It’s not quite fair to call it the $11.4 million curb cut, but the lengths to which lot owner Eric Griffith will go to get it for the use of occasionally visiting in-laws makes it begin to seem like the value of his property (assessed at that amount) hinges on it. This is the second time he’s asked for a delay from the council.

Griffith’s latest step, along with claimed attempts to keep meeting with neighbors and win them over:

“We’ve been asked to request that this matter be deferred for one week so that we can put in writing our intention to use this driveway for passenger vehicles and that we will direct any service or landscaping vehicles to use the driveway on Raymond Street,” owner Eric Griffith said.  The lot is 53,667 square feet, straddling the block from Raymond to where the curb cut is proposed for a cul-de-sac called Wyman Street.

Griffith hoped Avon Hill residents opposed to his curb cut request would change their mind, but construction of his gigantic single-family home and the auxiliary unit has been going on for four years. Neighbors’ nerves are frayed and their suspicions aroused. Forty have signed a letter to the council against the curb cut, and several have railed against it at council meetings.

Griffith has said his 13 nearest neighbors didn’t oppose the curb cut — ostensibly the same 13 identified by the city’s Inspectional Services Department as the ones needed to sign off on the project for its own departmental approval. If the application is approved by Inspectional Services, it is sent on to Traffic and Parking, then the Historical Commission and the Department of Public Works. If approved by Public Works, the application goes to the City Council for its approval. The council has it now.

“There have been some irregularities to this process,” Avon Hill resident Margot Welch told the council Monday.

Griffith’s application included only four names, not 13, Welch said. A look at the file in confirms her testimony.

The four signers included Griffith himself and two opponents of the curb cut — Lowry Pei, of Bellevue Avenue, who confirmed Wednesday that he signed in support July 5, but changed his mind after Welch spoke with him; and Judith Parker, who lives on Wyman Street directly across from where the curb cut would go. She filed a letter Aug. 18 saying she was against the driveway but, giving the sense she was resigned to it, hoped Griffith would discourage frequent use of it.

“I would strongly recommend that you place a ‘Private Driveway’ sign at the entrance to discourage others from using it,” she wrote Aug. 18.

She seemed resigned to it, as her letter says, “since the commission has accepted your curb cut.”

Parker didn’t respond to a message left Wednesday asking what she meant by “the commission.” The woman answering the phone at Parker’s home thought it referred to one of Avon Hill’s historical groups, which would have to be the case: City rules say those signed forms from neighbors must be included in an application “to receive a review from Inspectional Services” and start the approval process, and the last of the four signatures in the file belongs to Griffith, dated Sept. 5.

Inspectional Services signed off on Griffith’s plan Sept. 22; the Historical Commission on Sept. 28; Traffic and Parking on Oct. 5; and Public Works on Oct. 19, according to the file.

Griffith has an unlisted phone number and could not be reached for comment. In November he declined to speak on the issue beyond remarks made during public meetings, saying he preferred to speak with the opposing Avon Hill residents privately.

Matt D. holds up his Magners Comedy Festival trophy, won this past weekend in Boston.

Cambridge comedian Matt D. has to update his bio: He won the Magners Comedy Festival last weekend.

The festival ran Wednesday through Sunday at five venues throughout Boston, bringing to town names such as Colin Quinn and Marc Maron (for a public recording of his “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast) and making some new ones — namely that of Matt D., who is soon off to Glasgow, Scotland, courtesy of the hard cider company to compete in the Glasgow International Comedy Festival starting March 15.

Onstage, Matt D. typically presents himself as mopey and nearly withdrawn, approaching the microphone with a sullen hesitancy that makes his acerbic one-liners land with deadly impact, then retreating to resign himself to part with another. His jokes often give a twist to a common phrase or situation: “Personally, I prefer gummy Pepsi bottles” was a recent offering. Or: “One of my plants just died after a long battle with me being lazy.”

The comedian (who accepted his trophy in a T-shirt with a flying pig design) spent several tweets thanking people who congratulated him and being generally modest (sample boast: “Thanks to Magners USA for throwing a great festival! Amazing experience. Also Nick’s Comedy Stop and Mottley’s Comedy for hosting the shows!”) prompting fellow comedian Ted Pettingell to tell him, “You already won, you can stop being nice.”

While Matt D. is a mainstay at local clubs such as the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square, his next show is Thursday at Foxwoods in Connecticut, the start of a three-night stand at its Comix Club. On Feb. 8, he’s back at ImprovBoston in Central Square.

Raj Sivaraman, another Cambridge comedian, offered his congratulations for the Magners win in the form of a suggestion.

