Editorial: Boston City Council hits snooze button on Mass and Cass

It’s a good thing the Boston City Council doesn’t work ER triage.

The Mass and Cass crisis is ongoing, and growing. Earlier this month Mayor Michelle Wu declared conditions around Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue had reached “a new level of public safety alarm.”

The Boston City Council heard the alarm, and hit the snooze button.

On the heels of Wu filing an ordinance giving police the authority to clear out homeless encampments at Mass and Cass, urging the council to “take swift and urgent action” to approve it this week, the council swiftly and urgently put it on the back burner in its Wednesday meeting.

Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who chairs the government operations committee, said he’s targeting the last week of September or first week of October for a hearing, which typically occurs before the Council votes on a policy matter.

“One of the things that could happen is at the hearing there could be issues about legality that are identified, or ways in which we can strengthen or loosen certain aspects of the ordinance,” Arroyo said. “A hearing is making the case for it or against.”

Doesn’t the nightmare that is Mass and Cass warrant expedition?

The council has presumably seen the coverage of the humanitarian crisis along the Methadone Mile, the garbage, the needles, the crime, the degradation of addiction playing out daily. Some of them have walked through the area.

“I don’t know about anyone in this room, but I’ve seen enough of the tents,” Councilor Michael Flaherty said at the meeting. “I think it’s time to take them down.”

City Council President Ed Flynn has also seen Mass and Cass up close in a recent visit.

“It was worse than I expected,” Flynn said, pointing out the “squalor” and “rampant drug abuse in public” he saw.

That was early August, on Wednesday Flynn’s take was: “The time for question and debate is at a public hearing.”

In late September or October.

The measure would allow police to take down tents and tarps, provided that individuals are offered shelter and transportation to services, and eliminates the need for police to give a 48-hour heads up before removing tents. Police Commissioner Michael Cox has said that requirement is “not realistic,” given that the tents are being used to support the open-air drug market in the area.

Late last week, Boston police arrested a woman on drug trafficking charges during an investigation on Atkinson and Bradston Streets. According to the BPD, officers saw a suspect exit a tent, and a search of the tent uncovered crystal meth, fentanyl and crack cocaine.

The tents are not just for sleeping.

“We are creating a new law with new criminal penalties, and so with something like that, I don’t think you rush into it,” Arroyo said.

And the dealers and addicts have at least another month to use the tents as transaction stations, while neighboring residents and businesses suffer from the problems incurred by proximity to the Mile.

A solution to the problem could be on the way – as long as no one’s in a hurry.