Chairman Steve Fox talks trash and other issues

By Michele D. Maniscalco


The South End Public Works Forum, commonly known as the South End Forum, is not well-known and understood among many South Enders despite its focus on neighborhood-wide issues such as trash disposal, sidewalk maintenance and other issues affecting all South Enders. The forum, an umbrella organization comprising all of the South End's neighborhood and business organizations, has made headway and headlines in the past year for its work on two initiatives: helping to shape the city's 2014 trash and recycling contract and the more controversial bid to end the use of parking space savers during snowstorms, a timely issue indeed with the recent mountains of snowfall besetting Boston. The forum is planning its next quarterly meeting on February 10, which makes this an opportune time to shed light on the organization.

South End Forum leader and Rutland Square Neighborhood Association chair Steve Fox has been a driving force in the forum since its inception 12 years ago. "We have always believed that the neighborhood associations of the South End have been building blocks of South End community," Fox said. "We have been asked repeatedly why we don't have one association like the Back Bay and Beacon Hill. The response has always been that the South End is a much more heterogeneous environment with more disparate issues across the neighborhood than the Back Bay and Beacon Hill. We need to have a forum for common interests like snow removal, parking, trash, and speed limits that cut across entire South End. The forum was born from a need to represent South End wide interests and work with government as our partners." To that end, Boston Public Works Department liaison Frank O'Brien has been a steady presence at South End Forum meetings.

While his professional focus has been in government and in the software industry, Fox has devoted himself to the mechanics of the neighborhood, including pedestrian, bicycle and driver safety; sidewalk and street maintenance and his favorite domain, waste disposal. At a Forum meeting, Fox once said, "Trash has been my main passion for over 20 years," to which Worcester Square Area Neighborhood Association president George Stergios replied, "I didn't know you had any others." Given the South End's dense settlement, trash management was an easy starting point. "[It] was the first issue we decided to tackle, because every single neighborhood association could agree that we needed to improve trash management. How do we improve trash collection services, improve collection schedules and reduce the amount of time trash is on the street? These have never been controversial issues," Fox observed. He and other Forum members worked with BPWD on goals for the last year's new trash and recycling agreement, obtaining two recycling pick-ups instead of the former one per week for the South End and designing the pilot trash put-out program between the hours of 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM to reduce the time that trash and recycling are left on the street. The group also secured for the South End a pilot program for street cleaning from March 1 through December 31, rather than the former April 1 through December 1 schedule. Fox and others would like to see year-round street cleaning, but BPWD has told the group that it does not have the budget for that service.

Fox stated that the Forum does not move forward on issues that do not have the unanimous agreement of all member associations. "When it comes to making changes in policy we do extensive outreach," he said. Some observers have questioned whether the Forum is inclusive enough of neighbors in the South End's subsidized housing communities, which are home to at least 30 per cent of the South End's population. The Forum's policy is that the member associations communicate with the housing complexes in their areas, which means that relationships with public housing vary. Fox notes that David Kay, the recently-departed director of development at IBA, attended many South End Forum meetings. "We were sad to lose David Kay as a link to IBA and we have to reach out to Vanessa and Villla management," Fox said. Since his interview with the South End News, Fox has made contact with Villa Victoria's director of resident services. Ellis South End Neighborhood Association (ESENA) president Betsy Hall reports an ongoing collaboration with both the Castle Square Tenants Organization (CSTO) and with Villa Victoria's Festival Betances.

Since the Forum has no funds or budget of its own, it sends out e-mails to its own contact list, but depends on member groups to create and distribute flyers and other materials. It also lacks resources to create materials in various languages spoken in the neighborhood. "If our objective is to communicate as widely and effectively as possible, we need to do a better job of communicating in different languages so we can reach a wider range of South Enders. When the space saver campaign arose, I mentioned that we needed to create Spanish language posters. A professional, Mary Owens of Concord Square, donated her time and design on the space saver posters, and each NA paid printing costs of posters they received. For the future we need to do better outreach in different languages," Fox reflected.

On the space saver issue, the South End Forum membership may have found consensus, but not all neighbors are convinced. Space saver use persisted, particularly in Villa Victoria and the Northampton Street area over the weekend, more than 48 hours after the snowstorm that shut down the state last Tuesday and Wednesday. In a January 30 interview with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio, Mayor Walsh commented, "The South End came together with a rule that they were going to have no space savers this winter. It's a pilot program and I commend the South End for that. I'm hoping that it works. If it works, that would be great and we will look at instituting it around the entire city. We are trying to see how it works and what concerns there are; if there are any complaints, any problems. If it works in the South End, then let's all relax, take a deep breath and implement in the whole city." continued, "I grew up on a street that was all three-deckers. When you shoveled a spot out it was your spot until the snow was gone. As a state representative, some parts of my district didn't believe in space savers, most did. As mayor of the city, there are some parts of the city that don't believe in space savers, some do." A few days earlier, Jim and Margery interviewed Police Commissioner William Evans, who reported, "I gotta tell you, when I'm out jogging at quarter to five in the morning, I'm throwing a lot of space savers out and I am always afraid I'm going to get caught. When it's not even snowing, people have space savers out. After five days, they still have them out. I know it's a touchy thing and it's gotten worse."

Another transportation-related issues the South End Forum hopes to tackle is lowering the speed limit in residential neighborhoods. According to Fox, the idea has the support of City Councilor at Large Stephen J. Murphy, who has introduced legislation for 15 years to petition for home rule jurisdiction over speed limits. So far, that effort has been unsuccessful. Other items on the Forum's agenda include obtaining equal maintenance services for public and private alleys, improved pedestrian safety for trouble spots such as the intersection of Rutland Street and Columbus Avenue; and limiting work permits on Saturdays and Sundays to emergency situations. Fox explained, "Whether you live in large or small building, whatever construction work takes place on Saturdays has an immediate impact on all neighbors. We think it's been abused. We are also seeing occasional Sunday permits and we think that should be off the table. We think limiting Saturday and Sunday work permits benefits all South Enders."

The South End public works forum meeting will take place on February 10 at 6:15 PM in the basement of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross at the corner of Washington and West Dedham Streets. Members of the public are invited to attend.