1. Cambridge Councilor Leland Cheung to “reflect on” city’s destructiveness.
2. Translation by your editor.
3. Councilor’s Words.
1. Cambridge Councilor Leland Cheung to “reflect on” city’s destructiveness.
Cambridge City Councilor sent out an broad distribution email.
He encouraged the readers to come to the city council inauguration on January 2, 2012. “I hope to share this special day with you and reflect on what we have accomplished this past term.”
2. Translation by your editor.
I think the best response I can give to this is to quote again the letter I recently submitted to the Cambridge Chronicle. I was very pleased with an op ed which concluded with words very favorable to the late Alfred Vellucci who was a member of the Cambridge City Council and served as the city’s mayor.
Al Vellucci was a quirky long term Cambridge City Councilor who stood up to a lot of behavior of Harvard’s, but, more importantly, stood up to some pretty silly thinking by many people in Cambridge who consider themselves intelligent. He had a term for such people. I forget exactly what it was, but the key thing about Al was common sense. While the people he belittled frequently had trouble recognizing what was occurring to their faces, Al never had problems recognizing the reality about him. The basic mentality was that too many people in Cambridge are too intelligent to recognize reality, finding all sorts of complicated situations when all that was necessary was to look around you and observe.
My proposed letter to the editor read:
******************
Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?
One of the most astute comments in Cambridge in many years.
Al would not explain it this way, but Al was not smart enough to convince himself that the obvious was not true.
A superior court judge responded with “reprehensible” to the Cambridge City Manager destroying a female department head’s life in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The appeals court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust by refusing to grant a formal opinion. “Ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The jury tacks on $3.5 million PENAL damages in addition to $1.1 million real damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot believe what is in front of their own eyes. They cannot understand that Healy should be fired for Monteiro.
The Cambridge Pols spent 15 years “defending” Alewife by telling people concerned about Alewife not to look at the totally unnecessary and down right bizarre destruction being planned by Cambridge and its friends. They just cannot understand that protecting North Cambridge against massive flooding from 50 year storms cannot be done with environmental destruction that protects against 2 year storms. They just cannot understand that there is a massive parking lot directly across the street from their new strip mine / former irreplaceable forest. They cannot understand that that massive parking lot can do the flood protection job that their destruction of this irreplaceable treasure cannot do.
The Cambridge Pols cannot see why there is a problem with destroying healthy grass at Magazine Beach which survived most of a century and replacing it with sickly stuff that needs poisons to survive. They cannot understand why there is a problem with dumping poisons on the banks of the Charles to keep alive vegetation which should not be there.
They praise swimming in the Charles and cannot understand why there is a problem with walling off Magazine Beach from the Charles with a bizarre wall of introduced bushes.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why heartless animal abuse aimed at the Charles River White Geese as part of so many bizarre projects is wrong.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why mass killings of thousands of animals at Alewife is wrong.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to fool himself as efficiently as the Cambridge Pols insist they are fooled.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to even consider such nonsense.
**********
Councilor Cheung encouraged the readers to come to the city council inauguration on January 2, 2012. “I hope to share this special day with you and reflect on what we have accomplished this past term.”
3. Councilor’s Words.
I hope you are enjoying the holiday season with family and friends and wish you all the best in the upcoming year. I want to remind you that the City Council Inaugural Meeting on Monday, January 2 at City Hall is free and open to the public. I hope to share this special day with you and reflect on what we have accomplished this past term. Everything leading up to this moment was because of your loyal support and dedication and I won't forget all you have done as I enter in to my second term. Thank you for standing with me and I look forward to working with you next year!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Cambridge Machine tries to recreate history on their destruction of Alewife
One of the Cambridge Machine’s fake environmental groups is giving a platform to the woman most responsible for the wasteful, totally irresponsible destruction of the Alewife reservation.
The Machine helped her destroy it by supporting her lie that she was defending Alewife and all the time telling people to look at everything except for her friends' plans for the totally wasteful destruction.
The simpering, as usual, fails to answer three key questions, as published for the second time on November 18, 2011 in the Cambridge Chronicle at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x745433170/Letter-Explanation-needed-on-Alewife#axzz1hxhzwLOq. Both times were also printed in hard copy.
********
I want to thank Ellen Mass for responding to that part of my letter in the Nov. 3 Cambridge Chronicle that was directed straight at her. The trouble with her very long response is that nowhere in the response do I see any meaningful response to the issues I raised.
I was addressing the mentality shown in the Cambridge city solicitor as quoted by former members of the Human Rights Commission. The points directly aimed at Ms. Mass read as follows.
• This mentality shows how a group supposedly defending Alewife spent 15 years maneuvering people away from the totally avoidable public destruction of the animals and trees in the irreplaceable core Alewife reservation.
• This mentality shows how the Alewife “protectors” “cannot understand” that the destruction of the core reservation cannot possibly protect North Cambridge from flooding. They are protecting against the worst possible rainstorm in any two-year period. They need protection against the two 50-year floods that have hit the area in the last 20 years. There is a big difference.
• This mentality shows how the Alewife “defenders” cannot look at the other side of Cambridge Park Drive from the Alewife reservation. It shows why they cannot see that massive parking lot which could protect against 50-year floods if it were used instead of the core Alewife reservation.
My explanation read, “This mentality shows that all that really counts to the Cambridge Machine is being part of Team Healy.”
Could Ms. Mass, with her 15 years of supposed defense of Alewife, please explain these blind spots?
*******
The machine proceeds with the usual total lack of interest in reality.
The scary thing is that the lies work.
A unanimously bad Cambridge City Council is an excellent example that massive lies by an unthinking and well organized machine keeps people in office whose real record is strikingly opposite to their lovely claims.
The Machine helped her destroy it by supporting her lie that she was defending Alewife and all the time telling people to look at everything except for her friends' plans for the totally wasteful destruction.
The simpering, as usual, fails to answer three key questions, as published for the second time on November 18, 2011 in the Cambridge Chronicle at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x745433170/Letter-Explanation-needed-on-Alewife#axzz1hxhzwLOq. Both times were also printed in hard copy.
********
I want to thank Ellen Mass for responding to that part of my letter in the Nov. 3 Cambridge Chronicle that was directed straight at her. The trouble with her very long response is that nowhere in the response do I see any meaningful response to the issues I raised.
I was addressing the mentality shown in the Cambridge city solicitor as quoted by former members of the Human Rights Commission. The points directly aimed at Ms. Mass read as follows.
• This mentality shows how a group supposedly defending Alewife spent 15 years maneuvering people away from the totally avoidable public destruction of the animals and trees in the irreplaceable core Alewife reservation.
• This mentality shows how the Alewife “protectors” “cannot understand” that the destruction of the core reservation cannot possibly protect North Cambridge from flooding. They are protecting against the worst possible rainstorm in any two-year period. They need protection against the two 50-year floods that have hit the area in the last 20 years. There is a big difference.
• This mentality shows how the Alewife “defenders” cannot look at the other side of Cambridge Park Drive from the Alewife reservation. It shows why they cannot see that massive parking lot which could protect against 50-year floods if it were used instead of the core Alewife reservation.
My explanation read, “This mentality shows that all that really counts to the Cambridge Machine is being part of Team Healy.”
Could Ms. Mass, with her 15 years of supposed defense of Alewife, please explain these blind spots?
*******
The machine proceeds with the usual total lack of interest in reality.
The scary thing is that the lies work.
A unanimously bad Cambridge City Council is an excellent example that massive lies by an unthinking and well organized machine keeps people in office whose real record is strikingly opposite to their lovely claims.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Traffic impact of BU Bridge project, other interrelationships
1. Archie Mazmanian.
2. Your editor - Map of area.
A. General.
B. Harvard’s Maneuvers.
C. Archie’s Analysis.
D. Editor’s conclusion.
1. Archie Mazmanian.
Archie follows up his posting of yesterday, at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/bu-bridge-traffic-pattern-in-context.html, as follows:
Bob,
I don't know if Google maps will help but visitors to this Blog who use the BU Bridge when entering or exiting on the Boston side pass over the Commonwealth Avenue Deck over the MA Turnpike Extension. The Deck has a sizable foot(air)print from westerly of the bridge to easterly including the Carlton Street Bridge to where it joins Commonwealth Avenue (easterly of the BU Bridge). A visit on foot provides better views of the Deck, including its extensive foot(air)print. Work on rehabbing the Deck will impact not only motorists and bikers on the BU Bridge and Commonwealth Avenue but also the MBTA Green Line's B trolleys; in addition, such work will impact the extensive high speed vehicular traffic on the MA Turnpike Extension below. So I have some doubts on the work being completed in two constructions seasons as suggest ed by BU. The phasing of the work will be critical. And as noted in my earlier submission, what happens on the Boston side of the BU Bridge impacts the Cambridge side.
Perhaps you and others from the Cambridge side can provide commentary on the Cambridge rotary issues that I referenced. The rehabbed BU Bridge is not a bridge to nowhere but its use may be limited by situations on the Boston and Cambridge sides. Perhaps MassDOT should hold some public meetings to address these situations.
Archie Mazmanian
2. Your editor - Map of area.
A. General.
I have hunted through my files for a map that could communicate Archie’s issues.
This is the best I have, and actually, it shows a lot of the relationships which might escape.
This is taken from a map prepared by the MBTA showing the BU Bridge / streetcar alternative for the Urban Ring subway project.
The dark area running from top to bottom is the Charles River.
At the bottom, the vertical (north / south) line crossing the Charles is the BU Bridge.
The circle at the top (Cambridge) end of the BU Bridge is the rotary under Memorial Drive.
To the lower right of the rotary, barely visible, is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
The massive cross hatched line coming from the right, almost touching the BU Bridge and then going right again is the proposed route of the BU Bridge crossing.
Interstate 90 is marked on the left lower side. This is the Massachusetts Turnpike.
B. Harvard’s Maneuvers.
On the left middle, I 90 can be seen becoming a bunch of spaghetti and connecting to the next bridge to the west by Cambridge Street. This is the River Street Bridge.
Not really visible on this map is the Grand Junction Railroad. It is under the massive crosshatched line which is the BU Bridge crossing of the Urban Ring. Where the BU Bridge crossing turns, the Grand Junction Bridge continues straight. It goes over I90 and follows I90 to its left (west) into the empty area next to the I 90 ramp spaghetti.
In 2003 / 2004, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) demonstrated that a connecting ramp could be made from I90 to Cambridge over the Grand Junction Railroad Bridge.
Several months after this report, Harvard University bought the spaghetti which is the exit ramp from I 90 to the River Street Bridge, etc. and bought the railroad yard next to it, to which the Grand Junction goes.
That area is now owned by Harvard University and appears to be the planned future location of Harvard Medical School.
C. Archie’s Analysis.
Toward the bottom of the map, there is a roadway with “57" (bus line) on it and a bunch of T’s (street car, Green Line B stops). This is Commonwealth Avenue.
I 90 crosses under Commonwealth Avenue which is completely built on air rights over I 90 in this area. The extension of the BU Bridge south is also on air rights. Archie lives about two blocks south of I90 very near the extension of the BU Bridge.
Also present but almost not visible is the Boston side correlative to Memorial Drive, Storrow Drive / Soldiers Field Road (Boston area roads go by multiple names. This assists in confusing visitors.) This is the essentially unmarked area between I90 and the Charles River west of the BU Bridge. It continues barely visible east of the BU Bridge under which it passes. Before coming to the BU Bridge, it also passes under the Grand Junction Railroad.
The traffic pattern for traffic heading south from the BU Bridge currently consists of rotary which is partially obscured by the proposed street car / Urban Ring alternative.
The solid line marked “47" is a bus route which follows that southern pattern. It crosses I90, then turns east on Mountfort Street and then turns south again on Park Drive.
Traffic in the opposite, northerly direction, comes from Park Drive to Mountfort Street and turns north on the Carlton Street bridge over I90. This bridge is obscured by the proposed street car line, but it can be seen approaching from the south as the next street east of the extension of the BU Bridge.
Carlton Street, with a name change, continues straight north past Commonwealth Avenue to Storrow Drive / Soldiers Field Road, connecting to it and receiving traffic from its eastbound direction.
The northerly traffic turns at Commonwealth Avenue and goes over the BU Bridge.
D. Editor’s conclusion.
I hope this is helpful.
2. Your editor - Map of area.
A. General.
B. Harvard’s Maneuvers.
C. Archie’s Analysis.
D. Editor’s conclusion.
1. Archie Mazmanian.
Archie follows up his posting of yesterday, at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/bu-bridge-traffic-pattern-in-context.html, as follows:
Bob,
I don't know if Google maps will help but visitors to this Blog who use the BU Bridge when entering or exiting on the Boston side pass over the Commonwealth Avenue Deck over the MA Turnpike Extension. The Deck has a sizable foot(air)print from westerly of the bridge to easterly including the Carlton Street Bridge to where it joins Commonwealth Avenue (easterly of the BU Bridge). A visit on foot provides better views of the Deck, including its extensive foot(air)print. Work on rehabbing the Deck will impact not only motorists and bikers on the BU Bridge and Commonwealth Avenue but also the MBTA Green Line's B trolleys; in addition, such work will impact the extensive high speed vehicular traffic on the MA Turnpike Extension below. So I have some doubts on the work being completed in two constructions seasons as suggest ed by BU. The phasing of the work will be critical. And as noted in my earlier submission, what happens on the Boston side of the BU Bridge impacts the Cambridge side.
Perhaps you and others from the Cambridge side can provide commentary on the Cambridge rotary issues that I referenced. The rehabbed BU Bridge is not a bridge to nowhere but its use may be limited by situations on the Boston and Cambridge sides. Perhaps MassDOT should hold some public meetings to address these situations.
Archie Mazmanian
2. Your editor - Map of area.
A. General.
I have hunted through my files for a map that could communicate Archie’s issues.
This is the best I have, and actually, it shows a lot of the relationships which might escape.
This is taken from a map prepared by the MBTA showing the BU Bridge / streetcar alternative for the Urban Ring subway project.
The dark area running from top to bottom is the Charles River.
At the bottom, the vertical (north / south) line crossing the Charles is the BU Bridge.
The circle at the top (Cambridge) end of the BU Bridge is the rotary under Memorial Drive.
To the lower right of the rotary, barely visible, is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
The massive cross hatched line coming from the right, almost touching the BU Bridge and then going right again is the proposed route of the BU Bridge crossing.
Interstate 90 is marked on the left lower side. This is the Massachusetts Turnpike.
B. Harvard’s Maneuvers.
On the left middle, I 90 can be seen becoming a bunch of spaghetti and connecting to the next bridge to the west by Cambridge Street. This is the River Street Bridge.
Not really visible on this map is the Grand Junction Railroad. It is under the massive crosshatched line which is the BU Bridge crossing of the Urban Ring. Where the BU Bridge crossing turns, the Grand Junction Bridge continues straight. It goes over I90 and follows I90 to its left (west) into the empty area next to the I 90 ramp spaghetti.
In 2003 / 2004, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) demonstrated that a connecting ramp could be made from I90 to Cambridge over the Grand Junction Railroad Bridge.
Several months after this report, Harvard University bought the spaghetti which is the exit ramp from I 90 to the River Street Bridge, etc. and bought the railroad yard next to it, to which the Grand Junction goes.
That area is now owned by Harvard University and appears to be the planned future location of Harvard Medical School.
C. Archie’s Analysis.
Toward the bottom of the map, there is a roadway with “57" (bus line) on it and a bunch of T’s (street car, Green Line B stops). This is Commonwealth Avenue.
I 90 crosses under Commonwealth Avenue which is completely built on air rights over I 90 in this area. The extension of the BU Bridge south is also on air rights. Archie lives about two blocks south of I90 very near the extension of the BU Bridge.
Also present but almost not visible is the Boston side correlative to Memorial Drive, Storrow Drive / Soldiers Field Road (Boston area roads go by multiple names. This assists in confusing visitors.) This is the essentially unmarked area between I90 and the Charles River west of the BU Bridge. It continues barely visible east of the BU Bridge under which it passes. Before coming to the BU Bridge, it also passes under the Grand Junction Railroad.
The traffic pattern for traffic heading south from the BU Bridge currently consists of rotary which is partially obscured by the proposed street car / Urban Ring alternative.
The solid line marked “47" is a bus route which follows that southern pattern. It crosses I90, then turns east on Mountfort Street and then turns south again on Park Drive.
Traffic in the opposite, northerly direction, comes from Park Drive to Mountfort Street and turns north on the Carlton Street bridge over I90. This bridge is obscured by the proposed street car line, but it can be seen approaching from the south as the next street east of the extension of the BU Bridge.
Carlton Street, with a name change, continues straight north past Commonwealth Avenue to Storrow Drive / Soldiers Field Road, connecting to it and receiving traffic from its eastbound direction.
