Virginia Smith

I am putting here an email I wrote to another Town Meeting Member (with whom I strongly disagreed) because it expresses my feelings about the joy of living in Brookline Village and the need to protect our neighborhood from developers who wish to profit at our expense. 

In April 2021, a Level II Bio Lab was proposed to be built at 10 Brookline Place, between Station Street and Boylston. I fought against it with several other people. After an 18-month battle, in December 2022, we persevered and  keeping Bio Labs out of Brookline Village hopefully forever. 

Here's an email I sent to the Emerson Gardens Neighborhood Association:

Subject: [EGNA]: Re: Rezoning of 10 Brookline Place postponed indefinitely

DATE

[Name Omitted of Town Meeting Member], it appears that you support locating a massive Bio Lab in the midst of a thriving neighborhood that is population-dense with lots of kids, preschools, and K-8 schools and which presents potential dangers to the people of this neighborhood, particularly at 22 High Street and Village Way, in order to balance the Brookline budget. Somehow, the postponement of this building will be responsible, too, for any shortfall in the Pierce override. 

The difference between what we need in terms of revenues and what we would receive from this one building is on a magnitude of hundreds, if not thousands. The annual taxes from the Bio Lab would be a drop in the bucket in terms of covering our structural deficit and building a New Pierce--and we'd need this money by next year. 

I have suggested--and will suggest again--that what we need to do is go after the LMA nonprofits which regularly reap millions of dollars without paying any sort of reasonable taxes to Brookline or even meeting their obligation of Payment In Lieu of Taxes [PILOT].

In terms of Pierce, I stood up every year at Pipier Smith-Mumford's and her successors' Principal's Forum from 2004-2017 to state that the 1960s no-walls Pierce Building is harmful to our children's learning and must be radically altered so that kids can actually hear what is being said and be able to concentrate. I was also the person who notified the Schools Committee about the old Benefitness Building offering up rental space. This became the 7th grade "Loft," which alleviated some of the worst overcrowding in Brookline's K-8 schools. 

According to Jamie Yadoff, current Pierce Principal, we were promised a New Pierce since 2005. This never happened. I still don't understand why not, when almost every other school in Brookline was built anew.

So in brief, No to the Massive Bio Lab at 10 Brookline Place, and a resounding YES to an Override for a New Pierce. It is too late for my kids, but will be of benefit to the next generation. I am happy to throw my energies into making this happen.

Virginia Smith TMM-6

12 Linden Street

Brookline, Mass. 02445

617 953 1968