The Daily Free Press
Year xli. Volume lxxxii. Issue lxxxvii.
Campus & City
ALL-STAR ALTUG: BU prof. wins Adolph Lomb Medal
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Wednesday, March 21, 2012 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University Sports Spotlight
‘GREEN’-EYED MONSTERS? Makeup companies put focus on being eco-friendly page 5
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HEATED HISTORY? Parker recalls ‘76 BUMinnesota brawl
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Food trucks to roll down Brookline streets as part of pilot program Community members speak out on NStar’s Beginning in April, food in Brookline is reaction to fire at BPL By Hina Tai Daily Free Press Staff
officially going mobile. Brookline recently joined the growing food truck wave, announcing it would implement a pilot program in coming months to introduce food trucks to the town’s streets and public parks. “We’ve had mobile food trucks and vendors in Brookline for a very long time but they haven’t necessarily been legal,” said Kara Brewton, Brookline’s economic development director, “and [with] that, combined with Boston’s program getting started, we saw more and more people requesting to operate food trucks in town.” The program received nine applicants who will be evaluated on multiple criteria including freshness, affordability, uniqueness and nutritional value, she said. “Restaurateurs can develop new food concepts at relatively low costs and bring them to locations where there may be an unsatisfied demand for freshly prepared food,” according to the pilot program’s website. “Brookline is a desirable place to support mobile food, in part because of its population of college students, young professionals and families.” The popularity of food trucks has caused a revolution in dining experiences, said Jack Ludden, the operations manager at Paris Creperie, a sit-down café in Coolidge Corner that applied to the pilot program in February. “Nationwide there is a food truck movement happening and it’s growing signifi-
By Eddie Donga Daily Free Press Staff
velopment, said one of the goals in building this proposal is to provide learning experiences and aggregated training programs to colleges, so those who are in training programs and businesses that need skilled workers are able to use those programs. “I’m hoping that the new funding and performance mechanisms under the proposal will help us shift the programming to be more relevant to dislocated workers and the employed, as well as . . . the wide needs of current employers,” Goldstein said. Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development Gregory Bialecki said Patrick’s proposal
While crowds swarmed Boston’s smokefilled streets on March 13 after a Back Bay fire caused a 15-block blackout, Holly Berry struggled to leave her building. “I have a wheelchair that I typically use and in the building I live at, the elevator – even with the generators – didn’t work,” Berry said. Berry said she could not get out right away and had to take her crutches to exit the building. She attempted to reach family and friends using her government-issued SafeLink Wireless phone, but was unable to place a call because she had no signal, she said. “That was a concern to me – that my emergency phone, which is my one link out, didn’t work,” Berry said. Berry was just one of about a dozen people affected by the blackout who told their stories at the three-day-long information center set up by NStar at the Boston Public Library. Emily Holden, a Beacon Street resident who lives about a mile from where the transformer that caused the blackout is located, said she is trying to restock her refrigerator. “I didn’t know if that was temporary power or what was going on,” Holden said. “I’m hesitant to restock my refrigerator if I’m still on generators, so I wanted to ask how long I would be on a generator, if that was a generator, if they think it’s safe for me to restock and not have to worry about everything spoiling again.” About 21,000 NStar customers lost power after the Back Bay fire on March 13, according to the NStar website. NStar said customers might experience occasional outages and the company used portable generators as a “temporary fix,” according to their website. Holden, who had lost about $150 worth of food and $50 worth of gourmet cupcakes during the blackout, said the NStar official told her she was on a generator and probably would be for a while, but that it was safe to restock her refrigerator.
State House, see page 2
NStar, see page 4
Bostonians browse the menu of the local Vietnamese food truck Bon Me.
