U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins is opening up an investigation into whether Quincy’s opposition to the Long Island Bridge amounts to civil-rights violations in the latest turn in the years-long saga over building an addiction-recovery campus out on the island.
In a letter obtained by the Herald from Rollins to Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch dated May 12, the U.S. attorney wrote that her office is “initiating an investigation” into Quincy over the Americans with Disabilities Act, which includes language forbidding discrimination against people with substance-abuse issues.
“Pursuant to our authority under the ADA, we are investigating the City of Quincy’s various efforts regarding the reconstruction of the Long Island Bridge,” Rollins wrote. “This includes, but is not limited to, the Quincy Conservation Commission’s denial of an Order of Conditions for rebuilding the bridge, the Quincy City Council’s enactment of new permitting requirements for bridges, and the Quincy City Council’s enactment of restrictions on vehicular access to Moon Island.”
Rollins wrote in the letter that the investigation is in its “preliminary stage,” and that her civil-rights unit was sending over a request for information about various aspects of Quincy’s opposition to the bridge, which would in theory lead to a future addiction-recovery campus. The letter says Quincy has 30 days to turn the information over to Rollins.
“I believe the interests of both the public and the City of Quincy will best be served by the City’s full cooperation in providing our office with complete and accurate information in a timely manner,” the U.S. attorney wrote.
Koch’s chief of staff, Chris Walker, told the Herald, “We look forward to working cooperatively with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and providing them with all the information they’ve requested and any information we have on what the City of Boston has shared on their plans that formed the basis of any regulatory decisions made locally here.”
The bridge saga has continued for more than a half decade, emerging immediately when then-Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced he wanted to rebuild the bridge, which until 2014 carried traffic from Moon Island, which is owned by Boston but is part of Quincy, and Long Island, which is a Boston Island that the capital city also owns.
Quincy officials and residents were essentially united in furious opposition to the plan, saying the increased traffic through the smaller Squantum-neighborhood streets would be dangerous — and also feared that Walsh had other plans to develop housing on the picturesque island.
The suburban city of 100,000 launched formal opposition to the bridge on multiple fronts: the conservation commission denied it a permit, the city council slammed new restrictions into place around bridges and the Koch administration hired outside counsel to file suit.
It’s those actions that Rollins cited in her letter as potentially being a bridge too far in opposing the the effort to rebuild the structure to enable access to recovery services.
Dueling lawsuits have now stretched over years, but they appear to be resolving. Boston has had a good run in the courts lately, prevailing in a couple of lawsuits and recently claiming to the Herald that the city’s optimistic it can get permitting going this year.
Current Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — whose office declined to comment on the letter on Tuesday — has said that Long Island could play an important role in the middle- to longer-term battle against addiction issues in the area. The years-long timeline prevents it from being a quick fix no matter what; even as Wu and others — including Koch — talk about using ferries in lieu of a bridge at least in the short term, previous Boston-commissioned plans have repeatedly deemed that much more expensive and difficult to pull off, particularly when dealing with people at higher risk for needing emergency services.
Wu and company have kept their specific plans largely under wraps — other than to continue to fight for the right to build the bridge — a year-old Walsh-era report obtained by the Herald earlier this past winter laid out potential plans to spend more than half a billion dollars to create a state-of-the-art campus on the island.
In the letter, Rollins pledged a “full and fair investigation” and said “there will be an opportunity for discussion” before any final decisions are made.
“Finally, please consider this correspondence notice that the City must maintain any and all records, documents, files, texts, messages, or tapes that could be relevant to this investigation in their current form whether or not they are specifically called for in the requests below,” Rollins wrote, wrapping up the letter. “If this matter were to ever eventually move to formal litigation, we could request an adverse inference regarding any destroyed, altered or not properly maintained records.”
