Excerpt:
In this week's Letters, the director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), John F. Palmieri, writes to defend the city's decision to sponsor the construction of the Roxbury mosque, near the intersection of Tremont Street and Malcolm X Boulevard. After more than 20 years of planning and construction, that mosque, officially known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, recently opened its doors for prayer.
Palmieri's letter, a welcome addition to the all-too-incomplete public record of this controversial project, is a gem of indirection — one that ignores the matter of the mosque's contractual obligation to maintain two neighborhood parks that abut the religious center.
To date, the City Council has been strong-armed by the mayor's office into averting its gaze from all that went on in the construction of the mosque. It will be interesting to see if the City Council has the institutional fortitude to at least investigate whether the mosque is keeping its promise to the city to upkeep those parks to the agreed-upon standard. The city sold the land that the mosque stands upon to its original developers at a greatly reduced price, in part in an exchange for a promise to maintain those parks.