Local Groups Opposed to New Panel Resulting from Development Battle

BOSTON-A new panel appointed by City Mayor Thomas M. Menino to help divide up funds for the South Boston area is facing opposition in South Boston. The impact advisory group, created by an executive order from the mayor, is going to help determine how community benefits stemming from the recently proposed Midway District plan are going to be used.

Local activists are concerned that because Menino had final say in the group’s appointments, the group would be beholden to the mayor, choosing to develop programs the mayor wants. Elected officials from each neighborhood were allowed to recommend three appointees of whom Menino was required to pick one. “It is not an independent body,” Paul Walkowski, councilman James Kelly’s legislative aide, tells GlobeSt.com. Kelly’s district includes South Boston. “The IAG was the mayor’s attempt to get control of the mitigation benefits.”

The city’s linkage fees, which developers are required to pay to fund city housing and job programs, are set by the state. But developers here also pay “community benefits” to fund a range of social service programs. A controversy erupted here this past fall when a politically powerful local group, the South Boston Betterment Trust struck a multimillion-dollar deal with developers for those community benefits. Mayor Menino, who then established the IAG, canceled that deal. “He took the South Boston Betterment Trust and called it the IAG,” says Walkowski. “It is going to do the exact same thing.”