Dorchester Reporter “The News and Values Around the Neighborhood” Volume 29 Issue 49 Thursday, December 6, 2012 50¢ T plans to place 52 new cameras at JFK/UMass station By Gintautas Dumcius a live video feed to MBTA news eDitor police, was placed at the Fifty-two new security cam- station after complaints of eras will be installed around purse snatchings and stolen the JFK/UMass MBTA station cell phones. next year, the transit agency Superintendent-in-chief said this week. The company Joseph O’Connor said the started soliciting bids for a indecent assault was an “iso- contractor for the installation lated incident” and the only of the cameras at JFK/UMass such assault at the station in and other stations last week, 2012. “One, to us, is too many days after a woman reported but we will continue to work an indecent assault in the with the community to try to Sydney Street area. solve any issues that do arise,” The woman, a Univer- he said. sity of Massachusetts Boston The overall number of inci- Sandra Cotterell, CEO of the Codman Square Health Center, left and Meg Campbell, executive student, told police she was dents inside the station and director of the Codman Academy Charter Public School, outside the newly-opened William J. groped on her way to the around it is at ten, as of Oct. Walczak Education and Health Center on Epping Street. The $18 million expansion provides Sydney Street entrance. 2012, down from twenty in four floors of new space for both the school and the health center. Photo by Bill Forry After the report, the MBTA 2011, according to data avail- placed the “Sky Tower,” a able on the MBTA Transit platform that can reach 30 Police’s website. There were Walczak wing adds capacity, feet high, with a camera fifteen reported robberies in attached, at the station. Last 2011, and six in 2012. Four sex promise at Codman Center year, the tower, which sends (Continued on page 5) By Bill Forry the return to action of the facility and a shared triumph. manaGinG eDitor only other living Bostonian The two lower floors are Timetable for school It’s a brand new four-story who gets his name on big new largely the preserve of the building with a strikingly buildings these days – Mayor Codman Academy Charter familiar name. Thomas Menino – but the Public School, a 145-student choice revamp put The William J. Walczak building itself has been in high school that was spawned Education and Health Center partial use since September by the health center 12 years — named for the founder of and is due to be fully up and ago. The top floors of the Wal- back to January the Codman Square Health running by year’s end. czak wing are now coming into By Gintautas Dumcius the end of the year, and before Center— is open for business The 34,000-square-foot ad- full use by the health center news eDitor last week, the committee had – and classes. An official grand dition to the existing Codman itself, which is relocating exam Mayor Thomas Menino has been aiming for Dec. 14. opening is on hold pending Square campus is a shared (Continued on page 17) signed off on a schedule shift Coleman, the dean of Bos- for the group he has charged ton University’s School of with radically revamping Education, said experts from US banking honcho credits MAHA Boston’s student assign- Harvard University and the ment system. The 27-member Massachusetts Institute of Hails group group, known as the External Technology will work with Advisory Committee, will now school officials on more ad- on assists to have until January to come vanced analyses than they’ve up with a proposal to present been able to provide to date. homeowners to Superintendent Carol For example, Coleman said, Johnson. if the city goes to a six-zone By Gintautas Dumcius Hardin Coleman, the com- model, they will be able to news eDitor mittee co-chair, said the simulate the consequences of Twenty-three years ago, schedule delay, which was such a model and its impact BayBank applied to the announced by the mayor last on students’ access to quality state to expand into Allston Thursday, will allow his group schools. “We’ll be able to see near the Boston University to make a “data-driven” deci- who is going where and why, campus. But the company sion. Originally, a proposal and make adjustments to the quickly ran into a problem with US Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, left, with was expected to emerge before (Continued on page 11) regulators, who noted that former Sovereign Bank vice president Thomas Kennedy, the bank was not expanding Bonita M. Irving, district community affairs officer for the into low-to-moderate income Comptroller of the Currency, and Andrew Calamare, a former INSIDE communities like Dorchester state banking commissioner. Photo by Ed Forry and Mattapan. As a result, BayBank’s application was ally swallowed up by Bank of ship education group since Ideas about how to re- denied, under the Community America. 