I am mostly in agreement with you. There certainly is a need for community meetings around proposed new developments where the public can air their concerns and ask questions. The local alderman should definitely be involved in organizing and publicizing these types of meetings. My problem is when the processes is essentially hijacked and used to push a very narrow minded personal agenda. These meetings are supposed encourage discussion and compromise, not to be used to drive away "undesirable" new businesses. While some here may see the concerns over parking and deliveries to this new potential Roche Brothers store as "trivial", these are the types of things that should be discussed at a community meeting. Myself and many others feel that similar "trivial" issues were hyped up and used purposefully as roadblocks to ultimately derail a mostly harmless business proposal that would fill a long vacant space. At that time there was no valid grocery store proposal on the table at all, it was just speculation at best. I support the Roche Brothers proposal just as I did the previous proposals, I want to see a viable business open in that long empty space this year not maybe a few years from now.
As far as my comment on dirty politics, need I remind you of the VFW Hall/condo development circus that was discussed in great detail here several years ago. It was very informative and it really opened my eyes. Whether you were for or against that proposal, you must agree that Alderman Gewirtzs' little end run around the process to get the MBTA vent parcel rezoned was clearly not what someone negotiating in good faith would do. After months of litigation and numerous compromises by the developer the project was explicitly approved by the city. She could not deal with that apparently and used her influence to kill it be any means necessary after her other attempts ultimately failed. This greatly shapes my opinion that alderman Gewirtz was never negotiating in good faith on residents behalf to make an acceptable compromise on the World of Beer/BeerWorks proposals. She wanted those projects stopped and she succeeded by abusing the valid political process for community involvement. That is what I find distasteful and what I mean by dirty politics.
RE: Rather than competition, complementary.
As far as my comment on dirty politics, need I remind you of the VFW Hall/condo development circus that was discussed in great detail here several years ago. It was very informative and it really opened my eyes. Whether you were for or against that proposal, you must agree that Alderman Gewirtzs' little end run around the process to get the MBTA vent parcel rezoned was clearly not what someone negotiating in good faith would do. After months of litigation and numerous compromises by the developer the project was explicitly approved by the city. She could not deal with that apparently and used her influence to kill it be any means necessary after her other attempts ultimately failed. This greatly shapes my opinion that alderman Gewirtz was never negotiating in good faith on residents behalf to make an acceptable compromise on the World of Beer/BeerWorks proposals. She wanted those projects stopped and she succeeded by abusing the valid political process for community involvement. That is what I find distasteful and what I mean by dirty politics.