The northerly traffic turns at Commonwealth Avenue and goes over the BU Bridge.
D. Editor’s conclusion.
I hope this is helpful.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
BU Bridge Traffic Pattern in Context
1. Archie Mazmanian, 11/17/11.
2. Archie, update, 12/29/11
Archie Mazmanian has provided two astute analyses of the BU Bridge traffic pattern in context with neighboring roads. Regrettably, I seem to have either not gotten or misplaced the first until he sent it along on December 28.
Google Maps would likely be helpful to understand the analysis.
1. Archie Mazmanian, 11/17/11.
At a recent meeting on the Boston side of the Charles River, I learned that the work on the BU Bridge may be completed in December; that the traffic configuration may be tested in three different ways to determine which may work best. The roadbed on the bridge is 40' wide. There are to be two five foot bike lanes on each side (not on the sidewalks), leaving 30' for motor vehicles. This could provide three lanes for motor vehicles, each 10' wide (which may be narrow, especia lly for buses). The experiments may involve variations on travel directions depending upon traffic conditions during various commuting times. At each end of the bridge extra lanes may be available for entering/exiting the bridge. It sounds very complicated, especially for the winter months. I don't know if the MA Dept. of Transportation has spelled out the different configurations. But it would seem wise for a disclosure of DOT's plans in order to prepare motorists/bicyclists.
Archie Mazmanian
[Note: This information was provided at a meeting last night of the BU Community Task Force on which I serve as a member representing the Cottage Farm Neighborhood Association in Brookline. There were discussions at the meeting concerning proposed infrastructure changes involvi ng replacement of the deck of Commonwealth Avenue over the MA Turnpike Extension, repairs to the Carlton Street bridge (Brookline) and "improvements" of the Mountfort/St. Mary's Streets area (also in Brookline), all of which will result in major traffic/transportation issues for the BU Bridge, impacting both Boston/Brookline and Cambridge.]
2. Archie, update, 12/29/11
My observations on this subject are based not only on my on the ground observations but also a briefing provided at a Boston University Neighborhood Task Force meeting in November by BU's transportation consultant for its Charles River Campus. Even before the bridge project, when there were four (4) motor vehicle travel lanes, I had observed MBTA regular buses taking up an entire lane. Now with the modified three (3) lanes, and the visible stripings of lanes and their changes, with experience motorists can figure it out. Will it work well with the three (3) lanes? Only time will tell. But imagine erosion or snow/ice making the stripings less visible. At least pre-bridge project, motorists could readily understand the concept of two (2) lanes in each direction. Thus, my point that shifting lanes may b e problems. And the bike lanes may add to the problems, especially if bike riders fail to observe the rules.
BU's Dec. 21, 2011 "Institutional Master Plan Notification Form" submitted to the Boston Redevelopment Authority includes an extensive section on Transportation and Parking regarding BU's Campus. Of particular interest is Section 7.4 "Expected Changes to the Transportation Network (2012-2020)" several of which will impact the Boston side of the BU Bridge:
1. Commonwealth Avenue Turnpike Bridge Deck Replacement Project. This Deck is over the MA Turnpike Extension and is integral with vehicles entering/exiting the BU Bridge on the Boston side. According to the BU submission: "MassDOT is responsible for the design, which they expect to complete by the fall of 2012. Construction would begin in 2013 and last for two construction seasons through 2014."
2. St. Mary's Street Bridge Rehabilitation Project. This is also integral to the BU Bridge in exiting/entering on the Boston side. According to BU: "This project will repair the bridge deck, sidewalks, and railings on this critical thoroughfare. MassDOT is overseeing the project and anticipates redesign to be complete in late 2011. Construction will begin in 2012 and conclude within one season."
3. Commonwealth Avenue Reconstruction Project - Phases 2A and 2B. This relates primarily to Comm. Ave. west of the BU Bridge on the Boston side. These are in the design stage and BU offers no dates for conclusion of the project. MassDOT will be involved with design review.
What happens on the Boston side of the BU Bridge impacts the Cambridge side and vice versa. The rotary on the Cambridge side is not addressed in BU's submission but questions have been raised about the efficacy of rotaries in general and this one in particular. So there are known unknowns to be dealt with for at least several constructions seasons following the BU Bridge Project Completion. And then there's also the anticipated rising like the Phoenix from the ashes of the Phase 2 Urban Ring Project that may be on hold until 2020. If only foresight were 20-20.
2. Archie, update, 12/29/11
Archie Mazmanian has provided two astute analyses of the BU Bridge traffic pattern in context with neighboring roads. Regrettably, I seem to have either not gotten or misplaced the first until he sent it along on December 28.
Google Maps would likely be helpful to understand the analysis.
1. Archie Mazmanian, 11/17/11.
At a recent meeting on the Boston side of the Charles River, I learned that the work on the BU Bridge may be completed in December; that the traffic configuration may be tested in three different ways to determine which may work best. The roadbed on the bridge is 40' wide. There are to be two five foot bike lanes on each side (not on the sidewalks), leaving 30' for motor vehicles. This could provide three lanes for motor vehicles, each 10' wide (which may be narrow, especia lly for buses). The experiments may involve variations on travel directions depending upon traffic conditions during various commuting times. At each end of the bridge extra lanes may be available for entering/exiting the bridge. It sounds very complicated, especially for the winter months. I don't know if the MA Dept. of Transportation has spelled out the different configurations. But it would seem wise for a disclosure of DOT's plans in order to prepare motorists/bicyclists.
Archie Mazmanian
[Note: This information was provided at a meeting last night of the BU Community Task Force on which I serve as a member representing the Cottage Farm Neighborhood Association in Brookline. There were discussions at the meeting concerning proposed infrastructure changes involvi ng replacement of the deck of Commonwealth Avenue over the MA Turnpike Extension, repairs to the Carlton Street bridge (Brookline) and "improvements" of the Mountfort/St. Mary's Streets area (also in Brookline), all of which will result in major traffic/transportation issues for the BU Bridge, impacting both Boston/Brookline and Cambridge.]
2. Archie, update, 12/29/11
My observations on this subject are based not only on my on the ground observations but also a briefing provided at a Boston University Neighborhood Task Force meeting in November by BU's transportation consultant for its Charles River Campus. Even before the bridge project, when there were four (4) motor vehicle travel lanes, I had observed MBTA regular buses taking up an entire lane. Now with the modified three (3) lanes, and the visible stripings of lanes and their changes, with experience motorists can figure it out. Will it work well with the three (3) lanes? Only time will tell. But imagine erosion or snow/ice making the stripings less visible. At least pre-bridge project, motorists could readily understand the concept of two (2) lanes in each direction. Thus, my point that shifting lanes may b e problems. And the bike lanes may add to the problems, especially if bike riders fail to observe the rules.
BU's Dec. 21, 2011 "Institutional Master Plan Notification Form" submitted to the Boston Redevelopment Authority includes an extensive section on Transportation and Parking regarding BU's Campus. Of particular interest is Section 7.4 "Expected Changes to the Transportation Network (2012-2020)" several of which will impact the Boston side of the BU Bridge:
1. Commonwealth Avenue Turnpike Bridge Deck Replacement Project. This Deck is over the MA Turnpike Extension and is integral with vehicles entering/exiting the BU Bridge on the Boston side. According to the BU submission: "MassDOT is responsible for the design, which they expect to complete by the fall of 2012. Construction would begin in 2013 and last for two construction seasons through 2014."
2. St. Mary's Street Bridge Rehabilitation Project. This is also integral to the BU Bridge in exiting/entering on the Boston side. According to BU: "This project will repair the bridge deck, sidewalks, and railings on this critical thoroughfare. MassDOT is overseeing the project and anticipates redesign to be complete in late 2011. Construction will begin in 2012 and conclude within one season."
3. Commonwealth Avenue Reconstruction Project - Phases 2A and 2B. This relates primarily to Comm. Ave. west of the BU Bridge on the Boston side. These are in the design stage and BU offers no dates for conclusion of the project. MassDOT will be involved with design review.
What happens on the Boston side of the BU Bridge impacts the Cambridge side and vice versa. The rotary on the Cambridge side is not addressed in BU's submission but questions have been raised about the efficacy of rotaries in general and this one in particular. So there are known unknowns to be dealt with for at least several constructions seasons following the BU Bridge Project Completion. And then there's also the anticipated rising like the Phoenix from the ashes of the Phase 2 Urban Ring Project that may be on hold until 2020. If only foresight were 20-20.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
BU Bridge repairs, the Charles River White Geese, work still remaining
During the day on December 28, I observed the situation fairly closely.
I was shocked to see the Charles River White geese huddled in the northern part of the destroyed nesting area next to the wasteful staging extension of the destruction. Normally, when they are grouped, they huddle under the trees abutting the Grand Junction, especially the large tree toward the southern end. A few White Geese were in the Charles.
The only explanation I could see was a loud machine on the western sidewalk of the BU Bridge, closing that sidewalk for work apparently under the main surface. The key vehicle was a machine that looked like a cement mixer with corresponding tubes sticking through the bridge surface.
When I returned about an hour later, the work on the western side of the bridge had stopped and its noise had stopped. The gaggle was trooping in a line back toward their favorite tree.
On the edge of the roadway next to the Destroyed Nesting Area are a variety of temporary fences starting at a location that could be the beginning of the bridge being raised above the ground. They continue to the beginning of the on ramp north of the Destroyed Nesting Area with a construction gate in the middle. The construction gate enters into the ramp illegally installed by Boston University in 1999. The situation on the western side of the intersection is comparable but much smaller.
Each of these areas, on either side of the temporary fences, have more permanent structures.
There were a number of items in the destroyed part of the Destroyed Nesting Area. A lot of them look like staging. Others were similar. There were a number of dumpsters. There was a lot of empty space in the destroyed area.
Extending out from the BU Bridge above the water in both directions are extended sheets that could be intended to protect the river from items falling out of the bridge or to protect workers under them. Observing these structures from further away, they do look like work areas.
The road way layout has sidewalks on both sides of the bridge with a bike lane running the full length of the western side. On the eastern side, the bike lane starts from the south (Boston) and ends at about the middle with markings in the northern right edge indicating bikes can use the full lane.
There are three travel lanes for vehicles along the length of the BU Bridge. Vehicles entering the bridge from either direction enter into one lane and exit by two lanes at the other end.
Staging areas under Memorial Drive have a temporary construction building and some vehicles.
The work being done on the western side included three vehicles before and after the work, two construction vehicles and a marked state police vehicls.
Clearly the work is not fully completed.
Archie tells me the lane widths are ten feet which are not wide enough for fancy buses anticipated in the silly plans for buses in “phase 2" of the Urban Ring package.
The urban ring package is a subway proposal that has been under discussion since the 80's which the bureaucrats are insistent on turning into fancy buses. The fancy buses are destructive. One of the two subway alternatives is destructive. It, of course, is being pushed by Cambridge and its buddies. There is a responsible subway alternative that has seen subsidy by the legislature in the Fenway Park - Kenmore area.
I was shocked to see the Charles River White geese huddled in the northern part of the destroyed nesting area next to the wasteful staging extension of the destruction. Normally, when they are grouped, they huddle under the trees abutting the Grand Junction, especially the large tree toward the southern end. A few White Geese were in the Charles.
The only explanation I could see was a loud machine on the western sidewalk of the BU Bridge, closing that sidewalk for work apparently under the main surface. The key vehicle was a machine that looked like a cement mixer with corresponding tubes sticking through the bridge surface.
When I returned about an hour later, the work on the western side of the bridge had stopped and its noise had stopped. The gaggle was trooping in a line back toward their favorite tree.
On the edge of the roadway next to the Destroyed Nesting Area are a variety of temporary fences starting at a location that could be the beginning of the bridge being raised above the ground. They continue to the beginning of the on ramp north of the Destroyed Nesting Area with a construction gate in the middle. The construction gate enters into the ramp illegally installed by Boston University in 1999. The situation on the western side of the intersection is comparable but much smaller.
Each of these areas, on either side of the temporary fences, have more permanent structures.
There were a number of items in the destroyed part of the Destroyed Nesting Area. A lot of them look like staging. Others were similar. There were a number of dumpsters. There was a lot of empty space in the destroyed area.
Extending out from the BU Bridge above the water in both directions are extended sheets that could be intended to protect the river from items falling out of the bridge or to protect workers under them. Observing these structures from further away, they do look like work areas.
The road way layout has sidewalks on both sides of the bridge with a bike lane running the full length of the western side. On the eastern side, the bike lane starts from the south (Boston) and ends at about the middle with markings in the northern right edge indicating bikes can use the full lane.
There are three travel lanes for vehicles along the length of the BU Bridge. Vehicles entering the bridge from either direction enter into one lane and exit by two lanes at the other end.
Staging areas under Memorial Drive have a temporary construction building and some vehicles.
The work being done on the western side included three vehicles before and after the work, two construction vehicles and a marked state police vehicls.
Clearly the work is not fully completed.
Archie tells me the lane widths are ten feet which are not wide enough for fancy buses anticipated in the silly plans for buses in “phase 2" of the Urban Ring package.
The urban ring package is a subway proposal that has been under discussion since the 80's which the bureaucrats are insistent on turning into fancy buses. The fancy buses are destructive. One of the two subway alternatives is destructive. It, of course, is being pushed by Cambridge and its buddies. There is a responsible subway alternative that has seen subsidy by the legislature in the Fenway Park - Kenmore area.
MassDOT - BU Bridge Project “substantially” complete
1. MassDot.
2. Context.
3. Coming.
1. MassDot.
On December 27, 2011, I received the following email from MassDOT:
************
Dear Robert:
Thank you for contacting the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) regarding the Boston University Bridge Rehabilitation Project.
This project is substantially complete. Additional punch list item work is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2011 and tree plantings will be completed in the spring of 2012. For additional information on the project, please visit the project website at www.mass.gov/massdot/charlesriverbirdges .
Once again, thank you for your email. Please contact MassDOT if you have additional questions, comments or if we can be of further assistance.
-Stephanie
Stephanie Boundy
Public Outreach Coordinator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
2. Context.
This is very major as far as the Charles River White Geese are concerned.
This project, like so many involving Cambridge and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation was needlessly destructive to the environment and to the animals living in the environment.
They have declared they do not want animals living on the Charles River Basin. Their euphemism is “parkland” with no animals as part of the definition. Over the past decade plus, they have taken major steps to kill off or drive away resident animals.
The mass killing of animals at Alewife as part of that bizarre project is by no means an isolated incident. That is the mentality of the DCR and Cambridge.
MassDOT took over the BU Bridge project by legislative edict as the legislature has been reducing the areas subjected to the DCR.
MassDOT would appear to have been crucial in killing / tabling a Cambridge proposal for a new highway in and abutting the Charles because of its environmental destructiveness.
The mess that has been needlessly created as part of needless destruction of the BU Bridge was something MassDOT inherited by order of the legislature.
Significant parts of the nesting area of the Charles River White Geese have been destroyed. This area is the only significant part of the habitat of the Charles River White Geese which has not been destroyed by Cambridge and the DCR during the past decade and the DCR has made the project as destructive as could be imagined.
DCR agents, starting in 2003 destroyed almost all ground vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse to the east, the area where the Charles River White Geese have been confined.
The ground vegetation not destroyed was exactly where the DCR intended to destroy as part of the BU Bridge project.
I have previously posted photos of the mess at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/photo-record-september-2011-destruction.html. The very limited areas not destroyed can better be explained as a result of inability to exactly predict what would be destroyed by the BU Bridge project.
As shown in the photos, the extension destroying almost all of the northern part of the nesting area is just another example of heartless animal abuse by the DCR.
The portion by the BU Bridge was pretty much necessary.
3. Coming.
Now the state needs to undo its destruction.
The DCR’s description of its plans for the area are strikingly similar to their plans in 1999 when, as the DCR’s agent, Boston University first destroyed the area. They started the work before a public hearing by the Cambridge Conservation Commission on the matter. They finished the work before they could legally start it. Boston University lied for six months that they did the work until the Cambridge Conservation Commission condemned them for it.
Then, the DCR through BU destroyed a balance, viable ecosystem, a refuge of nature in the middle of the city.
The DCR put in silly grass and “native” Dutch flowers, plus a pathway of ashes. The stuff proceeded to wash into the Charles. Their “park” went nearly unused as a park but it was heavily used by the animals who had not been driven away.
Roy Bercaw went to the goose meadow in April 2000. He recorded what he saw. It is posted at http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/07/friends-of-charles-river-white-geese.html. [Note: His posting of the video was in 2007. Roy, apparently, did not look at his content well enough in his description. April 2000 is stated in the video.]
What has been done this time is a lot worse than in 1999. Close look at Roy’s video will show a lot of ground vegetation which has been destroyed that was not destroyed in 1999, and it has not regrown, indicating poisoning.