“Hopefully he will use the prize money to buy a new shirt,” Sivaraman tweeted.

That meant the night’s votes ended with an unchanged three votes for second-term councillor Leland Cheung, Decker dropping to two votes (her own and that of David Maher), two for Reeves and one each for Henrietta Davis and Tim Toomey — their own.

It seemed at first a decision was imminent, because Cheung made a motion even before the meeting’s public comment period to hold a mayoral vote to the start of the meeting. Mayoral votes are typically held at the end. But the reason was councillor Denise Simmons’ illness, Cheung explained after the meeting. Simmons was able to leave after the vote and recover at home.

Decker noted Toomey’s absence and asked that the vote wait for him to appear, prompting Cheung to apologize, retract his motion and explain that he thought Toomey was in the council’s private rooms, about to enter.

Henrietta Davis agreed the vote should wait for Toomey — but not too long, another hint that a final vote was in the offing.

But when he arrived at 5:49 p.m., and the vote was taken after the next speaker finished her public comment, there was no candidate with the five votes needed for consensus. After a fourth ballot sticking to the numbers of the previous two meetings, Reeves got his two votes on the fifth ballot and kept them for the sixth.

Toomey had tried to end the votes with the fifth ballot, but City Clerk Margaret Drury said Cheung had spoken first. The sixth was taken, resulting in no change. The delay is by no means a record — more than 1,300 ballots were taken in 1948 — but keeps committee chairs from being assigned and delays a permanent leader for the School Committee.

For the second and third ballots, councillors were deadlocked at three votes for Cheung (from himself, Simmons and Minka vanBeuzekom) and three for Decker (from herself, Maher and Reeves); and one each for Davis, Kelley and Toomey, with each of those members voting for themselves to be mayor. The balloting began Jan. 2 with two each for Cheung (with vanBeuzekom), Decker and Maher, and one each for Henrietta Davis, Craig Kelley and Simmons.

Kelley told the council he wouldn’t be at Monday’s meeting for a vote, and Decker asked again to hear the rules for calling a special meeting for the purposes of voting.

“I think there is a sense of urgency, if committee are to be assigned,” Decker said. “I know the School Committee also has a lot on its plate.”

You are welcome to speak on this environmental priority at public comment at the beginning of the meeting, from 5:30 to 6 p.m.

Anyone can speak for up to three minutes on any item on the agenda.

To get on the list you can call the City Council office up until 3 p.m. today at (617) 349-4280 or come to the meeting and sign up in the council chamber.

Henrietta Davis, city councillor

Dawn Baxter

It’s ironic that Marc Levy chides the Avon Hill neighbors for inaccurate (only slightly) statements when his own fact checking is so lame. (let’s talk about what “pretty much opposite” really means … yawn …) A few interviews beyond using Bliss Austin Spooner as a sole direct source would have yielded a more balanced — and  more interesting — story.

Spooner’s kids may not use the Wyman Street dead end, but other kids do. Griff, our young neighbor, learned to walk there not long ago. My grandkids play dodgeball, capture the flag and make gigantic glycerine soap bubbles with their friends there. Next time I will invite Ms. Spooner’s kids to join in. But where, exactly, does she live? She said she lived 100 yards from the curb cut — I can’t see a house that is 100 yards from the requested curb cut except the abutters, Ms. Welch, Blue’s B&B and myself — did you check that? Perhaps another aerial map would help you.

And how about some quotes from the 40 people who signed the letter to the city councillors last week or the petition some months ago? How about some words from the abutters who have not been consulted by Mr. Griffiths, which may be a procedural irregularity with regard to Avon Hill Conservation District Commission guidelines.

Mr. Levy, I invite you to stand on my porch (not even 100 yards from the proposed curb cut) and see what 28 cars plus do to traffic and parking on the street every weekday morning. Not that we take exception to the nursery school — they are good neighbors and we all try accommodate, especially in trying winter circumstances, by using Wyman Street for this short period of congestion. Maybe Mr. Griffiths should take a page from their book on how to be a good neighbor.

I would be delighted to move into the congregate senior housing that may follow the Griffith family’s residency. If you believe that, I have a bridge, you might want to buy. But it is a complete misstatement of fact and an outrageous and misleading notion.

Mr. Levy, make an effort, do your homework, please!

Sincerely,

Lisa Blout, 86 Avon Hill St.

Editor’s note: Quotes from the 40 people who have signed letters and a petition on this topic were included in the post to which Blout responds and in a Nov. 1 post. In fact, Bliss Austin Spooner has been the only person quoted as supporting the curb cut, and all quotes came from direct testimony to the City Council during public comment periods at meetings.

