This is another in the series of communications which we have been presenting concerning destruction plans. The trouble is that the letters we have been passing on are so long that they cannot be posted in one blog post.
So we have developed a series of standard terms in our posts and split our letters. This response to the Cambridge City Council, however, is borderline in length and really should be read all at one time to get the full impact of the communication.
On September 11, 2017, the Cambridge City Council returned to work after their summer break, with one meeting in the middle. Councilor / former Representative Timothy Toomey proposed and got passed a motion in the mid summer meeting to which we responded by a letter received on September 11, 2017.
Our standard terms are posted at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/charles-river-ma-magazine-beach.html. That report becomes number 17 on that list.
There is a lot of important stuff in there.
The Davis letter is analyzed at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/charles-river-con-game-fights-for.html.
We will resume the standard package in the next blog report.
The Grand Junction bicycle package is communicated in the standard terms, in detail. It is Section VI. I am communicating by reference because if I go into it again, this post will be really unreasonable in size. Please go to Section VI in the standard terms of our last posting.
Here is the communication received on September 11, in total.
As is customary in this series, it is addressed to the Cambridge City Manager and the Cambridge City Council. We feel strongly about showing our respect for the City Manager by including him as primary addressee, although the content does tend to slip to addressing the City Council.
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RE: City Council Order 16, August 7, 2017 meeting. Grand Junction path concept
Ladies and Gentlemen:
1. General.
2. Bike Highway Options
3. The REAL Plans.
4. Overview.
1. General.
Reviewing the on line record of order 16 of August 7, 2107, we are confused as to whether the whereas’s were part of the adopted order.
Even so, the open ended concept of a Grand Junction Overlay District and the outrageous behavior of the City of Cambridge under the prior City Managers and of too many actions of the Cambridge City Council creates value in responding to the concept of a Grand Junction Overlay District.
The bicycle highway proposal, and thus the Overlay District itself, would be responsible if it fed traffic to Memorial Drive and not beyond Memorial Drive. Beyond Memorial Drive would further exacerbate the already accomplished environmental and animal abuse outrages.
MIT, in a recent report suggested that the path end at Fort Washington and connect from there to Memorial Drive by way of Vassar Street and Amesbury Street. We think the bicycle highway could reasonably connect by a narrow taking to the corner where Vassar Street approaches the Grand Junction most closely, then run the very short block to Memorial Drive.
The proposal as stated in the 2006 Grand Junction plan is irresponsible insofar as it goes further south than these points. Equally irresponsible is the secret fine print in the Davis letter whose secret fine print was incorporated but “not” incorporated into the City Manager and City Council transmittals to MassDOT, typical tomfoolery of Cambridge Development Department documents. At minimum, the transmittal documents were designed to mislead the people signing them.
The plans for the area south of Memorial Drive at the Grand Junction were communicated BUT BURIED in the relevant part of the 2006 proposal and in the DCR plans which Cambridge and the DCR implemented in the outrages of January 2016.
What really is at stake south of Memorial Drive, in addition to further environmental and animal abuse outrages, is an updated Inner Belt connecting I90 (the Mass. Pike) in Boston to MIT with ramps to Memorial Drive.
We went into this concept in detail in section I of our August 3 letter delivered to the City Council at its August 7, 2017 meeting. In that section, we provided a whole bunch of plans explaining reality. This initiative is the Inner Belt moved half a block west with destruction on the river and heartless animal abuse.
The entire government package south of Memorial Drive is in direct conflict with the self deification as environmental saints of members of the Cambridge City Council on the steps of City Hall on April 24, 2017.
To go into detail:
2. Bike Highway Options
Here from City Council records are the MIT plans for a responsible Southern end of the Grand Junction bike highway. MIT combines with this responsible option a plan similar to what former Councilor Davis proposed for destruction in the Goose Meadow in the secret fine print of her letter to MassDOT. Her letter was blessed with misleading of the Cambridge City Council and City Manager by transmittal documents clearly drafted by the Cambridge Development Department. It is to be assumed that the Davis / MIT Goose Meadow proposal (#4) would remove the starvation wall at the entrance to the Goose Meadow.