The vibrancy of the small areas not destroyed this time show exactly how excellent this area is when not attacked by unfit state / city employees and their agents.
The reality is, as can be seen in the repeated environmental destruction on the Charles River related to bizarre projects and to bizarre additions to responsible projects, the DCR not fit for its responsibilities. DCR and Cambridge in their animal and tree pogrom at Alewife as part of that bizarre project have further demonstrated their lack of fitness to manage the environment.
More to come.
2. Context.
3. Coming.
1. MassDot.
On December 27, 2011, I received the following email from MassDOT:
************
Dear Robert:
Thank you for contacting the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) regarding the Boston University Bridge Rehabilitation Project.
This project is substantially complete. Additional punch list item work is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2011 and tree plantings will be completed in the spring of 2012. For additional information on the project, please visit the project website at www.mass.gov/massdot/charlesriverbirdges .
Once again, thank you for your email. Please contact MassDOT if you have additional questions, comments or if we can be of further assistance.
-Stephanie
Stephanie Boundy
Public Outreach Coordinator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
2. Context.
This is very major as far as the Charles River White Geese are concerned.
This project, like so many involving Cambridge and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation was needlessly destructive to the environment and to the animals living in the environment.
They have declared they do not want animals living on the Charles River Basin. Their euphemism is “parkland” with no animals as part of the definition. Over the past decade plus, they have taken major steps to kill off or drive away resident animals.
The mass killing of animals at Alewife as part of that bizarre project is by no means an isolated incident. That is the mentality of the DCR and Cambridge.
MassDOT took over the BU Bridge project by legislative edict as the legislature has been reducing the areas subjected to the DCR.
MassDOT would appear to have been crucial in killing / tabling a Cambridge proposal for a new highway in and abutting the Charles because of its environmental destructiveness.
The mess that has been needlessly created as part of needless destruction of the BU Bridge was something MassDOT inherited by order of the legislature.
Significant parts of the nesting area of the Charles River White Geese have been destroyed. This area is the only significant part of the habitat of the Charles River White Geese which has not been destroyed by Cambridge and the DCR during the past decade and the DCR has made the project as destructive as could be imagined.
DCR agents, starting in 2003 destroyed almost all ground vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse to the east, the area where the Charles River White Geese have been confined.
The ground vegetation not destroyed was exactly where the DCR intended to destroy as part of the BU Bridge project.
I have previously posted photos of the mess at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/photo-record-september-2011-destruction.html. The very limited areas not destroyed can better be explained as a result of inability to exactly predict what would be destroyed by the BU Bridge project.
As shown in the photos, the extension destroying almost all of the northern part of the nesting area is just another example of heartless animal abuse by the DCR.
The portion by the BU Bridge was pretty much necessary.
3. Coming.
Now the state needs to undo its destruction.
The DCR’s description of its plans for the area are strikingly similar to their plans in 1999 when, as the DCR’s agent, Boston University first destroyed the area. They started the work before a public hearing by the Cambridge Conservation Commission on the matter. They finished the work before they could legally start it. Boston University lied for six months that they did the work until the Cambridge Conservation Commission condemned them for it.
Then, the DCR through BU destroyed a balance, viable ecosystem, a refuge of nature in the middle of the city.
The DCR put in silly grass and “native” Dutch flowers, plus a pathway of ashes. The stuff proceeded to wash into the Charles. Their “park” went nearly unused as a park but it was heavily used by the animals who had not been driven away.
Roy Bercaw went to the goose meadow in April 2000. He recorded what he saw. It is posted at http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/07/friends-of-charles-river-white-geese.html. [Note: His posting of the video was in 2007. Roy, apparently, did not look at his content well enough in his description. April 2000 is stated in the video.]
What has been done this time is a lot worse than in 1999. Close look at Roy’s video will show a lot of ground vegetation which has been destroyed that was not destroyed in 1999, and it has not regrown, indicating poisoning.
The vibrancy of the small areas not destroyed this time show exactly how excellent this area is when not attacked by unfit state / city employees and their agents.
The reality is, as can be seen in the repeated environmental destruction on the Charles River related to bizarre projects and to bizarre additions to responsible projects, the DCR not fit for its responsibilities. DCR and Cambridge in their animal and tree pogrom at Alewife as part of that bizarre project have further demonstrated their lack of fitness to manage the environment.
More to come.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Praise for Al Vellucci; otherwise for the Cambridge Pols and the Boston Globe / boston.com
1. General.
2. George Orwell, Al Vellucci and a very smart comment in the Chronicle’s oped.
3. The Boston Globe / boston.com as part of environmental destruction on the Charles River and related.
1. General.
The Cambridge Chronicle had an op ed in their December 22, 2011 edition concerning Occupy Harvard as a result of which Harvard Yard is in now in a state of lockdown in response to an Occupy Harvard demonstration. No non Harvard people are allowed in Harvard Yard.
The piece was well written and went into some silly behavior by Harvard.
It concluded with: “Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?”
Al Vellucci was a quirky long term Cambridge City Councilor who stood up to a lot of behavior of Harvard’s, but, more importantly, stood up to some pretty silly thinking by many people in Cambridge who consider themselves intelligent. He had a term for such people. I forget exactly what it was, but the key thing about Al was common sense. While the people he belittled frequently had trouble recognizing what was occurring to their faces, Al never had problems recognizing the reality about him. The basic mentality was that too many people in Cambridge are too intelligent to recognize reality, finding all sorts of complicated situations when all that was necessary was to look around you and observe.
Based on my appreciation for the astute comment and my thought that Vellucci-speak is very relevant today, I have submitted a response to the op end.
I really was thinking of holding this for awhile, but the Boston Globe’s glorifying environmental destroyers at Alewife as some sort of concerned citizens brought it home to me a lot more slice of reality, which I analyze in part 3.
2. George Orwell, Al Vellucci and a very smart comment in the Chronicle’s oped.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?
One of the most astute comments in Cambridge in many years.
Al would not explain it this way, but Al was not smart enough to convince himself that the obvious was not true.
A superior court judge responded with “reprehensible” to the Cambridge City Manager destroying a female department head’s life in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The appeals court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust by refusing to grant a formal opinion. “Ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The jury tacks on $3.5 million PENAL damages in addition to $1.1 million real damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot believe what is in front of their own eyes. They cannot understand that Healy should be fired for Monteiro.
The Cambridge Pols spent 15 years “defending” Alewife by telling people concerned about Alewife not to look at the totally unnecessary and down right bizarre destruction being planned by Cambridge and its friends. They just cannot understand that protecting North Cambridge against massive flooding from 50 year storms cannot be done with environmental destruction that protects against 2 year storms. They just cannot understand that there is a massive parking lot directly across the street from their new strip mine / former irreplaceable forest. They cannot understand that that massive parking lot can do the flood protection job that their destruction of this irreplaceable treasure cannot do.
The Cambridge Pols cannot see why there is a problem with destroying healthy grass at Magazine Beach which survived most of a century and replacing it with sickly stuff that needs poisons to survive. They cannot understand why there is a problem with dumping poisons on the banks of the Charles to keep alive vegetation which should not be there.
They praise swimming in the Charles and cannot understand why there is a problem with walling off Magazine Beach from the Charles with a bizarre wall of introduced bushes.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why heartless animal abuse aimed at the Charles River White Geese as part of so many bizarre projects is wrong.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why mass killings of thousands of animals at Alewife is wrong.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to fool himself as efficiently as the Cambridge Pols insist they are fooled.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to even consider such nonsense.
3. The Boston Globe / boston.com as part of environmental destruction on the Charles River and related.
The Cambridge Pols do a lot of lying. They lie skillfully.
The bizarre party the Globe / boston.com reported on is a typical form of lie out of these people.
They give the false impression they are decent human beings by behaving like decent human beings and suppressing the really rotten stuff they do.
I have reported at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/bostoncom-glorifies-people-key-in.html the Globe’s on line equivalent, boston.com, printing a photo of the group most responsible for the destruction of the core Alewife reservation conducting a winter solstice dance. The background in the photo could be the trees on the edge of the acres of strip mine these people have succeeded in creating in place of acres of an irreplaceable native forest. The supposed goal is flat out bizarre.
So these fakes conduct a party to show their great “concern” for Alewife and do not mention their destruction of Alewife.
The Boston Globe does a lot of this stuff. The false publicity put out for the Cambridge Pols by the Boston Globe too often fools people into thinking that environmental destroyers are environmental saints.
There was one op ed in the Globe accurately recognizing the vileness of the Cambridge City Manager in destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro. And, for the most part, the reporting of the Boston Globe on Monteiro has been excellent.
But, on environmental issues, the Boston Globe / boston.com very clearly fits the mentality that Al Vellucci mocked. “Well intentioned” people incapable of looking at their surroundings and accurately describing them.
If the Boston Globe is meaningfully concerned about the environment, the Boston Globe should send a reporter and a photographer out to the site of that photo.
They may have difficulty getting close to the artificially created strip mine where, until October or so, there was an irreplaceable virgin woods if they stay in the area of the photo.
They should just follow the marked path to Alewife Station, walk past Alewife station and turn right at CambridgePark Drive. Not too far up, on the left, they will see a massive parking lot and across from the parking lot, they will see an entrance to a construction zone. Just past the construction zone entrance is an asphalt small vehicle highway. The Boston Globe needs to realize that both these segments less than a year ago were part of a dense woods. Go up that small vehicle highway to the turn and look in both directions. This was a massive, virgin woodland not that long ago in all directions straight ahead, right and left. That massive woodlands has been replaced with a strip mine.
The Boston Globe should question Cambridge Officials from the Department of Public Works including the City Engineer and the Public Works Commissioner. The Boston Globe should question whoever will come out of hiding in the Planning Department of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
After extended cross examination, the individuals will either claim stupidity or admit that their destruction of the core Alewife Reservation is for flood protection which will protect against the worst possible storm in any two year period.
Try asking them about the fact that the area has seen two 50 year storms in the past 20 years.
Try asking them about that massive parking lot. If you look closer at that massive parking lot, you will realize that it is even larger than it looks. Go quickly to Google Maps, satellite view, and you will see that it extends along the railroad to Fresh Pond Parkway.
And Google Maps still shows the strip mine as a massive, irrepleable virgin woodland, the way it was for more than a century.
And ask the “planners” why they have destroyed an irreplaceable resource for flood protection which will not even approach the needs of the area. Ask them about this massive parking lot across the street which could readily be used for the flood protection the area needs and then have above the flood storage, on air rights the office buildings the owner wants.
As far as the private citizen “protectors” go, this type of people is usually rather useless as far as meaning and damning discussions go.
But the Boston Globe keeps printing these severely misleading puff pieces which give the impression that environmental destroyers are environmental saints. And the Boston Globe somehow cannot see the reality in front of its own eyes.
It takes next to no effort to observe that strip mine that, until recently, was a magnificent irreplaceable woodland. They even have signs bragging about the project without telling the key information, that it cannot achieve the flood protection the Pols imply and that the massive parking lot across the street can.
I do not recall that Al Vellucci had much use for the Boston Globe.
2. George Orwell, Al Vellucci and a very smart comment in the Chronicle’s oped.
3. The Boston Globe / boston.com as part of environmental destruction on the Charles River and related.
1. General.
The Cambridge Chronicle had an op ed in their December 22, 2011 edition concerning Occupy Harvard as a result of which Harvard Yard is in now in a state of lockdown in response to an Occupy Harvard demonstration. No non Harvard people are allowed in Harvard Yard.
The piece was well written and went into some silly behavior by Harvard.
It concluded with: “Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?”
Al Vellucci was a quirky long term Cambridge City Councilor who stood up to a lot of behavior of Harvard’s, but, more importantly, stood up to some pretty silly thinking by many people in Cambridge who consider themselves intelligent. He had a term for such people. I forget exactly what it was, but the key thing about Al was common sense. While the people he belittled frequently had trouble recognizing what was occurring to their faces, Al never had problems recognizing the reality about him. The basic mentality was that too many people in Cambridge are too intelligent to recognize reality, finding all sorts of complicated situations when all that was necessary was to look around you and observe.
Based on my appreciation for the astute comment and my thought that Vellucci-speak is very relevant today, I have submitted a response to the op end.
I really was thinking of holding this for awhile, but the Boston Globe’s glorifying environmental destroyers at Alewife as some sort of concerned citizens brought it home to me a lot more slice of reality, which I analyze in part 3.
2. George Orwell, Al Vellucci and a very smart comment in the Chronicle’s oped.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?
One of the most astute comments in Cambridge in many years.
Al would not explain it this way, but Al was not smart enough to convince himself that the obvious was not true.
A superior court judge responded with “reprehensible” to the Cambridge City Manager destroying a female department head’s life in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The appeals court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust by refusing to grant a formal opinion. “Ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The jury tacks on $3.5 million PENAL damages in addition to $1.1 million real damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot believe what is in front of their own eyes. They cannot understand that Healy should be fired for Monteiro.
The Cambridge Pols spent 15 years “defending” Alewife by telling people concerned about Alewife not to look at the totally unnecessary and down right bizarre destruction being planned by Cambridge and its friends. They just cannot understand that protecting North Cambridge against massive flooding from 50 year storms cannot be done with environmental destruction that protects against 2 year storms. They just cannot understand that there is a massive parking lot directly across the street from their new strip mine / former irreplaceable forest. They cannot understand that that massive parking lot can do the flood protection job that their destruction of this irreplaceable treasure cannot do.
The Cambridge Pols cannot see why there is a problem with destroying healthy grass at Magazine Beach which survived most of a century and replacing it with sickly stuff that needs poisons to survive. They cannot understand why there is a problem with dumping poisons on the banks of the Charles to keep alive vegetation which should not be there.
They praise swimming in the Charles and cannot understand why there is a problem with walling off Magazine Beach from the Charles with a bizarre wall of introduced bushes.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why heartless animal abuse aimed at the Charles River White Geese as part of so many bizarre projects is wrong.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why mass killings of thousands of animals at Alewife is wrong.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to fool himself as efficiently as the Cambridge Pols insist they are fooled.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to even consider such nonsense.
3. The Boston Globe / boston.com as part of environmental destruction on the Charles River and related.
The Cambridge Pols do a lot of lying. They lie skillfully.
The bizarre party the Globe / boston.com reported on is a typical form of lie out of these people.
They give the false impression they are decent human beings by behaving like decent human beings and suppressing the really rotten stuff they do.
I have reported at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/bostoncom-glorifies-people-key-in.html the Globe’s on line equivalent, boston.com, printing a photo of the group most responsible for the destruction of the core Alewife reservation conducting a winter solstice dance. The background in the photo could be the trees on the edge of the acres of strip mine these people have succeeded in creating in place of acres of an irreplaceable native forest. The supposed goal is flat out bizarre.
So these fakes conduct a party to show their great “concern” for Alewife and do not mention their destruction of Alewife.
The Boston Globe does a lot of this stuff. The false publicity put out for the Cambridge Pols by the Boston Globe too often fools people into thinking that environmental destroyers are environmental saints.
There was one op ed in the Globe accurately recognizing the vileness of the Cambridge City Manager in destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro. And, for the most part, the reporting of the Boston Globe on Monteiro has been excellent.
But, on environmental issues, the Boston Globe / boston.com very clearly fits the mentality that Al Vellucci mocked. “Well intentioned” people incapable of looking at their surroundings and accurately describing them.
If the Boston Globe is meaningfully concerned about the environment, the Boston Globe should send a reporter and a photographer out to the site of that photo.
They may have difficulty getting close to the artificially created strip mine where, until October or so, there was an irreplaceable virgin woods if they stay in the area of the photo.
They should just follow the marked path to Alewife Station, walk past Alewife station and turn right at CambridgePark Drive. Not too far up, on the left, they will see a massive parking lot and across from the parking lot, they will see an entrance to a construction zone. Just past the construction zone entrance is an asphalt small vehicle highway. The Boston Globe needs to realize that both these segments less than a year ago were part of a dense woods. Go up that small vehicle highway to the turn and look in both directions. This was a massive, virgin woodland not that long ago in all directions straight ahead, right and left. That massive woodlands has been replaced with a strip mine.
The Boston Globe should question Cambridge Officials from the Department of Public Works including the City Engineer and the Public Works Commissioner. The Boston Globe should question whoever will come out of hiding in the Planning Department of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
After extended cross examination, the individuals will either claim stupidity or admit that their destruction of the core Alewife Reservation is for flood protection which will protect against the worst possible storm in any two year period.
Try asking them about the fact that the area has seen two 50 year storms in the past 20 years.
Try asking them about that massive parking lot. If you look closer at that massive parking lot, you will realize that it is even larger than it looks. Go quickly to Google Maps, satellite view, and you will see that it extends along the railroad to Fresh Pond Parkway.
And Google Maps still shows the strip mine as a massive, irrepleable virgin woodland, the way it was for more than a century.
