Archie Mazmanian reports:
The Urban Ring website – www.theurbanring.com - has posted the 12/15/09 letter of intentions response from MassDOT Secretary and CEO Jeff Mullan to MA EOEEA. (See the 12/3/09 commentary below at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/day-389-urban-ring-phase-2-on-life.html: “Urban Ring Phase 2 on Life Support?”) Secretary Mullan seeks a one-month’s extension for this letter of intentions requirement. [ed: Letter may be found at: http://www.theurbanring.com/documentframeset.asp?docname=https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1169/docs/Mullan_URP2_Response_Dec1509.pdf]
Mullan makes reference to the 12/1/09 CAC public meeting, which Bob and I attended and reported on, and to certain meetings, perhaps not public, with representatives of the Urban Ring “compact communities” (Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Somerville and Brookline) and with “the business and institutional community – notably A Better City and MASCO.”
Mullan made his extension request “[in] order to hear all viewpoints at this critical juncture of the [Urban Ring] project ….” Does Mullan have in mind listening to the viewpoints of residential neighborhood groups? Keep in mind there are very few CAC members representing residents in the Phase 2 corridor. Some of us residents speak up at public CAC meetings. But are residents’ viewpoints presented or considered at the seemingly non-public meetings with the listed municipalities, business and institutional interests, whose interests may dramatically differ from those of residents?
Many of us residents will be busy with the upcoming holidays. So perhaps Mr. Mullan should promptly set up public meetings for just after the New Year for residents to be heard in advance of his anticipated January 15, 2010 deferred letter of intentions so that it may reflect the sentiments of residents. MassDOT cannot ignore our honking as it has ignored that of the Charles River White Geese. The new MassDOT must have transparency to succeed."