1987. “Roxbury, Dorchester use the former Matta- Reinvestment Act. “A lot of the Bank of America and Mattapan had been The move set a precedent branches you see are part of underserved and it was the pan Library building and forced BayBank to open that expansion” from 23 years first reversal of that trend.” on Hazelton Street five branches and 25 ATMs in ago, says Tom Callahan, who Callahan credits Thomas were laid out at the the neighborhoods, including is executive director of the Curry, then a deputy commis- the first one in Mattapan. Massachusetts Affordable sioner at the state Division of new library on Tues- It later merged with Fleet Housing Alliance and has Banks, as one of the regulators day night. Page 5. All contents copyright © 2012 Boston Bank, and both were eventu- been with the homeowner- (Continued on page 4) Neighborhood News, Inc. Your bank is headed in a new direction. Maybe it’s time you headed for the exits. If you’re looking to simplify part of your life, say goodbye to banks with complicated fee structures and impersonal service, and hello to Meetinghouse Bank. We’re the only community bank in the area, and we plan to keep banking simple and stress free. Call or stop by today. Member FDIC 2250 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester, MA 02124 Member SIF 617-298-2250 · www.meetinghousebank.com MB Exit Ad 10x2 4c.indd 1 12/2/11 10:03 AM Page 2 THE REPORTER December 6, 2012 Reporter’s Notebook On The Record How the fiscal cliff looks Dinner with the Chancellor from one man’s rehab bed By Gintautas Dumcius the letter out on his iPad in between news eDitor episodes of “Ellen” or, more likely, Was the 2012 election just a grind- several staffers attempting to channel ing interlude? Will Rogers, the intended recipient Gov. Deval Patrick, Mayor did not appear to be either Obama Thomas Menino and local politi- or Boehner. cians and policymakers turned their Along with the frequent press collective gaze this week to the releases, it was aimed at a public so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations in that is reading near-daily write-ups Washington as next year’s budget of the mayor’s long hospital stay and lurked in the background. noticing his absence from community In D.C., familiar players dominated events, large and small, from the the headlines as President Obama local Christmas tree lightings in the neighborhoods to a postponed speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. But not all 2013 questions are related to whether there’ll be an open seat in City Hall: The budget for fiscal year 2014, which starts next year, is as worthy a topic as the possibility of that opening. The Boston Municipal Research Bureau, which watchdogs city govern- UMass Boston Chancellor J. Keith Motley held a dinner with the Dorchester ment, noted in its newsletter last community on November 26, as part of his initiative to reach out to neigh- week that early projections show a borhoods. Pictured are (from left to right) Andrew Wilbur, president of the $28.4 million shortfall, with Boston Dorchester Board of Trade; Dynell Andrews-Blake, executive director of Four Public Schools (BPS) and salary Corners Main Streets; Chancellor Motley; Evelyn Darling, executive director of raises as the main culprits behind Fields Corner Main Streets; and Andrew Davis, president of Carney Hospital. the possible deficit. BPS spending is Photo courtesy UMass Boston Mayoral patient offers advice. expected to increase by $63 million, WCVB/Channel 5 photo with a new busing contract likely to cost $18 million. All Saints Church choir to perform and House Speaker John Boehner “The mayor will submit a balanced offered and counter-offered. Massive budget to the City Council on April ‘Lessons & Carols’ on Sun., Dec. 16, at 4 p.m. spending cuts and tax increases in the 10, 2013, but this first look indicates The Parish of All Saints, Ashmont invites the public to its Service of Nine area of $500 billion are set to go into that next year will be more fiscally Lessons & Carol sung by the Choir of Men & Boys on Sun., Dec. 16 at 4 p.m. effect at the start of 2013 if lawmakers challenging than the prior two years,” Readings and carols for the season will be performed, including choral works don’t reach an agreement this month. the newsletter notes. by Cleobury, Darke, des Prez, Dove, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Sandström, Obama and Boehner are getting Meredith Weenick, the city’s chief Tavener, Whitacre, and Willan.