Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBSY, Boston's news
Speaker 1: radio home NCALL.
Speaker 2: I hope you have a great time off on. Tonight
Speaker 2: is my last night for the broadcast year, and I
Speaker 2: wish you and yours a very merry Christmas, Happy hon
Speaker 2: happy coons, and whatever you and your family celebrate. I
Speaker 2: hope it's a great twenty twenty five for you. It's
Speaker 2: been a pleasure working with you for the entirety of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four and we will meet again on the
Speaker 2: other side of the new year. Good evening, everybody, and
Speaker 2: welcome on in. I'm Dan Ray, the host of night Side,
Speaker 2: and I will be here all the way until midnight.
Speaker 2: We have a very special show for you tonight. We
Speaker 2: have topic coming up in the first hour that I
Speaker 2: think affects one hundred and seventy seven communities here in
Speaker 2: eastern Massachusetts. We've talked about it before, and that is
Speaker 2: the so called MBTA Communities Act, which the state is
Speaker 2: trying to dictate and override the zoning provisions in one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy seven community is going to be talking
Speaker 2: with Brendan Wilde of Marshfield. Voters in Marshfield this week
Speaker 2: restated this strong opposition to participating in this situation, this
Speaker 2: law that's being imposed upon them. If you are aware
Speaker 2: of it, stay with us. If you not, will explain it,
Speaker 2: and then you can tell us what you think of it,
Speaker 2: simple as that. Coming up at nine o'clock tonight, an
Speaker 2: extraordinary story about a local businessman who literally is putting
Speaker 2: his life on the line to protect his business and
Speaker 2: getting very little support from the city to which he
Speaker 2: pays a lot of property taxes, commercial property taxes. Will
Speaker 2: explain all of that. This is something that needs to
Speaker 2: be focused on. And then tonight, the last two hours
Speaker 2: of my broadcast year, we do our annual This will
Speaker 2: be the twelfth annual Night Side Charity Combine, in which
Speaker 2: we will introduce you to about twenty actually precisely twenty
Speaker 2: great charities of all stripes, of all sorts, big, small,
Speaker 2: well known, less well known, and they'll explain what their
Speaker 2: mission is and how they accomplish that mission, and perhaps
Speaker 2: what help you might be able to provide them, either
Speaker 2: as a volunteer if it particularly piqued your interest, or
Speaker 2: as someone who would like to contribute. As we move
Speaker 2: toward the end of the year, people like to make
Speaker 2: contributions to charities. There can be some tax benefit to
Speaker 2: most people who do that. If you idemis your tax
Speaker 2: deductions come April. You know what I'm talking about. So
Speaker 2: we'll get to all of that. It's really a full
Speaker 2: show tonight, and we're going to start it off by
Speaker 2: talking about the MBTA Communities Act. This was past back.
Speaker 2: I guess was think whether it's twenty twenty one or
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, it's been on the books for a while.
Speaker 2: It's met with a lot of resistance from communities, probably
Speaker 2: foremost in that fight. You have a Wakefield has been
Speaker 2: opposed to it for a long time, Shrewsbury, Milton, Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: and most importantly for us tonight, Marshfield with us as
Speaker 2: Brendan Wilde Brendan welcome back Tonight's side. Brendan was with
Speaker 2: us last spring. The community of Marshfield, a town meeting
Speaker 2: on April twenty second, chose not to adopt the MBTA
Speaker 2: Communities Act, but that didn't discourage the heads of the
Speaker 2: folks up on Beacon Hill and their minions and in
Speaker 2: the town of Marshfield, and they put it on the
Speaker 2: ballot this week. Brendan, it's been a long fight but
Speaker 2: you're still standing. How are you tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm doing very well, Dan, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 3: So it has been a long fight, and I just
Speaker 3: wanted to say it wasn't on the ballot, it was
Speaker 3: another town meeting. I don't know if this was the
Speaker 3: special town meeting and the April one was the annual
Speaker 3: or vice.
Speaker 2: Versa, but okay, okay, So either way, it was a
Speaker 2: vote of the citizenry.
Speaker 3: Yes, correct, okay, And.
Speaker 2: In both instances people had to show up at town
Speaker 2: hall or at a high school and cast their vote.
Speaker 2: So in April this was voted down two eighty nine
Speaker 2: to one sixty nine. It's a pretty good margin, not
Speaker 2: quite two to one. And then on Monday night it
Speaker 2: was shot down with greater numbers, shot down four eighteen
Speaker 2: to two twenty one.
Speaker 3: That's correct.
Speaker 2: Why are the leaders of Marshfield not happy or not
Speaker 2: satisfied to listen to how their their residents, their taxpayers,
Speaker 2: their voters are feel on this issue. What's going on?
Speaker 3: So, if my memory serves me correct, the April meeting
Speaker 3: was a special town meeting that they implemented knowing that
Speaker 3: if we didn't pass it in April, they would still
Speaker 3: have this annual town meeting in December. Wow, okay, so
Speaker 3: I kind of understand their strategy with that. The problem
Speaker 3: here is nothing changed on our end terms of how
Speaker 3: we would approach the bill. We were asked to show
Speaker 3: up a second time to vote for the exact, same
Speaker 3: identical thing. None of our concerns were addressed. So I
Speaker 3: think that's why the townspeople, you know, showed up and
Speaker 3: spoke again. This is we already told you once you're
Speaker 3: not going to get lucky with us doing our Christmas
Speaker 3: shopping on a Monday night. You know, the townspeople showed
Speaker 3: out and like you said, it was better the second
Speaker 3: time around.
