Mayor Talks Hot Topics in State of City Address

Mayor Michael McGlynn gave his annual State of the City Address to local business people and officials during a luncheon at Century Bank Tuesday.

Here's what he had to say about some of Medford's top issues:

On Plans for a Governors Avenue Parking Garage:

"We can no longer wait on the DPW yards and the garage in the square."

"People are talking about 'How are we going to pay?' 'How are we going to spend $8 million to build a garage?' Unfortunately, those are the prices. If we want to go back and strip some of the environmental improvements that we hope to make on it, if we strip the red brick - I call it the old Medford brick...we can bring the price down. But over the life of 20-year financing, is it worth it? I think we deserve better"

"Just so there's no misunderstanding, the garage will be paid for by the users, not by the taxpayers. The revenue that will be generated from that garage pays off the bonds."

On the Green Line Extension Project:

"I think people got over-excited in the beginning and projected some dates of when it was going to be here they know now are not realistic."

"For them to build it by 2018, based on the schedule they have right now, there's only a 10 percent chance, to build it by 2020, there's a 90 percent chance. But it is going to be built to Tufts, it is going to happen."

"If people feel now that government are playing mind games with them...in order to show them that it's real...we have to phase something in, you have to do something on the Medford end, you have to do something on the Somerville end."

"I think what they may announce in a week or two, is that they are going to look at the bridge at Harvard Street and the bridge on College Ave, and start rebuilding the one on Harvard Street and adding a right turn lane to the one on College Ave."

On Bringing a Ferry/Taxi to Medford Square on the Mystic River:

"They are now sizing, testing the water for the first dock that will go in adjacent to that land (near Medford Square), so some day when we build mix use there people will be able to walk across that street, get on that water taxi that I've talked about before, and get on that water taxi that goes up and down the Mystic."

On Verizon Not Being in Medford:

"The happiest day of my life will be when Verizon comes to Medford."

Two years ago "they wired 70 percent of Medford, they walked into my office and said 'we're out of here, we're leaving here, we're leaving 19 communities in Massachusetts.'"

"I have been chasing them for about a year and a half, we have had no fewer than eight conference calls since Decemeber to try to bring this together."

"I would hope things would be resolved shortly."

On Mitigation He's Seeking from Fast14 Contractors:

"Right now legally, they have no obligation to us, but morally they do."

"I'll tell you one item: I'm looking for five fully equipped purchased cruisers. I'll tell you another one: I'm looking for a dog park. I'm looking for money for stump removal. I'm looking for improvements around Salem Street Rotary and Medford Street that they used as their stationing areas...I'm looking for them to build a structure for the crew team at the high school."

The Edgerly Field "Field of Dreams Project":

"The field of dreams is responsible for bringing in over $600,000 just in the first year."

On Hormel Stadium Renovation Plans:

"It's going to cost $880,000 to turf the field and then put another rubberized coat over the track, but it has the potential of bringing in a lot of money. We have applied for a state grant for a half million dollars to make this happen, the results were supposed to be out Oct. 5, they haven't been released...but I have a feeling we are going to do very well."