And ask the “planners” why they have destroyed an irreplaceable resource for flood protection which will not even approach the needs of the area. Ask them about this massive parking lot across the street which could readily be used for the flood protection the area needs and then have above the flood storage, on air rights the office buildings the owner wants.
As far as the private citizen “protectors” go, this type of people is usually rather useless as far as meaning and damning discussions go.
But the Boston Globe keeps printing these severely misleading puff pieces which give the impression that environmental destroyers are environmental saints. And the Boston Globe somehow cannot see the reality in front of its own eyes.
It takes next to no effort to observe that strip mine that, until recently, was a magnificent irreplaceable woodland. They even have signs bragging about the project without telling the key information, that it cannot achieve the flood protection the Pols imply and that the massive parking lot across the street can.
I do not recall that Al Vellucci had much use for the Boston Globe.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Boston.com glorifies people key in the destruction of Alewife
For months, Boston.com has posted on its Cambridge page a photo of wild birds nesting on a building next to Fresh Pond Reservation in Cambridge. Boston.com is the on line version of the Boston Globe.
Boston.com has never bothered to ask why wild animals are nesting on a building next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge.
The obvious answer is massive environmental destruction at Fresh Pond by Cambridge and its friends.
Now, the people who were key in the destruction of the core Alewife reservation are playing the usual con game, and Boston.com is celebrating their con game just as Boston.com is celebrating the homelessness of wild birds who belong at Fresh Pond. It is posted at http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/cambridge/2011/12/celebrating_the_solstice_at_al.html.
The “Friends of Alewife Reservation,” the fake group more responsible for the destruction of the core Alewife reservation than anybody else, have had a party to give people the wrong impression about them, the impression that they are a responsible group and pro environment.
The photo is striking. I am not positive, but I think that, in the background is the remnants of trees hovering over the strip mine they helped create in place of acres of excellent trees and animals.
This was, of course for “flood protection.” The area needs protection from 50 year storms at minimum. The area has seen two 50 years storms in the past twenty years.
Their destruction will protect against 2 year storms. And across CambridgePark Drive is an excellent, massive parking lot which can readily be converted to protect against 50 year storms.
So the fake group is celebrating. And Boston.com helps their celebration.
Merry Christmas, but remember all the excellent environment needlessly destroyed and the beautiful animals needless and heartlessly abused and killed. And Boston.com glorifying destroyers.
Boston.com has never bothered to ask why wild animals are nesting on a building next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge.
The obvious answer is massive environmental destruction at Fresh Pond by Cambridge and its friends.
Now, the people who were key in the destruction of the core Alewife reservation are playing the usual con game, and Boston.com is celebrating their con game just as Boston.com is celebrating the homelessness of wild birds who belong at Fresh Pond. It is posted at http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/cambridge/2011/12/celebrating_the_solstice_at_al.html.
The “Friends of Alewife Reservation,” the fake group more responsible for the destruction of the core Alewife reservation than anybody else, have had a party to give people the wrong impression about them, the impression that they are a responsible group and pro environment.
The photo is striking. I am not positive, but I think that, in the background is the remnants of trees hovering over the strip mine they helped create in place of acres of excellent trees and animals.
This was, of course for “flood protection.” The area needs protection from 50 year storms at minimum. The area has seen two 50 years storms in the past twenty years.
Their destruction will protect against 2 year storms. And across CambridgePark Drive is an excellent, massive parking lot which can readily be converted to protect against 50 year storms.
So the fake group is celebrating. And Boston.com helps their celebration.
Merry Christmas, but remember all the excellent environment needlessly destroyed and the beautiful animals needless and heartlessly abused and killed. And Boston.com glorifying destroyers.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Cambridge Chronicle Reports Cambridge spent over $12 million on Monteiro case
The Cambridge Chronicle is reporting at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/features/x1658263526/City-of-Cambridge-spent-12-million-defending-itself-in-lawsuits#axzz1hMUFivQ7, details finally revealed by the City of Cambridge in response to their freedom on information demand.
The check to Monteiro herself was $8.3 million (more accurate than Chronicle report). The check to Cambridge’s attorneys is $2.5 million. Interest payments ran to $1 million.
Cambridge is still refusing to reveal details about payments to the final two plaintiffs.
The Chronicle has major problems with Cambridge’s legal interpretation of their duty to disclose.
Monteiro v. Cambridge is the case that went to the Appeals Court concerning the Cambridge City Manager’s firing of a female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The Appeals Court refused to dignify the Cambridge appeal with a formal opinion. They spoke of “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”
The Superior Court judge called Cambridge’s behavior “reprehensible.”
The jury said $1.1 million real damages, $3.5 million penal damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot understand why the Cambridge City Manager should be fired. All he did was destroy a woman’s life in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The check to Monteiro herself was $8.3 million (more accurate than Chronicle report). The check to Cambridge’s attorneys is $2.5 million. Interest payments ran to $1 million.
Cambridge is still refusing to reveal details about payments to the final two plaintiffs.
The Chronicle has major problems with Cambridge’s legal interpretation of their duty to disclose.
Monteiro v. Cambridge is the case that went to the Appeals Court concerning the Cambridge City Manager’s firing of a female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The Appeals Court refused to dignify the Cambridge appeal with a formal opinion. They spoke of “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”
The Superior Court judge called Cambridge’s behavior “reprehensible.”
The jury said $1.1 million real damages, $3.5 million penal damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot understand why the Cambridge City Manager should be fired. All he did was destroy a woman’s life in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
Ellen responds to brief history of the Charles and related
1. Introduction.
2. Ellen’s Response.
3. Your editor.
1. Introduction.
Yesterday I posted a brief history of the Charles and related at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/very-brief-summary-of-situation-on.html.
2. Ellen’s Response.
MSPCA does not have the facility to take on geese, so why are they even considering it? plus adopting geese wild geese is so wrong for the geese.
3. Your editor.
Equivalent to nine city councilor calling themselves environmental saints at the same time as killing hundreds or thousand of free animals at Alewife for "flood storage" that cannot be provided by their project but can be provided across the street.
When they are trying to destroy, all they have to do is get away with it once. And the machine pops out nonsense after nonsense after nonsense, knowing they only have to get people to sucker after one item.
One successful con and they have done their destruction. Just look at Alewife. That was accomplished by one fake group telling people it was defending Alewife, and then telling well intended folks to look at everything but what their friends at Cambridge and the DCR were totally irresponsibly destroying.
And the machine backs up each of the fake groups, giving a massive number of probably fooled people fighting to destroy what they want to save.
2. Ellen’s Response.
3. Your editor.
1. Introduction.
Yesterday I posted a brief history of the Charles and related at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/very-brief-summary-of-situation-on.html.
2. Ellen’s Response.
MSPCA does not have the facility to take on geese, so why are they even considering it? plus adopting geese wild geese is so wrong for the geese.
3. Your editor.
Equivalent to nine city councilor calling themselves environmental saints at the same time as killing hundreds or thousand of free animals at Alewife for "flood storage" that cannot be provided by their project but can be provided across the street.
When they are trying to destroy, all they have to do is get away with it once. And the machine pops out nonsense after nonsense after nonsense, knowing they only have to get people to sucker after one item.
One successful con and they have done their destruction. Just look at Alewife. That was accomplished by one fake group telling people it was defending Alewife, and then telling well intended folks to look at everything but what their friends at Cambridge and the DCR were totally irresponsibly destroying.
And the machine backs up each of the fake groups, giving a massive number of probably fooled people fighting to destroy what they want to save.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Very brief summary of the situation on the Charles River and related
A long time activist posted on the facebook page looking for feeding assistance for the Charles River White Geese.
A new member of the page responded:
I hope they're not coming for dinner
Your editor’s attempted response, subject to problems in facebook:
At one point, the Pols were proposing to put them up in a “happy farm” managed by the MSPCA.
Marilyn Wellons inspected it. The water to be provided consisted of a tiny wading pool.
Persons wishing to “adopt” could “adopt” for any purpose including dinner.
If they were not “adopted” within a certain period of time, they would be killed.
The local state rep along with an MSPCA representative put a letter in the Cambridge Chronicle which sounded Oh great. It proposed “humane treatment” for the Charles River White Geese.
I posted a flier responding to the letter which described the situation and his letter and sarcastically called for “humane treatment” for the rep. He went on local cable saying I was proposing his assassination.
They had lived in a mile long habitatat centered on the BU Bridge.
Their food at Magazine Beach was taken from them by a bizarre wall of vegetation which blocks of Magazine Beach from the Charles River. Poisons are now being dumped on the banks of the Charles River to keep alive introduced grass which replaced healthy grass which survived the better part of a Century. Nearly all ground vegetation in the tiny area to which they have been confined has been destroyed by DCR agents.
Cambridge and the Department of Conservation and Recreation just destroyed acres of the essentially virgin and magnificent Alewife reservation near the MBTA’s Alewife station including perhaps thousands of magnificent trees and thousands of animals who could not get out of their way. The two claimed they were providing flood protection for North Cambridge, but they are protecting against the worst rainstorm every two years. The Alewife area has seen two fifty year storms in the last twenty years.
Directly across CambridgePark Drive and visible from this newly created strip mine is a massive parking lot which could readily be used for underground flood storage needed for the flood protection with office buildings built on air rights.
A good comment on the City of Cambridge came in the recent Civil Rights lawsuit, Monteiro v. Cambridge, in which the Appeals Court noted “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions”; the superior court judge called the behavior “reprehensible”, and the jury awarded $1.1 million in real damages and $3.5 million in PENAL damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot understand why the Cambridge City Manager should be fired. All he did was destroy the life of this female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
A new member of the page responded:
I hope they're not coming for dinner
Your editor’s attempted response, subject to problems in facebook:
At one point, the Pols were proposing to put them up in a “happy farm” managed by the MSPCA.
Marilyn Wellons inspected it. The water to be provided consisted of a tiny wading pool.
Persons wishing to “adopt” could “adopt” for any purpose including dinner.
If they were not “adopted” within a certain period of time, they would be killed.
The local state rep along with an MSPCA representative put a letter in the Cambridge Chronicle which sounded Oh great. It proposed “humane treatment” for the Charles River White Geese.
I posted a flier responding to the letter which described the situation and his letter and sarcastically called for “humane treatment” for the rep. He went on local cable saying I was proposing his assassination.
They had lived in a mile long habitatat centered on the BU Bridge.
Their food at Magazine Beach was taken from them by a bizarre wall of vegetation which blocks of Magazine Beach from the Charles River. Poisons are now being dumped on the banks of the Charles River to keep alive introduced grass which replaced healthy grass which survived the better part of a Century. Nearly all ground vegetation in the tiny area to which they have been confined has been destroyed by DCR agents.
Cambridge and the Department of Conservation and Recreation just destroyed acres of the essentially virgin and magnificent Alewife reservation near the MBTA’s Alewife station including perhaps thousands of magnificent trees and thousands of animals who could not get out of their way. The two claimed they were providing flood protection for North Cambridge, but they are protecting against the worst rainstorm every two years. The Alewife area has seen two fifty year storms in the last twenty years.
Directly across CambridgePark Drive and visible from this newly created strip mine is a massive parking lot which could readily be used for underground flood storage needed for the flood protection with office buildings built on air rights.
A good comment on the City of Cambridge came in the recent Civil Rights lawsuit, Monteiro v. Cambridge, in which the Appeals Court noted “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions”; the superior court judge called the behavior “reprehensible”, and the jury awarded $1.1 million in real damages and $3.5 million in PENAL damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot understand why the Cambridge City Manager should be fired. All he did was destroy the life of this female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Grand Junction Passenger Service - Kathy Podgers Comment
Kathy Podgers has the following comments on the Grand Junction Passenger Service concept, tabled by MassDOT:
It is a shame that planners failed to connect So and No Station during the Big Dig. In addition, failing to plan for increased rail, and therefore enough space for rail at So Station, because of being focused on the 'Inner Belt' aka 'Urban Ring,' is no excuse for building more highways for busses thru our residential neighborhoods.
I am also opposed to the plan to bus people from Kenmore Sq area, over the BU bridge, thru Cambridgeport, and on to Kendal Sq. Is there no end, whatsoever, for mindboggeling waste of money?
What the MBTA and the GOV should focus on is connecting the Blue Line to the Red Line.
Another gigantic mistake is failure to construct Hi Speed Rail between Boston and DC, thru NYC, with possible spurs from Portland to Boston, DC to Richmond, and Phildelphia thru Harrisburgh, to Pittsburgh, with a future possibility of continuing on North, to Buffalo on to Toronto and Ottawa, and West to Cleveland on to Chicago.
I personally believe that if the so called bail out moola and the QE2 had funded this HSR we would now be out of the real recession, and unemployment would be a thing of the past. Instead, in their continued short sighted, panic mode, only 'shovel ready' projects were even considered.
It is a shame that planners failed to connect So and No Station during the Big Dig. In addition, failing to plan for increased rail, and therefore enough space for rail at So Station, because of being focused on the 'Inner Belt' aka 'Urban Ring,' is no excuse for building more highways for busses thru our residential neighborhoods.
I am also opposed to the plan to bus people from Kenmore Sq area, over the BU bridge, thru Cambridgeport, and on to Kendal Sq. Is there no end, whatsoever, for mindboggeling waste of money?
What the MBTA and the GOV should focus on is connecting the Blue Line to the Red Line.
Another gigantic mistake is failure to construct Hi Speed Rail between Boston and DC, thru NYC, with possible spurs from Portland to Boston, DC to Richmond, and Phildelphia thru Harrisburgh, to Pittsburgh, with a future possibility of continuing on North, to Buffalo on to Toronto and Ottawa, and West to Cleveland on to Chicago.
I personally believe that if the so called bail out moola and the QE2 had funded this HSR we would now be out of the real recession, and unemployment would be a thing of the past. Instead, in their continued short sighted, panic mode, only 'shovel ready' projects were even considered.
MassDOT posts Grand Junction Materials
We have reported on MassDOT’s shelving of the concept of passenger service on the Grand Junction railroad which runs through the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. It crosses the Charles River on the railroad bridge under the BU Bridge.
It was subtly being pushed by the Cambridge Pols. The Pols kept on saying “You can’t win.” As usual, the pols deviated from reality.
MassDOT has announced the posting of their materials at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/planning/GrandJunctionTransportationStudy.aspx (sorry, blogger is not allowing direct links).
The Boston Globe has also reportsed MassDOT’s shelving of commuter trains on Grand Junction.
An extended quote has been posted on the Cambridgeport listserve.
If anybody can provide a link to the Boston Globe report, I would love to post it.
It was subtly being pushed by the Cambridge Pols. The Pols kept on saying “You can’t win.” As usual, the pols deviated from reality.
MassDOT has announced the posting of their materials at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/planning/GrandJunctionTransportationStudy.aspx (sorry, blogger is not allowing direct links).
The Boston Globe has also reportsed MassDOT’s shelving of commuter trains on Grand Junction.
An extended quote has been posted on the Cambridgeport listserve.
If anybody can provide a link to the Boston Globe report, I would love to post it.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tactics in lying.
The falsely named Charles River “Conservancy” has posted on its facebook page a photo of a picnic table at Magazine Beach which has been repaired by its volunteers.
The picnic area is across from the foot of Magazine Street in Cambridge.
The lie is that the Department of Conservation and Recreation and Cambridge intend to destroy that picnic area by closing off its parking lot. The picnic area is used by a lot of apparently Hispanic minorities clearly from less expensive parts of the area. Closing off their parking would, at minimum, force a long walk carrying goods including grills. Closing off their parking is just another bizarre, destructive project.
Last I heard, the falsely named “conservancy” supported the destruction without reservation, with, of course, coordinated support of the city manager related front group in the neighborhood.
And it is only a tiny parking area.
The picnic area is across from the foot of Magazine Street in Cambridge.
The lie is that the Department of Conservation and Recreation and Cambridge intend to destroy that picnic area by closing off its parking lot. The picnic area is used by a lot of apparently Hispanic minorities clearly from less expensive parts of the area. Closing off their parking would, at minimum, force a long walk carrying goods including grills. Closing off their parking is just another bizarre, destructive project.
Last I heard, the falsely named “conservancy” supported the destruction without reservation, with, of course, coordinated support of the city manager related front group in the neighborhood.
And it is only a tiny parking area.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Response on the defeat of the Charles River Highway, and on censorship by Davis
1. Charles River Highway.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher responds to our posts:
1. Charles River Highway.
Cher:
I am thrilled to hear your news re the vetoes of the highway. I wonder if anyone is literally turning over in their graves at the very thought of it. disgusting! Its marvelous that you are recognized as someone who is for the people re this situation, literally. To be recognized on the streets of Camb is something! kudos to you again.