Speaker 2: You folks in Marshfield. Also back in the spring, I
Speaker 2: think you have a three member board of Selectment and
Speaker 2: every third year or every year, one of those members
Speaker 2: are up for re election. And you ousted an incumbent.
Speaker 2: Your forces ousted an incumbent. So now you're going to
Speaker 2: probably have another election dealing with another incumbent who has
Speaker 2: been going against the wishes of the people in Marshfield
Speaker 2: next spring. Let's take a couple of steps back, and
Speaker 2: let's for people. There's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 2: understand what's going on here. So let's just try to
Speaker 2: explain this as best I understand it. There are one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy seven or so communities in eastern Massachusetts
Speaker 2: that either have MBTA service or their town is an
Speaker 2: abutted to a butter to a town that has MBTA
Speaker 2: service or is adjacent to the butter. So it covers
Speaker 2: most of eastern Massachusetts. And the nexus that they're trying
Speaker 2: to establish is because there's MBTA service, we want more
Speaker 2: people living in those towns. Is that the underlying theory
Speaker 2: of why they're pushing this, why Beacon Hill, Charlie Baker
Speaker 2: and now more Heay have been pushing this as strongly
Speaker 2: as they as they have, That is.
Speaker 3: How most of the citizens of the state and interpret it,
Speaker 3: I believe. So, okay, we can we can go off
Speaker 3: on a tangent on how the MBTA runs.
Speaker 2: They're they're doing as well as they can uh and
Speaker 2: and and their improvements being made in the m b
Speaker 2: t A. That's fine. But the point is that the
Speaker 2: zoning in a community as to what type of the
Speaker 2: community what it wants to be, whether it's a suburban
Speaker 2: community or an urban community or a rural community. That's
Speaker 2: what's called local zoning laws. Correct.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: So, for example, if you live in if you live
Speaker 2: in a rural community and you don't want a strip
Speaker 2: mall in your community, and you do not want commercial
Speaker 2: activity in your community, it has to get past the
Speaker 2: zoning laws of your town. Pretty simple. It's it's the
Speaker 2: most elementary purpose of a local community. Other than than that,
Speaker 2: I don't know what purpose a local community has to
Speaker 2: even form if they're not going to sort of maintain
Speaker 2: some sort of semblance of what the community is intended
Speaker 2: to be right or wrong.
Speaker 3: I can't disagree with that. Why bother having town government
Speaker 3: if you're not going to let us govern?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So my second question is, there's no suggestion
Speaker 2: that I have heard from anywhere, from anywhere, that any
Speaker 2: Massachusetts community has deprived any citizen of their constitutional right
Speaker 2: to live in a community. I mean, we're not talking
Speaker 2: about some sort of redlining from the nineteen sixties or
Speaker 2: seventies where people of different backgrounds couldn't get mortgages from
Speaker 2: certain banks in certain areas of communities. There's no constitutional provision.
Speaker 2: This is not a piece of civil rights legislation in
Speaker 2: any shape or form. That's as I understand that. If
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, please correct me.
Speaker 3: Now. I understand it as you do. I think it's
Speaker 3: a it's a screen for more housing and nothing more.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I mean, look, developers and politicians have good relationships.
Speaker 2: Developers support politicians, and sometimes developers need the ability to
Speaker 2: build more property. And there's a whole bunch of places
Speaker 2: where things can be built here in Massachusetts and elsewhere.
Speaker 2: I just see this as as such an overreach of
Speaker 2: state government imposing on local communities how those local communities
Speaker 2: will govern themselves. I wish I could see it somehow differently,
Speaker 2: but I just that's it's to me, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: the most obvious abuse of state authority that I can
Speaker 2: ever imagine, for no purpose, no purpose at all.
Speaker 3: I agree with you there, and I would also like
Speaker 3: to bring up I think one of one of the
Speaker 3: argument of argument arguments that their side has is adding
Speaker 3: housing will bring the cost of housing down. I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't see that happening. Look at cars on a
Speaker 3: car dealer shop, look at iPhones, the endless supply of
Speaker 3: these things. The price is the price, the cost to
Speaker 3: build a house, the costs for the lots those things
Speaker 3: aren't going down. So to just throw up a bunch
Speaker 3: of high rise apartments, it's not going to bring prices down, it.
Speaker 2: Might be question so here, So here's my question. If
Speaker 2: if you have bought a house in Marshfield that let's
Speaker 2: say you paid a half a million dollars for a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago. By infusing more housing into Marshfield,
Speaker 2: how can that not bring down the cost of housing?
Speaker 2: How can not that bring down the property value of
Speaker 2: the properties that are there now? Because obviously it becomes
Speaker 2: more common if if you've got a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: housing in a town like Marshfield. Isn't that basic? I think,
Speaker 2: supplying to me of economics.
