is a different, slower experience. You can spend time at the Peabody Essex Museum. You can sip coffee at the lighthouse at the end of Derby Wharf. You can enjoy popcorn at Hobbs at Salem Willows. You have time to just soak in the architecture of Chestnut St.

Salem is not to be experienced in a hurry, yet for our Halloween festivities, that’s exactly what we get. Come in on the 31st with 100,000 people and your experience will be very compressed, just as it is for me when I go to Manhattan on a motorcoach and just have time to visit Rockefeller Center and FAO Schwartz.

As well, “history”, as I have written before in my blog, is not a simple concept to be venerated. We have visitors to Salem who thought we were all a historical reenactment. (Our true recreation of the Puritans, Pioneer Village, has been trying to reopen for years.)

History in Massachusetts and Salem in particular has become synonymous with “property values”, such that we have the reputation of being a historic theme park that no one can afford to live in.

Salem, ourselves, has been trying to reboot itself from its history as a prosperous seaport, a small mill town and former retail center into a prosperous city once again. Small wonder we’re all conflicted. I’ve had mixed feelings plenty and often about our progress, and it’s all been written here.

Nevertheless, I loved the Halloween night festivities as a downtown resident.

And Elizabeth Montgomery, long may she remain.

Morency Manor Elevator Work Goes On

2009-11-05T12:49:00.001-05:00

Construction of a new elevator continues on. This view from my window isn’t the greatest, but it’s probably the last time I’ll get such a good view.

The scaffolding is going up outside my window again, this time I presume to set forms for the elevator wall.

Once this goes up, I’m probably not going to get to see much else of the construction. I’ve always wondered how they install the elevator cab into a building. Perhaps I’ll get to see, or not.

Voting at St. John’s

2009-11-03T12:54:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I voted at St. John’s today. The handicapped entrance is around the corner at the old Pioneer House entrance:

The entrance to the hall is a newly installed door inside the entrance to the left. It doesn’t have an automatic door opener and no one was at the door, as they often were at the Salem Heights polling place.

Once inside, I checked in, but had trouble with the Automark machine for people with disabilities. The machine was in the dead center of the room, which was split off by precinct, one side (closest to the handicapped entrance) for Pct. 1, and the other for Pct. 2 (mine).

The area in front of the Automark was blocked by a table, I presumed it was there to divide the two halves of the room.

After looking stumped for a moment, one of the poll workers asked me if I wanted to use the machine. Affirmative. She and two other poll workers had to get the key to activate the machine and it was a few minutes before I could use it.

I did get to use the machine and eventually cast my ballot.

I know the poll workers are mostly inexperienced; the clerk has had to aggressively seek workers in recent years. Worse yet, there’s still the preliminary and final special elections for the US Senate coming up.

But those in charge of setup should put the Automark on their checklist.

Double Decker Rail Cars Visit Salem

2009-11-02T23:19:00.001-05:00

Courtesy John Arico, this is a video of double-decker K cars that ran on the north side (us) to Salem this year. They can indeed run through the tunnel, check it out around 3 minutes into the video.

Check out this thread on Railroad.net.

Now, if we can have these for the 7:25…

Election 2009 Thoughts

2009-11-01T16:17:00.001-05:00

As we prepare for another municipal election, I’ve never made endorsements as such on the blog, but here are my thoughts.

First of all, I and the rest of Ward 2 have a new polling place, or really, an old place being used again: The social hall at St. John’s Church, just next door to me. It was used in 1995, but later polling was done at Salem Heights.

I hated and resented that for years. Now it’s back to St. John’s. I can’t blame people in Salem Heights or in Precinct 1 for hating this, too. I wouldn’t begrudge them for the hate one bit. The polling places have been consolidated this year so most wards go to one place for both precincts except for Wards 5 and 6.

I’m obliged to investigate handicapped access; this lack of access was why St. John’s was dropped in the first place. I asked around and was told there would be a ramp. There’ll need to be three; there’s one up to the entrance, one down to the foyer, and one into the hall itself if I recall correctly.

