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EDITORIAL
Op-Ed; Mayor loses face, Southie set adrift
THOMAS M. KEANE JR.

11/06/2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
041
(Copyright 2002)

A relieved Boston Mayor Thomas Menino learned Thursday that he won't be losing his Hyde Park home. But his victory in a lawsuit brought by an angry city councilor caps a sordid tale, one that still embarrasses his administration.

In March 1998, desperate to move ahead with plans for a $700 million convention center, Menino cut a little-noticed pact with three South Boston politicians. In exchange for their consent, he agreed to allow huge amounts of so-called "linkage" money to go to a new entity, the South Boston Betterment Trust. The Trust could not only spend the money as it saw fit, but also had authority to cut deals with future developers of the city's waterfront.

Two years later, after a firestorm of negative media coverage about the agreement, Menino reneged. Two of those who had pushed the deal - state Sen. Stephen Lynch and state Rep. Jack Hart (one now a U.S. congressman, the other now a state senator) - threatened to kill the convention center in retaliation. But they backed off, largely because they knew the wider political fallout could jeopardize their careers.

Not so with the third pol, seven-year City Council President (and one-time Menino pal) James Kelly. An anti-busing firebrand from the 1970s, he sued the city and Menino personally.

That's personally, as in: If I win, your house is mine.

Kelly lost last year in Superior Court. Last week, the state's highest court turned him down as well, saying the agreement was not a binding contract but rather just "a political document which expressed aspirational goals."

Menino, no longer facing homelessness, was jubilant. The decision, he reportedly said, showed the city acted "in good faith."

That's hardly the case. The Superior Court last year was clearly aghast at the city's behavior, saying it "would hardly qualify for the sportsmanship award." Even in 1998, when signing the deal, the mayor's representatives knew it wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. However, they were desperate to get the convention center built, even to the extent of making promises they knew they wouldn't keep.

But more than a story of betrayal, this is really a story of how both sides allowed short-term greed to subvert the public interest.

The heart of the problem was mitigation payments. In theory, such payments are intended to compensate a community for the adverse effect of a large project. Some are negotiated ad hoc Others, such as "linkage," are set up under state law; the fee a developer pays is based on project cost.

The false premise of these payments is that development is a bad thing that invariably imposes costs upon a community. Moreover, the effect is both to raise the cost of new projects and to discourage them. Neither result makes sense. Worse, lured by the prospects of mitigation, residents and community groups think less about making the best project and more about maximizing their revenue. Their real concerns are bought off.

That's certainly what happened in South Boston. Estimates figured the Betterment Trust could pull in between $60 million and $80 million. Visions of free health-club memberships and cheap housing were irresistible lures. Kelly in particular saw the money as a way to stem change in Southie; he envisioned using the funds to further isolate the neighborhood, keeping the benefits for its largely blue- collar, Irish-American residents.

And the city knew that. It promised that 51 percent of linkage monies could go to the trust (state law imposes a limit of 10 percent to 20 percent). It also essentially ceded authority to the trust to review new developments and extract even more financial compensation - authority the trust used aggressively. Decision- making became skewed. The trust pushed for new developments to go higher than the limit of 150 feet, because it would extract additional money.

And so the convention center and plans for the waterfront went forward. South Boston, in effect, sold itself out. Then, to compound the damage, it never got the money.

Four years later, where does that leave South Boston? No one knows. Kelly bleakly fears the neighborhood may simply become a playground for carousing conventioneers. The bitter lawsuit, with the always-faint prospect that a court might actually uphold the 1998 deal, made it difficult to think through the community's future. Issues from traffic to housing costs to Southie's relationship with the rest of the city are up in the air.

So, yes, Menino won. But the neighborhood, which let big payoffs replace good planning, is adrift. Someone - Menino, Kelly, or perhaps a new face - now needs to put the past behind. It's time to start thinking about how to set things right.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.

Caption: MENINO: Wins lawsuit but squanders credibility.