Speaker 3: It is. But but you're talking about bringing the property
Speaker 3: value down. The property values will drop, but the affordability
Speaker 3: is what I'm talking about. Or a coastal community. Coastal
Speaker 3: communities cost more to live in than landlocked communities. There's
Speaker 3: there's lots of factors that play that. I'm not saying.
Speaker 3: I do think property values do plumit the more you
Speaker 3: saturated town with they do more, and the residents traffic,
Speaker 3: all those things. But but to to say that adding
Speaker 3: will will make everything affordable, that's that's where I hang
Speaker 3: my hat. I do not believe that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's going to make I think it's going to
Speaker 2: make the the value of whatever these are rental units
Speaker 2: or condominium units or whatever they are. You're going to
Speaker 2: have an infusion of people, which means you're going to
Speaker 2: have a more demand on your school system, there's going
Speaker 2: to be more demand on police activities. All it's going
Speaker 2: to do is increase the size, increase increase the density
Speaker 2: of the community. So a town like Marshfield, which I
Speaker 2: don't know if I would call it, I kind of
Speaker 2: call it ex suburban, meaning in which it's not your
Speaker 2: suburban town like Braintree or Milton just next to Boston,
Speaker 2: but it's far enough away so it's it's it's not suburban,
Speaker 2: but it's not rural. And that's why I use the
Speaker 2: term x suburban suburbia. You know, you're living far enough
Speaker 2: away from the city, may be working in the city, whatever,
Speaker 2: but you've chosen that lifestyle to live there. And I
Speaker 2: don't understand why anybody in Marshfield or in any one
Speaker 2: of these communities would vote in favor of this. The
Speaker 2: only reason that people are voting in favor of it
Speaker 2: is because the state has threatened to withhold grants, taxpayer
Speaker 2: funded grants to Marshfield. That's my belief.
Speaker 3: It's it's not a belief, it's the truth.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's pause on that. I want to talk
Speaker 2: about that. I want to talk about that, the threats
Speaker 2: that have been posed, that have been imposed on you
Speaker 2: and upon other communities, on all one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: seven communities, either comply with our dictate or we will
Speaker 2: penalize you. That's what Beacon Hill is saying. We'll be back.
Speaker 2: My guest from Marshfield is Brendan wild who has been
Speaker 2: standing firm in that community, as that community has stood
Speaker 2: firm against the NBTA Communities Act. Back on Nightside right
Speaker 2: after this. If you'd like to join us, the only
Speaker 2: lines we have open right now are six point seven, nine, three, one,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. We will get to all of our callers
Speaker 2: who are there, I promise, And if you're dialing now,
Speaker 2: and if you have a different point of view, feel
Speaker 2: free to join the conversation.
Speaker 1: Back on night Side now, back to Dan Ray live
Speaker 1: from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking with Brendan Wilde. He is a resident at
Speaker 2: Marshfield and he's opposed to the MVTA Communities Act. Brendan,
Speaker 2: what threats are. This is the state directing towards you.
Speaker 3: So, yes, I'm with you. It's been h grants, grants
Speaker 3: that are not already ear marked. These are grants that
Speaker 3: we may or may not get, but they're not they're
Speaker 3: not grants that we've already signed up for that we
Speaker 3: already have coming to them. So the point being whether
Speaker 3: or not we were going to get them is a mystery.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically they're threatening you that if they're saying,
Speaker 2: do this and you'll get the grants. If you don't
Speaker 2: do it, you won't get the grants. That's correct, And
Speaker 2: that's that those grants are funded not by Mara Healey
Speaker 2: or by Charlie Baker. They're funded by taxpayers people who
Speaker 2: live in Marshfield and in other cities and towns in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: It just to me is is an absolute abuse of
Speaker 2: authority to make you to force you to do something.
Speaker 2: You know, again, you're not doing anything illegal here. All
Speaker 2: they're saying is you're going to do it our way.
Speaker 2: We will impose our point of view on and the
Speaker 2: people in Marshfield are saying no. So I still under
Speaker 2: say why anyone in Marshall would vote yes for it.
Speaker 2: Let's do this, Let's get some phone calls. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go start it off, Brendan, if you're ready, Let's
Speaker 2: go to Kerry and Milton. Milton is also very much
Speaker 2: opposed to this. Carrie, welcome first is our night side.
Speaker 2: Thank you all with Brendan.
Speaker 4: Wild Hi Dan, Hi, Brendon, can you guys hear me?
Speaker 2: Okay here you find go right ahead?
Speaker 4: Okay, great. So to thein one of the things, as
Speaker 4: you said, which I agree one hundred percent, is this
Speaker 4: is government overreach, right, And Brendan said something which is
Speaker 4: totally my sentiment is if we have town by laws
Speaker 4: and planning boards and zoning you know sort of, what
Speaker 4: is the purpose if the big government on Beacon Hill
Speaker 4: is going to try to you know, bigfoot you and
Speaker 4: say yeah, well but this is what we expect. In
Speaker 4: my opinion, it is government overreach. And I think one
Speaker 4: thing end to me, which I thought was even more fantastic.
