City Council President Maureen Feeney has appointed City Councilor Michael Ross to chair both the Committee on Government Operations and the Special Committee of the Boston Common.
For the first committee, Ross will oversee the organization and structure of city government, including departmental fees and charges. All proposed ordinances and special laws affecting the structure, duties and responsibilities of city departments, agencies and commissions pass through the committee. The committee also reviews the city's policy regarding residency for city employees.
"This is perhaps the most active committees aside from Ways and Means," said Ross. "Any piece of local legislation, collective bargaining provisions and enforcement procedures will pass through the Committee on Government Operations."
Ross will coordinate and exercise oversight with respect to the Boston Retirement Board, City Clerk, Election Department, Execution of Courts, Graphic Arts Department, Health Benefits and Insurance Program, Human Resources Department, Law Department, Management Information Services, Medicare Payments, Office of the Mayor (except those components assigned to other committees), Pensions and Annuities, Purchasing Division, Residency Compliance Commission, and the Workers Compensation Program.
For the second committee, a new committee established by Ross, Councilor Sal LaMattina and Councilor Bill Linehan, Ross and the other three councilors will focus on promoting, protecting, and coordinating the Boston Common.
"Our aim will be how to make the Common work better for residents and visitors," said Ross. "We will take a look at current policies and see if they need to be tweaked for a more positive outcome."
Ross and the committee will be in charge with the evaluation of all programs, plans, commercial activity and private uses of the Common to ensure the long-term safety, viability and continued environmental and social health of the famed open space. The committee will exercise oversight over city departments conducting city business in connection with the Boston Common, including, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Office of Arts, Tourism and Special Events, the Boston Police Department and the Emergency Shelter Commission.
"There are a lot of issues to tackle but a response from a committee like this one is needed," said Ross.
Ross will also sit on the Committees of

The results are in. Bay state democrats want a woman to become the next commander in chief of the United States and republicans want their former governor.
Despite Clinton’s statewide victory in the Feb. 5 primary election, the registered voters of the city of Boston had differing views.
Sixty percent of democrats from Beacon Hill and Back Bay’s ward 5 voted for Barack Obama with Clinton getting 38 percent of the vote. About half of Ward 5 republicans checked the box beside McCain’s name, though Romney came in a close second.
The north end’s ward 3 voters had Clinton and McCain winning gold, leaving their top competitors in a distant, but not too distant second place.
For the entire city of Boston, Obama won 53 percent of the vote and Clinton 44 percent Senator McCain’s 46 percent was just enough to edge out Romney.
On the local level, Marie Turley and Joshua Dawson were elected to the second Suffolk district democratic state committee, which handles operational affairs for the Democratic Party statewide.
Ellen Rooney was re-elected as republican state committeewoman for the second Suffolk district.

Fences, alongside sidewalks and on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, serve as the Back Bay's lost and found department. Good neighbors pick up found objects and put them in highly visible places on the wrought-iron pickets and posts in hopes that they they will be reunited with their owners.