Editor:
Thank you. There is a very big difference between the machine and reality. Reality is working well. The machine, as usual, sounds great, but reality is such that they have no credibility.
The machine was properly yelling about a truly bizarre destruction of zoning protections in certain big buildings, but the machine destroyed Alewife. They have no credibility.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher:
Listen, how can she possibly veto your response?? I would if I were you remain respectful and stick to the facts and screw her in plain English.
Editor:
Davis lives in a world in Cambridge which is devoid of reality.
The machine lives a fake world.
Davis thrives on the machine’s fake world with the full knowledge that the machine will praise her no matter what.
Cambridge has a truly “reprehensible” city government, to quote that civil rights judge.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher responds to our posts:
1. Charles River Highway.
Cher:
I am thrilled to hear your news re the vetoes of the highway. I wonder if anyone is literally turning over in their graves at the very thought of it. disgusting! Its marvelous that you are recognized as someone who is for the people re this situation, literally. To be recognized on the streets of Camb is something! kudos to you again.
Editor:
Thank you. There is a very big difference between the machine and reality. Reality is working well. The machine, as usual, sounds great, but reality is such that they have no credibility.
The machine was properly yelling about a truly bizarre destruction of zoning protections in certain big buildings, but the machine destroyed Alewife. They have no credibility.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher:
Listen, how can she possibly veto your response?? I would if I were you remain respectful and stick to the facts and screw her in plain English.
Editor:
Davis lives in a world in Cambridge which is devoid of reality.
The machine lives a fake world.
Davis thrives on the machine’s fake world with the full knowledge that the machine will praise her no matter what.
Cambridge has a truly “reprehensible” city government, to quote that civil rights judge.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Environmentally Destructive Cambridge City Councilor attempts censorship
1. General.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
4. Interrelationship among plans.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
1. General.
Tuesday evening, December 13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted one of its regular meetings to discuss its plans for development. The meeting was conducted in a new, very large, dormitory building at the corner of Albany and Pacific Streets in Cambridge. The building is separated from the Grand Junction Railroad only by Albany Street and by a wet shelter for the homeless.
It was a very civil meeting concerning MIT development plans and concerns of the participants about the MIT development plans.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
The meeting got unruly only when City Councilor Henrietta Davis put in a pitch for the small vehicle highway proposal along the Grand Junction. This is the destructive proposal about which the machine stacked the MassDOT meeting last week concerning passenger service on the Grand Junction.
I responded to Davis and she, not the chair, immediately turned a civil meeting into the totalitarian tactics which are normal with the Cambridge Pols.
Davis tried to shut me up because I referred to her highway proposal as a highway proposal. One of the key techniques of lying used by the machine is falsely favorable terms used to describe their irresponsible goals. She attempted to shut me up unless I used her falsely favorable term.
Then, I attempted to communicate that her essentially identical highway in the Charles and on its banks had been killed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation because it was so environmentally irresponsible, and that the portion of her highway in the Destroyed Nesting Area exactly fits the environmental destructiveness of the highly irresponsible highway proposal which had been killed by MassDOT.
Additionally, MassDOT controls the railroad right of way the Pols are trying to build their highway on.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
The discussion had touched on MIT’s building across Memorial Drive from the Destroyed Nesting Area.
MIT had passed around plot maps which showed MIT’s ownership to be larger than I had realized. MIT owns the land under the Grand Junction north of Memorial Drive and a small area to the east of the Grand Junction which they are leasing to that owner, the property at the corner of Vassar and Memorial Drive across from the eastern portion of the not fully destroyed goose habitat.
The Cambridge Pols’ small vehicle highway would pass over that MIT owned land in the railroad right of way, but their plans are larger than the very narrow two track right of way. Is it possible that Davis was trying to hide from MIT her plans to take MIT property?
4. Interrelationship among plans.
The small vehicle highway proposal is irresponsible because of its direct attack on the small habitat of free animals which has not yet been destroyed. This immediate destructiveness can be avoided by turning the small vehicle highway off the Grand Junction before the MIT ownership and running it between the building on the corner and the building behind it on Vassar Street to a point where Vassar Street turns. Vassar Street parallels the Grand Junction to this turning point and then runs perpendicular to Memorial Drive.
The highway lobbyists have contempt for the environment to the extent that the environment is in the way of their lovely highway. They took a very serious blow when MassDOT rejected their destruction of the Charles and the banks of the Charles for their Charles River highway proposal.
But there is a lot more going on than just the small vehicle highway. The next step would appear to stab this highway lobby in the back for the next highway.
The Grand Junction goes under Memorial Drive through a bridge / underpass just wide enough for two tracks.
Cambridge has previously fought to tear down that bridge to widen the opening supposedly to allow this small vehicle highway proposal plus another highway proposal.
That Cambridge initiative came back in 2003/2004 when MassDOT’s predecessor (the MBTA, now amalgamated into MassDOT in a reorganization) announced its analysis that the Grand Junction Bridge under the BU Bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge.
A few months after that announcement, Harvard University bought the off ramps from the Massachusetts Turnpike perhaps a mile down the Grand Junction track in Allston / Brighton, along with the rail yard to which the Grand Junction track is going.
Harvard is clearly planning to move the Harvard Medical School to the Massachusetts Turnpike Allston / Cambridge exit / the Beacon railroad Yards.
The timing of the purchase so very rapidly after the transportation people’s announcement that the Grand Junction railroad bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike is most definitely not a coincidence.
The MBTA would have run their off ramp up the Grand Junction over Massachusetts Avenue to Main Street.
MIT has built a building over the tracks at that point. There is a rather distinctive hole in the MIT building which leaves room for the tracks plus more than just the tracks.
The MIT building north of Memorial Drive has a massive parking lot through which Cambridge has built a new boulevard level street. The plans for that street when they were under public discussion show large numbers of street trees, except between the street and the Grand Junction. The opening in the trees toward the Grand Junction would allow the off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to connect to that street and thus to Memorial Drive and the BU Bridge.
The proposal was only for three lanes, however. The Grand Junction Bridge would be widened to allow a two lane off / on ramp plus the highway proposal. There was not allowance for both the off ramp and the highway, just one or the other. It would appear that the small vehicle highway lobby is, in the long run, being shafted for the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp which, in turn, would allow Harvard to build on the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp to Allston / Cambridge.
The railroad is already far along in planning to move their rail yard to Worcester.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
The first and foremost tactic of the machine is to lie that the victories of their frequently bizarre goal is inevitable.
The machine uses whatever tool is at its disposal to achieve its ends.
One constant lie out of the machine is that the machine is holier than thou.
My use of an accurate term rather than Davis’s lying euphemism was threatening to Davis because I called a spade a spade. Her euphemism calls an environmentally irresponsible proposal something lovely.
But additionally, there is another lie that is always attempted behind everything: “You cannot win.” This lie is constantly used. The presence of a responsible state agency, MassDOT, really puts a kink into the Pol’s non-stop lie, “You cannot win.”
So the censorship.
And bullying.
The abuse of meetings is another very normal tactic.
The meeting with MIT was highly civilized and responsible as long as MIT was running the show. People were treated civilly and allowed without limit to make their comments.
The minute Davis started her abusive tactics, the Cambridge Pol stench pervaded the room.
There is no honor among the Cambridge Pols.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
4. Interrelationship among plans.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
1. General.
Tuesday evening, December 13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted one of its regular meetings to discuss its plans for development. The meeting was conducted in a new, very large, dormitory building at the corner of Albany and Pacific Streets in Cambridge. The building is separated from the Grand Junction Railroad only by Albany Street and by a wet shelter for the homeless.
It was a very civil meeting concerning MIT development plans and concerns of the participants about the MIT development plans.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
The meeting got unruly only when City Councilor Henrietta Davis put in a pitch for the small vehicle highway proposal along the Grand Junction. This is the destructive proposal about which the machine stacked the MassDOT meeting last week concerning passenger service on the Grand Junction.
I responded to Davis and she, not the chair, immediately turned a civil meeting into the totalitarian tactics which are normal with the Cambridge Pols.
Davis tried to shut me up because I referred to her highway proposal as a highway proposal. One of the key techniques of lying used by the machine is falsely favorable terms used to describe their irresponsible goals. She attempted to shut me up unless I used her falsely favorable term.
Then, I attempted to communicate that her essentially identical highway in the Charles and on its banks had been killed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation because it was so environmentally irresponsible, and that the portion of her highway in the Destroyed Nesting Area exactly fits the environmental destructiveness of the highly irresponsible highway proposal which had been killed by MassDOT.
Additionally, MassDOT controls the railroad right of way the Pols are trying to build their highway on.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
The discussion had touched on MIT’s building across Memorial Drive from the Destroyed Nesting Area.
MIT had passed around plot maps which showed MIT’s ownership to be larger than I had realized. MIT owns the land under the Grand Junction north of Memorial Drive and a small area to the east of the Grand Junction which they are leasing to that owner, the property at the corner of Vassar and Memorial Drive across from the eastern portion of the not fully destroyed goose habitat.
The Cambridge Pols’ small vehicle highway would pass over that MIT owned land in the railroad right of way, but their plans are larger than the very narrow two track right of way. Is it possible that Davis was trying to hide from MIT her plans to take MIT property?
4. Interrelationship among plans.
The small vehicle highway proposal is irresponsible because of its direct attack on the small habitat of free animals which has not yet been destroyed. This immediate destructiveness can be avoided by turning the small vehicle highway off the Grand Junction before the MIT ownership and running it between the building on the corner and the building behind it on Vassar Street to a point where Vassar Street turns. Vassar Street parallels the Grand Junction to this turning point and then runs perpendicular to Memorial Drive.
The highway lobbyists have contempt for the environment to the extent that the environment is in the way of their lovely highway. They took a very serious blow when MassDOT rejected their destruction of the Charles and the banks of the Charles for their Charles River highway proposal.
But there is a lot more going on than just the small vehicle highway. The next step would appear to stab this highway lobby in the back for the next highway.
The Grand Junction goes under Memorial Drive through a bridge / underpass just wide enough for two tracks.
Cambridge has previously fought to tear down that bridge to widen the opening supposedly to allow this small vehicle highway proposal plus another highway proposal.
That Cambridge initiative came back in 2003/2004 when MassDOT’s predecessor (the MBTA, now amalgamated into MassDOT in a reorganization) announced its analysis that the Grand Junction Bridge under the BU Bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge.
A few months after that announcement, Harvard University bought the off ramps from the Massachusetts Turnpike perhaps a mile down the Grand Junction track in Allston / Brighton, along with the rail yard to which the Grand Junction track is going.
Harvard is clearly planning to move the Harvard Medical School to the Massachusetts Turnpike Allston / Cambridge exit / the Beacon railroad Yards.
The timing of the purchase so very rapidly after the transportation people’s announcement that the Grand Junction railroad bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike is most definitely not a coincidence.
The MBTA would have run their off ramp up the Grand Junction over Massachusetts Avenue to Main Street.
MIT has built a building over the tracks at that point. There is a rather distinctive hole in the MIT building which leaves room for the tracks plus more than just the tracks.
The MIT building north of Memorial Drive has a massive parking lot through which Cambridge has built a new boulevard level street. The plans for that street when they were under public discussion show large numbers of street trees, except between the street and the Grand Junction. The opening in the trees toward the Grand Junction would allow the off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to connect to that street and thus to Memorial Drive and the BU Bridge.
The proposal was only for three lanes, however. The Grand Junction Bridge would be widened to allow a two lane off / on ramp plus the highway proposal. There was not allowance for both the off ramp and the highway, just one or the other. It would appear that the small vehicle highway lobby is, in the long run, being shafted for the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp which, in turn, would allow Harvard to build on the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp to Allston / Cambridge.
The railroad is already far along in planning to move their rail yard to Worcester.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
The first and foremost tactic of the machine is to lie that the victories of their frequently bizarre goal is inevitable.
The machine uses whatever tool is at its disposal to achieve its ends.
One constant lie out of the machine is that the machine is holier than thou.
My use of an accurate term rather than Davis’s lying euphemism was threatening to Davis because I called a spade a spade. Her euphemism calls an environmentally irresponsible proposal something lovely.
But additionally, there is another lie that is always attempted behind everything: “You cannot win.” This lie is constantly used. The presence of a responsible state agency, MassDOT, really puts a kink into the Pol’s non-stop lie, “You cannot win.”
So the censorship.
And bullying.
The abuse of meetings is another very normal tactic.
The meeting with MIT was highly civilized and responsible as long as MIT was running the show. People were treated civilly and allowed without limit to make their comments.
The minute Davis started her abusive tactics, the Cambridge Pol stench pervaded the room.
There is no honor among the Cambridge Pols.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Two Cambridge, MA, Councilors go public; how Cambridge, MA, has a pariah government
1. The actual vote and the positions.
A. The Project.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
(1) Monteiro.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
(3) The Charles River.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
B. Summary.
1. The actual vote and the positions.
The item under review at the Cambridge, MA, City Council meeting on Monday evening, December 12, was itself innocuous. The problem with it was its place in the larger and very rotten scheme of things.
That rotten part was emphasized by Councilors Toomey and Davis who spoke in that order.
A. The Project.
I have gone into detail concerning the Grand Junction railroad and its great and very harmful potential value if you are concerned about the environment or about the environmental destructiveness of the City of Cambridge on the Charles River.
The matter under consideration can be slightly understood by looking at the Grand Junction Map, http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/Downloads/grandjunction/GrandJunctionmap.pdf, put out by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
The map very visibly shows a large brown area occupied by the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT). It is directly above the Charles River. Directly above MIT is a swath of green which seems to be erroneously indicating open space. Directly above this area is a broken line which indicates the Grand Junction railroad line.
Following that line to the Charles River, you see a green area on both sides of the line which is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. Moving east / right on that line, you see a green rectangle above the line which represents the Fort Washington Park which is at the corner of two streets. There is a no longer used railroad spur which runs off the Grand Junction near Fort Washington to the near side of the very large former NECCO (as in NECCO wafers) factory which is located on the south / near side of Massachusetts Avenue in the second block above the Grand Junction railroad line.
This siding was constructed to support the factory operations of the NECCO building when it was an industrial site.
The discussion was on the expenditure of $100,000 to plan the conversion of this no longer used siding into a highway for pedestrians and small vehicles.
It would connect to a comparable highway the City of Cambridge wants built on the Grand Junction right of way.
Responsible construction would have this highway terminate a little north of Memorial Drive, which is the highway paralleling the Charles River, and having users go to Memorial Drive on the ground.
The street immediately below the Grand Junction has a bend just before it reaches Memorial Drive. That is where a responsible government would make connections. It is unbuilt upon and could readily be used.
The irresponsible Cambridge proposal would have the highway go through the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese with corresponding greater heartless animal abuse and environmental destruction.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
Toomey and Davis supported the destructive proposal on the Grand Junction with all its destructiveness.
The only other member of the Cambridge City Council to talk was Kelley who attempted to bring out of the Cambridge City Manager the exact location of the construction in question.
Planning for conversion of the siding to a small vehicle highway will run $100,000. That money was approved Monday night by a unanimous city council with Seidel not attending the meeting.
The next step of planning, for the destructive new highway to the Charles River on the Grand Junction, would cost $900,000. That has not been approved, YET.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
Cambridge MA deserves to be a pariah among the Politically Correct.
I will try to be succinct. In particular, I will not go into the details of the very common lies, or, if you wish to be politically correct, the deliberate withholding of relevant information so as to cause the listener to do exactly the opposite of what the listener would otherwise do.
(1) Monteiro.
Cambridge has decisions of a trial judge and jury plus an appeals court panel indicating that the Cambridge City Manager has been guilty of malfeasance in office because he destroyed the life of a female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The Trial Judge said “reprehensible.” The Appeals Court said “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial jury said $1.1 million real damages, $3.5 million penal damages. The check the City of Cambridge has paid said $8.3 million.
A very real, moderate, interpretation of the court messages is that the Cambridge City Manager has committed quite severe malfeasance in office.
A city government which non stop proclaims itself as a beacon to the politically correct should have no question as to how to handle the situation.
The city manager should be fired without golden parachute and without pension.
There has been exactly ZERO attempts to fire the Cambridge City Manager for Monteiro. ZERO.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
The City of Cambridge, lying that it was providing flood protection for North Cambridge, has destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation with massive destruction of excellent trees and killings of massive numbers resident animals who could not get out of the way. Destruction runs over acres of land which were previously prides of people concerned about our world.
Directly across the street from this Cambridge created strip mine is a massive parking lot which, if taken by eminent domain could readily provide the claimed flood storage. The owner of the nearest part wants to build office buildings. Those office buildings could readily be built on air rights, but the owner could go forward at any time.