cantly, especially in the Boston area,” he said. “Boston is doing a second round and even expanding their program.” Thomas Smith, co-owner of the BBQsmith, another applicant, said food trucks are a great asset to cities and appeal to many customers. “It’s interesting, it’s affordable, it’s fast and people have really latched on to it,” Smith said. “It’s become kind of a trendy thing.” Ludden said the rising number of food trucks might be due to the advent of social media and its usefulness in establishing relationships with customers. “As [social media] grows more popular it goes hand in hand with the growing
COURTESY/Bon Me
popularity of the food trucks,” he said. “Because [food trucks] don’t have a set location, they rely on communicating with their customers through those means.” Ludden said adding food trucks to an existing restaurant’s offerings could help expand their companies and serve as a mobile advertisement. “Not only will it be a profitable business on to itself . . . [but also] our truck is going to be quite a spectacle,” he said. “It’s going to be like a moving billboard for our café.” Although some local businesses and restaurants told Brookline officials food trucks may unfairly detract from their
Truck, see page 2
Bay State community colleges could unify to close skilled labor gap By Sonia Su Daily Free Press Staff
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said community colleges are “brilliantly positioned” to fill the state’s skilled workers gap at a discussion at the State House on Tuesday that addressed his plan to unify community colleges. The Commonwealth has 15 different community colleges with 15 different agendas that are regionally focused, which may pose difficulties in the plan. “We think community colleges can play a critical role in this,” said Secretary of the Executive Office of Education Paul Reville, “so we designed a set of reforms that are in building a somewhat more balanced
state-local partnership on community colleges that make it a more coherent, cohesive, integrated system.” Patrick and members of the panel said this is not a critique of community colleges. Instead, Patrick said the question is how they “amp up” the resources already available in the state’s 15 different community colleges and their respective agendas. Patrick said there are 120,000 job openings and not enough skilled workers to fill them. “We have a skills gap here in Massachusetts, not unlike the skills gap the whole nation is experiencing,” he said. Joanne Goldstein, secretary of the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce De-
SJP members protest presentation led by Israel Defense Force soldiers, BUSI By Chris Lisinski Daily Free Press Staff
Members of Boston University’s Students for Justice in Palestine staged a walkout at a forum with Israel Defense Force soldiers Tuesday night. Lital Shemesh and Adam Avidan, two Israelis who served in the IDF, spoke to a group of about 50 students at Barrister Hall in the School of Law as part of a forum hosted by BU Students for Israel. The soldiers provided insight about what it was like to serve in the military and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “What we are here for is basically to show the faces behind the headlines,” Shemesh said. SJP members protested in Marsh Plaza at 6:45 p.m., carrying a banner that read “Students for Israel whitewashes colonialism.” They attended the forum at 7:30 p.m., wearing shirts that read “IDF guilty of war crimes.” Demonstrators put duct tape over their mouths and walked out in unison shortly after Avidan began speaking. About 30 students remained at the event after the walk-
out. “We want the BU community to know that the IDF is not welcome here,” said Tyler Cullis, a LAW student and SJP member. BUSI President Matt Goldberg said the event was intended to allow the BU community to ask questions to people of a similar age who have served in the Israeli military. “It’s important for BU students to hear those stories from people of the same age,” the College of Arts and Sciences sophomore said. Goldberg said it was important for students to understand the complexity of life in Israel. “Ultimately, BU is a global university,” he said. Israel requires its citizens to enlist in the army at age 18, Avidan said. Men must enlist for at least three years, while women must serve two. Shemesh volunteered to serve as a border checkpoint guard, which Goldberg described as an unusual position for women. Avidan was drafted in 2002 and made a career for himself in the army, serving as
coordinator of government activities in the Palestinian Territories before pursuing a bachelor’s degree. “Unfortunately, we are still fighting our war of independence and, at the moment, I cannot apologize for defending my country, and I cannot apologize for my rights to live,” Shemesh said. Joshua Niland, a CAS junior and SJP member, said bringing in IDF soldiers to speak was wrong. “On average, with impunity, they kill at least one Palestinian every other day, oftentimes a child,” he said. “I don’t think it’s okay to have war criminals on this campus.” However, Niland also said the protests were intended to be civil. “[We want to] disrupt their event in as civil a manner as possible,” he said. COM sophomore Rachel DuShey, BUSI’s outreach director, said the manner of the protest was strange. “It was interesting that they wore tape on their mouths because they could have
Israel, see page 2
SARAH ANOLIK/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
TOP: Students for Justice in Palestine protested the Israeli Soldiers Stories lecture on Tuesday. BOTTOM: Lital, a reserve duty Israeli college student talks about the Israeli-Arab conflict at the Students for Israel talk on Tuesday.