We’ll see how it goes Tuesday.

On to the candidates. Wards 3 and 5 are the only contested ward races, so for most voters, the at-large candidates are the only ones they’ll focus on.

That brings me to Teasie Goggin, the highest-profile candidate in all the city, running for at-large.

I respect Teasie. I’ve talked with her about one of her campaign goals, increased transparency in government. It is something I’ve talked about, and lived. If she is elected she will learn what I have learned firsthand!

Unfortunately, Teasie and I have never talked about the big issue that divides us, the senior center. I fear that if I elect her, she will seek to delay the project such that we’ll be arguing it when I’m 60. She and my ward councilor are opinionated to a fault with this.

What of other issues? Boston St.? I can cite another example of the transparency she is asking for in the Salem Redevelopment Authority controversy over Tavern in the Square.

Respect Teasie as I may, I can’t give her my vote.

I also feel unable (or unwilling) to vote for Tom Furey. I don’t believe for a moment that he was deliberately malicious when he wanted to ban smoking in public housing, but that is an issue he could have dealt with differently if only he had some forethought. I’ve learned not to expect that from many councilors, but that is no excuse.

I will vote for Joan Lovely in the at-large. I almost always disagree with her, but respect her professionalism. (I appreciate the hand written note on your election mailing, Mrs. Lovely. Thanks. But I had decided my position before getting it.)

I like Steve Pinto but don’t feel connected to him, nor to Arthur Sargent, nor to the “new” candidate, Mike Allen (ex-School Committee).

I will not cast a vote for my ward councilor, nor for Mayor Driscoll, for reasons I’ve already explained earlier in the year. I’m also concerned about her support for casinos, a issue that has been virtually undiscussed. Mayor Driscoll, like too many in Salem, want to think our recession is a bad dream and soon over. On the other hand, it’s very much real and may never be over soon, as long as we depend on the quick fix of gentrification.

(Aside: I’ve thought Shirley Walker’s very public shit fight with Murphy’s restaurant was done out of frustration; I think she wanted to flip her condo at Derby Lofts like she did in Quincy and wasn’t able to do so.)

By my account, Mayor Driscoll is still depending on gentrification to make her and Salem go. Not for me.

It’s Halloween Today!

2009-10-31T13:15:00.001-04:00

It’s begun!

At this time of day, this is a family event, and the crowd’s reflecting that so far. I didn’t see the LaRouchites today, which I’m glad for, nor have I seen some of the more edgier people one sees at night. Then again, I haven’t walked through many areas today such as Salem Common and the “Haunted Village”.

I’m concentrating on the concert and fireworks tonight. The stage was being set up when I walked by:

I’m going to set up near District Court, crowd permitting. My personal camera and tripod are much smaller than SATV’s so I won’t be noticed. I did get appropriate attire:

See you tonight!

Not only ghosts around in Salem

2009-10-30T12:19:00.001-04:00

Witches, ghosts and demons aren’t the only inhabitants of Salem today. These LaRouchites are holding court just two blocks from my house at the Visitor’s Center. They’ve usually set up at the Post Office a few times a year, without the offensive signs. Wish I had given them a “helpful gesture” but it’s not in my character.

Halloween Scanner Audio

2009-10-29T14:31:00.001-04:00

Once again, I expect a very busy Halloween downtown in the next few nights. If you can’t be downtown, or if you want to know what you’re getting into, listen to my police scanner feed. It has Salem, Beverly, Lynn and Peabody PD and FD, MBTA police, NEMLEC (I’m assuming the command truck will be out there again this year.) and the Eastern Route commuter rail.

Direct link if you can't see the player

Have a good time! I’ll be at the concert and fireworks downtown on Saturday night, filming for YouTube.