Speaker 4: His victory on Monday happened to be the two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty first anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. So
Speaker 4: I mean that was the resistance movement against government overreach,
Speaker 4: and I think in Marshfields and here milt In that
Speaker 4: has been our concerns if you know about some of
Speaker 4: this zoning. And as you rightly pointed out, Marshield is
Speaker 4: much further away from you know, these of the hub,
Speaker 4: meaning Boston, so it is not it is not urban
Speaker 4: at all, and it is like you said, it's kind
Speaker 4: of ex suburban if you will, if I got your
Speaker 4: word correctly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ex urbia is it is sort of a little
Speaker 2: it's kind of out there. It's a in a further ring,
Speaker 2: but it's where people have chosen to live and they
Speaker 2: like whatever the lifestyle is. I know Marshfield a little bit.
Speaker 2: They have some you know, commercial place places there where
Speaker 2: people can get lunch and get breakfast and dinners and
Speaker 2: all of that. But you know, they want Marshfield to
Speaker 2: be Marshfield and to infuse whatever How many units of
Speaker 2: housing would Marshfield be compelled to build if this were
Speaker 2: to have passed in Marshfield, Brendan, did they ever give
Speaker 2: you a specific number?
Speaker 3: They did? I don't have it right in front of me,
Speaker 3: but it was over a thousand some.
Speaker 4: Of the documents. I think it had been fifteen hundred.
Speaker 3: They said for Marshfield, what about meltit carry?
Speaker 2: What are they demanding for Milton? How much? How many units?
Speaker 4: It's more like two thousand of Milton.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, I'll tell you if I could just go ahead,
Speaker 2: could I.
Speaker 3: Just interject really quick? So the town Planning Board, I
Speaker 3: do want to give them credit, the town Planning Board.
Speaker 3: The spot that they put this in Marshfield wouldn't have
Speaker 3: allowed for the fifteen hundred that they wanted it would have.
Speaker 3: It would have only allowed for three hundred extra units. Whatever,
Speaker 3: whatever it was, it was a good spot to put
Speaker 3: it in. So we were really given the best possible
Speaker 3: option from our town planner. The no vote was a
Speaker 3: no vote to the state.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I will tell you this, if if you guys
Speaker 2: had voted yes on the three hundred, they're becoming at
Speaker 2: you a year from now, for another three hundred, and
Speaker 2: the year after that, for another three hundred, they just stop.
Speaker 2: They just stop. And anybody who thought, well, we fed
Speaker 2: the beast and they're going to be happy, No, they're not. No,
Speaker 2: They're they're not simple simple at Kerry Kerry, are you folks?
Speaker 2: In Milton. You you're still fighting.
Speaker 4: It too, right, We are, indeed, yes, if you know
Speaker 4: that States sued us to Originally, it was the last
Speaker 4: December that our elected town meeting, we have a representative
Speaker 4: town meeting who did not represent us very well. They
Speaker 4: hoped to accept the edicts from Beacon Hill to build this,
Speaker 4: you know, significant amount of housing in our town. And
Speaker 4: to the contrast to what Brendan just mentioned about the
Speaker 4: town planners of Marshfield, the place where they did suggest
Speaker 4: creating this overlay district, if they as they called it
Speaker 4: here in Milton, they might have called it the sam
Speaker 4: and Marshfield was already quite congested, but the thing Dan
Speaker 4: so many of us were very unhappy about that, and
Speaker 4: so we gathered pretty quickly in short order because we
Speaker 4: needed to do it pretty quickly, gather enough signatures to
Speaker 4: get a referendum ballot question, which we had on. It
Speaker 4: was this casual for February thirteenth, but a snowstorm like
Speaker 4: what seems to be happening right now pushed us out
Speaker 4: a day. So for me anyway, and many people have Milton,
Speaker 4: it was the best Valentine's Day gift ever because on
Speaker 4: February fourteenth, much more. A huge number of people turned
Speaker 4: out for our vote, many more than even a typical
Speaker 4: more than the town election, more than even a presidential
Speaker 4: election usually. So it was a big number. And I
Speaker 4: think the numbers in Marshfield showing the second vote for them,
Speaker 4: it said they did not forget about it. And even
Speaker 4: more people, it seems if you look at the ratio
Speaker 4: there came out for on Monday, on the anniversary as
Speaker 4: the tea party to say this, which great.
Speaker 2: Keep up the fight, Carrie and Milton, you got you
Speaker 2: have an example here in Marshfield. They're holding strong. Thanks Gerry,
Speaker 2: appreciate you called Mary.
Speaker 4: Thanks Merry Christmas. Everybody, all right, have a great night.
Speaker 2: Good night. We take a quick break. Here's the news
Speaker 2: in the bottom of the hour. Back with my guests
Speaker 2: Brendan Wilde, a town resident in Marshfield who is very
Speaker 2: much involved in the fight against the implementation of the
Speaker 2: forceful implementation of the MBTA Communities Act, with Ray on.
Speaker 1: Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to the phones. My guest is Brendan
Speaker 2: wild He's from Marshfield. I just don't understand. I know
Speaker 2: that people say there's a housing shortage. I get it.
Speaker 2: But there's more people leaving Massachusetts now that are coming in.
Speaker 2: So it seems to me that that housing shortage might
Speaker 2: be disappearing as a result of again the crazy tax
Speaker 2: policies in this state. Let's go to Bob and Wakefield. Bob,
Speaker 2: welcome next to Nightside. I know Wakefield. He says, good, Bob,
Speaker 2: how you doing. Say ahead to Brendan White.
