There are still some Nahant residents who don’t understand the financial damage that will be done to our town if Northeastern University (NU) is allowed to expand at East Point. Perhaps they believe such a large and respected institution feels a burden to contribute a fair share to Nahant. But is this how Northeastern has acted for the past 50 years?
The truth is they have done relatively little for us. Whatever money or partial scholarships NU has donated (and only in recent years) pales in comparison to the real estate taxes they would have paid if they were regular citizens and carried their portion of our municipal costs.
The $25,000 to the Johnson School and the couple half-scholarships are appreciated, but at the end of the day, the Town receives no money toward infrastructure, including roads, water and sewer systems, nor toward municipal services, such as for police, fire and the Department of Public Works.
The taxpayers pick up the burden, as they have since 1967 when Northeastern came to Nahant.
Over the 40 years of my professional career, I have worked with many large institutions like Northeastern. The constituencies they care about are their students, their donors and their boards of trustees. This does not include the people of the neighborhoods in which their buildings are located.
NU has shown this with the way they treated Roxbury and Burlington. They acted as if they were concerned about those communities, but ultimately did what suited the university’s own purposes. Why would anyone think it will be different in Nahant?
Any money promised by NU is simply the bare minimum they believe necessary to buy our votes against eminent domain. It will not be enough to compensate us for the strain on our infrastructure and public services for years to come. And it cannot offset the inestimable cost of ruining East Point, which is truly Nahant’s treasure.
Please, let’s not fool ourselves into believing that NU will suddenly become a great neighbor in our town. They are acting in their own interest, not ours. They will always put their own needs and their own constituencies first.
If they build, we will be the ones left carrying the burden of their presence and we will have lost East Point forever.
Carl Jenkins is Divisional President at a Global Risk Advisory Firm.