Unofficial Minutes of Salem Commission on Disabilities, October 2009

2009-10-26T22:54:00.001-04:00

[New audible signal at the self-storage facility opposite WalMart]

The Salem Commission on Disabilities met October 20th, 2009 at 4 PM. This month’s meeting was co-posted with the city’s 5 Year Consolidated Plan review with Jane Guy and Beverly .

Presiding, Charlie Reardon, co-commissioner Present: David Martel, Beverly Estes-Smargiassi, Community Opportunities Group, Jane Guy, Community Development Director, Andy LaPointe, David Moisan, Jean Harrison, Michael Taylor, Jean Levesque, Kimberly Jones, North Shore Career Center, David Tracht.

Jack Harris was at a seminar today.

Charlie: As you all know, we were in the paper this week. Jack was on the front page Monday talking about Ken Bonacci’s parking enforcement, and there was a Salem News editorial telling us to leave it to the police.

10 years ago, Jack and I and Ken met with the MBTA and tried to work out a solution with them. Many people without plates or placards were parking in the spaces and going off to Boston. One person told a handicapped motorist “I’m waiting for my wife to get off the train”. “I’m waiting to get on the train!” He missed two trains.

Someone made a complaint to the MBTA about “some guy” harassing parkers. But we had the right to point that out to people. He made an issue of it, and the MBTA police came in, and talked to Ken and told him to leave it to the police.

You know, we [the Commission] don’t harass people, we just asked them to leave. And they made a stink about it that’s in the paper. We’ll find out what this is about.

Jean L.: Let’s get to the main meeting with Jane Guy.

David Moisan: [to Jane] Let’s get started with the special meeting, you did come here so we can ask questions.

Jane Guy: I’m Jane Guy and I’m responsible for the draft oversight forthe Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) funds. We’re responsible for planning the grant process every five years and we are getting feedback from the community. Some of you may have been here five years ago the last time.

We’re hoping to get your input over the next month with various target groups, on housing and community The Community Opportunities Group has been doing this work since 1979. I’m turning this over to Beverly; there is a sign-in sheet circulating.

Beverly: It’s a nice crowd today, and great to be here. Nice to be back. I’m going to fill out the background: The city is obligated to do this planning. It’s an opportunity to explain the needs of the community now and for the next five years. That’s what this process is for. I’m going to run through the slides very quickly because I want to start discussion right away.

The five year plan is required by law, sets priorities and measurable goals and strategies for the city. Every year, there’s an annual action plan for the next year, and this meeting is the basis for those yearly plans. Those action plans will happen for the next four years.

It does create the opportunity to let us know what’s most important. The Department of Housing and Urban Development handles the CDBG. Also involved are Federal Home Investment Partnership funds and the North Shore Home Consortium in Peabody which provided $970,000. In FY2010 we get $1.1 million From 2010 to 2015, we get a total of $5.9 million, so it’s a significant amount.

The CDBG was established by Congress in 1974; it is a large source of federal aid to the communities. It includes housing, infrastructure, economic development, seniors, facilities, homeless, anti-crime programs, planning and administrations. It’s flexible.

Any project must be approved through HUD and meet one of three national objectives: Low or moderate-income, prevent blighted conditions, or address critical community needs. People around this table know about low and moderate-income people. The details are in the pamphlet I’ve handed out.

Who decides how funds will be used? This is the first part of the process, the decision-making process. And after this step, the plan will be reviewed by the citizens advisory committee, Mayor and City Council. There will be additional public comments. It’s approved by them, and then goes to the feds for final approval.

Community development programs are homeless services, housing, public services. These are the sort of things already happening in Salem. There’s a listing of some examples of recent and ongoing projects, including Palmer St., Salem Mission, Salem Harbor CDC housing renovation, rental subsidies, and park and playground improvements [such as Harbor St.]

The programs are run through the Salem Planning and Community Development, but are sometimes administered by others, like the Salem Harbor CDC and Salem Main Streets.

Your participation does make a difference. As Jane says, there’ll be ten consultation meetings, then meetings with city staff. There’ll be interviews with social service, training, and healthcare officials. Interviews with historical commissions.

