City Councilor Erin Murphy’s double-barreled approach to tackling the “public health crisis” at Boston’s Mass and Cass was praised for giving businesses there a break, but knocked for assertions that street cleaning equipment was spreading diseases.
Murphy’s proposal came in the form of two hearing orders, both of which were discussed at a Wednesday City Council meeting.
One hearing would look into providing a property tax abatement to Newmarket-area businesses adversely affected by the open-air drug dealing and violence occurring around Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue.
“We know they’re struggling through none of their own doing, and we’ve failed them in not providing a safe environment,” Murphy said. “Many have been adversely impacted by the deteriorating conditions of the neighborhood that aren’t accurately reflected in their property tax valuation.”
Sixty-five business owners from the 200-member Newmarket Business Association have collectively spent $3.9 million in security costs to address the squalor, and incurred $1.9 million in damages in 2021 alone, Murphy said.
The cost has increased “tremendously” in the past two years, Murphy said, noting that Newmarket business owners spent $500,000 on security measures, including cameras, to try to curb the crime occurring near their Mass and Cass workplaces.
Offering a property tax abatement is a way to compensate these owners for the increased cost of doing business in the area, Murphy said.
City Councilor Michael Flaherty, agreed, saying that he thinks “a call for an abatement is fair,” given the “millions” residents and businesses pay for cleanup, security and repairs for their workplaces and personal property.
“It’s reasonable and it would be a practical solution for this body to work with the administration to bring some much-needed tax relief to the folks that have endured more than anyone could ever imagine,” Flaherty said.
City Councilor Julia Mejia also spoke favorably of the proposal, saying that immigrant-owned businesses like the pizza shops there have to pay “out of pocket” each time their windows are broken.
Eleven councilors signed onto Murphy’s hearing order. The only councilor not to was Frank Baker, who was absent.
The widespread support stood in stark contrast to what Murphy received for her other request, for a hearing to look into whether street cleaning equipment used in the Mass and Cass area is spreading infectious diseases to other parts of Boston.
Using the same street sweepers throughout the city creates the potential for contamination traveling from Mass and Cass to those other neighborhoods, Murphy said. She cited concerns with untreated stormwater runoff from the area’s catch basins polluting the Boston Harbor via the Fort Point Channel.
Councilors Ruthzee Louijeune and Gabriela Coletta both slammed Murphy’s hearing order, saying that it was causing unnecessary alarm, politicizing public health matters, and pitting certain parts of the city against each other.
Louijeune compared the request for separate cleaning equipment to what occurred during the HIV crisis of the 1980s, when the Haitian community “was very much targeted in ways that were dehumanizing.” This included calls for them to be kept separate from other people, she said.
Coletta cited data from the Boston Public Health Commission, which “placed the spread of infectious diseases by public works vehicles as low to negligible.” There was a higher risk of inter-neighborhood spread through the direct use of needles, she said.
“I don’t take issue with my colleague looking to elevate and call for accountability as it relates to the situation happening at Mass and Cass,” Coletta said. “I do take issue with the framing, whether intentional or unintentional, that pushes a narrative where the public is made to feel fear, unwarranted fear, for their health without due diligence done by the people they should trust most.”
