We’d like to offer our thanks to Revere Mayor Patrick M. Keefe Jr. and Housing Court Judge Irene Bagdoian for the roles they have played thus far in ensuring that the tenants of the Water’s Edge high-rise at 364 Ocean Ave. have been treated fairly and compassionately in the aftermath of the issuance by the Revere Board of Health of an Order of Condemnation for the building two weeks ago in which city officials told the board of the potentially life-threatening conditions pertaining to fire safety at the property.
For Mayor Keefe, the situation at 364 Ocean Ave. was a long-running problem that he inherited from a previous administration. The mayor issued a statement a few days after the Board of Health’s decision that struck an appropriate balance between the necessities of public safety and the concerns for the 41 tenants in the building, who basically would have been left homeless had the city immediately enforced the condemnation order.
As for Judge Bagdoian, her no-nonsense approach toward the landlord and her willingness to make the parties work out a compromise that took up her court session for virtually the entire day this past Friday evidenced the epitome of what a good judge should do, namely, ensuring that justice is served for those for whom justice often is merely a concept, not a reality.
Hopefully, the agreement worked out by the parties, which Judge Bagdoian entered as an order of the court, will be carried out in good faith by both sides.
The judge will be meeting again with the parties this Monday afternoon. Hopefully, we’ll learn that this saga has a happy ending.