Speaker 3: Hey, Brendan, congratulations, good for you. It's a big fight
Speaker 3: out there. But this is actually ridiculous. Just a little
Speaker 3: update on where this thing came from. Dan. This was
Speaker 3: a Charlie Baker's Economic Economic Development Bill h fifty two fifty.
Speaker 3: It came up for a vote January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: in the closing hours of the twenty nineteen twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two legislation session. The bill passed the House one hundred
Speaker 3: and forty three to four at four am in the morning,
Speaker 3: and cleared the Senate forty to zero at four fifteen.
Speaker 3: They did this thing in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: Right at the tail end, this bill was buried. It
Speaker 3: was literally this little this little show was buried in
Speaker 3: a two hundred page bill. It was just three paragraphs
Speaker 3: and this was all done in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: So we've been fighting this in Wakefield, you know, and
Speaker 3: it's absolutely insane. So going just a little little update
Speaker 3: in Wakefield. At the Springtown meeting group of us, we
Speaker 3: actually put uh, we opposed this this sole side show
Speaker 3: that was put together by the Planning Board, which which
Speaker 3: was for some reason or other, was actually in favor
Speaker 3: of this, uh for our town, which is ridiculous. But anyway,
Speaker 3: we won by twenty three votes dowd. It was two
Speaker 3: thirty to two hundred and seventy excuse me, two hundred
Speaker 3: and seven. Uh. And it wasn't good enough of the town.
Speaker 3: So the Selectman which is now town which is now
Speaker 3: called the now town Council, they weren't happy, uh, And
Speaker 3: so they brought it back in the fall, and they
Speaker 3: stacked the town meeting and they in the town meeting.
Speaker 3: By the way, it was eight o'clock on a Saturday morning,
Speaker 3: that's what they did. And believe it or not, they
Speaker 3: had all their buddies in there, and uh, we lost it.
Speaker 3: It was three oh nine to two four, So five
Speaker 3: hundred people showed up at eight o'clock in the morning
Speaker 3: on a Saturday for this thing. Or because they couldn't
Speaker 3: They just couldn't handle you know, you know, us winning
Speaker 3: this thing.
Speaker 2: And tell me what that comes down to. It shows
Speaker 2: that democracy is a farce in your town. It would
Speaker 2: be as if a hypothetically, let's assume that the Democrats
Speaker 2: on November fifth said we don't like the result of
Speaker 2: the the election of Donald Trump on November fifth, We're
Speaker 2: going to rerun the presidential election on December eleventh. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that and that time Kamal Harris wins. There, see,
Speaker 2: we want it so now, I mean this is you
Speaker 2: have a vote, and you live or you die with
Speaker 2: the vote. You don't keep just bringing it back, you know,
Speaker 2: in another form or another version to slam it through
Speaker 2: a town. I hope that you guys in Wakefield get
Speaker 2: together and straighten out your town government.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to have to bring it back again
Speaker 3: because I don't want one square inch of our town
Speaker 3: to be controlled by the state. There's there's they have
Speaker 3: absolutely no no, there is absolutely nothing that that we're
Speaker 3: going to get out of this whole thing. It's an
Speaker 3: unfunded mandate. Our school schools are screwed up, right, And
Speaker 3: I brought it up to town me. I told these guys,
Speaker 3: I don't know how how many ways they don't understand it.
Speaker 3: Our schools are completely full. We're going to have to
Speaker 3: build another elementary school or two. The they want to
Speaker 3: add another two thousand housing units in Wakefield. We've already
Speaker 3: got a thousand units that are under construction, permitted, or
Speaker 3: are currently currently going into occupancy. And this is absolutely insane.
Speaker 3: It's unsustainable. This is absolutely insane. But they're following a trend.
Speaker 3: Dam this is going across the entire country. Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: this is nothing new for Massachusetts. This is just this
Speaker 3: is they've they've screwed up the middle cities. Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: and now they want to Now now they're coming after
Speaker 3: the suburbs. They're actually they're going after the single family zoning.
Speaker 3: They they they absolutely are there there. It's an attack
Speaker 3: on the single family's owning. That's exactly what this is.
Speaker 2: Well, there's there's also interest here. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the developers, builders and.
Speaker 3: All of them were tell me about it, you know, Uh.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean that's you know, follow the money, follow
Speaker 2: the money.
Speaker 3: I did. I did. Bankers and tradesmen. Uh they're they're
Speaker 3: they're they're the big guys. From Boston here and uh,
Speaker 3: and they were they they were giddy about this and
Speaker 3: I've got I don't have it right in front of
Speaker 3: my hands here, but yeah, they were really happy about
Speaker 3: I was quoted in that you know that they could
Speaker 3: build literally you could tear down a little single family
Speaker 3: house in one of these districts and you can you
Speaker 3: could build a three story building with parking on the
Speaker 3: first level and uh, two apartments on the second level,
Speaker 3: two apartments on the third level, and oh, by the way,
Speaker 3: and a rooftop deck. That's that it's baked into this thing,
Speaker 3: and you could, you know, and they were so happy
Speaker 3: with this thing, and you know, I've got it was
Speaker 3: absolutely insane.
