Update 9/13/22. After contacting the office of District 1 City Councilor Gabriela Coletta yesterday, we were mildly delighted to see most of the filth removed from underneath the overpass. Thank you Councilor Coletta for hearing us out. What’s striking, as we said earlier, is that no resident bothered to do something about the problem. Sometimes it pays to shame City Hall and sometimes you have to wonder about the residents!
EastBoston.com recently decided to undertake an experiment on city services and citizen engagement. We first noticed an ugly, dirty shopping chart with garbage overflowing and asked ourselves how long it would take for the city or citizens to act.
Did anyone take notice over the summer? We started our experiment on July 26 and as of September 10 we found the filth remained (Oh, but the shopping cart was gone! )
We kept an eye open for several weeks on the unsightly mess under the Sumner Callahan tunnel overpass bound by Visconti Road and Porter Street. And we came back on several occasions. There was no change.
No one seemed to notice? What’s become of East Boston lately?
This is a government failure at its worst. Moreover, where is all that talk about “civic engagement”; has everyone become indifferent — new and old residents alike? What’s disheartening is that no East Boston resident has raised hell about this mess and the city apparently could care less.
Before talking about adding more bike lanes and other grand ideas coming out of the corner office, maybe we should stick to basic city services.
This is a quality of life issue. Our public officials should be ashamed but they are probably obsessed with the ‘big picture’ thinking that does little except grow the size of city government.
Who will hold City Hall accountable?