What happens now: I’ll send Jane the outcome of this meeting and she’ll make it available.

Now, what do people see as assets? We concentrate on problems so much, we want to see what’s positive about Salem.

Dave Martel: Historical preservation, Pioneer Village, Old Town Hall

David Moisan: Two points all by myself, Andy will confirm: We have a train station. And a considerable amount of public transit. Not as much as we want, but we have them. More importantly, we have the sidewalks and access for people with disabilities. We have contentiousness, but only because we are farther ahead than most other communities.

Jane Guy: That’s the kind of projects this funding has been used for.

David Martel: That’s just common sense. We had a situation with the elderly housing on Charter St. and the public library

Kimberely: Is the process limited to this list?

Andy: As far as curb cuts, there’s still some need. How about snow removal? Is it separate?

Jane: That is separate.

David Martel: Charter St.: Elderly have to hop over a snowbank to reach the curb cut.

Andy: There are people out there walking with canes that can’t get to the pedestrian signals through the snow. It’s a blessing I have GPS, actually. I’d like to see us work on snow removal and everything else, of handicapped spots and curb cuts.

David Martel: YMCA parking lot. They piled snow in the HP spot on Essex St. You’re paying $1200 for a contractor to dump snow on a $2 parking spot.

Andy: We have fifty million in the US with a disability. One in 10 are visually impaired. or mobility impaired. Salem is a major attraction for people around the state and is regarded as a disabled-friendly city. We have twice the spending power of teenagers. So, here in Salem a lot of disabled people are coming here as we speak. It’d be good in the wintertime to work something out.

Charlie: If we have a handicapped curbcut to be done in Salem, who would be contacted?

Jane: []Giardi would be the one to handle it. He has a certain amount of money each year for curb cuts.

Charlie: Social Security Office doesn’t have a curb cut between the parking lot and the office across Federal St.

Kimberly: It’s a wonderful asset to the city to have an accessible downtown area, an economic downtown, the volumes of people that come. People are coming in. We have emergency resources, our services are free. There’s a big push for certification training. People are having to retrain. Again, I think it’s a wonderful thing for people to travel from different areas to here to get services.

Andy [to Kimberly]: What about accessible computers?

Kimberly: That’s a question I have to ask Sandra since she coordinates all the accommodations in the center.

Asking about JAWS, Open Book, etc. After a while, the way websites are reformatted, and needs an update.

Kimberly: We need an upgrade. I wish Sandra were here to answer that; I’m not equipped to answer the specific questions. Thank god there’s a disability coordinator to link people to community resources.

We have til November 20th to submit a better organized proposal?

Jane and Beverly: Yes

Beverly: Thank you very much. We learned a lot. I want to talk about our findings for 2005, and see what ones may be more important. Some may be less important. I want to see what issues are percolating up.

2005 plan: 1) Rental affordability, 2) Affordable housing preservation, a lot of them were aging out of their mortgages and could become market-rate housing. 3) Condominimum development was a bit of a concern five years ago; that may be shifting a bit at this point. At that time there was a conversion issue and a lot of rental units being done, and a desire to protect the rental market.

4) Public services are on the list. Social services are on the list, and have become a bit more integrated with community development in general.

Jean L.: Before you go too far, housing. The situation on Crombie St. for the past 15 years, and now the situation now. What’s the status of that project now?

Jane: I got a email from them that some units are being rented and others being worked on and they’ve gotten approval from the state. It was a long process needing to go to the Board of Appeals, but it is underway.

Jean L.: How do you apply? Restricted income?

Jane: The information is on their website. I haven’t looked at. Michael Weyland at the Salem Harbor CDC is running this. I’ll put you in touch with him.

Jean L.: The Commission on Disabilities is an asset to the City. We’ve been fortunate to have these people offer their services at no charge; these are volunteers who go to great lengths to make the city of Salem aware of the needs of disabled people in Salem. The problem with the MBTA, we’ve been fighting that for 5 years.