Having once been sent back to the drawing board by the city, Nextel again appeared before the Neighborhood Association’s architecture committee with revised plans for a series of roof antennas to be installed on Beacon Street.
The new plan, presented to the committee by Nextel representative Rick Sousa, calls for the installation of three antennas on the roof of Fisher College at 118 Beacon Street. That figure is significantly less than the 12 antennas that can sometimes make up an array, and the number was brought down based on concerns by residents, according to Sousa.
“I think we have a design that is mutually acceptable to Nextel and the neighborhood,” he said.
According to design mock ups, only one of the antennas will actually be visible from the street; that antenna will be painted a bronze color to help it blend in to the nearby brick chimney stack.
The antennas are meant to fill a gap in Nextel’s service area. “We have been looking to install in this area of the Back Bay for a number of years,” said Sousa, whoa added that Nextel felt the chosen site was “appropriate” given its location, as well as the fact that it is an institutional, rather than residential, building.
Sousa said that Nextel considered a number of options, including encasing the antennas in radio-transparent faux brick to give it the appearance of an actual chimney stack, an idea that did not appeal to the Back Bay Architectural Commission. Instead of hiding the antennas, the current plan calls from an anodized bronze color that will make them as inconspicuous as possible.
Nextel will go before the BBAC for a ruling on the plan on Wednesday at 4 p.m. In the meantime, the committee must decide whether to support or oppose the plans.
In other architecture committee news, Joe Holland of Holland Development presented plans for the redesign of the rear yard at 255 Marlborough Street. The design will completely overhaul the look and functionality of the rear, adding three parking spaces and removing a large ailanthus tree, which can be a problematic presence in rear allies due to an aggressive root structure that can damage building foundations and sewer systems.
In place of the ailanthus tree, Holland proposed the planting of two Japanese snowbell trees, recommended to him by an arborist, which would be significantly shorter than the current tree. The Japanese snowbell is known for its white flowers, and they are commonly found in New York’s central park.
Some members of the committee questioned whether trees could be planted that would be similar in height to the ailanthus, such as a ginkgo, and Holland said that he was open to consider any appropriate trees. The current ailanthus tree is about 45 feet tall, while the Japanese snowbells commonly grow to around 25 feet.
Because of the inclusion of the 3 18 ft. parking spaces, the threes and other proposed shrubbery would be further back from the rear of the building.

Invincibility
Let’s think about it. Before the Super Bowl, there was the belief held widely throughout this city and all around the state that the Patriots couldn’t lose to the Giants – or anyone for that matter. Their undefeated season, their leadership, their stars and their week-to-week winning team effort made them invincible. Given what happened over the weekend, the Patriots’ stunning loss and the Giants’ stunning win prove that even the best teams to take the field aren’t invincible.
It reminds us a bit of the story about the nuns preparing to board the Titanic when it was about to set sail for New York on its maiden voyage. Like the Patriots, the Titanic was believed to be a vessel that couldn’t sink. It was stronger even than the ocean, more powerful than anything Mother Nature could throw at it, according to its owners and builders.
The nuns, preparing to board the Titanic, walked up the gangway. They were about to step on board when they noticed a sign affixed to the podium where the ship’s agent was checking in those scheduled to sail.
“Even God couldn’t sink this ship,” was the message the nuns read. According to anecdotal information that has come down to us over the years about this moment, the nuns looked at one another, turned around, and descended the gangway.
They weren’t about to test their faith with a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable.
Invincibility, like inevitability, is the eternal enigma many of us deal with as we pass through our lives. That, and tragedy.
In Phillip Roth’s masterpiece “American Pastoral,” he writes: “The tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy – that is every man’s tragedy.”
None of us expected the Patriots to lose.
And so, the Patriots’ loss is about notions of invincibility and partly about tragedy.
The Patriots proved over the weekend in Arizona that they are not invincible. Their loss to the Giants came as a shocking surprise to all of us who believed we’d be celebrating a world championship on Tuesday with a parade.
Instead, all we got was a primary election.

The presidential primary
Super Tuesday has come and gone. Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama are running neck and neck for the Democratic nomination. Senator McCain and former Governor Mitt Romney are much further apart, and for Romney, it appears the end might be nearing; for McCain, a presidential run is almost at hand.
Truly gratifying is the heavy turnout throughout the nation for both Republican and Democratic candidates in all the primaries. There has been nothing like it in decades.
An America that has awakened is a powerful force. Millions upon millions coming out to vote Tuesday is about that force rising.
A united America has the force to rule the world. A united America cannot be nipped at by the other nations of the world the way they are complaining about us now.
A united America, certain in its democracy, is the world’s shining beacon of freedom.
Watch out, world. America is awakening. The disinterest in the system and in voting appears to have disappeared during this exciting primary cycle.
Super Tuesday was the rough equivalent of a religious experience for a democracy like ours. With so many millions casting a vote in this vast, multi-cultural empire, endorsing their candidates, and flocking to the polls peacefully endorsing democracy gives rise to the belief that the United States of America is, arguably, the greatest democracy in the world.