Bob reports:
The following letter was printed by the Cambridge Chronicle in its March 19, 2009 edition. It was side by side with a letter from Ellen Maas on the Silver Maple.
Ellen has worked closely with the City of Cambridge and friends of the Cambridge City Manager on the issue.
In particular, Ellen bitterly opposes prevention of destruction of the Alewife reservation by the City of Cambridge. Additionally, to the best of my knowledge, the only constructive achievement by any member of the public in the area was the downzoning of a parking lot to open space followed by its conversion to open space. This was accomplished by Sheila Cook with my drafting. Ellen and her friends severely mistreated Sheila Cook.
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Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
RE: Silver Maple Forest
The Cambridge City Council’s vote in favor of protecting the Silver Maple Forest should be looked at in context.
This is private property, mostly in Belmont .
The environmental record of the eight continuing city councilors on public property in or related to Cambridge is outrageously bad.
On the Charles, they and their friends seem to be destroying all animals living or visiting the river or its banks. This is emphasized by the bizarre wall of introduced vegetation at Magazine Beach which seems to have no purpose except starvation, and by the ongoing mudpit at Magazine Beach which is intended to destroy green maintenance and replace it with fertilizer maintenance poisoning the resident birds. Then there is the needlessly destructive BU Bridge repair project.
Then there is Fresh Pond, apparently thousands of healthy trees and animal habitat being destroyed to introduce 1000 saplings.
Then there is the Alewife Reservation, in Cambridge , a hundred or so feet from Silver Maple. Slated to be destroyed with destruction of habitat. Why? For flood storage that should be placed under a parking lot 500 feet to the south, a parking lot which is about to be built on.
So how should we react to Silver Maple, Cambridge city councilors who destroy Cambridge ’s publicly owned environment, loudly proclaiming their environmental sanctity with regard to privately owned property mostly in Belmont ?
Nothing complicated about it, just another cynical con game.
Robert J. La Trémouille
875 Massachusetts Avenue, #31
Post Office Box 391412
Cambridge, MA 02139-0015
617-283-7649
