PHOTO CAPTION: Members of the Boston Police Department Mounted Patrol Unit at City Hall.

Despite an 11th hour hearing sponsored by City Council President Mike Ross last week to save the 136-year-old tradition of Boston police on horses, the city’s Mounted Patrol Unit will disband tomorrow after falling prey to budget cuts.
“I start today on my quest to bring the Mounted Unit back to the City of Boston,” Ross said during a farewell ceremony at City Hall on Thursday, one day after approval of Mayor Thomas’ Menino’s budget proposal for the 2010 fiscal year, which included reduced funding for police. “I disagree with disbanding the unit, no matter the fiscal crisis.”
In March, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis announced the elimination of the Mounted Patrol Unit, which operates at an annual cost of $750,000, as part of departmental cutbacks. Under the plan, nine officers and the sole supervisor from the Mounted Unit will be reassigned to other police units, and nine civilian personnel will be laid off. The 12 horses will go to the New York City Police Department, the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department and private organizations, and bicycle patrols are slated to take their place in the city.
“I have to make a decision to affect people in the organization or animals in the organization,” Davis said during the hearing last Tuesday. “I wish there was an easier solution to this, but we’re doing the best that we can.”
Some met Davis’ pledge to work to bring the Mounted Unit back to Boston with skepticism.
“I’m not convinced we’re going to bring them back,” said Thomas Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. “I think this is the beginning of the end.”
Meanwhile, the approved budget made provisions to save the Boston Parks Department’s mounted unit, which patrols city green spaces.

Area A-1, which includes Beacon Hill, Charlestown, Chinatown and downtown, has seen a 4 percent decrease in violent and property crime to date in 2009, compared with the same timeframe last year.
According to Boston Police, Part One crime incidents have dropped to 1,463 between January 1 and June 21, 2009, as opposed to 1,522 during the same time last year.
“It’s good to see a decrease…but we’re looking for a 10 percent drop,” said Captain Bernard O’Rourke of Area A-1. “We’re continuously working on issues.”
The number of robberies and attempted robberies dropped to 82 from 96 last year, despite two high profile muggings and two attempted muggings that occurred on Beacon Hill between February and May this year and have led to the arrest of four individuals to date.
“We clearly look for patterns and trends [in robberies],” O’Rourke said. “We had a pattern and trend in that area, so we increased coverage.”
Burglaries and attempted burglaries are down 30 percent as the number of incidents dropped to 76 from 109 last year, but O’Rourke said these crimes are still prevalent in the neighborhood.
“Beacon Hill has always had somewhat of a problem because it’s a residential neighborhood and is known to be an affluent area,” O’Rourke said, adding that the police have successfully targeted burglaries in the neighborhood with the assignment of a second cruiser to the area and through directed patrols.
Vehicle theft and attempted vehicle theft saw a 25 percent decrease this year as the number of incidents dropped to 49 from 65 in 2008, although O’Rourke credits this trend largely to the introduction of car keys equipped with computer chips and other new technology.
Aggravated assaults were down 20 percent as the number dropped to 127 this year, from 159 in 2008. O’Rourke said most of these incidents occurred late at night and involved patrons from area nightclubs.
One homicide took place in 2009, compared with two last year, and rapes and attempted rapes are down to nine from 10 last year.
Meanwhile, larcenies and attempted larcenies were the only category of Part One crime that saw an increase as the number climbed to 1,119 from 1,081 last year. Many of these incidents involved the theft of laptop computers and GPS devices from parked cars, O’Rourke said.

