Thursday, September 08, 2011

Cambridge Chronicle: Cambridge Mayor refuses to provide access to Monteiro records, other Monteiro updates

The Cambridge Chronicle has posted on line its report on its attempts to see the records of the city council’s closed door deliberations on the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge.

The mayor has refused access.

The URL of the story is: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/features/x1069113308/Cambridge-Mayor-blocks-Monteiro-records#axzz1XNscf1TP.

In other related action, Monteiro’s attorneys have filed papers with the Appeals Court to obtain payment by Cambridge for Cambridge’s appeal of the Monteiro decision in Superior Court.

This coming Wednesday, September 14, 2011, at 2 pm, the Middlesex Superior Court will conduct a final pretrial hearing on the last two plaintiffs in the Monteiro case.

FLASH REPORT: Cambridge, DCR to destroy Alewife reservation “in October” for flood protection against a TWO YEAR storm

Last night, September 7, 2011, Cambridge and Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation announced they would take one month to clear cut the core Alewife reservation, destroying all the massive trees there and all the wildlife while loudly proclaiming their concern for the environment and wildlife.

Logging was announced to start in October 2011 with construction to be completed in 2013, but, while they loudly proclaimed their concern for wildlife, wildlife which they do not kill outright would be kept from “returning” until their lovely new park gets a chance to regrow.

The fancy new park being created will protect against the worst storm likely to occur every two years, called a two year storm. The destroyers did a lot of self congratulation on the expensive new system to protect against two year storms.

The area has seen two fifty year storms in the last twenty years.

Directly across the street, Cambridge Park Drive, is a massive parking lot which could readily hold much greater flooding than the two year storms they are so destructively protecting against.

Marilyn Wellons made an excellent presentation, supporting use of the parking lot for the flood storage, and pointing out the silliness (excessively positive word) of the DCR/Cambridge destruction. She stated there are excess Community Preservation Act moneys available could be used on a responsible version of the project. My comments at the meeting are included in this posting.

But, in the Cambridge tradition, Cambridge and the state has had the usual fake organization running protection for the destruction. The creator of this fake organization has been running around for fifteen years loudly proclaiming her love for Alewife and telling everybody to protect against everything except for the destruction of the core Alewife reservation by her friends.

She spent considerable time telling people how beautiful the dead replacement facility will be.

The presentation was done to a room which had far more suits in it than people concerned about the environment.

In the DCR tradition so clearly shown at the BU Bridge, the meeting was conducted in a blatantly inconvenient location for the people most directly affected, an auditorium on the far side of one or two large bodies of water, two miles from the destruction. There is a frequently used auditorium in the middle of the victims and convenient to almost all the other HUMAN victims, .9 miles down the street from the destruction site.

To make things worse, the acoustics were terrible. But the DCR and Cambridge checked the proper boxes.

The event made me lonely for reality as demonstrated in Monteiro v. Cambridge. There, truly responsible institutions looked at Cambridge and intoned: “outrageous misbehavior,” “reprehensible,” and $3.5 million penal damages.

Nothing different at Alewife.

They even made pious noises declaring their sainthood.