In anticipation of his re-election bid in November, City Council President Ross met with a small number of his Back Bay constituents on Thursday to hear their concerns and discuss several new city initiatives.
Ross was elected as the District 8 city councilor at age 27 in 1999 and was named City Council president this year. Before joining the council, Ross helped design the City of Boston’s Web site in 1994.
As chair of the Special Committee on the Boston Common, Ross is committed to revitalizing the park and bringing new activity to the area. “It’s America’s oldest park, and I think it’s starting to show its wear,” he said.
Ross also discussed plans to bring a senior center to the Boston Public Library at Copley Square, adding that the Back Bay has the highest number of elderly shut-ins of any neighborhood in his district.
Another initiative led by Ross aims to make two city blocks “green” - from Newbury Street and Commonwealth Avenue and from Dartmouth to Exeter streets. The city will provide consults and other resources to business and property owners on these blocks to help achieve this goal.
“Through the [Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay], I also plan to meet with condo associations to help them save money on their bills, and that’s really exciting,” Ross said.
Ross added he hoped the Back Bay would become a model for other neighborhoods, citing Dr. Burt Jaffe, a member of the Trinity Building condominium association, who introduced green practices that helped save $100,000 in bills over the course of a year, as his inspiration for the initiative.
Also, Ross supported Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s plan to create bicycle lanes on both sides of Commonwealth Avenue as part of a citywide network for bicyclists.
On the topic of Boston public schools, Ross said he was encouraged that more parents were opting to send their children to city schools.
“Our schools have been getting better and better,” Ross said. “Now, you have parents in the Back Bay, Beacon Hill and the South End sending their kids to public schools. It’s no longer a last resort for parents who can’t afford to send their children to private schools,”
In response to a constituent’s question regarding term limits for the mayor, Ross said he supported such restrictions.
“The mayor would have to work with the City Council and have eight to 12 years to prove himself,” Ross said. “If someone wants to prove himself in a limited amount of time, he’ll do it.”

Despite the recent closing of an outdoor restaurant - BiNa on the Common - after less than two months in business, members of the Special Committee on the Boston Common remain committed to finding a new use for the abandoned building at the park known as the “pink palace”.
“I would like to see the space reclaimed and used as a dog park, a coffee shop, a coffee shop, a restaurant or a home for a nonprofit,” said City Council Mike Ross, who chairs the committee that also includes city councilors Sal LaMattina and Bill Linehan. “It’s a sad part of the Common calling out for activity and life.”
Last month, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department issued a formal Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) for the pink place, a 660-square-foot, octagonal-shaped building located between the Common’s athletic courts, tennis courts and the Parkman Bandstand. The total cost of renovations to the building, which was built in the 1920s and served as a “men’s comfort station” until the 1970s, is estimated at approximately $1 million.
“I think if you put a nice outdoor restaurant in there, it would work,” LaMattin said. “I envision a place like the Franklin Café in South Boston.”
LaMattina added the Parks Department could better accommodate would-be tenants by allowing them to serve beer and wine and by loosening lease restrictions that mandate the use of certain umbrellas and pushcart tops, leaving them largely indistinguishable from other vendors on the Common.
BiNA on the Common proprietor Babek Bina echoed LaMattina’s sentiments, citing the lack of beer and wine and lease restrictions as among the reasons the business ultimately closed, along with a late start in the season.
“There’s certainly a lot of potential for extended food service on the Common,” Bina said. “I think a greater discussion that considers allowing beer and wine licensing to help offset costs, providing businesses with permanent structures to work out of… and giving vendors the liberty to market and promote their brand (i.e. logo, color scheme, etc,) will lend itself to more sustainable retail service on the Common.”
In July, Bina and his sister, Azita Bina-Seibel, owners of the Boston restaurants Lala Rokh, Bin 26 Enoteca and BiNa Osteria and gourmet food shop BiNa Alimentari, opened BiNa on the Common, across from the AMC Loews movie theater at the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets. The café served a full breakfast menu, including baked goods, granola and yogurt, juices and coffee, as well as lunch items, such as made-to-order hamburgers, grilled panini sandwiches, Italian specialties and non-alcoholic cocktails.
Bina told the Sun during BiNa on the Common’s opening that the restaurant would remain open into the fall, but he didn’t rule out another venture on the Common. “The Parks Department was great to work with, and we would certainly consider partnering together again in the future,” Bina said.
And in spite of its closing, Ross said BiNa on the Common demonstrated there is interest in bringing an outdoor café and other new activity to the park.
“I credit Bina for his innovation and willingness to move the Common forward,” Ross said. “We learned there is an appetite for that, but more is required to bring a first-class dining experience to the Common.”

The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) recently announced the 2009 recipients of its community service awards.
Peter Sherin will be the recipient of the Paul Prindle Community Leadership Award, and William Young will receive the Mary Natale Citizenship Award.
The awards will be presented at the NABB annual meeting at the Algonquin Club, 217 Commonwealth Ave., tomorrow, Wednesday, September 16, at 6:30 p.m.
According to a NABB spokesperson, Sherin was selected for his diverse leadership in downtown Little League Baseball and as a past chair and longstanding board member of NABB. His current efforts include promoting improved and affordable transit systems throughout the metropolitan region.
Young, the senior preservation planner for the City of Boston’s Environment Department, has served for almost two decades as the primary contact and administrator for the Back Bay Architectural Commission (BBAC) and has a long history of providing services and leadership across a range of architectural issues that preserve the heritage of the historic Back Bay neighborhood while maintaining relevance to the infrastructure and technology of a 21st century city.

One year after the fall

It was one year ago this week that Lehman Brothers closed it doors, leading to the near collapse of the United States financial marketplace.
In the weeks that followed, Wall Street tanked, losing about $15 trillion in equities largely held in personal retirement accounts and stock portfolios.
Then came the collapse of AIG, of the housing market place and then the automobile industry. The rest is history.
President George W. Bush’s final legacy to the American people is the mess we’re trying to get out of one year later.
But Bush is largely forgotten and forgiven, to a large extent, because Americans have such short memories.
Now, it is President Barack Obama who is bearing the brunt of the bad economy as though it were his doing – as though his efforts to remake the US economy are misguided and the government contributions that have been made are wasteful or non-essential.
The stimulus saved what remained of the underpinnings of the economy. It stopped the kind of disruption that would have gone from bad to worse.
The stimulus also forced many richer nations of the world to offer stimuli of their own, lest the international economy face a total breakdown.
One year has passed.
Only the very well–to-do can secure loans from banks. Business loans to smaller companies are almost non-existent, and there is no job growth. And the housing market is operating, but at levels that existed more than eight years ago.
Here in Boston, we appear to have survived the worst of the economic collapse.
Many of our children graduating from college this year won’t find jobs, and many of us who have worked a lifetime will lose our jobs.
For many Bostonians, our job is the last thing we have.
Exit strategies are out the window.
It is a tough time, one year after the fall.