By Donald Norton

Ward 2 Alderman Maryann Heuston and the City’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD) invited all interested residents to a community meeting to discuss construction updates and schedules for the ongoing McGrath Highway Interim Improvements project. The meeting was held in the Public Safety Building’s Academy Room at 220 Washington St. from 7 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

Tuesday night’s hearing concerned the fiasco going on down at Medford Street between Washington St. and Somerville Avenue.

A small but vocal group of property owners and residents from the area showed up to ask questions, but they were not happy.

The city was represented by Brad Rawson, Director of Strategic Planning and Community Development at City Hall. Right away he got hit by some angry comments. One property owner, Ron Tauro, told Rawson, “If you represent the mayor, then let him know we are upset.”

Other comments were from John’s Auto owner who told them to go back to the drawing board because they didn’t know what the state people were talking about.

There were lots of questions, but in the end the issue of what was going to happen so that residents could park was never resolved.

One other problem Rawon said he is going to look into is taking down the no parking signs after 2:30 a.m., so residents can park.

No follow up meeting was announced, and you almost got the feeling that the person representing the mayor’s office could not wait to get out of there and to adjourn the meeting.

Maybe the city and state should meet up and be on the same page. We think the first thing to do is to take down the “no parking after 2:30 a.m.” signs.

The state’s people did say they were going to take the off ramp of McGrath to Somerville Avenue down. Some suggested taking it down and letting the neighbors park.

Oh, and by the way, the cost – believe it or not – to just fix the bridge recently was over $10M.