October 30, 2006 City Council meeting notes

This was a lean agenda with very few highlights. Here are a few I find a bit interesting:

Charter Right #1. That when the City Manager's final recommended appropriation for the City Budget reflects any change from his original submission in amounts or in distribution of the same amount in response to votes taken at Finance Committee Budget Hearings, said changes shall be separately voted by roll call vote by the City Council prior to adoption of the budget including said changes. [Charter Right exercised by Councillor Decker on Order Number Thirty-two of October 16, 2006.]

This order was introduced by Ms. Decker at the previous Council meeting in the context of the then-unresolved dispute between CMAC and the Dance Complex. Though she'll claim this is "all about transparency in government" or words to that effect, what this is really about is Decker's refusal to accept decisions that were made with due deliberation by her colleagues during the last three annual budget hearings.

Order #23. Urge the MBTA to keep the "Lechmere" in Lechmere Station to signify the name's historic connection to the Revolutionary War and an early Cambridge settler and Loyalist, Richard Lechmere. Councillor Davis and Vice Mayor Toomey

I heartily agree with this order. Lechmere should not have its name banished by some new glitzy development. I'm also compelled to report that, at least according to the late, great Al Vellucci, the proper pronunciation of Lechmere should be "lek-murr" and not "leech-meer". If we want to embrace history, let's give it the full bear hug.

For those who missed it, Tom Palmer (Boston Globe) let this one slip through in his Oct. 23 article about the new T station planned for the North Point development: "When it opens in 2010, it will replace the Lechmere T station, operating on the Green Line across Monsignor O'Brien Highway, an outdated facility whose name is a legacy of a retail store that no longer exists." I contacted Tom with the following message that day:

"In fact, the name Lechmere predates just about everything in East Cambridge. Maps dating to 1759, when East Cambridge was really more of an island surrounded by marshes, show property owned by "Mrs. Mary Lechmere" that includes all of the area now associated with that name, including the site of the present-day Lechmere T stop. By the time of the Revolutionary War, the area was generally referred to as 'Lechmere's Point.' Reference: Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge - East Cambridge (revised edition, 1988), volume 1 of an excellent 5-volume set produced by the Cambridge Historical Commission."

The article was corrected in later editions. However, on Oct. 26, there were the following two letters in the Globe:

Lechmere in Cambridge: a brief history lesson October 26, 2006
In his Oct. 23 article "The train comes to NorthPoint" (Business) about the groundbreaking for the new Green Line station in East Cambridge to replace the current Lechmere station, Thomas C. Palmer Jr. writes that the Lechmere name "is a legacy of the neighborhood and a retail store that no longer exists."

While technically correct, the historical significance of the Lechmere name is much more important than Palmer's statement suggests. Substituting NorthPoint, a made-up name that has no historical basis, would be a real disservice to the neighborhood and the City of Cambridge.

East Cambridge, originally called Graves Neck after surveyor Thomas Graves, came into the possession of a wealthy Loyalist, Richard Lechmere, in the 1760s. It was known as Lechmere's Point during the American Revolution, and in the 19th century the city designated the intersection of the Monsignor O'Brien Highway and Cambridge Street as Lechmere Square. The present Lechmere Station was built in 1922, and Lechmere Sales, an early discount appliance retailer, appeared under that name in the 1930s.

During the Siege of Boston, the isolation of Lechmere's Point and its proximity to Boston made it an attractive place for British troops to land on the night of April 18, 1775, on the first leg of their journey to Lexington and Concord. Later, General Washington ordered the point fortified, and troops stationed there helped drive the British out of Boston in March 1776.

This marked the end of the involvement of Lechmere's Point in national events, but the name has survived in common use to the present day.
SUSAN E. MAYCOCK, Survey director Cambridge Historical Commission Cambridge

I HOPE the MBTA and the City of Cambridge won't let the developer paper over history by erasing Lechmere from the new T station's name.

Calling it Lechmere at NorthPoint is bad enough. If the developer really intends to "knit NorthPoint into the East Cambridge neighborhood," a good place to start would be leaving the Lechmere name alone.
ASTRID DODDS, Cambridge

Order #29. That the City Manager direct the Police Commissioner to comply with the City ordinance requiring a minimum of thirty foot patrol officers be assigned to neighborhoods where needed. Councillor Kelley and Councillor Simmons

It's true that there is a City ordinance that dates to 1989 and earlier that includes this requirement. However, this requirement also lies in the no-man's-land of the Plan E Charter since it clearly involves the management of City employees, i.e. police officers, and the City Council really can't say directly how any staff, including police officers, are to be managed. Furthermore, arbitrarily requiring a minimum staffing level at all times may be overly restrictive for the police commissioner and could lead to detrimental effects on public safety under some circumstances. It just doesn't seem prudent for elected officials to be dictating what constitutes adequate or appropriate staffing levels in the operation of a police department. That said, I believe the city manager and the police commissioner should take the spirit of this order to heart.