Meeting on Lynn garden irks abutter

LYNN – A neighborhood activist is angry that a small group of city and school officials met last week to talk about the controversial public garden at Ingalls Elementary School without inviting area residents to attend.Marguerite Puleo said the decision by School Committee member John Ford to hold the meeting without inviting neighborhood residents is part of a pattern of officials ignoring the wishes of neighbors who want the garden closed.”I don’t trust them ?there’s been too many promises and it’s all phony,” she said.But Ford, a School Committee member and chairman of the Building and Grounds subcommittee, said last week’s informal meeting was aimed at addressing issues raised by neighbors, not slighting anybody.”You can’t invite everybody to every meeting,” Ford said.Puleo and other neighbors presented a petition to the School Committee last year signed by 78 people asking for the garden to be closed.The School Committee rejected that request in November, but promised to address concerns raised by Puleo and other neighbors who believe the garden has led to a rat infestation and even a gang presence in the neighborhood.Asked Tuesday if rats still come on her property, Puleo, who was sitting in her kitchen during an interview, pointed outside and said, “Oh God, I have no bird feeder there because two rats were out there eating the bird seed. Along the back of the fence, I can see them running by.”Ford said Wednesday that the group – which included Inspectional Services Chief Michael Donovan, School Committee member Maria Carrasco and Officer Robert Ferrari, school security and emergency planning liaison – met to come up with recommendations to give to the rest of the School Committee.They decided it didn’t make sense to ask the Food Project – which runs the garden – to increase the height of the fence around most of the garden from 4 feet to 6 feet without first giving other security measures a chance to work.”I don’t think the additional two feet is warranted and will do any good,” Ford said.He also stressed that he does not believe the garden is attracting gang members to the school.”If you were a gang member I don’t think the first thing you’d want to do is hang out at a school garden,” Ford said.Ferrari said the plan instead is to install between four to six exterior video cameras to cover the garden.”We’re in the process of working out a draft to use some funds that we have in place to include our largest eight elementary schools on our technology platform,” he said.Ultimately, officers will be able to view the cameras from the police station once everything is hooked up, Ferrari said.Until then, officers at the school security office at the Fecteau-Leary Junior Senior High School will be able to watch the video from the cameras set to be positioned outside the school.Those cameras will add to the 300 cameras that are already up and running in other city schools, Ferrari said.He believes that the cameras outside the Ingalls School will serve as an invaluable deterrent, like those that are already in place at the city’s middle and high schools.”There’s no question about it, they’re such a valuable tool to not only the police, but the disciplinarians,” he said about the cameras that are inside and outside the schools. “They now have an idea of when there’s a dispute between students about what really happened.”He said police recently solved a series of crimes at variety stores because they were able to spot a suspect outside one of the middle schools by looking at their exterior cameras there.”These cameras are not only a valuable tool to the school, but the community at large as well,” he said.Ferrari believes the cameras will cut down on vandalism at the school or in the garden, but doesn’t believe the garden is attracting gangbangers to the school.”I just think that is not happening,” he said.The group also talked about adding one more large floodlight to the back of the school, in addition to the ones that are alread