At the far right, MIT (item 1, plus brownish crossing) proposes the bike highway to run from the Grand Junction to Vassar Street by the existing pedestrian right of way at Fort Washington Park, then proceed west on Vassar Street, and then proceed south on Amesbury Street to Memorial Drive.
Our proposal is that the bike highway and Vassar Street be connected by a narrow land taking between the Grand Junction and the bend of Vassar Street where Vassar Street is closest to the Grand Junction (added in pen and ink), and then proceed to Memorial Drive. This would provide about two more blocks of fairly exclusive bike highway than the MIT concept. [Ed. From the bend in the middle blue line to the Grand Junction.]
Item 4 on the map is MIT’s suggestion for the Davis destruction in the Goose Meadow, hidden BY REFERENCE in the paper given to MassDOT via the City Council and City Manager. This would devastate the animal habitat in the Goose Meadow.
The proposal would remove the starvation fence at the entrance to the Goose Meadow. The starvation fence should be removed anyway. The only purpose of the starvation fence is to exacerbate the deliberate starvation of the Charles River White Geese. This outrage is analyzed in greater detail below.
3. The REAL Plans.
Following is an MIT plan provided by them to the Cambridge City Council, edited to the key part of the area.
In our August 3, 2017 letter received on August 7, we went into detail on the new Inner Belt from I90 (Mass. Pike) on the left to the Grand Junction Bridge in the middle, and then to MIT on the right. Bicycle “improvements” widening the Grand Junction Bridge would last only so long as convenient to MIT.
We detailed the connections to Memorial Drive east and west, and provided the following marked up map from the DCR’s destruction plans.
The marked driveways would be used in a rearrangement of entrances to speed up traffic coming off the Mass. Pike, with massive tree destruction in the process. “Dead or dying” is so much fraudulent nonsense attempting to justify unjustifiable logging as proven in our June 6, 2017, 51 page letter. The more than 100 graphics did an excellent job of debunking this irresponsible nonsense.
4. Overview.
Our video on the 2016 destruction outrage on the Charles River has been provided to each of you individually. It is posted on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTplCCEJP7o. Our video on the fraud which was the “improvements” associated with this outrage has also been provided to you. It is posted at https://youtu.be/dWyCdcWMuAA.
Here are the plans of the DCR for the Grand Junction area south of Memorial Drive which is known to normal human beings as animal habitat. These plans are the portion of the 2016 destruction plans which have not YET been implemented.
The diagonal lines in the middle, top to bottom, reflect the Grand Junction.
The area to the right of the Grand Junction is currently a thick woods, the Wild Area.
This plan shows exactly one tree. The rest are clearly intended to be destroyed, with the destruction communicated by yet more fraud, lie of omission.
Here is a photo of the thick woods in the Wild Area being destroying THIS TIME. The white figures are part of the valuable 36 year resident Charles River White Geese looking for food after their food and habitat have taken from them by multiple tactics.
Here are Cambridge Development Department plans of Grand Junction / BU Bridge area (the ghetto which is the only part of their habitat you have not YET destroyed) and for the Wild Area.
To the right is the Wild Area which you also would destroy.
To the left is the foodless ghetto to which Cambridge and the DCR have confined the Charles River White Geese. Along with the Wild Area, this is the only part of their mile long habitat which you have not destroyed for them.
Here are the specific plans for habitat destruction from the 2006 package.
The Grand Junction runs diagonally from upper left to lower right. The Charles River is on the right. The J shaped highway is the tree and habitat destroying bicycle highway you are considering in the Goose Meadow. The proposal talks of putting a fence between the Goose Meadow below the Grand Junction and the Wild Area, above the Grand Junction.
That fence would further destroy this tiny area which remains for free animals on Cambridge’s Charles River.
Below are photos of where the Development Department would put the final portion of the J construction. This is the left hand portion of the J below the Grand Junction. The supposed bike highway would go up this steep incline.
Your proposal is clearly nonsense.
Here is the area which would be entered from the Grand Junction. Note that thick trees shown below would be destroyed by the 2006 plan’s bicycle highway before destroying a core part of the remaining goose habitat before going to the stairs.
Since Cambridge and the DCR confined the Charles River White Geese to their formerly lush Nesting Area in this location without food, the DCR has destroyed all ground vegetation.
The crushed stone was initially dropped there by railroad workers with the rather clear blessing after the fact of the DCR.