Jean L: The city hasn’t been giving us any help. We’ve been looking for someone to do the minutes for us. We have volunteers, but need support.

David Martel: An office. We have an office but no items.

David Moisan: No office supplies, nor desks nor computers.

Jean L: Any help?

Jane Guy: Certain things are eligible, certain things are not.

Jane: The minute-taking is not eligible for our assistance. Office space? No other board or commission has space.

Beverly: The CDBG is funding new initiatives, such as the computers at the library. If you think in those terms…

Jean L.: We have office space in the South Harbor Garage that requires certain equipment.

David Martel: If we have an office but not the personnel to support it, are we in violation?

Jane G.: Yes. You have a budget?

Jean L.: Yes, but very small.

Beverly: I want to continue, and get people to tell us what’s still pertinent, what are the big-picture items. Elderly housing is also on the list. Last time, we had lots of housing but it was a bit faded and not up to snuff and we needed coordinated services [home care] that went with it but wasn’t always present. Finally, there was a need to be strategic and coordinated and to look at items that couldn’t be funded another way.

That was ‘05. It’s now 2009 going on 2010. Do some of these findings or all of these findings remain relevant?

Andy: Social services, what does that entail from 05 to the present?

Jane: The outcome; each year we issue an RFP to social services organizations to get CDBG funding. That could be youth groups, community orgs, SATV, and 30 groups we regularly fund. Before 2005, we were responsive to public services and what they needed. After, we identified priority programs that we would fund, like housing programs that helped a family become self-sufficient; if they needed childcare, and prescriptions, that would fulfill the requirements. We wanted programs that would help people afford their day-to-day lives. Medium priority programs were health and youth programs; Low priority was everything else.

Organizations should have explicit programs and justification. We won’t just “fund something for cats” because we say so, there has to be a documented need.

Andy: You mentioned SATV. We have a problem there. They have a bulletin board. We used to have an audible bulletin board for visually impaired. Dave M. could elaborate. How would that fit in the realm of things? IF they needed a program to update things?

Jane: Certain things could be funded. It sounds like an eligible expense. It could be considered.

Andy: They have volunteers, but upgraded their system and can’t do this anymore; it’s too difficult. It would be [a] voice-over. A good amount of people in Salem could use this program.

Dave Moisan: I’m authorized to speak for SATV; I am the liaision for SATV and their IT person. Besides the thing Andy has asked about, which is something Andy and I have been around for quite a while, the other thing we’re trying to do is to get some kind of support to take our city meetings, our public meetings like this one. Right now, I’m recording the meeting today, I am taking the minutes and transcribing them. I’m doing that all out of pocket because I was never able to come to an agreement with the city to help. There are more public meetings than we can tape and we want to put the meetings online on a website.

That’s not strictly disability-related, but that’s one thing that almost always comes up when the bulletin board issue comes up.

Beverly: Is that happening and are you overwhelmed?

Dave M.: We don’t have the money to pay to put it on the web, or the staff. We have only three full time people [at SATV]. People and Money. The bulletin board is another can of worms.

Charlie: How much?

Dave M.: I have to get that info the next time I talk with Sal. We go online and have to pay for it. We talked about putting it on the city’s website and using the company’s video services. We’ve looked at putting meeting audio on our website. We don’t pay [extra] to put it on our website but there’s still labor. I don’t know the details; between some labor and some money to all the way up for lots of labor and a web host.

Charlie: Can you give a figure?

Dave Moisan: Off the top of my head, somewhere in the hundreds, and somewhere in the thousands. I am aware of some legislative bodies who’s states have had to get $10,000 grants to put their meetings up on the webs. This is the range I have heard the last time I investigated [a few months ago].

Charlie: Quite a bit

Dave M.: The way we do with audio costs less, but more work on our part. The labor won’t be any less and I won’t depend on volunteers, it’s too involved, without knowing exactly what I could ask from them. I was going to do a test with our meetings, which are already in audio; that labor is done. I have no specific [proposals], that’s still up in the air and not discussable today.

