Opinion

Councilor Edwards committed to neighborhood

District 1 Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards has publicly committed her interest in the well-being of the North End/Waterfront community.

She has expressed her willingness to work with residents, the business community and local organizations to be available when it counts the most, and to deal with issues relating to the neighborhood with potential positive results.

The community will be facing many changes over the next two years and will have to rely on the Councilor to be front and center and providing her full support.

A solid working relationship needs to be developed with Edwards in order to get things accomplished.

It clearly appears that Councilor Edwards will represent the neighborhood in a positive and professional manner at City Hall.

Puopolo Park must stay

One of the concepts for the renovations to the recreational space along Commercial Street is to remove the Puopolo Park baseball field and have North End teams play on other fields.

This is the home field of the North End Athletic Association Dodgers team and the organization gave the Boston Parks and Recreational Department three strikes on the concept.

This concept should be thrown out of the game.

NEWRA Good Neighbor Award returns

It’s great to see the North End/Waterfront Residents’ Association (NEWRA) has returned presenting local residents, businesses and organizations their “Good Neighbor” award

The award is given out to those who help to keep the community clean and healthy by picking up debris from in front of their home or business and curbside area on a regular basis.

This is a terrific way of recognizing those who make a difference in the community.

More residents should attend BPDA improvement meetings

Not too many residents found their way to the Nazzaro Community Center last month to discuss and plan for redevelopment and construction of the recreational space along Commercial Street in the North End to the tune of $4.6 million.

Residents need to find their way to the next Boston Planning and Development Agency  (BPDA) meeting to make suggestions and look at potential concepts for the highly used area before a final plan is approved, making it too late to have some input.

The BPDA is making every possible attempt to acquire opinions from residents for the future design of the area.

What the BPDA, residents and local organizations doesn’t need our complaints after the final plans are produced.

Based on the next two or three public meetings a design plan will be finding its way through the city’s system for approval to begin the project in 2018 with an estimated completion time frame of one year.

NSC seeks kitchen volunteers

Three volunteer kitchen assistants are needed at the North End/West End Neighborhood Service Center located at 1 Michelangelo Street.

Volunteers can help with shopping, food preparation, cooking, serving and cleanup, twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, 11 AM to 3 PM.

            This is a great opportunity to give something back to the community, while supporting a terrific community organization.