At the fifth meeting of the Impact Advisory Group (IAG) for the redevelopment of the Government Center Garage last week, the discussion focused on proposed parking provisions.
On March 2, Boston-based Raymond Property Company filed a $2.2 billion proposal with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) to raze the 11-story garage, replacing it with 3.8-million square feet of office, retail and residential development, including two office towers. The proposal provided for 2,000 parking spaces, instead of the 2,310 spaces currently at the existing garage.
Tom Sieniewicz, a principal for the Cambridge architectural firm, Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, and a consultant for the project, said Raymond believes a revised total of 2,150 spaces would satisfy the parking demand.
Among the factors Sieniewicz cited for the decrease in parking spaces were new garages in the area, such as the Parcel 7 and North Station garages, and the expected loss of several longtime parking contracts for the Government Center facility, including Massachusetts General Hospital. The existing garage also doesn’t run at capacity, Sieniewicz added.
Meanwhile, Standard Parking, a Chicago-based parking-management company, puts peak demand at 1,400 spaces during Celtics and Bruins playoff games.
IAG members suggested the current provision of one space for each residential unit was inflated, and that other variables, including the growing popularity of Zipcars, could potentially lead to a decreased need for parking.
Sieniewicz said futures studies would explore the possibility of the new garage providing increased parking for Zipcars and bicycles, and “plug-in” spaces for hybrid automobiles.
“This discussion isn’t over tonight,” Sieniewicz said.
To view the parking presentation in its entirety, visit http://www.demolishthegarage.com/permitting_efforts.htm.

The Michael Jackson I knew, whose music I have always enjoyed – and which I will enjoy into the twilight of my own life – is not the person who died in Los Angeles last week.
It was indeed Michael Jackson in body who died, but it was not Michael Jackson in mind and soul.
And when you think about it – if, in fact, you take a moment to think about it at all – the Michael Jackson we loved for the great music he made and the dance steps he performed, died long before he stopped breathing last Thursday.
The Grim Reaper walked side by side with him as he rose, side by side with him as he changed, and had taken him over completely when he died alone in his bed in a largely empty mansion he had rented.
His rise was meteoric, the stuff of legend.
His fall was a catastrophe mixed inexorably with drugs, depression, loneliness and the type of lifestyle, it seems, that only great wealth can bring to so many who are like him.
Fame is not what it is cracked up to be – not when you take your last breath at age 50 as Jackson did.
“Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are,” wrote Erica Jong, the writer and feminist.
Indeed. Perhaps Jackson was not that masked man often wearing a white glove. Maybe he wasn’t a child molester or a prescription drug addict.
Maybe beneath everything he contrived to make himself appear odd and eccentric was an act which ultimately cost him his life.
Beneath the veneer of everything odd he did to himself was a living, breathing person with real feelings.
Ambrose Bierce, the American writer and journalist, regarded fame as oblivion, where the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest.
Oblivion, he wrote, is fame’s eternal dumping ground.
Jackson died years ago. It was his body only that stopped breathing last Thursday.

During the first week of Hill House Summer Camps, the 25 participants in Kiddie Kamp (ages 3-5) kicked off Animal Planet week. The campers took nature walks, did arts and crafts and, despite the weather, played fun games like “Fishy, Fishy Cross my Ocean”. Day Campers (ages 5-10) experienced Beantown Adventure week by making Boston cream cupcakes and participating in a Georges Island scavenger hunt.

PHOTO 1 CAPTION: The Hill House Summer Camp staff.

PHOTO 2 CAPTION: Campers take part in a cooking activity.

PHOTO 3 CAPTION: Campers finish scavenger hunt at Georges Island.

In the very first such event of the election season, on Tuesday, June 23, the Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee and the Boston Ward 4 Democratic Committee jointly sponsored a Candidates Forum for those candidates running for Boston city councillor-at-large, at the Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston Street, in Copley Plaza. Thirteen of the 15 candidates running for Boston city councillor-at-large participated in the forum, which was attended by 130 people, and lasted approximately 90 minutes.
During the forum, the candidates answered a series of questions on topics, including: how to improve education opportunities in Boston: what cuts or increases in revenue will be needed to balance the Boston city budget; and whether the city should create a master plan concerning future development.
The forum moderator was David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix.