The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 51

Family gives to Globe Santa in honor of loved one they lost B14 B15 B20 B28 CityRegion Bl-14 Lottery B2 New England News Briefs B2 Deaths Comics Weather on Globe Friday, December 17, 2 0 0 4 City's residential tax rate set to rise Brian McGrory Unwritten opinion Average bill would grow 10 they would be. Councilor at Large Maura A. Henni-gan, who is considering a run against Mayor Thomas M. Menino next November, accused the mayor of delivering a sour Christmas gift for the second year in a row. "This is above and beyond what they paid last year," she said.

"I am not convinced the city has done everything in its power to maximize the value of the big commercial property owners. When they don't, it falls on the backsof the res-TAXES, Page B12 for residential properties, up from $10.15 this year, according to state Department of Revenue data obtained under a public records request. The commercial rate is expected to be $32.68 per $1,000 of assessed value, down from $33.08. Homeowners are getting hit twice by increases in both the tax rate and in their property assessments, which have increased on average a little more than 5 percent The owner of a home valued at $350,000 last year if it increased in value 5 percent to $367,500 would see an overall tax increase of about 11 percent. The tax bill would jump from approximately $3,553 to $3,943.

It is less clear whether business owners' tax bills would increase. The total assessment of all businesses decreased by more than percent. But whether an individual property owner's bill is increasing depends on whether the value of the business has also increased. City officials refused to discuss the tax rate yesterday, saying the Department of Revenue had not yet certified the rates and they were unsure of what rz' ft 1 By Andrea Estes GLOBE STAFF The average Boston homeowner would see a property tax hike of more than 10 percent next year under new tax rates that are expected to be announced today. The residential tax rate is expected to be $10.73 per $1,000 of assessed value The caller cut right to the point: There's a Boston suburb throwing an absolute fit over the size of a Massachusetts National Guard recruiting sign.

I see. So some town fights with the National Guard while the Nation False alarms prompt transit shutdowns A Pin v' ft- 6 A -r- .1 v. A-: -ii -i. GLOBE STAFF PHOIOGEORGE RULR Suspicious packages led to the closing yesterday of two MBTA stations, delaying commuters. At Dorchester's Ashmont Station, firefighters carried away decontamination bags filled with the uniforms they had worn when arriving to check out a Styrofoam container.

Later, at Alewife Station in Cambridge, a paper bag on a platform triggered a scare. B2 For Big Dig, a measure of relief al Guard fights in Iraq. Just one quick question for the concerned caller: Which local community? There's silence, and then a little bit of fumbling, and then a hauntingly familiar word. Hingham. Suddenly, there's foam coming out of my mouth.

My editor is standing over my desk shouting "sit" and "stay." He reminds me in no uncertain terms of a promise that I made to never again write another negative word about the town of Hingham as if I'd written any before. I tell the caller I'm not going to write that and I righteously hang up the phone. The phone rings anew. The caller says that Hingham officials have gone ahead and sawed the National Guard recruiting sign down because it was too big. "We need some water here That was my editor, shouting the last words I heard before I entered a trancelike state involving ill-fitting tennis skirts, pink and green Izod shirts, and so many white Christmas lights decorating look-alike houses along picture-perfect Main Street.

When I come to, I mumble that I'm not going to write that. I can't. I won't. Then I get the facts. Town officials, upset with the size of the 6-foot-wide recruiting sign posted in front of an armory along Route 228, fretted that they couldn't force the state to take it down because it was on state-owned land.

But resourceful as they are, they discovered a hitch. Part of the sign was planted in town land. So they came out with saws and cut the thing off at its legs. "We lost our patience and took it down," the town administrator, Charles Cristello, told the Hingham Journal. 1 Honest to God, I'm not going to write that.

But think about what just happened. National Guard members are off fighting a war with no clear end, harm lurking around every corner, some of their families facing financial hardship back home. And Hingham officials are beside themselves because a sign in their safe, pretty town might be a foot or so bigger than zoning allows. Think, too, about the fact that the Massachusetts National Guard has identical recruiting signs all over the state, and no city or town has ever cut one down before. It's not a cherry tree.

I learn that at this very moment, there are 500 men and women with the Massachusetts National Guard fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and on patrol elsewhere in the Middle East. Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 4,000 members have been sent abroad, some on extended tours of duty, and a total of 9,400 have been activated in some capacity. Their lives have been disrupted. Their futures are uncertain.

And in Hingham, officials lost their patience with the size of a simple recruiting sign. Like fast food or colored lights at Christmas, it runs counter to their force-fed way of life. But I can't write this. I promised. The good news is that this week's local paper is filled with letters to the editor expressing shame of town officials.

