Thursday, January 10, 2013
The Waldo Area Study group present ideas and options for redeveloping the two garages in Coolidge Corner.
The town is looking to redevelop the Waldo and Durgin Garages in Coolidge Corner. The Waldo Area Study Committee presented several options to the Board of Selectmen at Tuesday evening’s meeting. “There are used to be signs that said retail stores that are empty on Pleasant Street,” Kara Brewton, Planning and Community Development Acting Director Kara Brewton said. “There were plenty of signs that said ‘Retail Store For Rent’, but when you called, no one would answer. There was significantly more graffiti, which has since been removed, trees growing in the sidewalks, large cracks in plate glass on the public sidewalks.” At one point, a decorative urn-shaped object fell off the building and almost struck a pedestrian. “At this point, we …
Friday, January 4, 2013
Selectwoman Jesse Mermell is joining the Patrick/Murray administration on January 14
Brookline Selectwoman Jesse Mermell is joining the Patrick/Murray administration as the Governor’s Communication Director. Mermell announced her new position in a press release on Friday afternoon. Mermell said that she will be stepping down from the Board of Selectmen effective January 14 in order to perform her duties as Communications Director without any conflict of interest. “It has been a joy and a privilege to be a member of the Brookline Board of Selectmen for nearly six years,” Mermell said. “From maintaining the Town’s Aaa bond rating and achieving Green Communities status in Massachusetts, to bringing Hubway to Brookline and updating the Town’s Climate Action Plan for the first time in a decade, I feel a great sense of …
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Brookline officials reported to the Selectmen at last night's meeting.
Yesterday's hurricane pounded the town with winds, left hundreds without power and brought a number of tree limbs to the ground--it even caused a transformer explosion. Emergency operatives were working from early morning until late at night, and town workers are still working around the clock. Brookline's various departments were prepared, officials told the Board of Selectmen at last night's meeting. Police Chief Daniel O'Leary said that the town's emergency operations center was open from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., and brought together personnel from the Brookline Fire Department, Police Department and Department of Public Works to monitor and respond to the situation. "These are the times when inter-deptartmental communication works to …
42.3334
-71.12018
Brookline Town Hall
333 Washington St, Brookline, MA
/articles/brookline-officials-talk-hurricane-sandy-response
192654
/locations/8084387
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Heath School is tracking to re-open in a matter of weeks, with another change to the amount of auditorium seating: an increase.
The freshly-renovated Heath School should be ready to open in a matter of weeks--a decision which came the day before this school year started. Project Manager for the Heath School project, Ray Masak explained to the Selectmen at last night's meeting that the Heath School should re-open by mid-October-- and that seating in the auditorium is going up from the planned 191 seats which had concerned parents earlier in the year. Some Heath School parents considered raising $1.8 million privately to cover the cost of rebuilding the auditorium to get back to, or exceed, the original 225 seat capacity. This seating decrease was caused by a decision to use spring-free chairs in the auditorium. The chairs would fold, but would not fold up …
42.328381
-71.147904
Heath Elementary School
100 Eliot St, Chestnut Hill, MA
/articles/heath-school-auditorium-seating-is-back-school-re-opens-soon
193012
/locations/7929319
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Board of Selectmen plans to file a warrant article which could get the town a few more liquor licenses.
Officials are hoping to order another round of liquor licenses for Brookline. A warrant article the Board of Selectmen plans to file for Fall Town Meeting would petition Mass. Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC) for up to 11 additional liquor licenses. The Board discussed this proposed article at their Aug. 21 meeting. Said Selectman Ken Goldstein, "We are at a critical place with our licenses: we’re somewhere between zero and one licenses." Earlier this year, the Selectmen (conditionally) approved the final few liquor licenses--with some confusion over how many licenses remain when Taberna de Haro, KooKoo Cafe and M.J. Ready applied for licenses. The proposed warrant article sets a handful of licenses for specific areas in …
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
In a 4-1 vote, the policy and technology were approved. The system will be subject to the CIMS Camera Oversight Committee.
Brookline's Police Department is getting an automated license plate reader (ALPR), and a civilian committee will be watching the watchmen. The Board of Selectment voted last night, 4 to 1 in favor of the ALPR technology and of the policy Police Chief Daniel O'Leary has been crafting since the discussion began last year. In a separate, unanimous vote, the Board also set the CIMS Camera Oversight Committee in charge of overseeing the use of these readers. An ALPR system uses three cameras mounted on a police cruiser, which read license plates on passing vehicles and uses optical character recognition to compare that license plate with a "hot list" of vehicles for which police may be looking. The technology has a number of uses ranging from …
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Last summer's automated license plate reader (ALPR) discussion returns with an updated policy, Selectmen still not quite ready to bring the technology to town.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Last summer's automated license plate reader (ALPR) discussion returns with an updated policy, Selectmen still not quite ready to bring the technology to town.
Despite concerns about the technology, the Brookline Police Department still hopes to add one automated license plate reading device to a police cruiser. The Board of Selectmen last night discussed an updated policy surrounding the use of automated license plate readers (ALPR) to technology, and ultimately decided to hold the debate until a later meeting. Police Chief Daniel O'Leary said that he worked with Town Counsel Patricia Correa to look at the policy first proposed last year, and work with recommendations from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and residents to create a more palatable policy. "We did an almost complete rewrite," O'Leary explained. One change O'Leary noted was bringing the data retention policy from the …
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Board of Selectmen approve a $7000 addition to the Library's fiscal 2013 budget for Sunday hours in July--if it passes Advisory Committee and Town Meeting.
Sundays at Brookline libraries get a step closer to reality--for the month of July, at least. During a discussion of warrant articles at last night's Board of Selectmen's meeting, the Selectmen faced an addition to the fiscal 2013 budget which worried Town Administrator Mel Kleckner: An addition to the Library budget for summer Sunday hours. A decision which they supported, but not without debate. "We’re worried about the future. The margin is very slim, and we have a significant increasing in the school population coming," Kleckner said, saying he thinks the town needs to be conservative with the budget. The amount in question, $7,000, covers staff who would work at the library on Sundays in July for a pilot program. "We could find this…
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Hubway bike sharing network that already runs through much of Boston, is expected to extend to Brookline by early summer.
More cyclists from Brookline may soon be heading out to Somerville, Cambridge, and parts of Boston, as the Hubway bike sharing system comes to Brookline. The Board of Selectmen voted approval of a contract with Alta Bikeshare, the company that runs the New Balance Hubway bike network which launched last year. The system allows users to rent bikes from standing stations, ride them, and return them to any of the Hubway stations in the network. The contract has been approved pending final review from Town Counsel. As it will take up to 16 weeks to order the bikes and stations for the town, it is expected to hit Brookline until the early summer, a memo from Planning and Community Development Director Jeff Levine noted. Levine went on to …
MoonBeamWatcher
11:04 pm on Friday, January 4, 2013
One less Carpetbagger in Brookline. more ›