MoorecolAg27-2004

Hed :
Housing and other complicated matters - heads up!


                     By BOB MOORE

             No matter which way you turn these days a Housing Plan for 
Framingham is the hot topic. Kathy Bartolini, director of Planning and 
Economic Development, is pushing for selectmen's approval right now so the 
plan drawn up in her department can be accepted in Boston, hopefully for 
grants that could drop big money in the town's lap . . . . she says.

             OK. Let me add that the plan runs for 46 pages. I have a copy. 
If you'd like to see this technical piece, drop around. Chairman Tom 
Mahoney of the Planning Board, used to such intricate language, called for 
a second look. Tom O'Neil, chairman of the TM Planning and Zoning 
Committee, got his group to look at its underside. Hold it please.

Just suppose some zoning changes in the Housing Plan ran counter to 
current law? Or to what Town Meeting would refuse to pass? For example : 
Offering ways to boost the 10 percent minimum for affordable housing to an 
ideal 30-40 percent. All this in 46 pages of fine print. Yet Kathy was 
dumbfounded when what seemed like an easy pass got shelved. Selectman 
Chairman Chris Ross says it'll be a few months before his board gets 
around the passage.

             "CORRECTION" - Hold on for a minute. This is my second column 
not written for The Tab. And I'd like to do a little housecleaning on the 
"Correction" The Tab wrote about my recent column -and to point out what's 
involved in that housing picture.

             In a gentle way, I let it be known that Ross, who gets $33,000 
for this year only, still thinks I'm wrong because two figures, $42K and 
$33K appeared as a payment to him this year for a part-time job as 
executive director of Housing for All, an advocacy group. ["Correction" 
added another figure "$28,000 annually."] Most readers got the point : 
payment of $1,000 or $100,000 was still payment and needed disclosure.

             Two weeks after belatedly filing a disclosure [week of Aug. 
6], Ross did recuse himself when talk of gaining housing funds came up. 
Neither then, nor previously in March was Housing for All on the agenda 
when Ross let pass the need to disclose. Let it pass one time, speak up in 
August!

Letting you in on the intricacies of the 46-page Plan : Just now, Kathy's 
planners came up with a new Housing Plan. The chief difference : no more 
mention of Ross's special grant. Bottom line : Ross gets paid for a 
certain outlook on local housing - period. HFA is not mentioned again but 
Chris a week ago recused himself when HFA was not on the agenda.

             ONCE AGAIN, "Correction" says Moore was wrong on Town Counsel 
Chris Petrini's re quest for an executive session to discuss his status as 
he leaves his partnership in a Boston firm and continues as counsel when 
his office in Framingham will be dealing with local clients. I did write 
that this had been discussed in other executive sessions. I was wrong. 
Just this time. For that I am sorry.

I've written - and I've told him privately - that his work has been 
exemplary. In particular, his firm opinion that the town should not 
conclude the purchase of a new Senior Center on Union Avenue - until all 
faults in the land had been cleared up. Otherwise, he said, once it owned 
the property, Framingham would have to clean the property at its own 
expense. This took courage and considerable legal wisdom; officials want 
to speed up the purchase.

             As I wrote two weeks ago, Selectman Ginger Esty asked that 
"this time, I would hope we could discuss this in public." Knowing that 
she was reading from the "hush-hush" envelope that the Manager George King 
passes to selectmen with topics to take up in executive sessions, I 
assumed it had been discussed before. Three days before perhaps when King 
got Chris's letter.

             "Correction" discounts Moore's account, saying it had been 
discussed in open session. Yes, when Esty broke the ice. Chris's contract 
calls for support from a full service [Boston] law firm, which is no 
longer operative. Chris's cost per hour has been much higher than that 
charged for 30 years by local attorney, Aaron Bikofsky, who often had to 
recuse himself when a client of his was involved. Getting a line on what 
Chris will be paid in a similar position, is worth public discussion. 
Maybe. How does it strike you?

             KERRY CAUSE - With Sen. Senator John Kerry [like us, right out 
of Middlesex County where he got his political start] running for 
president, there has been considerable concern over the loaded snowball 
hurled at him by unhappy veterans. Sympathy is bipartisan hereabouts. 
Nationally there has been heavy gunfire from both sides on that snowball.

On Sunday, Aug. 15, The Washington Post, after a long investigation of the 
pro- and anti-Kerry flak in Vietnam and in naval records, concluded : 
"[Our] investigation into what happened that day [in March 1969] suggests 
that both sides have withheld information from the public record and 
provided an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate picture of what took 
place."

             After President Bush's failure to condemn the anti-Kerry flak 
and ease the one-sided attack, the anti-Kerry book, "Unfit to Command" 
book topped the New York Times's best seller list this week, This 
unchecked fire is burning Kerry. Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi 
suggests that Bush is trying to make Kerry a liar - so it will be one liar 
against the other. Won't work around here. And "Unfit" won't get many 
readers hereabouts.

             ANOTHER FIRE is burning - the race of the local state Senate 
seat. Decision day for three Democrats is Tuesday, Sept. 14 - less than 
three weeks away.  This week found Adam Sisitsky, Rep. Karen Spilka and 
former Framingham moderator Gerry Desilets going great guns.

             In a glossy, 8 x12 flyer received in the eight-town district, 
Adam declared : "If you want a State Senator with the courage to take a 
stand and the ability to make it count . . . . Send in Sisitsky. "a strong 
and independent new voice speaking up for you . . . . Send in Sisitsky.

             In a equal sized flyer, Rep. Spilka tells voters : "Already 
working full time in the State House and in our district . . .  KAREN is 
ready . . . Day One!" Spilka, a leader in increasing Ch. 70 education 
funds, also revealed that the state chapter of the Sierra Club has 
endorsed her for her record and her work with club in protecting open 
space and other environmental issues.

             At the same time the Desilets campaign reported large scale 
stealing of its lawn signs - a report insiders used to say was a special 
way Barbara Gray spoke in a lull. It got her immediate sympathy - and 
votes. Barbara never lost. Almost simultaneously, the Desilets team 
reported that it had been "infected" by a "hacker" who flooded local homes 
with a pitch presumably from Gerry and released an e-mail flood from 
recipients, begging to be taken off "your list."

             A story in The News today said Desilets forces it "appeared to 
to be the work of a hacker, although they stopped short of claiming the 
prank was politically motivated.[Subtext : Well, folks who else would do 
that in a political race?] Having no one district to appeal to, Gerry was 
open to ask all Framingham voters to vote for him. Gerry, favored to win, 
has had bad luck this year. At the very last minute he had to cancel his 
first special fundraiser. It hurt, but don't count him out.

____________________________________ You can reach Bob Moore at
edmoore4@aol.com or at 1-508-620-1449.