Word: menino
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...secret land deals that were divulged in 1997—felt like an invasion. Yet the University seemingly ignored community protestations when it bought a 91-acre swath from the cash-strapped Massachusetts Turnpike Authority last year. Harvard will need the good will of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino to gain zoning permissions for the Allston development. If the mayor feels that he has been marginalized throughout the planning process, Harvard will find itself in a weaker bargaining position as it tries to cut a deal...
...Harvard learned in the Agassiz neighborhood, the place to start is at the grassroots level. The best way for the University to influence Menino is by reaching out to his constituents. Fortunately, Harvard administrators seem to understand this message. The University is helping to foot the bill for a project aimed at building affordable housing for 50 Allston families. University planners have also instituted monthly meetings with Allston community members to hear how residents envision their neighborhood’s future...
...comment brought back memories of Menino’s previous spat with Harvard. When the University announced in 1997 that it had secretly purchased 52 acres in Allston as a safety valve to allow for further expansion, Menino furiously denounced Harvard for launching “a full-scale attack” on Boston, and doing so with “the highest level of arrogance seen in our city in many years.” In June, fearful of the popular (and populist) mayor turning up the rhetoric again, Alan Stone, Harvard’s vice president of government...
Whether Harvard’s strategy of buttering up Menino will ultimately prove successful is hard to say. Certainly, Summers seemed to recognize in his remarks last Thursday that the mayor drives a hard bargain, claiming that the housing development was a testimony to Menino’s “capacity to twist arms.” Nevertheless, Summers went on to explain exactly what it will take for Harvard and Boston to get along. The answer, it seems: money. As Summers put it, “It was once famously said that it takes a village to raise...
...candor in admitting as much—by, for example, donating $475,000 in July to fund summer programs for Boston school children. It may be bribery, but it also seems to be effective. Indeed, at the ceremony where Summers presented the city with that check, a somewhat mollified Menino said, “There will be some rough spots, but Larry and I are committed to moving forward.” Mission accomplished—for Harvard and for Boston...