"Scrawny"

The Official Unofficial Minutes of the WL BOA
December 4

Jim Miller, guru of the Entrance Monuments, made an appearance to give an update of the Entrance Monument Project.  Phase 1, with four monuments is declared complete.  There have been complaints about   the daylight visibility of the City Hall and Barry Road/East Side monuments, Jim asserted he felt the visibility was improving.  There also have been a couple of comments regarding the landscaping which appears "scrawny", Jim feels it is just a matter of the vegetation maturing.

Phase II, the remaining four monuments, has around $10,000 in the bank.  The EAGC is counting on outstanding pledges of around $50,000 to be fulfilled, leaving "$90,000 to $100,000" to be raised for construction.  Fund raising will begin in earnest after the first of the year.  Mary's idea last council meeting regarding "recycling" some elements of the current Phase II monuments (use the walls, add the pilon) was deemed undoable, the underlying foundation is not viable for modification.

Vic proposed a resolution declaring Phase I completed.  His motivation and rationale were that by declaring it complete any kind of maintenance on the monuments would be free of the obligation to pay "prevailing wage" on any further work on the completed monuments.  Prevailing wage requirements by state law have been a sore spot with Vic and Jerry (maybe Jim as well) the perspective being it has added cost to the project.  I feel pretty sure the City Attorney was perplexed by the maneuver, in any event, a big chunk of money needs to be raised.

  (I was not present at the meeting ,working in Boston, but I was able to recover reliable, first hand information from an attendee at the meeting.)