Friday, May 25, 2012

...And Up 'Til Eight / They'll Let You In

They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese? 
No man...
Then what do they call it?
They call it a Royale with cheese. 
A Royale with cheese! What do they call a Big Mac?
Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
Le Big Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.

One interesting factoid I learned about Lynn today is that their City Hall hours are somewhat quirky.  Ours are pretty straightforward -- 8 to 5, Monday through Friday.  They go from 8:30-4 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.  On Tuesdays they stay open until 8 (they also schedule all their municipal meetings on Tuesdays, with Council meetings twice a month starting at 8.  On Fridays they take a 'make-up day' from Tuesday, and close up at 12:30 p.m. 

Neither way is necessarily right or wrong -- they're just different.  We've got more total hours of accessibility, but the big advantage Lynn has is that the once-a-week extra availability works really well for people who work at jobs that are either out of town or don't allow them to *break away* during work hours without having to use vacation time.  I'm sure people in Lynn are frustrated on Friday afternoons if they need something, but those who know the deal can work around it.  

Last week, I was talking to a guy who lives in Westford and works in Lowell.  Westford's Town Hall is open for business from 8 to 4, Monday through Friday, which means that if he needs to pick up a legal document, take care of something that he can't just mail in, or otherwise do anything official with the city, it requires him to either request special permission from his boss to take a longer lunch break or just schedule those errands on a day off.  If there were a single day each week, or even once a month, that the Town Hall were open later, he could plan around that and avoid the hassle.  


One other interesting factoid: I learned that Lynn is poised to develop 280 acres of oceanfront property soon. Yes, 280 ACRES.  They floated a bond that enabled them to remove all the power lines that were standing in the way of development of the big tract in the no-man's-land jutting up against Revere.  It's not entirely certain yet what they'll do with it, but it obviously has the potential to change their tax base and transform a major portion of their city.  

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