Revoke $46.5 M in Tax Giveaways

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http://www.green-rainbow.org/liberty_mutual_tower_subsidy_petition

Revoke $46.5 M in Tax Giveaways for Construction of Liberty Mutual Office Tower

To: Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Boston City Councilors, Governor Deval Patrick and Legislators
Whereas: Mayor Menino and the Boston City Council have granted Liberty Mutual $24 million in property tax breaks and Governor Patrick has given Liberty Mutual $22.5 million in state subsidies to build a new office tower in Boston near its existing office in Boston.
Whereas: These subsidies are being granted to a corporation so wealthy that it testified to City Council that it could build the $300 million tower with cash on hand, and is on the Forbes 100 list, earning over a billion dollars a year in profit.
Whereas: This subsidy money is being taken from essential city and state services including schools, libraries, parks, transit, youth jobs and community centers, even as their funding is being slashed.
read the full petition text

We ask that the city and state revoke the $24 million in property tax breaks and $22.5 million in state subsidies granted to Liberty Mutual for the construction of a new office tower. Redirecting these funds to city and state services would make a real difference in people’s lives.

Annual Crime Report

For 2008, the FBI has posted their annual crime report with detail reports itemized on the left side of the site:

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Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report

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Fellow blogger, Ryan Adams blogged about Boston arming certain officers with M16s in Idiotic Policy at Boston Police Dept. that made me curious about the statistics.

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On the FBI site, it indicates that in 2007, there were 65 murders in Boston and in 2008, there were 62 murders in Boston.

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This issue seems worthy of further discussion.

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As was pointed out in the Boston Globe article:

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...the plan has sparked a debate within the Police Department about the safety of routinely deploying military-grade weapons on Boston's streets.