Pete Stidman

OFD scribe imagines presidential scenario

DORCHESTER REPORTER

It was a mini-skirt that first turned Douglas MacKinnon Republican, a stance that set him apart as a youth growing up in Dorchester, but it also lifted him up. It sparked an achievement-studded career working in communications for Senator Bob Dole, the Pentagon and the White House. More recently, he's settled down to twist the truth in the paperback market.

MacKinnon's latest novel, America's Last Days, plays like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to the average Massachusetts liberal. In the book, a secret right-wing Christian society with members in high positions is fed up with moral decay, leaky borders and PC liberals. Just as the polls show a Massachusetts Governor is about to take over the Oval Office, they hatch a plot to take over the government, outlaw abortion and clean up Hollywood. That fictional governor shares his hometown with the author.

DORCHESTER REPORTER

Polish-Americans are slowly trickling out of Dorchester's Polish Triangle, say members of the neighborhood. They are trading in or renting out their three-deckers and single-families for quieter, roomier layouts in the suburbs. The Polish-American Citizens Club (PACC) has been a little too quiet.

But on the Dorchester Avenue side of the triangle, opposite Boston Street and Columbia Road, a trio of Polish storefronts are doing better than ever. All of them are relatively new to the area, joining Polish-owned anchors DJ's Market and Boston Street Deli over on Boston Street in the last ten years or so. Even the Boston Street shops are doing well. With Polish still heard on the streets, four thriving markets and a new restaurant, one might think the triangle is as Polish as it ever was, but apparently the teeming customers come from out of town.

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

SOUTHWEST CORRIDOR—If you happened down Amory Street earlier this week you might have seen a few extra cyclists on the road, and they might have been lugging the tools of change in big bike trailers behind them.

That was the Bikes Not Bombs (BNB) crew heading from 59 Amory St. to their two new locations at the Brewery and Bartlett Square. If you don’t know BNB, they’ve taught over 1,600 kids how to ride bicycles safely and some percentage of those youths everything there is to know about pedal-powered vehicles. BNB also sends donated bikes to developing countries around the world.

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

BROOKSIDE—A noted but financially troubled Brookside business incubator—headquarters of multiple catering businesses and food factories—has been pulled back from the brink of insolvency with a city grant. Now, Nuestra Culinary Ventures (NCV) faces the challenge of plugging up its leaky finances.

“There’s definitely going to be some change to bring this place back to where it needs to be,” said director Ted Nypaver. “I strongly believe in the program. How do you make [it] fiscally work, that’s the question.”

Having lost over $700,000 over its four-and-a-half year history, NCV hired Nypaver to direct its own demise, which was to be finalized at the end of this year. But in the 11th hour—or more accurately Nov. 15—Mayor Thomas Menino announced a $75,000 grant from the Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) to fill what they called a $150,000 finding gap. A further $25,000 was donated by mega-developer Steve Samuels and Menino is asking others in the private sector to pony up a further $50,000.

DORCHESTER REPORTER/MATTAPAN REPORTER

Two completely renovated Fairmount Line commuter rail stations at Morton Street and Uphams Corner will host ribbon-cuttings early next year and design on a new station is already underway for Four Corners. But before the vision put forth by advocates as the "Indigo Line" comes to be, there are many more milestones to pass.

Now that Deval Patrick has won the State House, some say there is a possibility that the markers will slip by at faster pace. A goal of Patrick's "Moving Massachusetts Forward" policy paper, distributed during the campaign, is investing in subway and rail expansion. He also mentioned the Fairmount Line improvements at public speaking events as an example of good transportation, according to advocates, but hasn't said exactly when or how better service might be accomplished.

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

FOREST HILLS—Parking lots dotted with crack baggies and drunks lying in the shadow of a “hideous overpass…”

An extended Orange Line and a Southwest Corridor Park with fingers reaching south down Hyde Park Avenue and Washington Street, teeming with bikes and pedestrians in the revitalized core of Boston’s greenest neighborhood…

These are some of the more extreme before-and-after images painted by some of the 125 residents who piled into the Covenant Congregational Church for the first Forest Hills Improvement Initiative (FHII) meeting Oct. 21.

This and three other meetings organized by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) in coming months will help create a “community vision” that the BRA promises will guide development, transportation, streetscape improvements and help determine zoning for the area. The BRA has also said they would forward ideas about three specific T-owned parcels of land just south of Forest Hills Station, which the MBTA is hoping to sell. The MBTA would then use the information in its Request For Proposals to potential developers.

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

SOUTH ST.—Just after 3 p.m. on Aug. 30, agents from the FBI, the IRS and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) swarmed into Boston Envio De Valores, a money transfer service at 146A South St., and arrested its owners for money laundering, cocaine distributing and theft of government property.

Under the same sun, over 1,600 miles away in Bani, Dominican Republic (DR), ICE agents and the DR National Police raided Peravinter, an unlicensed money remittal business with alleged business and familial ties to Boston Envio. That search warrant and several others in Bani and Santo Domingo netted seven suspects.

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

Like pieces on a chessboard, acting Police Commissioner Albert Goslin and Superintendent Robert Dunford moved Boston Police Department (BPD) captains to new posts all over the city Aug. 28. At press time they began shifting lieutenants and sergeants. The changes are strategic, they say, but local City Councilor John Tobin is more interested in building relationships locally.

“I’m not happy about it,” said Tobin. “BPD continually tells us that they need community partners. That partnership should be a two-way street.”

In both Jamaica Plain’s Area E-13 and West Roxbury’s Area E-5, both part of Tobin’s District 6, captains were yanked just as they began hitting their stride, said Tobin. No changes were reported at area E-18, which includes the Forest Hills neighborhood.

BY PETE STIDMAN
GAZETTE STAFF

Members of the Southwest Corridor Community Farm (SWCCF) have apparently laid aside their gardening gloves to look into the bylaws of Boston Urban Gardeners (BUG). BUG owns the land the SCCF occupies on Lamartine Street along with over $400,000 in funds dedicated to urban gardening, but has been lax in re-distributing the land and funds since going defunct in 2000.

It appears SWCCF is hoping to use the bylaws to influence a leadership change at BUG.

A certified letter was sent last week from Wendy Stander, a member of the community farm, to Judith Lennett, clerk of BUG. Stander also sent a copy to the Gazette. In it, Stander asks Lennett to cause each of 19 applicants requesting membership in BUG to be “notified of his or her election to membership,” a phrase lifted directly from BUG’s bylaws. That number has since grown to 30 applicants and includes BUG founders, former members, around 10 SWCCF members and others from the gardening community.

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

FOREST HILLS—Fire decommissioned yet another string of JP businesses on the morning of Aug. 17, turning Forest Hills Dental at 3724 Washington St. into a charred wreckage and smoke-damaging four other storefronts. The cause of the fire, first reported at 1:51 a.m., is still unknown.

Area E-18 police reported that the Fire Investigation Unit stated to them, based on a preliminary investigation, that the fire may have been caused “by an electrical cord that was found wedged in between a door and frame somewhere in the building.”

But Scott Salman, spokesperson for the fire department, would not confirm that assessment.