When the railroad workers left, more crushed stone was dumped.
A similar situation occurs in the plans of the City Council and the DCR to destroy 56 MOSTLY EXCELLENT TREES at Magazine Beach.
Here is a photo of a tree at the Magazine Beach hill / park next to the bathhouse that the Cambridge City Council and the DCR now want to destroy, as part of the April 24, 2017, order 1 vote.
This is one of many trees which the DCR admits they cannot justify destroying.
So they abuse it until they can create a “justification” for destroying it.
And the Cambridge City Council claims that the DCR is fit to manage the environment.
Here is another example of the DCR’s deliberate destruction, this time the starvation of the 36 year resident and highly valuable Charles River White Geese. All part of the same mentality. There is food on the far side of the on ramp to Memorial Drive next to the entrance to their forced ghetto, the grass shown below Memorial Drive to the right.
To get to their food, the Charles River White Geese have to cross the on ramp.
The Charles River White Geese are extremely careful on crossing, looking both ways to ensure traffic is clear. However, being geese, some do dawdle. Smiling commuters happily sit and wait for them to finish crossing admiring their beauty as they seek food.
The DCR has responded to their search for food by installing a wall at the entrance to the Goose Meadow, belying their claim that this is a public park and further destroying this wild habitat.
The photo shows the on ramp to the left and the BLOCKED Goose Meadow entrance straight ahead.
Starvation is the only goal of this blockade, which is part of the Charles River Master Plan, to kill off or drive away all resident animals. The irresponsibility of the Charles River Master Plan is yet more proof of the DCR to manage the environment of the Charles River.
Creation of this starvation wall DIRECTLY VIOLATED the Charles River Master Plan’s “lawn to the river” and by constant “water related activities” nonsense at the time. Walling off the Charles is apparently claimed to be “water related activities” in contrast to it continuing to be the residence of the 36 year highly popular resident Charles River White Geese.
The DCR showed the lack of value of the sanctified Charles River Master Plan by amending the Charles River Master Plan after they had already planted this bizarre wall. And they now admit that visitors avoid the introduced wall in a location where they should be admiring the Charles River.
During the 2016 outrage, Cambridge and the DCR added similar walling across from the Hyatt, a former very popular feeding place. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2-xSIYrB5o for an admiring third party video by Ernie Sarno showing the Charles River White Geese feeding there. The video has had thousands of hits.
The walling / denying the Charles River White Geese their food is more subtle, but just as effective. They cannot get over the installed stone structure.
Here are photos of displaced wild turkeys and of an individual wild turkey, both in residential parts of Cambridge last winter, courtesy of Phil Barber.
Here is a black squirrel in a doomed cottonwood, courtesy of Phil Barber.
The outrages on the Charles River viciously attack all forms of wild life. The 36 year resident Charles River White Geese are only the most visible and most beloved.
The fake group which fights for all this destruction lying that it is a “neighborhood association” has put on a propaganda show in City Hall Annex lying that the activities on the Charles River are responsible actions.
They have bragged about the heartless animal abuse in a plaque in the show, copied to the right.
But the fake groups and their Cambridge Development Department controllers keep destruction as secret as they can, while telling people to look at everything but the destruction,. They praise irresponsible projects by keeping the bad stuff secret and oozing about how beneficial their destructive projects are.
They aggressively work to get support for irresponsible projects by very major lies of omission..
This lying by omission has been a standard technique of the three past City Managers. “Lack of transparency” is very much too mild to describe major environmental destruction simply kept secret in glowing presentations which conflict in reality with outrageously irresponsible goals.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation is not as commendable as the CDD and its robots, and the CDD and its robots are worthy of censure and very major pruning.
The City Manager needs to create responsible behavior and honesty in the government of the City of Cambridge, both in his employees and in the influenced “activists” who go to the Cambridge Development Department, directly or indirectly, to find out what they think.
Dishonesty has been too normal for too long on development matters in the City of Cambridge.
Sincerely,
Robert J. La Trémouille
Chair, Friends of the White Geese,
and Individually
P.S. The official city record of our debunking of the “dead or dying” fraud is posted at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1815&Inline=True, pages 198 to 249. The official record of the letter which presents the Inner Belt revived analysis is at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1825&Inline=True, pages 176 to 192.