Speaker 2: Well it'll change, it'll change communities forever, Bob, I got pat. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: when I say change, I mean ruin. I'm just I'm using,
Speaker 2: you know, a kind term. Thanks Bob, I got to
Speaker 2: keep running here. Okay, thank you. So we go to
Speaker 2: Brian in Shrewsbury. Brian, your next another community, Brian, go
Speaker 2: right ahead. Okay, I got Brian on two lines here.
Speaker 2: I think let me try Brian here. We had the
Speaker 2: same thing last night, Rob, Brian and Shrewsbury Brian, are
Speaker 2: you there?
Speaker 3: I am here, Okay, got you some.
Speaker 2: Reason you were showing up on two lines. Go ahead, Brian,
Speaker 2: You're next on nights.
Speaker 3: Compatriots of mine. We filed a referendum in Shrewsbury that
Speaker 3: similar to Milton, the town meeting members voted in a
Speaker 3: small town meeting, special town meeting. We really just hit
Speaker 3: the amount of people that needed to show up for
Speaker 3: a quorum, you know, they voted for this MBTA zone
Speaker 3: and we had a short amount of time in just
Speaker 3: like Milton, we got referendums Thanksgiving week we were out
Speaker 3: in the freezing cold in our town. We got eighteen
Speaker 3: hundred signatures which was enough to get certified and we
Speaker 3: have a referendum now on the ballot here in Shrewsbury.
Speaker 3: We did run into the select Board making sure to
Speaker 3: fast track that'll that that you know, referendum election as
Speaker 3: soon as possible, so we will have it in the
Speaker 3: beginning of February. February third, I think is the date.
Speaker 3: It's the first Tuesday in February.
Speaker 2: Can be posted on that and let's have you on
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ahead of time and talk about it.
Speaker 2: I still don't know anyone who can explain to me
Speaker 2: what the benefits are to towns like Milton, Wakefield, Shrewsbury.
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm just or Marshfield. What's the benefit?
Speaker 3: You know that the town bureaucrats, the people that run
Speaker 3: these towns, they're more afraid of the state. So the
Speaker 3: reason that they pushed the election, the referendum forward, has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with what we the people think about
Speaker 3: overbuilding in town, and we have a lot of overbuilding.
Speaker 3: Their answer is solely, it's the law, and we took
Speaker 3: an oath to uphold the law, and so we just
Speaker 3: have to do whatever they tell us to do, which
Speaker 3: is a ridiculous argument because you actually are supposed to
Speaker 3: represent the people of the town and the town is
Speaker 3: saying we don't like this. But that's the and Dan,
Speaker 3: it's primarily fear. It's fear. Are these grants. You know,
Speaker 3: they've they've they've gotten on the they've gotten on that
Speaker 3: drip of the grants. They can't get off, so they're
Speaker 3: a little addicted, and now now they're afraid, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's generally where it is. I'm one of our
Speaker 3: select board members actually works in Andrea Campbell's office, you know,
Speaker 3: who's obviously threatening to sue everybody and has Sude Milton,
Speaker 3: you know, the Attorney General, so you know, we you know,
Speaker 3: they're obviously connected and they want this. I think they
Speaker 3: want this because more housing means more money, means more power,
Speaker 3: right even in towns people love that power.
Speaker 2: Wow, well, just amazing. Uh, it is amazing that all
Speaker 2: of this has has transpired on everyone's noses and very
Speaker 2: few people in some of these communities realize what's going on.
Speaker 2: They're going to work every day, you know, they're commuting
Speaker 2: forty five minutes or an hour to get to work
Speaker 2: or more, spending forty hours fifty hours a week working,
Speaker 2: come home with the weekends, and all they want to
Speaker 2: do is watch the Patriots or something like that, and
Speaker 2: they're unaware of what's going on around them. And I'm
Speaker 2: hoping that by doing shows like this with you, with
Speaker 2: Brendan and others, we can sort of be the modern
Speaker 2: day Paul Revere's Paul Reverers of the world and let
Speaker 2: people know what the heck's going on.
Speaker 3: So true, people don't actually know, you know, the average
Speaker 3: person has no idea this is happening in their towns.
Speaker 2: Most of them not a clue, not a clue. And
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, when when they when
Speaker 2: the value of their their property goes down because simply
Speaker 2: there's more housing, cheaper housing in the town, and they're
Speaker 2: going to say, gee, you know, I paid half a
Speaker 2: million dollars for this house, so I thought I'd be
Speaker 2: able to make seven hundred, you know, get seven hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: I have hold it for five years or ten years,
Speaker 2: and the most they can possibly get is, you know,
Speaker 2: four point fifty. A lot of people don't realize there's
Speaker 2: an economic impact as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: Thank you as much as always. Thank you my friend
Speaker 2: who talks.
Speaker 3: To appreciate it, right, you bet you?
Speaker 2: All right, Brenda, let's stay one more segment here, I
Speaker 2: gotta take quick break. We got Yanna in Marshfield, Greg
Speaker 2: and Shrewsbury coming up. And if anyone else wants to
Speaker 2: try to get in six one, seven thirty, the only
Speaker 2: lines that are open coming back on night.
