BRA still lying to the public and trying to evade transparency

I was in Brighton tonight for the long, hot BRA meeting about the Charles View apartments.

As the meeting started a Mr. Rourke from the BRA announced that someone wanted to video tape the meeting and that the rule was that the crowd would have to approve, and that if anyone didn't want the meeting to be videotaped than the videotaper couldn't record the meeting.

No one stood up to oppose, but there were some rumblings about this not being correct. People were looking to me for clarification so I asked Mr. Rourke if this was a public meeting and he responded that it was. I then announced that the law was very clear that anyone had the right to video tape the meeting, and that I had a bit of experience with the Open Meeting Law. Mr. Rourke acknowledged he knew I was familiar with the Open Meeting Law and the meeting proceeded.

After the meeting, the gentleman who was videotaping came up and thanked me for speaking out and then told me that Rourke told him before the meeting that he was NOT allowed to videotape the meeting.

WHEN IS CITY HALL GOING TO GET IT???? This is the people's business and we have the right to know and document what is going on.

I spoke later in the meeting about how people had the right to set the zoning code to what the neighbors and the community would like. If they are not happy with Harvard, they should get together and set the zoning to what they would like to see get built in their neighborhood.

I asked who was in favor of the proposal and who was against. I would say roughly a third of the people were for it, and about half against it, with many not committing.

I am so impressed with the Brighton community who slogs through these 2 to 3 hour meetings to try and build the community they want. I hope the City listens to them, or more importantly that they vote for me and we require Harvard to be a partner in the development of the area which responds properly to community input.