Boston.com has, pretty much non stop for many months published a photo of hawks nesting on an office building between the Alewife reservation and the Fresh Pond reservation. For a number of years now, Cambridge has been destroying the environment and animal habitat around Fresh Pond. The hawks are nesting on the office building because their habitat has been destroyed.
(3) The Charles River.
Outrageous and downright bizarre.
Magazine Beach is slightly west of the BU Bridge. It, for most of the last 30 years, has been the home and principle food of the magnificent Charles River White Geese, who had created a community centered on the BU Bridge. They lived at Magazine Beach most of the year and fed there.
During extremely bad weather and during nesting, they lived in the balanced animal sanctuary immediately east of the BU Bridge.
This was a balanced ecosystem in the middle of the city with a wide variety of resident animals.
This area has seen repeated destruction over the past ten years and heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese, the very visible residents who were not capable of leaving.
Since the Charles River Conservancy became the “volunteer” environmental destroyer for the state in 2003, almost all ground vegetation has been destroyed in the green area on both sides of the Grand Junction including their primary nesting area next to the BU Bridge and a secondary mostly hilly area to the east.
Since their food was destroyed to them at Magazine Beach in 2004, this is the ghetto to which the Charles River White Geese have been confined.
This is the area that Toomey and Davis would run their small vehicle highway through.
The bizarre projects at Magazine Beach simply cannot be justified by any sane grounds.
Normal human beings looking at Magazine Beach agreed that it did not need improving.
For the better part of a century this has been playing fields with free animals having access from the Charles River. It was a haven in its wetlands for water fowl.
The wetlands have been replaced by a bizarre wall of introduced vegetation which keeps people and animal from moving between Magazine Beach and the Charles River. The only break in this bizarre wall is a former boat ramp which has been destroyed for boating use by the placing of obstacles preventing access to the ramp by boats and preventing access to the mainland by the Charles River White Geese.
The state brags that its work on the Charles emphasizes uses which need the water. Their original master plan for Magazine Beach called for a lawn to the water. They admitted their master plan to be a lie by changing the master plan after the dirty work was done.
Everywhere else on the Charles River Basin, protective vegetation is destroyed twice a year. The introduced stuff has been allowed to grow and grow. The manager has bragged it starves the Charles River White Geese.
Grass which grew in an environmentally responsible manner for the better part of a century has been destroyed and replaced by introduced sickly grass which will not survive without poisons.
To keep the poisons out of the Charles River, the playing fields have been significantly reduced in size to put in a massive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be used.
Plans exist for the destruction of between 449 and 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the second bridge east of the BU Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge. The state agency, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, sought Obama moneys for this destruction, flatly lying that all the hundreds of trees they wanted to destroy were sickly. The sickly trees were destroyed years earlier, and the plans they filed with the Cambridge Conservation Commission so indicated.
Somebody, perhaps the governor, prevented this outrage.
Plans also exist to destroy the picnic area just west of the playing fields at the river end of Magazine Street by destroying their tiny parking area. Destruction of this parking would destroy a tiny picnic area used by little people. No reason has been given for the destruction.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
Small groups of people run around Cambridge claiming sainthood and claiming that they are protecting Cambridge. These small groups work with each other and support each other. They have gotten together for zoning changes which all too frequently achieve the exact opposite of what they claim.
Key in the destruction of the Alewife reservation was a fake protective group which claimed to be defending Alewife but told people to look at everything other that what Cambridge was destroying, an irresponsible project which could not achieve its stated goals, stated goals which could be responsibly be achieved. But the fake group achieved its purpose. The core Alewife reservation has been destroyed and well meaning people do not know what hit them. After all, they were told they were protecting Alewife.
A comparable group in Cambridgeport supported the Alewife destructive organization, but now, after they have destroyed Alewife, claims that Alewife is too far away to be interested in.
This fake group has held public meeting on Magazine Beach in which they flat out censored the destructiveness of their friends in Cambridge and at the DCR. Now they claim to be “defending” Magazine Beach. In light of their record at Alewife, need I say more.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
The public relations of these people is outrageous and false, but it keeps a really rotten city government in place in a city which expects behavior exactly the opposite of what they are getting.
B. Summary.
I am sorry about the length of this analysis.
Of necessity, exact correctness on all issues is impossible. I, like a newspaper reporter, have attempted to communicate reality as simply as possible.
I realize that this has been anything but simple.
A. The Project.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
(1) Monteiro.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
(3) The Charles River.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
B. Summary.
1. The actual vote and the positions.
The item under review at the Cambridge, MA, City Council meeting on Monday evening, December 12, was itself innocuous. The problem with it was its place in the larger and very rotten scheme of things.
That rotten part was emphasized by Councilors Toomey and Davis who spoke in that order.
A. The Project.
I have gone into detail concerning the Grand Junction railroad and its great and very harmful potential value if you are concerned about the environment or about the environmental destructiveness of the City of Cambridge on the Charles River.
The matter under consideration can be slightly understood by looking at the Grand Junction Map, http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/Downloads/grandjunction/GrandJunctionmap.pdf, put out by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
The map very visibly shows a large brown area occupied by the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT). It is directly above the Charles River. Directly above MIT is a swath of green which seems to be erroneously indicating open space. Directly above this area is a broken line which indicates the Grand Junction railroad line.
Following that line to the Charles River, you see a green area on both sides of the line which is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. Moving east / right on that line, you see a green rectangle above the line which represents the Fort Washington Park which is at the corner of two streets. There is a no longer used railroad spur which runs off the Grand Junction near Fort Washington to the near side of the very large former NECCO (as in NECCO wafers) factory which is located on the south / near side of Massachusetts Avenue in the second block above the Grand Junction railroad line.
This siding was constructed to support the factory operations of the NECCO building when it was an industrial site.
The discussion was on the expenditure of $100,000 to plan the conversion of this no longer used siding into a highway for pedestrians and small vehicles.
It would connect to a comparable highway the City of Cambridge wants built on the Grand Junction right of way.
Responsible construction would have this highway terminate a little north of Memorial Drive, which is the highway paralleling the Charles River, and having users go to Memorial Drive on the ground.
The street immediately below the Grand Junction has a bend just before it reaches Memorial Drive. That is where a responsible government would make connections. It is unbuilt upon and could readily be used.
The irresponsible Cambridge proposal would have the highway go through the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese with corresponding greater heartless animal abuse and environmental destruction.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
Toomey and Davis supported the destructive proposal on the Grand Junction with all its destructiveness.
The only other member of the Cambridge City Council to talk was Kelley who attempted to bring out of the Cambridge City Manager the exact location of the construction in question.
Planning for conversion of the siding to a small vehicle highway will run $100,000. That money was approved Monday night by a unanimous city council with Seidel not attending the meeting.
The next step of planning, for the destructive new highway to the Charles River on the Grand Junction, would cost $900,000. That has not been approved, YET.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
Cambridge MA deserves to be a pariah among the Politically Correct.
I will try to be succinct. In particular, I will not go into the details of the very common lies, or, if you wish to be politically correct, the deliberate withholding of relevant information so as to cause the listener to do exactly the opposite of what the listener would otherwise do.
(1) Monteiro.
Cambridge has decisions of a trial judge and jury plus an appeals court panel indicating that the Cambridge City Manager has been guilty of malfeasance in office because he destroyed the life of a female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The Trial Judge said “reprehensible.” The Appeals Court said “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial jury said $1.1 million real damages, $3.5 million penal damages. The check the City of Cambridge has paid said $8.3 million.
A very real, moderate, interpretation of the court messages is that the Cambridge City Manager has committed quite severe malfeasance in office.
A city government which non stop proclaims itself as a beacon to the politically correct should have no question as to how to handle the situation.
The city manager should be fired without golden parachute and without pension.
There has been exactly ZERO attempts to fire the Cambridge City Manager for Monteiro. ZERO.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
The City of Cambridge, lying that it was providing flood protection for North Cambridge, has destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation with massive destruction of excellent trees and killings of massive numbers resident animals who could not get out of the way. Destruction runs over acres of land which were previously prides of people concerned about our world.
Directly across the street from this Cambridge created strip mine is a massive parking lot which, if taken by eminent domain could readily provide the claimed flood storage. The owner of the nearest part wants to build office buildings. Those office buildings could readily be built on air rights, but the owner could go forward at any time.
Boston.com has, pretty much non stop for many months published a photo of hawks nesting on an office building between the Alewife reservation and the Fresh Pond reservation. For a number of years now, Cambridge has been destroying the environment and animal habitat around Fresh Pond. The hawks are nesting on the office building because their habitat has been destroyed.
(3) The Charles River.
Outrageous and downright bizarre.
Magazine Beach is slightly west of the BU Bridge. It, for most of the last 30 years, has been the home and principle food of the magnificent Charles River White Geese, who had created a community centered on the BU Bridge. They lived at Magazine Beach most of the year and fed there.
During extremely bad weather and during nesting, they lived in the balanced animal sanctuary immediately east of the BU Bridge.
This was a balanced ecosystem in the middle of the city with a wide variety of resident animals.
This area has seen repeated destruction over the past ten years and heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese, the very visible residents who were not capable of leaving.
Since the Charles River Conservancy became the “volunteer” environmental destroyer for the state in 2003, almost all ground vegetation has been destroyed in the green area on both sides of the Grand Junction including their primary nesting area next to the BU Bridge and a secondary mostly hilly area to the east.
Since their food was destroyed to them at Magazine Beach in 2004, this is the ghetto to which the Charles River White Geese have been confined.
This is the area that Toomey and Davis would run their small vehicle highway through.
The bizarre projects at Magazine Beach simply cannot be justified by any sane grounds.
Normal human beings looking at Magazine Beach agreed that it did not need improving.
For the better part of a century this has been playing fields with free animals having access from the Charles River. It was a haven in its wetlands for water fowl.
The wetlands have been replaced by a bizarre wall of introduced vegetation which keeps people and animal from moving between Magazine Beach and the Charles River. The only break in this bizarre wall is a former boat ramp which has been destroyed for boating use by the placing of obstacles preventing access to the ramp by boats and preventing access to the mainland by the Charles River White Geese.
The state brags that its work on the Charles emphasizes uses which need the water. Their original master plan for Magazine Beach called for a lawn to the water. They admitted their master plan to be a lie by changing the master plan after the dirty work was done.
Everywhere else on the Charles River Basin, protective vegetation is destroyed twice a year. The introduced stuff has been allowed to grow and grow. The manager has bragged it starves the Charles River White Geese.
Grass which grew in an environmentally responsible manner for the better part of a century has been destroyed and replaced by introduced sickly grass which will not survive without poisons.
To keep the poisons out of the Charles River, the playing fields have been significantly reduced in size to put in a massive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be used.
Plans exist for the destruction of between 449 and 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the second bridge east of the BU Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge. The state agency, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, sought Obama moneys for this destruction, flatly lying that all the hundreds of trees they wanted to destroy were sickly. The sickly trees were destroyed years earlier, and the plans they filed with the Cambridge Conservation Commission so indicated.
Somebody, perhaps the governor, prevented this outrage.
Plans also exist to destroy the picnic area just west of the playing fields at the river end of Magazine Street by destroying their tiny parking area. Destruction of this parking would destroy a tiny picnic area used by little people. No reason has been given for the destruction.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
Small groups of people run around Cambridge claiming sainthood and claiming that they are protecting Cambridge. These small groups work with each other and support each other. They have gotten together for zoning changes which all too frequently achieve the exact opposite of what they claim.
Key in the destruction of the Alewife reservation was a fake protective group which claimed to be defending Alewife but told people to look at everything other that what Cambridge was destroying, an irresponsible project which could not achieve its stated goals, stated goals which could be responsibly be achieved. But the fake group achieved its purpose. The core Alewife reservation has been destroyed and well meaning people do not know what hit them. After all, they were told they were protecting Alewife.
A comparable group in Cambridgeport supported the Alewife destructive organization, but now, after they have destroyed Alewife, claims that Alewife is too far away to be interested in.
This fake group has held public meeting on Magazine Beach in which they flat out censored the destructiveness of their friends in Cambridge and at the DCR. Now they claim to be “defending” Magazine Beach. In light of their record at Alewife, need I say more.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
The public relations of these people is outrageous and false, but it keeps a really rotten city government in place in a city which expects behavior exactly the opposite of what they are getting.
B. Summary.
I am sorry about the length of this analysis.
Of necessity, exact correctness on all issues is impossible. I, like a newspaper reporter, have attempted to communicate reality as simply as possible.
I realize that this has been anything but simple.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
MassDOT tables Grand Junction Passenger Service; Cambridge Pols push environmental destruction anyway
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation conducted a neighborhood briefing on the status of its study of passenger service on the Grand Junction Railroad in Cambridge. This is the track that runs through the eastern part of the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. The proposal would be very harmful to the Charles River White Geese and to the environment abutting the Charles River.
MassDOT has determined that, as of the current situation, passenger service on the Grand Junction has significantly less value than using the expansion of South Station in Boston to receive expanded Worcester / Framingham service. So they are tabling the concept to work on expanding South Station.
They emphasized that Framingham / Worcester service needs to expand and that the best way to do that is to put the added trains on the South Station route. The big problem they have is that there is no money to expand South Station and it would be very expensive since it would require tearing down the main Post Office mail handling facility in Boston. The post office is amenable, but the post office expect Massachusetts to bear all associated costs.
The actual expansion in South Station is targeted as part of returning train service to the “South Coast”, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton, MA. That project is also deferred. Apparently because of the money problem as well.
MassDOT will post the slides from the presentation on their website on December 9. This report is based on my memory of the presentation and I am giving my best memory.
The numbers which stood out to me were MassDOT’s projections of service under the most extreme usage they projected for the Grand Junction. Under this projection, total daily ridership would increase by 300 passengers, and, with a stop near Kendall Square in Cambridge, 500 passengers would be using that stop.
The way the numbers work indicates that, after the new Kendall passengers, ridership would DECREASE elsewhere on the service. This is my point and my understanding of what I got out of them on questioning.
Basically, this just makes no sense to them or to me. So they are going to work for the expansion of South Station and, if they cannot expand South Station, will look once again at adding trains to North Station by the Grand Junction.
The Cambridge Pols had their usual destructive contingent out. The Pols have organized the highway lobby in a very aggressive manner. These are the same types who are fighting for massive environmental destruction on the Charles for their silly highway proposal there.
They emphasized that they want their new highway following the Grand Junction no matter what. As with their destructive proposal following and running in the Charles River, these individuals could care less about the environmental harm or heartless animal abuse.
Cambridge City Councilor Henrietta Davis, of the needless destruction of the core Alewife reservation as part of that bizarre project which cannot achieve its stated objectives but which could be done in the parking lot across the street, very piously supported this highway concept with its harm to the environment and the animals of the Charles. Davis is highly consistent. She, however, has the nerve to claim to be an environmentalist.
MassDOT has determined that, as of the current situation, passenger service on the Grand Junction has significantly less value than using the expansion of South Station in Boston to receive expanded Worcester / Framingham service. So they are tabling the concept to work on expanding South Station.
They emphasized that Framingham / Worcester service needs to expand and that the best way to do that is to put the added trains on the South Station route. The big problem they have is that there is no money to expand South Station and it would be very expensive since it would require tearing down the main Post Office mail handling facility in Boston. The post office is amenable, but the post office expect Massachusetts to bear all associated costs.
The actual expansion in South Station is targeted as part of returning train service to the “South Coast”, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton, MA. That project is also deferred. Apparently because of the money problem as well.
MassDOT will post the slides from the presentation on their website on December 9. This report is based on my memory of the presentation and I am giving my best memory.
The numbers which stood out to me were MassDOT’s projections of service under the most extreme usage they projected for the Grand Junction. Under this projection, total daily ridership would increase by 300 passengers, and, with a stop near Kendall Square in Cambridge, 500 passengers would be using that stop.
The way the numbers work indicates that, after the new Kendall passengers, ridership would DECREASE elsewhere on the service. This is my point and my understanding of what I got out of them on questioning.
Basically, this just makes no sense to them or to me. So they are going to work for the expansion of South Station and, if they cannot expand South Station, will look once again at adding trains to North Station by the Grand Junction.
The Cambridge Pols had their usual destructive contingent out. The Pols have organized the highway lobby in a very aggressive manner. These are the same types who are fighting for massive environmental destruction on the Charles for their silly highway proposal there.
They emphasized that they want their new highway following the Grand Junction no matter what. As with their destructive proposal following and running in the Charles River, these individuals could care less about the environmental harm or heartless animal abuse.
Cambridge City Councilor Henrietta Davis, of the needless destruction of the core Alewife reservation as part of that bizarre project which cannot achieve its stated objectives but which could be done in the parking lot across the street, very piously supported this highway concept with its harm to the environment and the animals of the Charles. Davis is highly consistent. She, however, has the nerve to claim to be an environmentalist.
