The following was published in the November 1, 2007, Cambridge Chronicle:
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Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is to be commended for standing up to Cambridge environmentally reprehensible city government.
The EPA order for no new phosphate sources on the Charles River is a direct prohibition of Phase II of the outrageous Magazine Beach project with its combined animal starvation / poisoning and the poisoning of the Charles River through phosphate runoff.
Without phase II of Cambridge city's project, Magazine Beach is now a “green” place in the best sense of the word, except for the bizarre designer bushes for which wetlands and animal habitat was destroyed along with the usual deliberate animal starvation.
In city whose pols mouth holier than thous almost incessantly including on environmental matters, it should be a foregone conclusion that the EPA order would kill the balance of this reprehensible project.
Regrettably, the Chronicle, in its major fight to review the mayor’s spending has seen the contempt for law which is normal in the City of Cambridge .
Another recent example of Cambridge contempt for law is the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination’s recent finding of probable cause in Cambridge ’s abuse of a guide dog being used by a handicapped person and Cambridge ’s refusal to enforce Federal law protecting that guide dog (I know the fights, not the specific details of the finding). Cambridge , in a position strikingly similar to the Jim Crow south, says that Cambridge ’s civil rights laws are good enough. Cambridge refuses to obey federal civil rights laws which give more civil rights to the handicapped than Cambridge cares to give.
Another example of Cambridge contempt for law was the trashing of 51 nominating petition signatures on this candidate’s election papers (making those papers invalid) a few years ago. Cambridge Election Commission, filled with lawyers, considers itself above the clearly applicable Jack E. Robinson election law decision.
Lawlessness is the norm in the granting of property variances, unless the city, through lying to the public, has trashed the zoning laws sufficiently that variances are no longer necessary.
The contempt for law, the contempt for basic principals of good government and the contempt for basic principals of a good city combine with the holier than thou lies to really create a vile stench about our government.
Keep up the good fight on your part of watching this government in action.
I myself will keep an eye on Magazine Beach and an eye on a whole bunch of Cambridge pols who lie about being pro-environment.