While it is unclear what is referred to as “a complete misstatement of fact and an outrageous and misleading notion,” the post referred to a senior housing conversion because, aside from single-family detached homes, it is the only use for property listed in city law as being allowed in A2 zoning.

As Bliss Austin Spooner said during public comment, she lives at 48 Avon Hill St., which Google Maps shows as being 348 feet from Lisa Blout’s home — indeed, more than 100 yards from the proposed curb cut on Wyman Street. Interestingly, Bliss Austin Spooner’s home is about 112 yards from the proposed curb cut as the crow flies (but a 163-yard walk).

Wyman Street, where a curb cut to a driveway has been proposed, is not quite opposite a nursery school on Hillside Place. (Image: Google Maps)

Considering the rhetoric like they get to hear on a proposed driveway up on ritzy Avon Hill — about the meaning of democracy, the future of a historic neighborhood and thinking of the children — it’s little surprise city councillors are thinking of delegating responsibility for them.

But councillors will still have to decide whether to grant a second one to the owner of a gigantic home and in-law unit going up at 79 Raymond St., a lot so large in straddles the block to 9 Wyman St., which has drawn more than the usual level of anti-curb cut bombast over the course of several council meetings. Indeed, it was Avon Hill resident Margot Welch who told councillors Monday that the curb cut plans were not just about “the long-term retention of the character of the neighborhood,” but compelled the question, “Now and in the future, what do you want democracy to be, and not just look like?”

There have been some dodgy assertions made before about the curb cut request, which would add a fourth driveway to a short, dead-end street that some say is like “a little pocket park … where children play,” and Monday brought some fresh concerns from Avon Hill residents that deserve a bit of fact checking:

“The benefit of the curb cut to [owner Eric Griffith] is far and away [greater] than to Mrs. Judith Parker and other neighbors, including the children attending the Cambridge Nursery School and their parents. Cambridge Nursery School is right opposite — the entrance is pretty much opposite to Wyman Street,” said John Cobb, of Avon Hill Street.

As is clear from an overhead view from Google Maps or a similar service, Wyman Street is not “right opposite” the 6 Hillside Place nursery school but might be considered “pretty much opposite.” They are on opposite sides of Avon Hill Street, separated by the width of a house with a generous amount of yard. Not that it much matters. As neighbors and a former president of the school describe it, 26 families drop off and pick up their kids from the school every day and use Wyman Street as parking. In all the testimony before the council no one has explained why those couple of dozen cars are not a threat to “the children and their parents,” but any car using a fourth Wyman Street curb cut is.

“What might be afoot? A commonly expressed concern is that this 24,932-square-foot structure, to be called home by a couple and a child, may not always be so. Sooner or later, neighbors fear, it will be called corporate headquarters or retreat center or academy or something like that. So what? Unlike single-family homes, corporate headquarters have a lot of … services that demand many heavy vehicles for maintenance, landscaping and catering to users’ creature comforts,” said Joan Friebely, another Avon Hill Street resident.

In November, Friebely said the council should think of the proposed driveway as serving nine single-family homes because the 53,665-square-foot lot could have squeezed nine in if Griffith hadn’t decided to instead build one big house and an in-law unit. (Similarly, she worries about landscaping trucks serving a 53,665-square-foot lot that she fears would change use, but it’s not clear why more landscaping trucks would be needed for what would still be a 53,665-square-foot lot.) Now her argument is that the curb cut should be rejected because at some indeterminate point in the future it could serve more than a couple and their child.

Either way, the lot she worries about is in A-2 zoning, which allows only single-family, detached homes. The lot borders some B zoning, which allows single- and two-family detached homes and, by the granting of a special permit, townhouses. (Both zoning types could also allow, according to the city’s table of use regulations, conversion for “elderly oriented congregate housing.” So the risk is that Griffith is building his home and in-law unit so he can convert them to senior housing.)

If Friebely and others would rather fight a curb cut now than a radical change in zoning in the future, it may say more about their perception of the City Council’s priorities than Griffith’s. Either way, their arguments include some clunkers.

The passionate, outspoken opponents of the curb cut do not include the 13 neighbors living closest to the lot, Griffith told the council, and Jan. 9 heard some of the first testimony from a supporter: Bliss Austin Spooner,  yet another Avon Hill Street resident, who said her home is about 100 yards from the curb cut proposals “riling up my neighborhood.”