Appeals Court considering case relevant to environmental destruction on Charles River
We are getting hits on this blog from Google News. I have hunted, but I am very bewildered where the link / post is.
Nevertheless, on hunting for the link, I found a very relevant report on Google News. It is relevant to the details of any possible firing of the Cambridge City Manager. The Cambridge City Manager is, of course, the source of the environmental destruction, combined with a unanimously bad city council.
The Salem News reports, http://www.salemnews.com/local/x2088052838/Appeals-Court-decision-on-Bettencourt-pension-likely-within-130-days, that the Appeals Court is considering whether a former Peabody police officer can be stripped of his pension for using the department computer to illegally access information about his fellow officers.
This cop’s misbehavior is one heck of a lot less than destroying the life of an employee in retaliation for the filing of a civil rights complaint. The Cambridge City Manager has resoundingly been found civilly guilty of destroying that woman’s life, with a strong concurrence from the Appeals Court.
I have been strongly in support of firing Healy for destruction of that woman’s life. Such a firing would automatically void his golden parachute, or, to be more exact, would make it inconceivable that he could save it in Court.
The very existence of this police officer case strongly indicates that stripping the Cambridge City Manager of his pension, as well, is an excellent idea, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible city council, which it emphatically does not.
Nevertheless, on hunting for the link, I found a very relevant report on Google News. It is relevant to the details of any possible firing of the Cambridge City Manager. The Cambridge City Manager is, of course, the source of the environmental destruction, combined with a unanimously bad city council.
The Salem News reports, http://www.salemnews.com/local/x2088052838/Appeals-Court-decision-on-Bettencourt-pension-likely-within-130-days, that the Appeals Court is considering whether a former Peabody police officer can be stripped of his pension for using the department computer to illegally access information about his fellow officers.
This cop’s misbehavior is one heck of a lot less than destroying the life of an employee in retaliation for the filing of a civil rights complaint. The Cambridge City Manager has resoundingly been found civilly guilty of destroying that woman’s life, with a strong concurrence from the Appeals Court.
I have been strongly in support of firing Healy for destruction of that woman’s life. Such a firing would automatically void his golden parachute, or, to be more exact, would make it inconceivable that he could save it in Court.
The very existence of this police officer case strongly indicates that stripping the Cambridge City Manager of his pension, as well, is an excellent idea, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible city council, which it emphatically does not.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Cambridge City Councilor feels disrespected by Cambridge City Manager over Monteiro
A few days ago, I reported that the Cambridge City Council would be considering a motion last night, December 5, to get key details about the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge. The report may be viewed at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/civil-rights-retaliation-case.html. The order may be viewed at http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/PolicyOrder.cfm?item_id=33584.
Cambridge City Councilor Kenneth Reaves was the only councilor to speak on the matter last night.
He said that he filed the order because a lot of people are wondering about the details of the payment. He pointed out that this was a repeated motion, that the Cambridge City Council needs to know this sort of matter. He felt disrespected by the City Manager in that the City Manager is failing to provide this information.
This is a councilor who is a lawyer and has had at least two very strong judicial opinions come down on Monteiro. The Appeals Court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust and refused to dignify it with a formal opinion. They commented “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial judge described the behavior as “reprehensible.” The jury multiplied their $1.1 award of damages with $3.5 million PENAL damages.
This is a councilor who just cannot understand why the city manager should be fired. After all, all the city manager did was destroy the life of a woman in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The councilor is fully capable of reading those opinions. The opinions justify firing and, in fact, strongly direct the firing of the Cambridge without his golden parachute and possibly without pension. But this lawyer just cannot understand.
This is a councilor who just destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation in a bizarre project which will not and cannot achieve its stated objectives, meaningful flood control, while the stated objectives can be achieved by taking the massive parking lot across the street to put flood control underground without destroying the magnificent core Alewife reservation. Perhaps thousands of excellent animals were killed as part of this outrage.
This is a councilor who has been party to years of outrageous destruction at Fresh Pond. Hawks are nesting on office buildings because of the destruction of their habitat.
This is a councilor has been part of the outrages on the Charles River as part of those bizarre projects since they began. He has been part of the heartless animal abuse, the dumping of poisons on the banks, the walling off of the banks from the river, the massive destruction of habitat.
This is a councilor who loudly proclaims his sainthood on environmental and civil rights matters.
This is a councilor who would have contempt and disgust for people with contempt for civil rights and for people with contempt for the environment and for beautiful, valuable animals.
The city manager is treating this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council exactly the way decent people should treat this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council, with disgust and contempt.
This councilor has earned this treatment, with a vengeance.
Cambridge City Councilor Kenneth Reaves was the only councilor to speak on the matter last night.
He said that he filed the order because a lot of people are wondering about the details of the payment. He pointed out that this was a repeated motion, that the Cambridge City Council needs to know this sort of matter. He felt disrespected by the City Manager in that the City Manager is failing to provide this information.
This is a councilor who is a lawyer and has had at least two very strong judicial opinions come down on Monteiro. The Appeals Court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust and refused to dignify it with a formal opinion. They commented “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial judge described the behavior as “reprehensible.” The jury multiplied their $1.1 award of damages with $3.5 million PENAL damages.
This is a councilor who just cannot understand why the city manager should be fired. After all, all the city manager did was destroy the life of a woman in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The councilor is fully capable of reading those opinions. The opinions justify firing and, in fact, strongly direct the firing of the Cambridge without his golden parachute and possibly without pension. But this lawyer just cannot understand.
This is a councilor who just destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation in a bizarre project which will not and cannot achieve its stated objectives, meaningful flood control, while the stated objectives can be achieved by taking the massive parking lot across the street to put flood control underground without destroying the magnificent core Alewife reservation. Perhaps thousands of excellent animals were killed as part of this outrage.
This is a councilor who has been party to years of outrageous destruction at Fresh Pond. Hawks are nesting on office buildings because of the destruction of their habitat.
This is a councilor has been part of the outrages on the Charles River as part of those bizarre projects since they began. He has been part of the heartless animal abuse, the dumping of poisons on the banks, the walling off of the banks from the river, the massive destruction of habitat.
This is a councilor who loudly proclaims his sainthood on environmental and civil rights matters.
This is a councilor who would have contempt and disgust for people with contempt for civil rights and for people with contempt for the environment and for beautiful, valuable animals.
The city manager is treating this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council exactly the way decent people should treat this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council, with disgust and contempt.
This councilor has earned this treatment, with a vengeance.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
The environmental outrage at Magazine Beach and the Destroyed Nesting Area.
1. General.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
8. The boat dock area.
9. Photos.
1. General.
One thing that normal human beings all agreed on was that there was nothing wrong at Magazine Beach.
So naturally, Cambridge and MA destroyed it.
The Charles River White Geese have lived for 30 years in a mile long habitat on the Charles River centered on the BU Bridge.
They spent most of the year at Magazine Beach feeding off the grasses there, beloved by all normal people.
During bad weather and the spring, they lived in their nesting area just to the east of the BU Bridge. I have recently posted photos of that outrage. They went to the nesting area to mate and raise their babies.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
I have recently provided photos of the latest destruction.
First destruction of the Nesting Area occurred in October 1999. It started the morning before a Cambridge Conservation Commission meeting to discuss the destruction proposed. It was completed before the earliest date work could be completed.
The work in October 1999 was done by Boston University who proceeded to lie that they had nothing to do with the destruction until they were condemned for their lawlessness by the Cambridge Conservation Commission six months later. Then BU blamed six months of lies of their president’s secretary who was not fired.
BU acting for MA entered into an urban wild area and destroyed it.
MA called the destruction a gift. The work was totally illegal. NO AGREEMENTS WERE SIGNED.
The destroyed nesting area was a wild ecosystem in the middle of the city. It was block off by fences from public access.
The fences were broken in two places.
At the corner of the BU Bridge and the ramp to Memorial Drive, a concrete ramp and stairs replaced the wild area.
At the eastern end of that access ramp, a staircase was dug into the wild hillside.
Until then, the nesting area was filled with protective ground vegetation.
The protective ground vegetation was destroyed en mass and replace with silly grass and a winding black stone covered walkway. Animals homes were casually destroyed
This “improvement” was almost totally unused by humans. The “improvements” steadily washed into the Charles.
The only major users were the Charles River White Geese. A video of the area in spring 2000 is posted at
Routinely friends of MA and Cambridge went through the Destroyed Nesting Area destroying nests. Mother Geese who defended their nests were frequently killed and carried away.
The vegetation destroyed regrew. Earth renewed itself.
In 2003, MA contracted with the Charles River Conservancy for environmental destructions services on the Charles River.
Since 2003, almost all the ground vegetation in the Destroyed Nesting Area has been destroyed again. The only exceptions were two tiny patches: (1) abutting the eastern area of the totally unnecessary east leg of the BU Bridge repair destruction and (2) abutting the southern end of the needed access area for BU Bridge repairs.
Protective vegetation in the eastern part of the area, beyond the Grand Junction tracks was totally destroyed.
None of this destruction has regrown, indicating deliberate poisoning, although there has been expansion of the tiny area left around the BU Bridge Construction.
Details on the damage done in the BU Bridge repair project were recently provided with photos at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/photo-record-september-2011-destruction.html.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
Initial funding of $1.5 million for destruction at Magazine Beach was voted by the Cambridge City Council in December 1999.
Flat out lies have been normal. The most important lie, constantly repeated was that MA had no intention to “harm” the Charles River White Geese. It developed that “harm” had a secret definition. Starving them and destroying their home is not included in the definition of “harm.”
During the first season after the destruction of the nesting area, this outrage got major publicity. The flat out lies of no intent to harm quieted the publicity.
Cambridge and MA have played games with money which has shifted from one pot to another to allow the parties to lie that the worst was done by MA.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
In 2004, the wetlands bordering the Charles River were destroyed and the Charles River White were barred from their food of thirty years. They went from being almost totally self-sufficient to being totally fed by responsible human beings protecting them from a highly irresponsible city and state.
The wetlands were first walled off. Then they were dug up and a series of introduced bushes were attempted to be grown. They all died until MA finally found something which would grow.
MA and the Charles River Conservancy destroys all bordering vegetation on the Charles River twice a year. I have seen the Boston Conservation Commission shocked at the harm done by their practices to migrating waterfowl.
Now the only bordering vegetation not grown is the bizarre wall of introduced bushes blocking off Magazine Beach from the Charles River. The MA manager has bragged that this wall starves the Charles River White Geese.
The Charles River Conservancy conducted a swim in during the early days of the work to brag that this outrage would help swimming in the Charles River.
So playing fields which abutted the Charles in which nature and humans survived together for the mutual benefit of all have been blocked off to the principal resident.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
Small numbers of Canadas returned to feed. The Charles River Conservancy started poisoning their eggs for MA in 2003.
I attended a “public meeting” before the poisoning started. I disputed the flat out lie that the Canadas were a problem. I was thrown out of the meeting. They would not allow discussion of whether there was a problem. The meeting was called solely to discuss the resolution of a problem which did not exist and which they would not discuss.
One of the key lies in the “Charles River Master Plan” was that Magazine Beach would consist of a lawn to the river.
After Cambridge and MA walled off the river, MA changed the Charles River Master Plan.
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
Coordinated with the destruction at Magazine Beach was a sewer project by Cambridge across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
MA and Cambridge plans call for the destruction of hundreds of excellent trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, the second bridge east of the BU Bridge which is in turn between Magazine Beach and the Destroyed Nesting Area.
The sewer project started the destruction of trees, wiping out a number of excellent trees across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Cambridge completed the project by walling of the riverbanks across from the Hyatt from the river.
So simultaneously, all their traditional food was taken from the Charles River White Geese, both at Magazine Beach and across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
The area to the east of the Hyatt riverbanks is a sea wall.
The area to the west of the playing fields is a steep hill. They considered it and gave up on it.
The Boston side is in heavy public use east of the BU Bridge and is steep west of the BU Bridge.
Plus, if they had tried to use the publicly used area, they would have been killed off as pests.
7.. Destruction of native grass and replacement with poisons.
In 2007, MA and Cambridge dug up seven acres of perfectly good grass and replaced it with grass and poisons. The poisons are “needed” because the introduced grass would die without poisons. The stuff they destroyed lived the better part of a century without poisons.
Large parts of Magazine Beach’s playing fields have been destroyed for an expensive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be dumped there.
The lie given to the Cambridge City Council when the money was voted for the project was “improvement” of the playing area. NO IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE WHICH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DONE WITHOUT the massive destruction which has occurred.
The playing fields being “improved” have been vastly decreased in size to drain off poisons to keep alive sickly grass introduced in place of grass which did not need poisons to survive.
8. The boat dock area.
The eastern end of Magazine Beach next to a sewerage treatment plant was a parking lot.
In the 2007 destruction, the parking lot was rearranged with destruction of trees.
The 2004 destruction continued the boat dock which had been there the better part of a century and installed a silly artificial lagoon which the Charles River White Geese loved.
Until the 2004 destruction, the Charles River White Geese slept at Magazine Beach.
The geese returned after the destruction through the opening for the boats. They carefully worked their way out into a tiny area where they fed until humans and dogs came.
The 2007 destruction filled in the lagoon while continuing a bridge which had been built about it for access to the boat dock.
The boat dock is still there but barriers have been placed for access to the boat docks. So totally access to the Charles River has been destroyed at Magazine Beach by MA and Cambridge loudly proclaiming that the projects on the Charles are water oriented.
Further barriers have been placed discouraging access to the grasses to the Charles River White Geese.
9. Photos.
I have rambled long enough.
Photos will follow.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
8. The boat dock area.
9. Photos.
1. General.
One thing that normal human beings all agreed on was that there was nothing wrong at Magazine Beach.
So naturally, Cambridge and MA destroyed it.
The Charles River White Geese have lived for 30 years in a mile long habitat on the Charles River centered on the BU Bridge.
They spent most of the year at Magazine Beach feeding off the grasses there, beloved by all normal people.
During bad weather and the spring, they lived in their nesting area just to the east of the BU Bridge. I have recently posted photos of that outrage. They went to the nesting area to mate and raise their babies.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
I have recently provided photos of the latest destruction.
First destruction of the Nesting Area occurred in October 1999. It started the morning before a Cambridge Conservation Commission meeting to discuss the destruction proposed. It was completed before the earliest date work could be completed.
The work in October 1999 was done by Boston University who proceeded to lie that they had nothing to do with the destruction until they were condemned for their lawlessness by the Cambridge Conservation Commission six months later. Then BU blamed six months of lies of their president’s secretary who was not fired.
BU acting for MA entered into an urban wild area and destroyed it.
MA called the destruction a gift. The work was totally illegal. NO AGREEMENTS WERE SIGNED.
The destroyed nesting area was a wild ecosystem in the middle of the city. It was block off by fences from public access.
The fences were broken in two places.
At the corner of the BU Bridge and the ramp to Memorial Drive, a concrete ramp and stairs replaced the wild area.
At the eastern end of that access ramp, a staircase was dug into the wild hillside.
Until then, the nesting area was filled with protective ground vegetation.
The protective ground vegetation was destroyed en mass and replace with silly grass and a winding black stone covered walkway. Animals homes were casually destroyed
This “improvement” was almost totally unused by humans. The “improvements” steadily washed into the Charles.
The only major users were the Charles River White Geese. A video of the area in spring 2000 is posted at
Routinely friends of MA and Cambridge went through the Destroyed Nesting Area destroying nests. Mother Geese who defended their nests were frequently killed and carried away.
The vegetation destroyed regrew. Earth renewed itself.
In 2003, MA contracted with the Charles River Conservancy for environmental destructions services on the Charles River.
Since 2003, almost all the ground vegetation in the Destroyed Nesting Area has been destroyed again. The only exceptions were two tiny patches: (1) abutting the eastern area of the totally unnecessary east leg of the BU Bridge repair destruction and (2) abutting the southern end of the needed access area for BU Bridge repairs.
Protective vegetation in the eastern part of the area, beyond the Grand Junction tracks was totally destroyed.
None of this destruction has regrown, indicating deliberate poisoning, although there has been expansion of the tiny area left around the BU Bridge Construction.
Details on the damage done in the BU Bridge repair project were recently provided with photos at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/photo-record-september-2011-destruction.html.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
Initial funding of $1.5 million for destruction at Magazine Beach was voted by the Cambridge City Council in December 1999.
Flat out lies have been normal. The most important lie, constantly repeated was that MA had no intention to “harm” the Charles River White Geese. It developed that “harm” had a secret definition. Starving them and destroying their home is not included in the definition of “harm.”
During the first season after the destruction of the nesting area, this outrage got major publicity. The flat out lies of no intent to harm quieted the publicity.
Cambridge and MA have played games with money which has shifted from one pot to another to allow the parties to lie that the worst was done by MA.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
In 2004, the wetlands bordering the Charles River were destroyed and the Charles River White were barred from their food of thirty years. They went from being almost totally self-sufficient to being totally fed by responsible human beings protecting them from a highly irresponsible city and state.
