40 Warren Opponents Get Another Meeting

An attempt to nullify the Charlestown Neighborhood Council’s earlier support for the failed sharply Tuesday night.

Council Member Bill Galvin called the vote in light of that neighbors who opposed the project had not received adequate notice of meetings.

“I have some real problems with… the integrity of the vote,” Galvin said.

His motion garnered support from two other council members, but the balance of the 21-person assembly voted to keep its earlier approval intact unless supplied with reason to change it.

They may get that reason early next month.

The council will call a special Development Committee meeting Thurs., Jan. 5 to discuss the project, and council member Mark Rosenshein said he plans to make sure that all interested residents are aware of it.

In addition, Danielle Valle Fitzgerald, Charlestown’s Neighborhood Coordinator, said her office will step in to improve notification on this particular due to residents’ frustrations with it. Her office is also trying to formulate a policy for notifying abutters going forward, she said.

Opponents of the project have said for several weeks that Vahid Nickpour, the owner of 40 Warren Street, made little or no attempt to notify them of important meetings with the council.

Rosenshein said Tuesday, though, the council didn’t really require him to do so.

“We asked him to ‘reach out’ to the abutters,” he said. As for what that means, Rosenshein said, “who the hell knows?”

Several of the project’s opponents did, however, receive notice of and attend an April 20 community meeting about the project at 40 Warren Street, according to records given to Charlestown Patch by Nickpour. Unofficial group spokesman Brian Graves confirmed that he attended that meeting.

Rosenshein also noted that each of the council's meetings were advertised twice each in the Patriot-Bridge.

To improve community notification in the future, he suggested that the council begin posting notice of meetings in at least one other venue—namely, he suggested that the council begin sending notices to Charlestown Patch.

Doing so, said Council Chairman Tom Cuhna, would require the council to amend its bylaws. Accordingly, he referred the matter to the bylaw committee.