“I grew up on that street, so I kind of remember the days they talk about of children playing in those areas. Those days are gone,” Austin Spooner said. “In fact, my children are the only children practically on the whole street. They certainly live the closest to the [proposed] Wyman Street curb cut, and I’m not worried about my kids and I don’t think kids should be the reason it’s approved or not. I’m in complete support of the Wyman curb cut.”

“I know you’ve heard a lot about these curb cuts,” she said. “Honestly? They’re not a big deal.”

A crowd packs School Committee chambers Tuesday to give testimony on the end of the district’s Intensive Study Program. (Photo: Marc Levy)

The fight to save the school district’s Intensive Studies Program has itself intensified, with a majority of the 30 students, parents and city councillors speaking Tuesday at a School Committee meeting urging officials and administrators to at least let current ISP kids finish their promised years.

The program accepts nearly any student who feels held back educationally in their traditional classrooms, although the program is for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders only and is held only at the Kennedy-Longfellow and Peabody schools. With the Innovation Agenda separating the middle-school grades from the district’s elementary schools and moving them to new “upper schools” in September, the 175 or so students in the program are dreading its announced end — and a return to classes where they say they’ve been bullied, pressed into teaching other kids or bored to the point of surreptitiously reading books and doing homework under their desks.

“I was in a reading group for one year reading this thin, little book that was below my reading level, and it took us the entire year to read it because our teacher would completely forget to meet with us. She’d be too busy with other groups,” said one student, Celeste DeLancey.

“One math class we actually spent the whole class on one question, waiting for the kids who were struggling,” said another student, Zeke Iammarino. “Now that I’m in the ISP I learn much quicker, and as opposed to one question that we did throughout the one day, we did a whole packet in a class.”

Academic Challenge

School officials say they hope to find a way to bring the advantages of ISP to all students, but in classrooms that hold all level of learners. The Academic Challenge report presented to the committee Jan. 17 includes an honors class option for math in the upper schools, but no specific advanced option for English-language arts or social studies, just a “Scholars Challenge” component that the report says will — when designed by middle-grades teachers and heads of upper schools — provide “a structured opportunity for each student to challenge him/herself to develop academically, socially and emotionally [and] serve to support the creation of a community of learners.”

The four choices for upper-school deans are to be offered the jobs next month, but not formally start work until the summer, district officials have said. The committee has a Feb. 7 vote scheduled to accept or reject the Academic Challenge report that could erase ISP from the district, but District Deputy Superintendent Carolyn Turk said that date was set at the beginning of the school year and could be changed as the committee deemed necessary.

That vote would likely come with more discussion of whether there can be two teachers in upper school classrooms to give more attention to a range of student abilities, an alternative proposed by committee member Marc McGovern. (After hearing comment about ISP, school officials went into the first of two budget retreats that will also weigh on the possibility. The next is Tuesday.)

“The social and academic contract”

But among the packed committee room, lined with students holding signs and frequently pounding cabinets as a form of applause during the meeting’s nearly two hours, more than a dozen people exhorted Superintendent Jeffrey Young and the committee to let the ISP students finish out their time either way.

“At least modify [the Academic Challenge report] to allow students currently enrolled in the ISP to finish the program they were promised through the eighth grade. If you do this, you’ll have fulfilled your part in the social and academic contract you made with these children and you’ll have garnered two years of data with which to assess whether the new system really does incorporate the best parts of the ISP,” parent Shannon Larkin said. “That being said, I have grave concerns about the Academic Challenge recommendation and urge you to send the document back for revision. It contains too many wishes and not enough substance or support to make those wishes come true.”

Larkin wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Among those with similar concerns about the plan were councillor Craig Kelley — also in attendance were councillors Leland Cheung and Denise Simmons, while Ken Reeves led the meeting — who noted the “huge amount” of professional development needed before September to get teachers up to speed on the so-called differentiated instruction.

A few people simply said the district wouldn’t be able to pull off a change by September.

“If everybody goes back to what the Innovation Agenda is about, it’s about being operationally ready in September 2012. It’s almost February. I still don’t know what the foreign language options will be … math seems like it’s progressing relatively well, but what about English, what about social studies? If we’re planning on implementing the Innovation Agenda, we’re not ready in September. We need a Plan B,” Daniel Schutzberg said. “I’m beginning to consider what my options are in public schools, and I don’t like my choices.”

There were also those for whom even grandfathering current ISP kids wasn’t enough. “It doesn’t have to be ISP, but there has to be something for these kids. And it can’t just be the grandfathered-in kids for the next couple of years, because there are other kids behind them with the same issues,” said one of those, Lisa McManus.

