The following letter to Boston City Hall Mayor’s Office and City Council officials is re-published here with permission of the author as a commentary follow-up to last week’s North End Public Safety meeting.
I am emailing you in the hope that you finally realize how fed up both the deep rooted and longstanding residents of our community are with the lack of planning and effort from our elected officials, to curtail this out of control public health issue in the North End.
The media has finally got involved and the newspapers have been contacting a few of our residents today.
Your constituents will no longer vote for officials who make empty promises.
Last night’s meeting had the biggest turn out in years; unfortunately law enforcement officials continued to dance around the issue at hand. The other crime statistics were encouraging, but had absolutely nothing at all to do with the problem that has destroyed our public health and quality of life for both new and centuries old generations of North End residents. The statistics they were giving themselves accolades for have always been low in our community.
I ask all of you to view the Brookline Ma. NOISE ORDINANCE BY-LAW ARTICLE 8.29/ NOISE CONTROL M.G.L. c. 272 S 53 (PDF download here).
We need to adopt the town of Brookline’ Ma. ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY.
This has to be enforced by the mayors office and our elected officials. We have to enforce the penalty (chapter 16 section 26.11 penalties) municipal code/noise.
You have to start somewhere in your efforts to restore order and peace in our community. We want a city official at each meeting to bring a log of the penalties for disturbing the peace fines that were issued for that time period between the neighborhood meetings, including the names and addresses of the violators; as they brought all the other crime statistics last night.
We need to notify the building owners by certified mail, we need to also fine the building owners of repeat offenders. Colleges and universities should be notified if the violator is a student.
Our community newspaper should include the violators, and highlight problem buildings and their owners.
A violation of the noise ordinance in the city of Boston is also a crime. Repeat offenders should be arrested and go to court (this would be the biggest deterrent). People can not gain employment and financing today if they have a court record.
Ultimately, we also realize that young people have a right to enjoyment and social gatherings, but our goal should be to ensure that no one suffers bad times as a result of your good times.
WE HAVE A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM DOWN HERE, AND WE HAVE BEEN VOICING OUR CONCERNS FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. LACK OF ANY TRUE EFFORT FROM OUR CITY OFFICIALS HAS LET THIS PROBLEM ESCALATE OUT OF CONTROL.
WE REALIZE THAT IT IS GOING TO TAKE SOME TIME TO RESTORE THE QUALITY OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD AGAIN, BUT WE ARE NO LONGER GOING TO SIT AND LISTEN TO THE SAME EMPTY PROMISES. WE MUST START THIS ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY.
THE FINE IS A MUST GOING FORWARD. IT WILL CREATE REVENUE. THE PAST PRACTICE OF THE POLICE GIVING WARNINGS IS AN EXPENSE TO OUR PUBLIC HEALTH, AND A WASTE OF RESOURCES AND TAX DOLLARS.
The police think this is a low priority; and the crime of disturbing the peace probably would be in normal circumstances, but we are in a dire situation in our community. The residents continue to suffer down here, our cries for help have been falling upon deaf ears.
Please show us why we voted for you!!!!!
Constituents should be able to track the dates and times of the fines giving to violators in our community, we have to set a program up that lets us confirm and track that a fine was issued for a violation at a specific address and time, this should include the violators information. We need a program set up as soon as possible to establish any type of trust from our officials.
Maybe the Mayor’s hotline can provide this information for a caller. If I were to call the police or hotline on April 08, 2012 at 2am to complain about a certain address; I could call the hotline 24 hours later and give them my confirmation number. Then, they could then give me the information (fine amount, person and addressed fined, repeat offender). This is hypothetical!
You have to put some type of program together where we can view the information. How about creating a city website?
Respectfully,
Richard Montemarano
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I agree with Mr. Richard Montemarano also I feel that the landlords need to informed their old and new tenants, in writing, what they have to do when moving in or out and the days our garbage is being picked up and where their dogs should not poop and they should pick up their dogs poop and not put it in the catch basins most of them do not even know what a catch basin is. If the landlords did this we would not have this mess every year at the end of August. The landlords should come and look at what a mess there is infront of their property when their tenants are moving in or out and see if they like what they see or may be they do not even care because most of them do not even live here. I love living in the North End, I choose to live here and I do not mind changes but not the changes that we are living with now.
Hope to see more new people at our meetings.
Marie ReRe Bamonte