Thank you
To the Editor:
I would like to thank the Friends of Ryan “Duce” Morrissey Scholarship Fund for awarding me as a recipient of the 2022 scholarship. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Edward O’Keefe, Jr.
Mayor Wu are you Listening?
To the Editor:
The recent announcement of the closing of the Clougherty Pool in Charlestown for long overdue maintenance stunned our community. As we enter the summer months, after long COVID 19 lockdowns, why is the City now closing the Clougherty Pool, an important community resource for the local children? Why was this ‘overdue maintenance’ ignored in the Spring time and not completed long before the summer months when the need for safe and supervised activities are needed?
Our City officials have failed our children and now must immediately step up and solve this issue so that the Clougherty Pool and Doherty Park can open for the hot summer months ahead. We also call on our new Mayor and the BPDA to immediately devote additional parcels of City land to green and open space for our community.
Why? Because Charlestown has some of the highest population density and the highest density of deeply affordable housing, which is the population that relies upon both public pools but green open space, playing fields and playgrounds for our children.
Instead of creating more green and open space for children and families, the City through the BPDA, is planning to increase Charlestown’s population by 11,000 new residents, if all BPDA projects are approved. No new green and open space is proposed.
Where are these new residents to go? How are they to get to green open space outside Charlestown with the limited access to the Charlestown community through the traffic nightmare that is Sullivan Square or the construction nightmare of the North Washington Street bridge and the divided highway that is Rutherford Ave.
What is the plan for 2022 summer activities for the Charlestown children? Is it more lunacy of transporting Charlestown’s children to ‘other pools’ to overcrowd those scarce City resources? Why have these playing fields and other child friendly resources like the Clougherty Pool been ignored?
The failure of the City to maintain the Clougherty Pool and other critical recreation and climate resilience infrastructure has triggered a reaction from the neighborhood. The City has had abject lack of planning and community engagement; it must end here. The Charlestown Community calls for the opening of the Clougherty Pool, more open space, more greenspace, and less new construction. Time to restore and renovate the carbon capture of existing buildings instead demolishing them.
Charlestown residents and children deserve to have one of its popular and essential recreational sites, and its only outdoor pool, the Clougherty Pool opened. We call for the City officials to provide genuine community involvement in the Charlestown planning which is more than BPDA lip service. We call for transparency. The City must provide the Charlestown community with a meaningful seat at the table to plan for our community. We want City support for our Charlestown community, not demonstrations. We seek meaningful participation with our new Mayor Wu Administration to give the Charlestown community a voice that is heard.
Now is the time. The Charlestown community seeks to preserve the Doherty Park including the Clougherty Pool. The Doherty Park is historic open space for recreation and an historic Frederick Law Olmsted Park in Charlestown.
Mayor Wu, the Charlestown community calls on you:
STEP 1, to quickly get the Clougherty Pool opened for our children so that they can have a safe community space to enjoy.
STEP 2 to repair the playing fields so that the children have safe outdoor space to enjoy.
STEP 3 to create open new outdoor green spaces for public use such as Pier 5 in the Charlestown Navy Yard as public park for all.
Open green public space is in short supply in Charlestown. Open green space is needed for the health and safety of our community especially in the summer months. Our children and our elders are the most vulnerable parts of our population and the most in need of public green open space. It is time for the City to put the children of Charlestown first and fix and open the Clougherty Pool and make new open green space for our community.
Rosemary Macero
and Johanna Hynes
Charlestown Residents
Charlestown Neighborhood
Council, Precinct 2 and 3 representatives and Rosemary Macero is a Member of Pier 5 Association Inc.