Much of the most powerful testimony of the night belonged to the several students who spoke, and perhaps it is apt that it was a student who got the biggest, most appreciative laugh of the night as well.

“Please just let the kids that are already in ISP [complete] the term,” Zeke Iammarino said. “Because it’s kind of like someone’s eating a cheeseburger and you knock it out of their hand.”

This post was updated Jan. 26, 2012, to correct the number of students in ISP classes.

Thank you as well to Rayburn Music for its generous loan of musical instruments to enhance the instrument petting zoo at the conclusion of the concert, and to state Sen. Pat Jehlen for her narration of the story.

Now in its 36th season, the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra is a community music organization that provides a welcoming environment for players and audiences through outstanding concerts, events and social action.

Artistry and Community in Concert.

Rachel Spiller, co-founder and board member

Bicycles in the Hubway rental program wait for riders outside South Station in Boston. Hubway is to arrive in Cambridge in the spring, with helmet-dispensing machines and a safety brochure. (Photo: John Dalton)

When 20 bike rental stations arrive in the spring, the City Council expects them to be accompanied by HelmetHub machines — helmet dispensers designed by a dozen Massachusetts Institute of Technology students — and a reminder of the rules of the road.

The councillors said so Monday in an 8-1 vote that may well have been unanimous but for Craig Kelley’s continued dismay over a possibly outsized priority being put on bicycle safety and rules enforcement. Recent council candidates James Williamson said during the night’s public comment period that the helmet dispensers should dispense a brochure with the bicycling rules of Cambridge. Councillor Minka vanBeuzekom offered a version of his idea (that the city “prepare a brochure on the rules of the road for dispensing with the helmets”) as an amendment to Henrietta Davis’ order seeking installation of the machines.

“I continue to be just amazed at how focused we are that someone renting a bicycle needs to study [the rules],” Kelley said. “I rented a car from Enterprise in Central Square the other day and they just looked at my license and sent me on my merry way … we’re not making anyone who rents a car acknowledge that they know it’s dangerous to text and drive. I get hit by cars probably once every two months, and I’m really getting tired of everyone looking at the rental program as a menace.”

The program, called Hubway (with naming rights going to New Balance, the Boston maker of athletic gear), debuted in Boston in July with 60 stations and 600 bikes. It was expected to make it to Cambridge in the fall, but the rollout there and in Somerville, which is expected to get eight rental stations, was delayed to spring. The system offers memberships for $85 a year, $12 for three days and $5 for a day; members get unlimited half-hour rides, with higher fees for longer trips.

The solar-powered dispensers have been described as costing $8 per helmet, with a partial refund if a helmet is returned.

Bicycle renters have to sign a form saying they understand the rules of the road. The council’s vote means those rules should be also available in brochure form, even if they’re not dispensed with helmets, so riders can brush up before pedaling away.

Tops in reported crashes

Bicycle safety and legal riding have been topics for months, thanks in part to Williamson’s campaigning and the city’s preparations for the coming of Hubway. Early in January VanBeuzekom noted Cambridge’s rankings among the state’s top 200 crash locations in an August report by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The report is limited — it tracks only reported, geocoded crashes between 2002-09 — but puts Cambridge in the top 10 multiple times for pedestrian and bicycle incidents.

The dramatic number of bicycle crashes is likely a natural result of what’s been called a 150 percent surge in bicycle use since 2002, to the extent that Cambridge was named the seventh-best bike city in the country by the League of American Bicyclists last year. By league figures, bicycle commuters make up 8.5 percent of the overall population.

Cambridge contributes two of the state’s top 10 pedestrian crash clusters (No. 3, with 94 crashes, is Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; No. 6 is Elm Street from Davis Square nearly to Porter Square, and as such shares its 38 crashes with Somerville) and essentially is the list of top 10 bicycle crash clusters: It takes every slot but Nos. 7 and 8.

The No. 1 spot, shared with Somerville, is where Kirkland and Cambridge streets meet Beacon and Hampshire streets; the No. 2 spot is on Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; the No. 3 spot is again with Somerville, at Massachusetts Avenue around Porter Square; the No. 4 spot is down Massachusetts Avenue toward MIT; the No. 5 spot is southeast of Harvard Square starting from where Massachusetts Avenue meets Mount Auburn Street; No. 6 extends from Norris Street along Massachusetts Avenue and across Route 16 into Arlington; No. 9 is on Massachusetts Avenue where it meets Memorial Drive; and No. 10 is on Broadway above Central Square. The number of crashes ranges from 106 crashes reported at the top spot to 22 at the No. 10 spot.