Press Release Contact:
Mitch Kates 617-407-4608
August 12, 2005
PRESS CONFERENCE
AT LARGE CITY
COUNCILLOR MAURA HENNIGAN BLASTS
MAYOR MENINO FOR
BEING “ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH”
NORTH END- City Councillor At-Large and Candidate for Mayor
Maura Hennigan will hold a press conference today near the sight of the recent
explosions that rocked the North End, endangering residents, business owners
and customers and the shut-off of power effecting thousands in downtown Boston
yesterday.
“These explosions blew man hole covers out of the street,”
Councillor Hennigan said. “Imagine what would have happened if this occurred
during the height of festival activities in the North End?”
On Wednesday night multiple fires in the North End injured
several firefighters and caused the explosion of an electrical box.
“In addition to the general public and Public Safety
officials I am also very concerned for the safety of NSTAR workers. They have
to deal with these types of safety concerns day in and day out,” Councillor
Hennigan said.
“We need better oversight of utility companies in Boston.
Under the Menino Administration NSTAR is allowed to function with an incident
driven system, what we need is an ongoing proactive system in place, ” Councillor Hennigan said. “My administration will be proactive in its approach to infrastructure
issues such as these. I will require ALL agencies working in the city to
publicly disclose all information garnered from the annual inspections of their
equipment.”
“I am calling
on NSTAR to provide public disclosure of the current status of all their electrical infrastructure for each and every
neighborhood in the city,” Councillor Hennigan declared.
Councillor Hennigan also faults the current administration
for not taking a more active role in preventing utility infrastructure
failures, such as the recent ones in the North End and the stray voltage
incidents that have injured residents and animals in past years.
“The Menino Administration is reactive to problems like
this. They prefer to wait for a problem to occur rather than to do something
about it in advance,” Councillor Hennigan said. “This is about public safety-
the mayor has an obligation to protect the public and to make sure that the
streets are as safe as possible. Right now he’s asleep at the switch.”
Councillor Hennigan also points out that there is no
Legislation in place to hold companies accountable…“I filed for Legislation
months ago that would hold companies such as NSTAR accountable and have the
power to enforce. It was only recently, within the past few days, that a
hearing has been scheduled to examine this Ordinance,” Councillor Hennigan
said. Despite repeated requests for a hearing date, a hearing is not scheduled
until mid-September. “The mayor’s solution is to create a voluntary joint task
force on electrical safety with no legislative mandates,” Councillor Hennigan
added.
Councillor Hennigan is also sensitive to North End
businesses, which lost thousands of dollars during the explosions and the power
outages that followed. (Product and lost business
“North End businesses rely on foot traffic for their
customer base, and having busy streets like Hanover and Prince shut down for
hours essentially prevents money from flowing into the neighborhood,”
Councillor Hennigan said.
“The North End is in the height of their tourist season
which holds the greatest economic opportunity for many business owners. Last
year the North End businesses took a hit as a result of the Democratic
Convention…now they’re getting hit again in the middle of one of the most
important months of their whole year.”
It is inappropriate for the mayor to have
accepted contributions from NSTAR CEO Tom May and the NSTAR PAC at a time when
the city has been dealing with accountability issues from their organization as
well as a strike by NSTAR employees which left striking workers without health
coverage during the work stoppage,” Councillor Hennigan said.
“There is little incentive to call NSTAR on the mat for
their lack of performance since they are helping to fund Mayor Menino’s re-election effort,” Councillor Hennigan
said.