Bob La Trémouille Reports:
1. Introduction.
2. Kelley and Friends Claim to be Pro-Environment While Being Environmentally Destructive.
3. Kelley's Campaign Manager: How Dare You Call Kelley a Liar without a vote of an Impartial Jury!!!!
4. Editor's Response.
5. Cambridge Chronicle Publication.
1. Introduction.
On the front page of the October 4, 2007 Cambridge Chronicle, the newspaper reported that Cambridge City Councilor Craig Kelley's campaign manager acted in a key capacity in a candidate's night without being disclosed as his Campaign Manager.
This failure to disclose struck me as business as usual from Kelley and his buddies on environmental issues, so I wrote a letter to the editor saying that. The letter I sent is reprinted in section 2.
I was rather pleased with the letter, so I distributed it to 400 or 500 of my closest friends on about a third of an email list I used for perhaps 500 environmental reports before Friends of the White Geese started this blog.
One of the members of the list is Kelley's campaign manager. She responded with the email quoted in section 3.
Section 4 is my response to a key point in her response.
The Cambridge Chronicle printed my letter very prominently this morning, Thursday, October 11. It was preceded only by Kelley's response to the article. The Chronicle omitted two paragraphs of my letter. That reporting is quoted in section 5.
The secret definition of "environmentalism" as elaborated by Sam Seidel on behalf of the Cambridge pols may be found at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html.
2. Kelley and Friends Claim to be Pro-Environment While Being Environmentally Destructive.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciated your front page exposure of Craig Kelley giving people the false impression that his campaign manager was a neutral party at East Cambridge ’s candidate’s night. On environmental matters people giving the false impression about where they are coming from is the norm in Cambridge. Kelley's 2005 race was an excellent example.
Kelley went so far in 2005 as to put on a special presentation telling people about environmental protection. He actually gave people the impression that he was pro-environment, rather than being as environmentally destructive as all nine of the then incumbents.
Sam Seidel did an excellent presentation in The Alewife a few months ago in which he mocked me for being consistent in my protection of the environment. Seidel bragged that the Cambridge pols have their own (secret) definition of environmentalism which he called much better than the one I (and most people in our world) live by.
Kelley and the rest of the active pols have shown flat out contempt for the environment on matters particular to the City of Cambridge and particular to the REAL powers of the Cambridge City Council.
The continuing outrage on Memorial Drive is only one example.
Nine city councilors told their constituents that they were protecting the Radisson Hotel area by the Memorial Drive Overlay District. They neglected to mention that their protections were a flat out lie as is demonstrated by the building soon to come there towering over the sidewalk.
Kelley and the others claim to be "green." They neglect to mention that the green they are talking about includes algae they are inviting to the Charles River by the second part of the outrage continuing on Magazine Beach. Poisons are not now necessary to protect the playing fields at Magazine Beach. Kelley and the others have demanded that the governor go forward with digging up our perfectly good playing fields and replacing them with dirt, sod and poisons. Cambridge kids are expected to roll around in this stuff.
The predecessor project to Magazine Beach , Ebersol Fields near MGH, saw the DCR dump on Tartan (prohibited near water) when the basic poisons did not work. The next day, the Charles River was infested with algae from the harbor to Mass. Ave.
I could go on with massive, needless destruction of healthy trees. I could go on with destruction of wetlands. I could go on with the encouragement of WORSE traffic on Memorial Drive. I could mention the apparently thousands of healthy trees being destroyed at Fresh Pond.
I, and the rest of us, live in reality. Kelley and the rest of the Cambridge pols live in a fake reality in which they casually define "environmentalism" to include environmental destruction.
Once again, thanks for the front page article and the editorial. On Kelley's key issue, environmentalism, I see only one candidate so far who is fit to be respected, and there is no similarity between the spelling of "Podgers" and the spelling of "Kelley."
3. Kelley's Campaign Manager: How Dare You Call Kelley a Liar without a vote of an Impartial Jury!!!!
Bob,
I thought the American Justic System stated that a person was innocent until proven guilty. You don't know me nor have you asked me what has happened. How sad. To go from a simple error which could not have been corrected to stating I was not a neutral party without knowing the facts to Kelley is against the environment leads me to think there is something very wrong with your thought process. The two are not related. Please take me off your list.
4. Editor's Response.
The outrage which passes for environmentalism in Cambridge is based exactly on your argument.
Kelley and the other destroyers claim to have a right to destroy our city's environment while loudly calling themselves environmental protectors.
"It is improper to call me a flat out liar without a jury decision calling me a liar. I have a flat out right to lie and lie and lie while at the same time destroying and destroying and destroying."
That is a little bit clearer than Sam Seidel's piece.
Thank you.
PS: You are off the list.
5. Cambridge Chronicle Publication.
In the first of the two letters, Kelley's second paragraph of two (referring to his campaign manager activities in that candidate night) read:
***********
People in Cambridge rightly expect me and everything I'm associated with, to be as open and transparent as possible. I blew it in this case and will strive to learn from this mistake to make sure my actions are even more open and transparent in the future.
***********
The Chronicle deleted two paragraphs in my letter. The result was that Kelley's letter and mine were pretty much the only letters on the letters/editorial page. They printed the beginning of a third letter on that page.
The Chronicle's printing deleted the third paragraph of my letter, starting with "Sam Seidel" and deleted the third paragraph from the end providing more general examples of environmental destruction by Kelley and his friends.
