Recap of the May 28th SPBG meeting

Meeting Recap
On Wednesday, May 28th at 10:00 AM, Councilor Spadafora hosted a public meeting at Anthony’s on Canal St, his family’s functional hall. Many familiar voices both supporting and opposing this project were heard from at this meeting. While opponents and proponents of the project could not agree on much we all agreed the time of day was inconvenient for most of us.
The Mystic Valley Gun Club (MVGC), represented by Susanna Cortese, expressed their strong opposition to the Canal Street portion. On the other side, there was a great turnout of our Malden Safe Streets members. It was encouraging to hear our many voices speak up in favor of the project. The only Canal Street business we heard from was L&L Trucking.
Councillors Spadafora, Winslow, Crowe, and O'Malley (albeit briefly) were present as well. Councillor Spadafora was vehemently against the Canal Street portion while Councillor Winslow spoke in favor of it and made a call to rekindle the spirit of collaboration which originally made the Northern Strand Trail a reality.
The meeting itself revolved around a few discussion points:
Against:
- The funding: the cost to see it through to completion was brought up a few times along with concerns that there may be hidden costs due to infrastructure constraints.
- Access for trucks entering and exiting the businesses along the route.
In Favor:
- Solves the need of pedestrians and other sidewalk users to have a wide comfortable path from Medford Street up to the Stop and Shop instead of the obstructed narrow sidewalk of today.
- Expands the network of the Northern Strand Trail increasing connectivity to downtown Malden.
Unfortunately, unmoderated public meetings like this are often not productive for constructive dialogue. On more than a few occasions attendees asked Councillor Spadafora to lower his voice. Importantly, we were missing the voices of city officials such as Alex Pratt, Director of the Office for Strategic Planning and Community Development who could have helped answer specific questions about the project. There were also questions raised which would have required staff from the Finance and Legal departments to answer.
In an effort to improve dialogue and work toward collaborative problem solving, we are organizing to collect feedback from businesses. The goal is to engage with legitimate concerns, with help from the engineers and the city,and present honest facts about the project to foster understanding of the project’s true impact on local businesses. Too often, debates over new infrastructure projects are defined by resistance to change. Many opponents are opposed to any change, while often, proponents are resistant to considering project changes that might improve the final product. Malden Safe Streets remains committed to fostering healthy dialogue and seeing this extremely promising project brought forward to completion.
Full notes about the meeting can be found here.