Beverly: I want to move on and ot take up the whole meeting. If I can also go back to a few things. The 2005 things are relevant; I had SATV and public access issues down; are there other things you want to put down?

Kimberly: There’s a group of folks who can’t get their records [CORI] sealed, and need to move on with their lives, and can’t.

Dave Moisan: Charlie, Jack has been talking about doing parking enforcement with the police. Like in Waltham, if we don’t want to do it ourselves, the Commission gets some money to pay for a detail officer who does.

Jane Guy: Generally, let me stop you a bit, it’s not used for salaries. You should not talk about salary-related items, this isn’t the program for it.

Beverly: Disabled housing. Last time we met, that was raised.

[person in background] We had difficulty finding affordable housing for people in wheelchairs; there’s difficulty finding housing that is advertised, but not for people in wheelchairs. One unit offered a roll-in shower but that was really impractical.

Jane Guy: I don’t know the unit number off hand but I can get that for you.

[person in background]: Bookmobile? That could come in for people unable to get around.

[person in background]: We’re sending out applications to everywhere. The stories we get are phenomenal and we get them every day.

Jane: We will be doing more meetings [in the coming month] on that.

Andy: Audible traffic signals. Some on the corner of Lafayette and Derby are the old types that honk with a buzzer. There’s no way to get funding for those to get locators? A person who comes to Salem [from Boston] approaches a light that pings when they get up close to it—a locator—audible traffic signals.

Beverly: When you press the button…? It makes a ping?

Andy: Reason I mention it, the signals are the old technology. They work, but often break down. These new ones are state of the art and work better. Down over the overpass [North St.], Salem State, Marlborough Road. I have no idea why Salem State hasn’t called for help on those.

I have a seeing-eye dog and it’s his job, but those students with a cane have to depend on the parallel traffic and whatever else is going on.

Dave Martel: Salem Hospital. The audible never works. I see elderly people who are waiting. They stand until you help them cross.

Andy: John Giardi has been up on this. Has it been going on for a few weeks.

David Moisan: The signal [by St. Peter] is a ringing (old-style) signal. MassHighway came to turn them down because of the neighbors [at the Jefferson]; for all intents and purposes they’re not audible signals anymore. MassHighway promised the new audible signals Andy is talking about but they didn’t deliver. I’ve got to pursue every possible avenue as the new train station is coming in and I want all intersections downtown and the new courthouse, to have audible signals for the disabled. I will pursue every avenue for this.

Dave Martel: The accessibility of First St., which my friend was involved in. The management was supposed to be contacted?

Charlie: I don’t know yet.

Beverly: I would like to go on and wrap up. If people could tell me what the most important items to pursue in the next two or three years for the CDBG.

David Martel: Handicapped housing unit compliance. I have heard things, even small things like counter height, which makes quite a difference for someone in a chair. It’s a thing they often don’t realize til they get there.

Charlie: The City of Salem should know what units and places are not handicapped accessible. Example downtown: The information booth has haybales in front of it—you can’t get to the booth in a wheelchair. The city of Salem should be able to police themselves! [The chamber of commerce is manning and responsible for the booth, in front of the fountain.]

Andy: Curb cuts. Not all curb cuts have the tactile pad. That’s important. When you go down Lafayette St. you can’t tell whether you’re at a curb cut or just a [driveway] slope. All new curb cuts have a tactile slope.

David Martel: The city has a paper map, but I’ve proposed a blue line connecting accessible businesses and accessible routes. I’ve volunteered to draw this so people can see the blue handicapped line and know where to go.

Jane: That would be an easy thing to do.

Beverly: Teriffic!

David Martel: This way, they know how to get to the Witch House.

Jane: I’m going to contact some people and see if we can get this going.

David Martel: They’re not from this area. They’re from Winthrop. She told me, “I don’t know how to get to the Witch House”. We don’t need to paint a blue line on the street; just a paper line on a map at no cost to the city.

Beverly: Any one add anything?

David Moisan: Traffic signals? On the list?

Beverly: I can add it in.

David Moisan: Add in what Andy and I were talking about.

Andy: As far as the locators, it’s important that they’re there on both sides, as when they cross they’ll be listening to the ping on the other side. They tend to veer off, especially if they don’t know the area. Someone coming from gods know where will be looking for the other side.

David Martel: They’re used to crossing with that type of signals.

Andy: A lot of people who cross, their minds are focused on trying to keep a straight line. Can we get back to you? How much time do we have?

Beverly & Jane: November 20th is the last meeting.

Jane: [in response to an inaudible question from Kimberly] Housing is the main priority. If you have a hundred items someone deems important, if you only had money for ten, what would be the most important priorities?

Kimberly: I’d say we needed to address affordability.

Andy: Next month I bring in ice cleats. That’s the only way to survive walkways [in winter.]

David Martel: A lot of sidewalks are clear and safe, but like on Charter St., the curb cuts are not plowed. The maintainance people don’t know they’re there.

Jane: Has this board sent a letter?

David Martel: Yes. Those are the only crosswalks in that area.

Jane: I think it’s important to know this, you can put all the curb cuts you want, if it’s not maintained. They go hand in hand.

Beverly and Jane: Thank you for your time. There are, in the book, a list of other meetings you can attend if there’s something you think of later on.

Andy: I noticed you gave me the paperwork. If you have a need for anything in Braille, I can do that. I have a Braille printer. Just be sure you email the information in a text file and I’ll get the information.

Jane: We haven’t had a request for it.

Andy: The National Braille Press can do this in a month, but I can do it quicker.

Jane: All of this information will be available online.

[The commissioners thank Beverly and Jane for their time.]

[End of the Consolidated Five-Year Plan meeting]

Andy: Jean gave me this talking calculator. It comes from the National Foundation for the Blind. He asked me to give it to someone who needed it. It’s a really nice one.

I know this is taped so there may be someone listening who could use it?

If I have a lot of requests, I’ll put their name in a hat and pick one. As long as they’re physically impaired, visually impaired or blind.

Jean L.; Show this to David Tracht and see if he could use it.

Andy: Money identifiers: The one that I have costs $200. Another came from Orbit Research and costs $99. Number for Orbit Research is 1-888-60-ORBIT. [www.orbitresearch.com]

Andy: The calculator’s a really good one. If anyone needs it, the calculator, they can call me at 978-745-4289. If I get more than one request I’d have to be fair about it.

David Tracht: I’m interested if no one else is. If someone else is interested…

Andy: [to Dave Moisan] When is this meeting first aired?

Dave Moisan: I think this coming Thursday.

Andy [to Jane]: Thanks for coming

Andy [to Dave Moisan]: How about next week? Is that fair?

Dave Moisan: It will air more than once next week.

Andy: I want to find out what brand that is. Mine is nice, but that one is nicer.

Dave Moisan: Want to talk about the side walk meeting past Thursday?

Andy: Can we table it? I have to go, Elliot wants to stay. David Tracht, want to hold on to the calculator?

David Tracht: Charlie has it.

Andy: I’ll call up the National Federation for the Blind and find out who made it for them. If there are no takers it goes to Mr. Tracht.

Charlie: I have a copy of the Bridge St. plans right here if someone wants to look at them. They cover everything. Jack has them if anyone’s interested.

David Martel: They cover, what exactly?

Charlie: Bridge St. from the bypass road to the old bridge.

David Moisan: One last item: SATV is replacing its furniture. This table will be gone by next meeting. We have recipients lined up for a lot of items; Doug Bollen is getting this table.

We are looking for nonprofits who need filing cabinets and such. My understanding is that every item of furniture not nailed down is being replaced. We also have a copy machine a few years ago that we haven’t been able to get rid of. I had hoped to get it for our office but we’re delayed. I don’t know when or even if we will have a staffed office, so I want to throw the offer to any nonprofit in the sound of my voice. We really, really are trying to get our executive director to do some winter cleaning. We have too much stuff, we need to clean.

Charlie: Who to call?

David Moisan: Call Sal, 978-740-9432. Any of us will get you in touch with him. We want to move on this very quickly. I was just told of this today; let’s do some cleaning.

David Moisan: OK, I think that’s it!

Charlie: It is, Happy Halloween!

[Adjourned, 5:25 PM]

Salem Jail Video (replay)

2009-10-23T15:45:00.001-04:00

This is an old video of mine, but I like to promote it every now and then. It’s a shortened version of a 60-minute video I produced on the Salem Jail, shortly before it was sold to developers.

There are other videos from people who’ve broken into the Jail, but I feel mine is the only one with any respect for the building and what it really was. They didn’t hang witches here. And it wasn’t a place for “psychic experiments”, either.

I’d love to have the whole video online someday. For now it airs on SATV occasionally.

Salem Jail Renovation Continues

2009-10-23T15:29:00.001-04:00

The Salem Jail renovation is moving along. The whole interior of the main building is now completely gutted, in what appears to be the busiest week for the project since it started.

More photos on my Salem Jail Renovation Flickr stream.

A Salem Blog

Charlie Reardon has passed on

Is My Councilor Better Than His Voters Because He Served?

My years of futility in Salem transit, part 2

My years of futility in Salem transit, part 1

Salem Depot Update

Salem’s ADA Day, 2011

Salem Schools Looking For a Home—and Accessibility

Four Years Blogging

Back after an absence

Political Violence Should Be Scary

Merry Christmas!

Salem City Hall Elevator Dedication

Haunted Happenings Grand Parade Tonight!

Charlie Baker, Moral Auditor

Restaurant at Jail to open next week

Not Remembering 9/11

Salem State University

Changes at the Commission

Mayor's Proclamation of ADA Day

No New Bus Stop at Hawthorne Square

Salem Commission on Disabilities, Unofficial Minutes for June 2010

Old Business

Update on Jean.

Market Basket

Salem Ferry wheelchair access

Salem Ferry MBTA passes

Salem Common Playground

Salem MBTA Station

MAAB Update

4 First St.

Parking Issues

New Business

Election of Co-Chairs

Disability Policy Consortium

4th of July Fireworks

Other Business

Thoughts on the Commission

A-Frame Signs

City Hall Elevator

Starting a 4th year of blogging

Salem Commission on Disabilities May 2010 Unofficial Minutes

Salem Commission on Disabilities Meeting Minutes for May 2010

May 18th, 2010

Meeting Introduction

Guest Presenter

Mr. Tom Boudreau of Verizon:

Old Business

Market Basket MBTA Bus Stop

Salem Common Tot Lot

Tavern in the Square

MAAB Updates

Vinnin Square

Salem Housing Authority

Berba Dental

City Hall Elevator

New Business

A-frame signs

Elliot

Disabilities Policy Consortium

Adjournment

Tavern in the Square has an open sidewalk—In Cambridge!

Remembering Elliot

Tavern in the Square sidewalk controversy

Salem Commission on Disabilities April 2010 Unofficial Minutes

MBTA New Garage at T lot

MAAB Update--4 First Street

Variance at Morency Manor, Salem Housing Authority

Variance at 76 Lafayette Street

Burba Dental (Highland Ave. @ Wilson Rd.) Variance

New Business

ADA Observance July 26, 2010

Incident on Bridge Street

A Frame Signs, City Council Committee Meeting

Other Business

Independent Living Center of the North Shore and Cape Ann—911 Indicator Form

Audible Signal at Market Basket Southbound

Adjournment

Barbed Wire is Gone at the Salem Jail!

Salem Jail’s Open House

May 18^th, 2010