Speaker 1: Side Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window
Speaker 1: World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We get a lot of calls. Let's keep rolling on
Speaker 2: this very quickly, folks. We want to ask you to
Speaker 2: push it. I know even wait in a long time.
Speaker 2: But let's go to Vanna in Marshfield. YadA, excuse me,
Speaker 2: YadA in Marshfield.
Speaker 5: Ahead, YadA, Hey Dan, Merry Christmas. Happy everything got.
Speaker 3: Back at you real quick.
Speaker 5: Just for the record, we have our annual sound meeting
Speaker 5: in April. Our specialty is usually in October, so I
Speaker 5: think this one was an extra special anyway, that being said,
Speaker 5: I am curious if the original legislation which you did
Speaker 5: say was for signed by Charlie Breaker, if it da
Speaker 5: included these penalties of you know, if you don't do this,
Speaker 5: we're going to take you know, deny your grand funding.
Speaker 5: And the gentleman who said that they you know, we're
Speaker 5: addicted to the drip of grand funding. In the case
Speaker 5: of Marshfield, it's our sea walls and it's to the
Speaker 5: sum of millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: So I don't know the answer. Let me let me
Speaker 2: see we have, Brendan.
Speaker 3: But I have which is.
Speaker 2: Hold. Yeah, I want to try to get an answer
Speaker 2: for your question. First of all, Brendan, do you know
Speaker 2: if that was in the original legislation has that been
Speaker 2: added as an emolument At.
Speaker 3: This point, I honestly cannot answer that. And I would
Speaker 3: also say I think Janna would have a better better
Speaker 3: grasp on that than me.
Speaker 5: Okay, So then my other point is I mean, I
Speaker 5: just said like I'm curious. I'm curious to know. I
Speaker 5: don't know the answer, but I would like to say
Speaker 5: that I wish that all the people in Marshfield who
Speaker 5: fought this, and all the people all over the state
Speaker 5: who are fighting this, would fight Massachusetts Chapter forty B,
Speaker 5: which is forcing communities all over the state to how
Speaker 5: to developers who can override our local zoning laws and
Speaker 5: build whatever the heck they want.
Speaker 2: You know what, do me a favor, Yana. It's late
Speaker 2: in the show. I wish you called earlier. You send
Speaker 2: me some materials on that. Rob will give you my
Speaker 2: direct number and we can do something on that when
Speaker 2: I get back after January.
Speaker 3: On January first heard of Okay, it sounds good to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, Rob will give you my direct line and you
Speaker 2: can call me and send me an email. Give Yanna
Speaker 2: Rob my email and my direct line. Thank you, Yanam.
Speaker 2: Let me go next to Greg and Shrewsbury. Greg, want
Speaker 2: to get you and a couple of others in go
Speaker 2: right ahead?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Hey, Dan, how's it going? Yeah, one thing I
Speaker 6: just wanted to highlight as just the incessant on the grands.
Speaker 6: Grants were in the original bill, just to answer that
Speaker 6: question on the legislation, but they are specific. But what
Speaker 6: the state has done now is now they're using this
Speaker 6: big umbrella and they're stating that you have to be
Speaker 6: compliant with Massachusetts law to be eligible with a whole
Speaker 6: bunch of other grants. So they're using that very broad
Speaker 6: right definition and say, well three A is a law.
Speaker 6: So now we're going to include nineteen I think now
Speaker 6: with the housing the other economic bond bill. Now with
Speaker 6: housing bill, there's like another twenty six grants they're trying
Speaker 6: to throw in increase the size of the stick. Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: the stick is getting bigger and bigger because there's so
Speaker 6: many towns who are fighting back and saying no. And
Speaker 6: that's what I really enjoyed about this whole process, especially
Speaker 6: with Shrewsbury and O'Brien was not talking about our referendum,
Speaker 6: but we got those best practices from Milton because we
Speaker 6: were talking to the communities. We're communicating with other towns
Speaker 6: their strength and numbers in the communities, and I think
Speaker 6: more and more people need to do this for other
Speaker 6: initiatives throughout the state, because you're not alone. And I
Speaker 6: think we as residents and and those residents of the
Speaker 6: Commonwealth should gang together a lot more and come up
Speaker 6: with other ways to fight as a larger group and
Speaker 6: not just look at ourselves as whether I'm from Winthrop
Speaker 6: or I'm oh, yeah, Cruse bearing because we don't do
Speaker 6: that enough. We just don't see it enough, because people
Speaker 6: will just get too stuck in their own day.
Speaker 2: In unity, there is strength, and at this point you
Speaker 2: have the goliath of the state of Massachusetts coming down
Speaker 2: individually on one hundred and seventy seven cities in towns.
Speaker 2: I hope you'll keep in contact with me on this,
Speaker 2: Greg because you provided an answer to Yada's question. It
Speaker 2: doesn't surprise me that answer. It sounds makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense. All it is. It's a throut. It's really
Speaker 2: the equivalent of extortion by the state against the cities
Speaker 2: and towns saying we're going to withhold from you funds
Speaker 2: that you should have a right to have unless you.
Speaker 3: Comply exactly, and then all these local select board members
Speaker 3: and they don't want to. They really are fear based leaders.
