Here’s a few reasons why Romney is wrong.
1. Vetoing public greenspace in downtown areas may not play well nationally. Everyone loves parks. Nixing playgrounds doesn’t seem very, oh how to put it, presidential.
2. Greenspace funding should not be tied to transportation funding anyway. It’s true that there’s only a finite amount of money in the budget, but to claim one thing doesn’t get funding specifically because of another thing, wholly unrelated in purpose, is asinine.
3. “Massachusetts taxpayers throughout the state should not be forced to pay for the build-out and development of parcels that will benefit predominantly residents of the city of Boston and select organizations that are capable of accessing private funds,” Romney wrote in a letter to the Legislature accompanying his veto Friday. “It is more appropriate to rely on the private sector and the City of Boston for additional costs.” This just doesn’t make sense. The state spends money on projects that are only used by specific geographic areas all the time. In addition to parks, any time the state spends money on a particular school, fire department equipment, or library, it is a case of Massachusetts taxpayers throughout the state forced to pay for items that will benefit predominantly residents of any particular town. This line of thinking is myopic, given that the state indeed helps all cities and towns in differing amounts all the time. Considering that 4 million people live in the Boston Metro area (Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk Counties), the Rose Kennedy Greenway will be available to more (or at least as many) people than nearly any other location-specific project the state encounters.
4. It’s an erosion of public trust, not dissimilar to the Silver Line being used to fulfil the promise of a subway line in the southern parts of Boston, a promise made years ago that is still unfulfilled. The public was promised that the park would replace the above ground artery, and this promise is yet another example of a broken promise by the state.
The conecpt of a Rose Kennedy Greenway is a great one, similar in concept to the Emerald Necklace. Romney is both wrong to veto the funding, and additionally vetoed the parks for the wrong reasons.
Did Romney have time to hold it until after July 31 and then kill it by vetoing after formal sessions end, or did he have to act on Friday?
Doesn’t the MTA control the disposition of these parcels? Perhaps they should be auctioned off ot the highest bidders. They need not be sold. They can be ground-leased for 99 years, or shorter, or longer, or in perpetuity.
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The MTA, along with the city of Boston, can determine the appropriate zoning uses beforehand.
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These parcels are an asset, in the financial sense of the word. Only in MA could they be turned into a liability requiring public financing.
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Only in MA.
uh, bshep…theoretically, all kinds of land and other assets of the state could be sold off … that doesn’t mean they should. If you’re going to seriously discuss other uses of the space, you might start from the premise that the planned parks have some value as such, and go from there.
Will — I don’t claim parks have no value. Parks have great value.
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But if the MTA controls/owns the land above the CAT, they have an obligation to the taxpayers to extract as many use fees as possible.
The taxpayers already “paid” to “purchase” this property, the MTA must seek a return on it.
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For example, let’s say a museum wishes to relocate onto the Greenway. If they change their minds and decide to locate somewhere else on private property, they would need to pay for that land.
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Why would locating onto the Greenway be any different?
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Shouldn’t the City of Boston pay for those parks? If they wanted a new park somewhere else in the city they’d have to purchase the land. Why is this any different?
But if the MTA controls/owns the land above the CAT, they have an obligation to the taxpayers to extract as many use fees as possible.
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They most certainly do not. They have an obligation to improve public good.
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Do we charge membership for libraries? Admission for public K-12 education? Do we extract maximum toll revenue for all roads in the Commonwealth? Only send fire trucks once the landowner has negotiated a contract for service?
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It is not the governments role to maximize profits. Why would the MTA, a government agency, be obligated to maximize revenue on that land?
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The public good can be served without charging use fees. In fact, government does best when it recognizes these situations. Public parks are a classic example of the entire community benefiting from free, open access.
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Given that the state does recognize these benefits, as evidenced by its financial support/ownership of police, fire, park, school, and other land, buildings, and services, why should this particular park be any different? I recommend you go to MA Conservation and Recreation and notice that the state supports these types of projects everywhere, including but not limited to the areas where millions of people have convenient access (ie Boston metro).
Stomv, I respectfully disagree with your applying the improvement of the public good onto the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. You’re flat wrong.
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State law requires a complex RFQ, RFP and public bid process by which state land is disposed. The MBTA, for example, owns a lot of land, but they just can’t give it away, even if they wanted to. They are required by law to go through a complex public process in order to dispose of asset at market value.
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Likewise the MTA. They are a semi-autonomous, self-financing agency which has no obligation to improve the public good, in general terms. Their job is own and operate the Mass Turnpike and other transportation assets. Nowhere does the Pike give away anything — services, land, easements — for the public good, as you define it. They, too, are subject to the same public asset disposition laws as the MBTA, MassPort and other state agencies.
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If the MTA were all about the public good, why, we’d pay no tolls! The MTA bids out and executes contracts with food and fuel service providers to operate the service plazas, collecting over $12,000,000 annually. They are legally obligated to “earn a return” on that property.
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How is the Greenway any different (if the MTA “owns” it)? Any why isn’t receiving an economic return on a fixed public asset “a public good?” It is a public good, just not the type you think should be allowed.
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Additionally, I’d like to see the MTA’s Big Dig bond covenants. I’d guess that the bondholders required the MTA to get every last buck out of the asset which is the Big Dig, including ground rent on the land above it.
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Certainly the legislature can override these regulations. But your statement that it “is not the government’s role to maximize profits” is inaccurate insofar as the disposition of MTA, or any public land is concerned (perhaps not maximum profit, but certainly fair market value or the highest bidder.) These public agencies cannot unilaterally decide what is in the public good.
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Perhaps the legislature has indeed voted to take another approach, I don’t know.
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We spend $15 billion on the “public good,” i.e., the Big Dig, and the land created above it is a bonus on which the MTA is obligated to seek economic rent.
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No land is free. If Boston wants a park, then it has to pay for the land (even if they take it by eminent domain.)
“It is not the government[‘]s role to maximize profits.”
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This is the beginning of knowledge with regard to public service.
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WF
“The destruction of value shall not be considered by the public sector when making decisions.”
The corollary should read:
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The destruction of financial value shall not be considered by the public sector when making decisions, except in the larger context of increasing public good.
when it decided to claim property for private development
I never liked the grand designs of the Greenway. Why make the whole strip a series of lawns and event destinations that could be empty a lot of the time, rather than just setting limits on development and seeing what happens? What’s so great about open space that it trumps all other uses? It sounds like what someone who doesn’t like cities would want for a city. And we have plenty of it already, all over Boston, in surprising and organic places.