Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Letter to the Editor, written 5/15/10.
2. Update, 5/21/10 and 5/22/10.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Letter to the Editor, blog entry written 5/15/10.
I have submitted the following Letter to the Editor:
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Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
The Chronicle is to be commended on its handling of the City Council’s shell game on the environment in the May 3 and 10 meetings.
On May 13, the Chronicle front paged the council’s vote to allow destruction of 16,293 square feet of, according to the City Manager, “extensive tree growth” so that it could be replaced with asphalt. The council seems to be keeping that May 3 vote as secret as possible. The council specifically voted to exempt this destruction from public meetings in which the tree destruction could be meaningfully communicated to the voters.
The Chronicle seemed to ignore the oh so lovely vote on May 10. In that vote, the council said nice things about some trees owned by Cambridge. The council wondered what kind of protections there are for this limited number of city owned trees.
Supporters of the council seem unaware of the vote for destruction of 16,293 square feet of “extensive tree growth.” The supporters brag about the next to meaningless vote inquiring as to what protections exist for some trees owned by Cambridge.
Other environmental destruction the council does not want to talk about includes: the pending destruction of the core part of the Alewife reservation, the apparently ongoing destruction of thousands of trees at Fresh Pond, the planned destruction of hundreds of excellent trees on Memorial Drive, the dumping of poisons on Magazine Beach, the walling off of Magazine Beach from the Charles, the heartless animal abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese, and the ongoing destruction of all animals living on or visiting the first 10 miles of the Charles.
The destruction supported by all councilors present at the May 3 vote could be similar to destruction planned for an excellent grove of 104 trees on Memorial Drive. This excellent grove is quite thick. It is just reaching maturity at the western end of the Memorial Drive split, a little east of the Hyatt.
At absolute minimum, both the destruction voted for in the May 3 vote and the destruction pending on Memorial Drive are highway projects.
Shame, I had hoped there would be a change in the environmental approach of the Cambridge City Council.
I got conned by the machinations of the City Council’s representatives.
The Chronicle saw through the shell game. The Chronicle caught reality and the Chronicle publicized reality.
Good work.
Thank you.
2. Update, 5/21/10 and 5/22/10.
The above letter was printed in the Cambridge Chronicle’s May 21 edition along with a letter from a council supporter quite a bit separated from my letter. My letter was fourth of seven letters, very much in the middle of the editorial page. The support letter was last, on the continuing page, the op ed page.
The thought comes to mind that my letter is hardly the way to encourage nice sounding “action” by the Cambridge City Council. The trouble is that I have seen nice sounding “action” and seen nice sounding “action” and seen nice sounding “action.”
The non stop nice sounding “action” has been paralleled by a really vile reality.
This latest really vile reality was too very close to the nice sounding “action.” I have learned from ten years of really bad behavior out of the Cambridge City Council that it is difficult and actually downright silly to underestimate the Cambridge City Council.
Actually, when you include fake downzonings and other really destructive environmental harm, the record is much more than ten years.
We are dealing with a really rotten entity which stays in power by lying about itself.
