I had my own Officer Obie experience last week — as in Alice’s Restaurant Officer Obie. NPD Officer Jeff Staples knocked on our door: we’ve had a complaint about the street painting, he said.
Really, I replied, looking at the narrow, dangerously crumbling street and sidewalk in front of me. You’re telling me, that with roads and sidewalks in this condition, someone … the DPW … is concerned about some paint? When asked, I confessed that I’d painted “TESTING” and a few bright blue test squares on the street. We want to see if the acrylic house paint salvaged from a Williams Street give-away will endure the weather and traffic, I explained. We want to use street art to calm traffic, brighten the neighborhood, build community spirit and connectivity.
Officer Staples was not impressed. It’s vandalism, he said and asked if I would promise not to paint again. You don’t want to end up in court, he said. I could not promise to not paint; it’s something our neighborhood working group had (once again) agreed we wanted to do. It was, I said, at least for me, a kind of civil disobedience. One can carry out such deeds as littering (Officer Obie) and painting on a street (Officer Staples) if they’ve exhausted all other means of addressing a problem.
And we have indeed exhausted our options — trying for some 20 years to get the city to work with us to improve the walkability/move-ability and traffic issues in Montview.
It’s been exactly 15 years since Montview Neighborhood Traffic Calming Request #5 was accepted by the Transportation and Parking Commission — May 19, 2009; the Engineering report on Nov. 17, 2009. The 45-page report/request was the culmination of three years of dedicated work by a neighborhood committee in collaboration with the city and DPW, to gather relevant information about traffic, speed and accidents. Also included were surveys of residents detailing concerns along with proposed solutions. The effort was precipitated by the construction of 14 units — City View Apartments — built behind Williams Street with an entrance on Hockanum Road. There was some $15,000 in traffic calming money attached to the project, which neighbors mistakenly thought was ours to be used to mitigate against the impact of the increased people, cars and traffic.
The original committee had five goals: lower traffic volume; encourage slower speeds; encourage/educate drivers to be more respectful; beautify the neighborhood; make the neighborhood safer; involve all neighbors in this and other projects to promote community, communication and solutions. After three years of substantive work, they submitted their ideas and a budget; it included among other things, $2,800 for street/mural painting along with $2,000 for upkeep of the painting and $5,000 to paint on the railroad trestles on Holyoke Street and Hockanum Road. These ideas were rejected by the city, along with the idea to install a removable traffic circle at a dangerous intersection on Henry, Montview and Ventures Field Road and the installation of two community bulletin boards. The painting would “not last,” the city said. And, the money wasn’t really ours to spend as it turns out. “The distribution of funds,” wrote Planning Director Misch (August 2024),” is based on data and need.” It “may” or, may not be used in the neighborhood where the project that generated the funds is located.
So, here we are, 15 years later and now in our third neighborhood working group: no farther ahead and with the real prospect that things will only continue to get worse for those of us living in this uniquely historic neighborhood — on the very edge of the city and yet also downtown. What is broken — our streets and sidewalks— it seems, will not be repaired, and “by-right”infill development, will put increasing pressure on that infrastructure, on our small meadow conservation land and on all things living here — plants, animals and people.
“TESTING” is a challenge and an invitation to the city to do what it has not done in all these years: engage with the neighborhood(s), work with us. I suppose people could use their two minutes in public comment to sing a refrain from Alice’s Restaurant — whether its to resist house demolition in Bay State, development on View Avenue. or a 5-story apartment building in the small parking lot on Hawley Street. I think the council would get your intention. Or! You could paint TESTING on the street or sidewalk in your neighborhood. If enough people do it, as Arlo Guthrie says, they’ll think it’s a movement. And maybe the city’s planning department will abandon their top-down planning style and adopt what’s proven to be a more successful approach to planning: working with residents, taking advantage of the lived experience and expertise in the city.
“They’re going to send the DPW to paint over that with black paint,” said Officer Staples. Really? Maybe they’ll repave all of Montview.
Claudia Lefko lives in Northampton.