1. Day 382. Environmental people checking?
2. Urban Ring Buses Dead??
3. Chronicle prints Davis Response.
4. Nonsensical “News” Report from Allston Brighton Tab.
a. General.
b. Marilyn’s letter to the editor of the Allston Brighton Tab.
Bob La Trémouille reports.
1. Day 283. Environmental people checking?
I conducted a visibility at the Destroyed Nesting Area during the rush hour on September 25, 2009.
People were as receptive and supportive as ever.
A bicyclist reported observing a couple of men observing the destruction in the vestigial goose habitat. He said they were environmental people.
An environmental person contacted a female supporter of the geese concerning the geese. She answered their questions and suggested they talk to Marilyn or me. She did not get an adequate answer as to why they were not doing so.
Clearly, the leafleting and other communications have had some sort of response.
A very major problem is the lying and other misbehavior coming out of the enemy, but then the last ten years has been a learning experience on the varieties that lying can take.
2. Urban Ring Buses Dead??
We have apparently reliable reports that a regional agency responsible for allocating federal funds has recommended no funds for the “Phase 2” bus proposal which would do so much damage to the Charles River and the animal habitat.
This bus proposal, like Magazine Beach, is a strikingly irresponsible proposal in the Charles River area plus related items to the north and south. It is a pleasure to see a responsible body in action.
By contrast, the Heavy Rail subway proposal, Kenmore Crossing is an excellent idea. I hope it goes forward.
3. Chronicle prints Davis Response.
My response, reported in these reports, to Councilor Davis’ bragging about her alleged “green” sainthood was printed in the September 24, 2009, Cambridge Chronicle. A limited number of words were edited, probably to get me down to 400 words. The deleted words were functionally duplicative.
4. Nonsensical “News” Report from Allston Brighton Tab.
a. General.
I gave this blog a copy of my press release on the Boston Conservation Commission barring the DCR from vegetation management on the Charles without direct supervision of the BCC. On Friday, September 25, 2009, the Allston Brighton Tab printed an alleged report on it.
The hard news, which the reporter agreed to me was not in disagreement, was quoted as our allegation, buried in a report which communicated the DCR’s shock at the format of my press release.
Nonsense.
The alleged news report was copied on line by the Cambridge Chronicle who is a sister newspaper.
b. Marilyn’s letter to the editor of the Allston Brighton Tab.
She entitled it: “DCR is confused?”
Valentina Zic, Editor
Allston/Brighton TAB
To the Editor:
I write to set the record straight about two issues.
One is the DCR's recent violation of the Boston Conservation Commission's Order of Conditions for cutting plants along the Charles in Allston.
At its September 16, 2009 hearing the ConCom found the DCR had indeed destroyed habitat for herons and herring protected by the Wetlands Protection Act. The ConCom's O.C. has specifically protected this habitat in Allston for many years.
To ensure protection, the ConCom ordered direct supervision by its own personnel of the DCR or its agents, including the Charles River Conservancy. Previous attempts to hold these entities to the O.C. had failed.
This is clearly news, as your September 25, 2009 article reports, quoting Bryan Glascock, ConCom Director: “We’ll send [staffer] Chris [Busch] out with the DCR crews to show what plants they can and cannot cut.”
The second issue is the distortion of this news, in an apparent attempt to change the subject to the discussion of an allegedly "misleading" press release —- the one that actually reported the DCR's violation of the O.C. and the ConCom's response. ("'Misunderstanding' over Charles River vegetation, geese ruffles Cambridge group's feathers").
I was one of the two contacts —- no City titles, no City of Boston e-mail addresses -— listed at the very beginning of that press release. Readers to its end find us baldly identified as "co-CEO’s of Friends of the White Geese, a Massachusetts non-profit which has been standing up to environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse by public entities on the Charles River since 2000."
Your reporter followed up on the press release. He and I spoke from 1:18 to about 1:40 pm, September 17, 2009.
Responding to his direct question, I said I was not a member of the Boston ConCom, but a citizen concerned about the DCR's destruction of habitat along the Charles. He asked if I was affiliated with any organization. I said I was co-Chair with Robert La Tremouille of Friends of the White Geese. I do not know how anything could be clearer.
If the unnamed persons quoted in the article find the press release "misleading," it is not for any lack of clarity here. What the alleged "confusion" reveals is the DCR’s attempt to divert attention from its, and its agents', repeated violations of the Wetlands Protection Act and the Boston ConCom's laudable enforcement of that law.