I'm betting those letters speak for the vast majority in Hingham. I'd also bet that most residents are ashamed of the local nags still trying to tie up construction of the Greenbush commuter rail, even though the town agreed to drop opposition in exchange for a gold-plated tunnel through Hingham Square. If I were to write this, I'd probably note that National Guard Captain Winfield Danielson expressed disappointment with Hingham officials over the sign destruction. He said the Guard is designing a new recruiting sign, 42 inches wide by 30 inches tall, and this time he'll make sure both posts are planted on state land. I don't imagine any of this would look too good in print.

Meantime, we've got a war to win and a town to keep pretty. If I wrote, which I won't, I'd just say good luck to everyone involved. Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcsroryglobe.com With little fanfare, Updike bids books adieu Improvements stem flow of ire S. Boston split on route shift for Silver line II II llltlllll 111 III It lltlll II llltllll II If II II 1 1 1 III I Changes ahead Sunday morning, Big Dig officials will open a new direct connection from Storrow Drive eastbound to 1-93 north and the Tobin Bridge.

The new two-lane tunnel will allow drivers to bypass Leverett Circle, and is predicted to improve traffic flow in one of the city's worst chokepoints. By Mac Daniel GLOBE STAFF With bad news leaking all around them, Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew Amorello and Big Dig officials yesterday announced two improvements brought by the project, both opening Sunday. The changes are the most significant for the $14.6 billion project since the opening of the new southbound tunnel in December 2003 and the dismantling of the old Central Artery downtown. They are expected to ease the commute, but also could sow at least temporary confusion. One is a new tunnel connecting Storrow Drive eastbound with northbound Interstate 93 and the Tobin Bridge a way for drivers to avoid the chaos of Leverett Circle, one of Boston's most confusing chokepoints.

"It's going to offer a huge relief," Amorello said. The other improvement is a new third lane in I-93's southbound tunnel, which is also expected to provide some TRAFFIC, Page B4 VX- 500 FEET Center New Storrow -Leftexit connector ft tunnel By Anthony Flint GLOBE STAFF When the Silver Line opens today linking South Station and Boston's emerging waterfront district, officials plan to herald a new era for the the first addition of a line in a century, serving new frontiers, the convention center, and a refurbished Logan Airport. But there's one place the newfangled bus line won't go: Through the heart of South Boston, a neighborhood that warily eyes change and wields the political clout to tailor the Ts plans. Initially, some buses traveling through the new tunnel from South Station to the World Trade Center station, site of today's ribbon-cutting, were slated to head down Street and then Broadway, South Boston's main SILVER, Pag B4 MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA-Makeshift shelves in John Updike's barn and the cel- lar of his house overflowed with books, but the effect was somewhat less than literary. "They were just collecting dust and mouse droppings," he said.

So Updike and his wife turned to an independent book shop for help. He said Manchester by the Book owner Mark Stolle was the only one they called who would pay for the used books and haul them away. "I'm at an age when you think about lightening your load, rather than dumping it on your heirs," said the author, who is 72. But not all the books are fated to spend years being bought and sold for a quarter or a dollar by lovers of used books. Buried among the dozens that sat in piles on the floor along a wall of Stolle's cramped shop this week were several whose margins were filled with handwritten questions and analogies from the novelist and essayist, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

The penciled notations Updike calls them his "scribblings" offer vivid insight of the author's thinking process. Those editions are going for between $200 and $1,000. Updike, who counts himself a supporter of independent bookstores, doesn't mind that Stolle is making a profit "If he's able to make a few dollars on a few of the review copies scattered in there, all the better," Updike said. "He paid a fair price." KAYLAZAR SOURCE Central ArteryTunnel Project GLOBE STAFF MAP $18m pledge aims to save Natick Army lab "There is a dramatic potential for job increase," said US Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Maiden, who toured the lab yesterday with Senator Edward M.

Kennedy and General Benjamin Griffin, commander of the US Army Materiel Command. Romney submitted the Natick expansion proposal to Pentagon officials in Washington on Wednesday. Romney, Kennedy, and other officials have been trying to build a case to keep the Hanscom and Natick bases open by MILITARY, Pag B6 By Benjamin Gedan GLOBE CORRESPONDENT NATICK Governor Mitt Romney pledged $18 million yesterday to expand the US Army's laboratory here, part of an aggressive spending strategy to persuade the Pentagon to spare two Bay State military installations in the upcoming base closure process. The $18 million, the first sizable grant the state has given the facility, would add 110,000 square feet of research space and create 200 jobs in Natick, according to Romney and oth er base supporters. Romney also' has promised $241 million to improve Hanscom Air Force Base, the other base the state's political leaders are trying to save.

Formally called the US Army Soldier Systems Center, the 78-acre site is the only Army facility in the United States developing high tech clothing, shelter, food, and parachute equipment for the military, said Jerry Whit-aker, an Army spokesman. Natick Labs, as the facility is called locally, has 2,000 employees..