1. Introduction.
2. City Council Letter - scanning.
3. Text before photos in City Council Letter.
4. Text after photos in City Council Letter.
1. Introduction.
I am in the process of sending a letter to the Cambridge City Council following up the last two reports on their outrageous imminent destruction on the Cambridge Common.
Normally, when reporting a letter, I would give the text with graphics, as appropriate, interspersed.
The photos included in the letter have all been published in the last two reports. Those photos, however, have a very distinctive presentation in this letter. So I am scanning the letter and reproducing it below, followed by the text before and after the photos.
The Cambridge City Council has four new City Councilors. Given the real reprehensibleness of the destruction they are inflicting on the Cambridge Common, ordinarily, I would expect one of the new councilors to question the destruction.
But Cambridge has a highly reprehensible Machine running around lying about the City Council. Reality is irrelevant to these folks. The big issue is how much lying can they get away with.
This letter will be hand delivered to the City Clerk Tuesday morning, tomorrow morning. My normal distribution includes an abbreviated email copy to the members of the Cambridge City Council. If there is honor on the Cambridge City Council, I should think there will be a motion in front of the Cambridge City Council on this outrage.
But then, the City of Cambridge is destroying hundreds of trees on the Charles River working through the Department of Conservation and Recreation in House Bill H4006, along with massive increase in the heartless animal abuse, and the irresponsible southern part of their Grand Junction bicycle highway proposal, and so many other outrages.
The explanation will always be what the voter will swallow.
The explanation on the massive Charles River destruction is fully predictable: how dare you blame the actions on us with regard to an entity which clears everything with the City of Cambridge!!
The Grand Junction is still pending, but highly ominous.
Prior reports are posted at:
• Cambridge Common 1: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-cambridge-common-another-target-of.html.
• Cambridge Common 2: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/cambridge-ma-usa-prepares-to-destroy.html.
Ok, here are the scanned copies. I will follow with the text before and after the photos.
2. City Council Letter - scanning.
3. Text before photos in City Council Letter.
City Council
City of Cambridge
City Hall
795 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
RE: Environment Destruction Ongoing in Cambridge, Photos of the Outrages at the Cambridge Common.
To the Honorable, The Cambridge City Council:
Following are photos I took on Saturday, May 25, 2014, of your ongoing environmental outrage on the Cambridge Common:
You are destroying excellent trees, many with the explanation on your ENF that they are in the way of the view.
The first two photos are combined shots. Your are destroying these excellent views by savaging excellent trees included in these shots with trees you are not destroying YET.
The first two photos are general photos, including both threatened and not.
The third photo is of a tree which was erroneously marked with an orange circle. The error is blacked out and a comment added to refrain from destroying THIS one. This clearly communicates what the orange circle means.
The balance of the photos are of trees marked for destruction with an orange circle. Some of these had to be photographed so closely to catch the circle that their excellent crowns are not visible. Rest assured, you are destroying excellent trees. I was just only able to photograph the lower portions where the limbs have been pruned.
I did a detailed photo analysis of your outrageous plans. It is posted at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/impending-destruction-cambridge-ma-usa.html.
This destruction is the precursor to your planned destruction of hundreds of trees between the BU Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge. Your agent/accomplice, the DCR, seems to obtaining with no fanfare $34 million for this destruction through House Bill H4009. The last time you tried to destroy these, the DCR flatly lied that the targeted trees were diseased. Your destruction plans for these are posted at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/tree-destruction-plans-charles-river.html.
You have taken one more step toward environmental destruction associated with H4009 in that portion of the Grand Junction Bike Highway concept which destroys the environment with more heartless animal abuse south of Memorial Drive. You are helping the DCR implement that portion of their policies which call for killing off or driving away as many resident animals as they can get away with. This action, of course, follows on your multiple outrages at the Magazine Beach playing fields. Multiple lies there, of course. The most visible was the 10 plus year lie by the key manager that he (and you) had no intention to harm the 33 year resident Charles River White Geese. He has since bragged that he is starving them. Claims of improving the athletic fields were a fully predictable lie. The playing fields have seen a destruction in size to accommodate drainage to drain off poisons being dumped there to keep alive sickly introduced grasses which replaced responsible grasses that you destroyed. The responsible, now destroyed, grasses survived in an environmentally responsible manner for the better part of a Century.
This follows your joint destruction with the DCR of acres of irreplaceable woodlands at Alewife, along with mass killings of resident animals. You had the nerve to spout pious objecting to developers obeying your zoning laws and doing less reprehensible destruction on their nearby properties.
I could keep on going. I will not.
So here are the photos, and I am confident that members of the City Council and their friends / agents will continue with the outrageous lie that the members of the City Council doing these terrible things are environmentalists.
4. Text after photos in City Council Letter.
I am fully aware that members of the Cambridge Machine are very visible in Boston Sierra Club which has repeatedly misinformed the public that members of the Cambridge City Council are pro environment. With one glaring exception, it is not fully possible to question recently elected members, but the silence / participation in outrages definitely makes it more and more possible to question the environmental qualifications of any member of the Cambridge City Council.
Very normal were the lovely words against private destroyers at Alewife who were obeying zoning, without mentioning your zoning of the area and your own outrages.
I am confident that the Cambridge City Council will not stand up to any of the ongoing outrages or attempt to undo the City Council’s own outrageous past misbehavior. And that includes FORMALLY objecting to the city council destruction on the Cambridge Common.
It is still possible to undo the Cambridge City Council’s outrageous vote concerning the Cambridge Common.
It is still possible to undo the outrages included in House Bill H4009. The specific line item is 2890-7020 in section 2C.
Those trees on the Cambridge Common have not YET been destroyed.
Those trees and animals on the Charles River have not YET been destroyed.
You defend South America. You defend Africa.
Cambridge is most definitely within your jurisdiction.
The outrageous destruction, intensified heartless animal abuse and the needless expense in the southern end of the Grand Junction Bike Proposal can be avoided. The responsible southern end would connect the Bike Highway to the bend of Vassar Street where Vassar Street comes extremely close, then proceed one property lot to Memorial Drive and the Paul Dudley White Bike Highway.
You have yet to take control of Magazine Beach which was part of the deal associated with so much achieved but never publicized destruction. You have a right to insist that promises be kept, including the wording of the Charles River Master Plan before it was modified to comport with outrages in violation of the very clear wording of the Charles River Master Plan. You have a right to expect a lawn to the Charles River, not a walled off Magazine Beach Playing Fields.
The City Council was promised improved fields at Magazine Beach. You have a right to expect Magazine Beach to have better playing fields than they were when the City Council voted for the changes, not the smaller fields you were given, in order to drain off poisons which should not be dumped and which were never publicly announced. The poisons are “necessary” to keep alive sickly introduced grasses which were installed to replace healthy, responsible grasses which survived the better part of a Century in a responsible manner.
And to the extent that corrupt actions by a fake group is claimed to bless expansion of the outrages, you certainly have a right to expect honorable behavior, not an encouragement and rewarding of corrupt behavior. The tactics which are normally used to fight for destruction on the Charles River are the same tactics which achieved the first stage of governmental destruction of the Alewife reservation. Yell you are the good guy and tell people to do everything except the right thing. On the Charles, they looked like they might lose a destructive vote, so they simply stole it.
I am uncomfortably concerned that you will continue the destructive hypocrisy which has been the norm in the achievement of so much irresponsible destruction in the City of Cambridge.
Sincerely,
Robert J. La Trémouille