The wetlands were first walled off. Then they were dug up and a series of introduced bushes were attempted to be grown. They all died until MA finally found something which would grow.
MA and the Charles River Conservancy destroys all bordering vegetation on the Charles River twice a year. I have seen the Boston Conservation Commission shocked at the harm done by their practices to migrating waterfowl.
Now the only bordering vegetation not grown is the bizarre wall of introduced bushes blocking off Magazine Beach from the Charles River. The MA manager has bragged that this wall starves the Charles River White Geese.
The Charles River Conservancy conducted a swim in during the early days of the work to brag that this outrage would help swimming in the Charles River.
So playing fields which abutted the Charles in which nature and humans survived together for the mutual benefit of all have been blocked off to the principal resident.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
Small numbers of Canadas returned to feed. The Charles River Conservancy started poisoning their eggs for MA in 2003.
I attended a “public meeting” before the poisoning started. I disputed the flat out lie that the Canadas were a problem. I was thrown out of the meeting. They would not allow discussion of whether there was a problem. The meeting was called solely to discuss the resolution of a problem which did not exist and which they would not discuss.
One of the key lies in the “Charles River Master Plan” was that Magazine Beach would consist of a lawn to the river.
After Cambridge and MA walled off the river, MA changed the Charles River Master Plan.
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
Coordinated with the destruction at Magazine Beach was a sewer project by Cambridge across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
MA and Cambridge plans call for the destruction of hundreds of excellent trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, the second bridge east of the BU Bridge which is in turn between Magazine Beach and the Destroyed Nesting Area.
The sewer project started the destruction of trees, wiping out a number of excellent trees across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Cambridge completed the project by walling of the riverbanks across from the Hyatt from the river.
So simultaneously, all their traditional food was taken from the Charles River White Geese, both at Magazine Beach and across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
The area to the east of the Hyatt riverbanks is a sea wall.
The area to the west of the playing fields is a steep hill. They considered it and gave up on it.
The Boston side is in heavy public use east of the BU Bridge and is steep west of the BU Bridge.
Plus, if they had tried to use the publicly used area, they would have been killed off as pests.
7.. Destruction of native grass and replacement with poisons.
In 2007, MA and Cambridge dug up seven acres of perfectly good grass and replaced it with grass and poisons. The poisons are “needed” because the introduced grass would die without poisons. The stuff they destroyed lived the better part of a century without poisons.
Large parts of Magazine Beach’s playing fields have been destroyed for an expensive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be dumped there.
The lie given to the Cambridge City Council when the money was voted for the project was “improvement” of the playing area. NO IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE WHICH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DONE WITHOUT the massive destruction which has occurred.
The playing fields being “improved” have been vastly decreased in size to drain off poisons to keep alive sickly grass introduced in place of grass which did not need poisons to survive.
8. The boat dock area.
The eastern end of Magazine Beach next to a sewerage treatment plant was a parking lot.
In the 2007 destruction, the parking lot was rearranged with destruction of trees.
The 2004 destruction continued the boat dock which had been there the better part of a century and installed a silly artificial lagoon which the Charles River White Geese loved.
Until the 2004 destruction, the Charles River White Geese slept at Magazine Beach.
The geese returned after the destruction through the opening for the boats. They carefully worked their way out into a tiny area where they fed until humans and dogs came.
The 2007 destruction filled in the lagoon while continuing a bridge which had been built about it for access to the boat dock.
The boat dock is still there but barriers have been placed for access to the boat docks. So totally access to the Charles River has been destroyed at Magazine Beach by MA and Cambridge loudly proclaiming that the projects on the Charles are water oriented.
Further barriers have been placed discouraging access to the grasses to the Charles River White Geese.
9. Photos.
I have rambled long enough.
Photos will follow.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Core Alewife Reservation destroyed by Cambridge and MA, usual lie of explanation
I have dreaded this day and put it off and put it off, but I could no longer put it off.
I went to Alewife to inspect. When I got out of the car at the reservation lot, I was shocked by the emptiness I saw where there previously was an excellent native forest with massive numbers of animals.
I was not able to fully realize the horror of the situation until I walked around and saw the devastation up close.
My first meaningful view was at the interim destruction area. Its boundary of trees was gone.
I walked along a pathway that previously had been overwhelmed by this excellent forest. The woods was so thick that I could not photograph it last time. Now it looked like a mining operation.
The explanation of Cambridge and MA: just more lies, tossed out with the assurance that Cambridge has a massive organization which will back up whatever lie that Cambridge comes up with.
The lie this time was that they are protecting against floods. Their secret definition of “protecting against floods” translates into protecting against the worst possible rainstorm in a two year period. But this area has seen two fifty year floods in the last twenty years, and Cambridge and MA are fully aware that anybody listening to their comments will think that Cambridge and MA were protecting against such meaningful events.
I also walked by the massive parking lot across the street which could provide protection against the worst possible rainstorm in a fifty year period with underground flood protection and storage. The massive parking lot is still untouched and “environmental saints” have just accomplished a massive killing of all animals which did not get out of their way.
A highly rotten city council knows it is protected by the lies of this massive organization. This highly rotten city council does not have significant integrity to even consider firing a city manager who has been found guilty of malfeasance in office by judge, jury and appeals court. Destruction of a woman's life because she filed a civil rights complaint.
The Cambridge City Council knows that that massive, destruction organization will protect them.
But this massive organization did not protect this really bad City Council last time. A member of that massive organization publicized typically rotten comments by several members of the Cambridge City Council with regard to the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro. The second worst member of the Cambridge City Council environmentally was fired.
That massive parking lot is still there. The Destroyed Core Alewife Reservation can be returned to what it was. It will take a hundred years of nature repairing nature with very minimal human minimization of the destruction of this rotten government, but it can be done.
Absolutely crucial is the firing of the Cambridge City Manager. Judge, jury and appeals court have given any decent city council ample grounds to fire the Cambridge City Manager without golden parachute and possibly without pension.
After the well deserved firing, a responsible city council would take the massive parking lot by eminent domain. Then cancel all existing contracts at Alewife and replace plans for designer vegetation with minimal work. Then put the flood storage under the parking lot, coordinating work with the existing owner who wans to construct massive office buildings above the storage. Oh yes, while nature is repairing what a rotten city government destroyed, the Cambridge, MA city government should post discrete signs of apology to decent human beings.
At the same time as taking the parking lot by eminent domain, a responsible city council would start to heal the outrage on the Charles River, a much smaller effort, all it takes is decent human beings doing the obvious to repair equally bizarre destruction on the Charles River.
I went to Alewife to inspect. When I got out of the car at the reservation lot, I was shocked by the emptiness I saw where there previously was an excellent native forest with massive numbers of animals.
I was not able to fully realize the horror of the situation until I walked around and saw the devastation up close.
My first meaningful view was at the interim destruction area. Its boundary of trees was gone.
I walked along a pathway that previously had been overwhelmed by this excellent forest. The woods was so thick that I could not photograph it last time. Now it looked like a mining operation.
The explanation of Cambridge and MA: just more lies, tossed out with the assurance that Cambridge has a massive organization which will back up whatever lie that Cambridge comes up with.
The lie this time was that they are protecting against floods. Their secret definition of “protecting against floods” translates into protecting against the worst possible rainstorm in a two year period. But this area has seen two fifty year floods in the last twenty years, and Cambridge and MA are fully aware that anybody listening to their comments will think that Cambridge and MA were protecting against such meaningful events.
I also walked by the massive parking lot across the street which could provide protection against the worst possible rainstorm in a fifty year period with underground flood protection and storage. The massive parking lot is still untouched and “environmental saints” have just accomplished a massive killing of all animals which did not get out of their way.
A highly rotten city council knows it is protected by the lies of this massive organization. This highly rotten city council does not have significant integrity to even consider firing a city manager who has been found guilty of malfeasance in office by judge, jury and appeals court. Destruction of a woman's life because she filed a civil rights complaint.
The Cambridge City Council knows that that massive, destruction organization will protect them.
But this massive organization did not protect this really bad City Council last time. A member of that massive organization publicized typically rotten comments by several members of the Cambridge City Council with regard to the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro. The second worst member of the Cambridge City Council environmentally was fired.
That massive parking lot is still there. The Destroyed Core Alewife Reservation can be returned to what it was. It will take a hundred years of nature repairing nature with very minimal human minimization of the destruction of this rotten government, but it can be done.
Absolutely crucial is the firing of the Cambridge City Manager. Judge, jury and appeals court have given any decent city council ample grounds to fire the Cambridge City Manager without golden parachute and possibly without pension.
After the well deserved firing, a responsible city council would take the massive parking lot by eminent domain. Then cancel all existing contracts at Alewife and replace plans for designer vegetation with minimal work. Then put the flood storage under the parking lot, coordinating work with the existing owner who wans to construct massive office buildings above the storage. Oh yes, while nature is repairing what a rotten city government destroyed, the Cambridge, MA city government should post discrete signs of apology to decent human beings.
At the same time as taking the parking lot by eminent domain, a responsible city council would start to heal the outrage on the Charles River, a much smaller effort, all it takes is decent human beings doing the obvious to repair equally bizarre destruction on the Charles River.
What does firing the Cambridge City Manager have to do with the Charles River White Geese.
I have posted exactly the same posts on the facebook page as the last few posts on this blog.
I got the following very valid question in response to the post on strategy and timing in firing the Cambridge City Manager:
**********
Hey Robert, Can you give us the short version on how this affects the well-being of the geese? I'm interested, but need it in more of a nutshell.
Response:
It is all one big rotten situation. The contempt for the life of a human being which the City Manager showed in Monteiro is an extension of the heartless abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese and the Charles River, and there were key outrages added to the abuse.
The apparent destruction of Alewife and mass animal killing also was inflicted with a lot of key lying.
In the background is a very large, very rotten organization which rubber stamps whatever lie and whatever destruction the City Manager is pulling this week.
And the City Council is very happy with the rotten behavior as long as the Cambridge pol organization protects them.
The City Council raising the issue of failure to communicate on Monteiro Monday night.
The massive destructiveness and lying on top of that fake organization is one big house of cards. Because there is a very concerned electorate.
One city councilor is being fired apparently as part of that house of cards starting to collapse.
They are staying in office because they are doing a lot of lying.
I am trying to get that house of cards to collapse.
The lies are falling apart in Monteiro.
The Cambridge City Council is in position to amend the request for information on Monteiro with the firing process. All they have to do is attach those decisions and refer to the case and they have full grounds to fire.
Will they clean up their own house? Monteiro was an extension of the environmental destruction, same mentality. Alewife is an extension of the Charles River, same mentality.
The house of cards has started to collapse. Firing the city manager could be a very big removal of key cards.
Would they clean up the messes they have created? Alewife will take a century to fix. The Charles could be corrected in a week. All it takes is a will on the part of people who have been very rotten because their lies have worked.
PS: Excellent point. I will post it on the blog along with my response and not use your name.
Thank you very much.
I got the following very valid question in response to the post on strategy and timing in firing the Cambridge City Manager:
**********
Hey Robert, Can you give us the short version on how this affects the well-being of the geese? I'm interested, but need it in more of a nutshell.
Response:
It is all one big rotten situation. The contempt for the life of a human being which the City Manager showed in Monteiro is an extension of the heartless abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese and the Charles River, and there were key outrages added to the abuse.
The apparent destruction of Alewife and mass animal killing also was inflicted with a lot of key lying.
In the background is a very large, very rotten organization which rubber stamps whatever lie and whatever destruction the City Manager is pulling this week.
And the City Council is very happy with the rotten behavior as long as the Cambridge pol organization protects them.
The City Council raising the issue of failure to communicate on Monteiro Monday night.
The massive destructiveness and lying on top of that fake organization is one big house of cards. Because there is a very concerned electorate.
One city councilor is being fired apparently as part of that house of cards starting to collapse.
They are staying in office because they are doing a lot of lying.
I am trying to get that house of cards to collapse.
The lies are falling apart in Monteiro.
The Cambridge City Council is in position to amend the request for information on Monteiro with the firing process. All they have to do is attach those decisions and refer to the case and they have full grounds to fire.
Will they clean up their own house? Monteiro was an extension of the environmental destruction, same mentality. Alewife is an extension of the Charles River, same mentality.
The house of cards has started to collapse. Firing the city manager could be a very big removal of key cards.
Would they clean up the messes they have created? Alewife will take a century to fix. The Charles could be corrected in a week. All it takes is a will on the part of people who have been very rotten because their lies have worked.
PS: Excellent point. I will post it on the blog along with my response and not use your name.
Thank you very much.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Firing the Cambridge, MA, USA City Manager because of Monteiro: A small window
1. Introduction.
2. Details.
1. Introduction.
A few caveats.
First of All, Decades of experience have given me the very strong opinion that it is difficult to UNDERestimate the Cambridge Pols.
Secondly, as I have repeatedly gone into, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible City Council, the Cambridge City Manager would have been fired long ago.
Notwithstanding that, there are two factors which place time crunch on the actions of the next few weeks, assuming, and a very silly assumption, that the Cambridge City Council fulfills very basic levels of responsibility. I keep dreaming on decency from this group. I keep getting proven wrong.
But, assuming decency, the key issues are:
Very quickly, the Cambridge City Council has to give the Cambridge City Manager six months notice as to whether they will hire or fire him.
Secondly, the most responsible choice for acting city manager, should the Cambridge City Council do the right thing, is rumored on the verge of retiring, probably at the end of January. The city clerk, Margaret Drury, is competent and highly respected. She not only has no interest in being a permanent city manager, she probably would have to be talked into taking the position rather than retiring.
But, the appointment would be a great honor and a culmination of her honorable and achieving career, and, although I know nothing about the legalities, I would assume that the much higher pay during the temporary appointment could significantly increase her retirement figures.
But both factors are time limiting.
Most definitely, the city manager can and should be fired for malfeasance in office as determined by Superior Court judge and jury and by the Appeals Court panel, but it would be quite a bit more awkward to do so after the Cambridge City Council has told the Cambridge City Manager it is going to rehire him. Additionally, certainly other people could be acting city manager during the process, but there is no possible alternative with the very great qualities of City Clerk Margaret Drury.
2. Details.
I really do not know how many more details I should go into. I have beat this case to death.
The fact that the city manager is still in office after being found guilty of severe malfeasance in office as stated in the strong, clear key opinion of the Trial Judge, and the informal comments of the Appeals Court, is an indictment of the Cambridge City Council and of the truly rotten Cambridge Pol organization which keep the Cambridge City Council from being thrown out of office.
Once again, the key court opinions may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html (appeals court), and at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html (trial judge).
And I have done a lot of analyses of this particular outrage.
2. Details.
1. Introduction.
A few caveats.
First of All, Decades of experience have given me the very strong opinion that it is difficult to UNDERestimate the Cambridge Pols.
Secondly, as I have repeatedly gone into, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible City Council, the Cambridge City Manager would have been fired long ago.
Notwithstanding that, there are two factors which place time crunch on the actions of the next few weeks, assuming, and a very silly assumption, that the Cambridge City Council fulfills very basic levels of responsibility. I keep dreaming on decency from this group. I keep getting proven wrong.
But, assuming decency, the key issues are:
Very quickly, the Cambridge City Council has to give the Cambridge City Manager six months notice as to whether they will hire or fire him.
Secondly, the most responsible choice for acting city manager, should the Cambridge City Council do the right thing, is rumored on the verge of retiring, probably at the end of January. The city clerk, Margaret Drury, is competent and highly respected. She not only has no interest in being a permanent city manager, she probably would have to be talked into taking the position rather than retiring.
But, the appointment would be a great honor and a culmination of her honorable and achieving career, and, although I know nothing about the legalities, I would assume that the much higher pay during the temporary appointment could significantly increase her retirement figures.
But both factors are time limiting.
Most definitely, the city manager can and should be fired for malfeasance in office as determined by Superior Court judge and jury and by the Appeals Court panel, but it would be quite a bit more awkward to do so after the Cambridge City Council has told the Cambridge City Manager it is going to rehire him. Additionally, certainly other people could be acting city manager during the process, but there is no possible alternative with the very great qualities of City Clerk Margaret Drury.
2. Details.
I really do not know how many more details I should go into. I have beat this case to death.
The fact that the city manager is still in office after being found guilty of severe malfeasance in office as stated in the strong, clear key opinion of the Trial Judge, and the informal comments of the Appeals Court, is an indictment of the Cambridge City Council and of the truly rotten Cambridge Pol organization which keep the Cambridge City Council from being thrown out of office.
Once again, the key court opinions may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html (appeals court), and at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html (trial judge).
And I have done a lot of analyses of this particular outrage.
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