Speaker 3: And we see fear based leadership all across not only
Speaker 3: the Commonwealth but even fetterally. And you know, we got
Speaker 3: to have some stronger leaders, you know, that are that
Speaker 3: are representing us as we the people, because that is
Speaker 3: really what's left us. And if one thing we can
Speaker 3: do in the new year, right, I think is is
Speaker 3: remember how we were founded here in Massachusetts and go
Speaker 3: back to those times and not be based on fear
Speaker 3: and do what we want as people and and lead
Speaker 3: ourselves and not rely on others.
Speaker 2: I could agree with you more. Greg. Thanks a great call,
Speaker 2: really great call. Let's talk soon. Okay, thank you much
Speaker 2: appreciate going to try to get to everybody in here.
Speaker 2: We'll see what we can do. Alex, you've called very late,
Speaker 2: You've got a little time, go ahead, Alex.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, letically claim so. In my view, the state
Speaker 7: of Massachusetts has a lot of resources to solve the
Speaker 7: housing prot opium. And so my question is why is
Speaker 7: the state of Massachusetts it gives so many so much
Speaker 7: subsidized houses to immigrants co prodoxically illegal or who came
Speaker 7: from temporary visa for example from Ukraine, oh who came
Speaker 7: from sports such ship and sports mast provide housing for.
Speaker 2: Okay, than I think that's an interesting point. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: what's behind all of this. Although the law did pass,
Speaker 2: and again the waiting hours of the legislative section I
Speaker 2: believe in in twenty twenty, and that was really before
Speaker 2: the immigration crisis has blown up. But your instincts are
Speaker 2: absolutely true, Alex. We're limited funds and we have to
Speaker 2: help people here in Massachusetts. Alex, I gotta keep going.
Speaker 2: I got a couple more like to try to get
Speaker 2: him in. Okay, Oh great, thanks you, thank you for calling, Alex.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it very much. Let me go next to Tracy
Speaker 2: and Gloucester. Tracy, you're next on nights Side with my
Speaker 2: guest Brendan Wild of Marshall.
Speaker 8: Go ahead, Tracy, Hi, Dan, thank you so much for
Speaker 8: doing this and for keeping this subject on the front lines.
Speaker 8: I'm in Gloucester and we're a city. Most of the
Speaker 8: people we've been talking to are in the towns and
Speaker 8: they have town meetings. We have a city council of
Speaker 8: nine members, and two of them were told to recuse
Speaker 8: them selves from the vote because they live in the districts,
Speaker 8: which that would bothers me too. I mean, we're no
Speaker 8: longer a neighborhood or award. We're now districts. But two
Speaker 8: of the city council members were told to rechoose themselves.
Speaker 8: So the rest of the city council voted seven to
Speaker 8: zero four three A.
Speaker 2: And they first of all, they should not have been
Speaker 2: forced to recuse themselves. In my opinion, this their residents
Speaker 2: and their representatives leadership.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 8: They own property and they would have benefited from it
Speaker 8: was the excuse. But all the other councilors live in
Speaker 8: the other wards, so you know they live on the outskirts.
Speaker 2: What you got to do. What you got to do, Tracy,
Speaker 2: is elect other representatives. If you don't feel your.
Speaker 3: Counselors positively, positively.
Speaker 2: Absolutely get out there one go ahead. You got to
Speaker 2: be quick with no.
Speaker 8: I was the city council for two weeks. I was
Speaker 8: a city coastlor for two years. I won by two votes,
Speaker 8: three votes, but one was in question, you know, because
Speaker 8: they recount run again. Come on, okay, just just listen.
Speaker 8: Though I've lived here in my house for sixty five years,
Speaker 8: I run the city council and they moved the ward
Speaker 8: lines on me. So they moved he districted me out
Speaker 8: of my wood it's called Jerry Mandry Tracy.
Speaker 2: I am fine, out of time. I wish you had
Speaker 2: called early, you said, a fascinating caller.
Speaker 8: Yes, I will call again and.
Speaker 2: Do something with you. All right, thank you. I appreciate it,
Speaker 2: my pleasure. I appreciate you call. Have a great weekend. Okay.
Speaker 2: To the callers in the line, wish you called earlier. Brendan,
Speaker 2: keep up the fight in Marshfield and anything we can
Speaker 2: do to help you out, please let me know.
Speaker 3: Okay, absolutely, that sounds good. Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Again. I know it's tough fighting city Hall and it's
Speaker 2: really tough fighting the state House, but you'll win eventually
Speaker 2: because I think the merits of the argument only on
Speaker 2: your side of this case. So hang with it. And
Speaker 2: if you live in Marshfield, please support Brendan. And if
Speaker 2: you live in the other communities, look at what's going
Speaker 2: on and understand that you're being extorted by the state.
Speaker 2: You're a Simples. They're putting a gun to your head.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Brendan. Merry Christmas. Yuh god. Okay, thanks, Brendan,
Speaker 2: appreciate it. All right, we get back go talk about
Speaker 2: another side of this coin. Here in Massachusetts, crime serious
Speaker 2: crime that is not being prosecuted properly. We'll explain it all
Speaker 2: right after the nine o'clock news