To the Editor,
If your wondering if the CPA money will be spent responsibly, just look at what the Town Council just approved. In a 7 to 2 vote on Tuesday October 25 they voted to spend $800,000 to take a home on Winter Street, across from the old police station. Why is the town buying this house? To extend a bicycle path!! Is this responsible use of taxpayer’s dollars? And that’s just the initial cost of the purchase. Now it needs to be torn down and turned in to a bike path. So this is the kind grossly irresponsible use of our money we can expect if the CPA passes.
So let’s talk a little about this house that is being bought. In 2004, when the Town desperately needed a Police Station, many of us favored a centrally located facility. If that plan was approved it would have meant buying that property by eminent domain to provide for additional parking.
Instead that Council voted to take a wrecking ball to the Browne School building, which was rented out to the Atrium School. The Atrium an excellent private school was paying the Watertown School Department over $200,000 annually and the rent went up every year according the Consumer Price Index. So the schools lost over $2.4 million since 2004 in monies that were being used to maintain our schools.
At the time, those of us with some foresight warned the Town Council that with the growth in residential construction in the West End, we’d soon need more classroom space. And guess what? We were right. The overcrowding of classrooms is happening at Cunniff, also in the West End. We could have made good use of the Browne School to elevate that problem.
So the Council would not buy that house for a REAL NEED, but it has now decided to purchase it to extend a bike path that a minority of people will use. Moreover, it’s not a need, it’s luxury; a luxury we can ill-afford.
Beyond the cost of the property, the cost to tear it down, the cost to build the bike path, we lose the tax revenue that the property generated.
Can we afford to put $2.2 million of our hard earned dollars in the hands of such irresponsible people? If the Council approved this insanity, we know they will rubber stamp every pin headed pet project the special interest laden CPA shadow government committee will propose! What’s next a Rickshaw Path ?
Vote No on Question #5 (the CPA) conveniently hidden on the back of your ballot and always worded in a way to confuse voters.
John DiMascio
Copeland Street
(Editor’s Note: the last letters about the Nov. 8 election will be run on Sunday Nov. 6, and must be submitted by Saturday, Nov. 5 at 5 p.m.)
Voted just now and surprised and disappointed to see that Question 5 was hidden on the bottom of the ballot without a summary explanation of, “a yes vote means…” and “a no vote means…” which leads to voter confusion. BEWARE: voting yes on 5 is a vote to increase your taxes for frivolous projects, just like this bike path. What’s next, repurposing a playground to build a dog park?
For goodness sake John, it was a different Town Council back in 2004. That’s twelve years ago. A lot of mistakes were made in the past. That doesn’t mean we have to continue to be shortsighted.
Okay, we get it. You hate bike paths, bike lanes, bike riders, kids who ride bikes, bike commuters. You hate anything to do with bikes. In general, you seem to hate everything that is not your idea.
Many, many people in Watertown ride bikes. Especially kids. But many now commute to work on their bikes and use them for errands. The numbers are growing and you can either see it as future minded or you can be lost in the past. People want transportation alternatives and every bike commuter is one less car clogging up Watertown roads. And one person getting more exercise and fresh air.
Folks in Arlington and Lexington opposed the Minuteman Bike Path and now almost everyone loves it–bikers, walkers, skate boarders, rollerbladers, folks in wheelchairs. The bike path, to contrary to the arguments of naysayers two decades ago, raised the home values of abutters. The Minuteman Bike Path is the most heavily utilized rail trail in the nation!
C’mon John, get your cranky keister on a bicycle. It really is as much fun as when you were a kid. You might even break out in a smile. You might get so happy you’ll write something positive on this post! That will be the day.
Bike paths are perfectly fine… so long as they don’t cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.
And the point is the Council historically has been a rubber stamp (with a few noted exceptions by individual Councilors) whatever pin headed idea comes down the line.
if they just flushed $800,000 of taxpayer money down the drain for this boondoggle, I can imagine what other insanity they will approve.
John, all good things have to be paid for. That’s how life works. You can’t have civic amenities without expenditures.
Bicycle paths are indeed civic amenities… And when we can afford such luxuries, I have no problem paying for them. But spending $800,000 for what will amount to maybe 20 to 50 feet of the path, is insane and a waste. I’m sure far less costly alternative was available.
Private property is to be taken for real public NEEDS, not luxuries, when reasonably alternatives can be found, for at most a 50 foot segment of bike path.
And besides, wasn’t the cops who wanted to move their station practically to Waltham, because the larger space let them have a gun range?