I. Introduction.
II. Formal comments, February 27, 2019.
III. Correction filed. Original too nice.
I. Introduction.
February 25, 2019, the Cambridge City Council considered a package of purported tree protections which exempts from tree protections two of the most irresponsible tree destroyers in the City of Cambridge: the City of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. These entities may imminently be destroying 56 mostly excellent trees on Magazine Beach. Also being considered was a proposal at Magazine Beach which looks like another carefully obscured initiative for heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese.
I objected to both for those reasons and filed the following written comments with much more detail than is possible in the three minutes allotted.
* * * * * .
City Council
City of Cambridge
RE: 1. Two Committee Reports on alleged Tree Protections, 1 posted as committee report 1, the other as applications and petitions 5
2. City Manager Agenda Item 5 for more secret work at Magazine Beach
Gentlemen / Ladies:
1. “Tree Protections.”
The “tree protection” proposal omits protection against the most environmentally destructive entities in the City of Cambridge. Those are the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the City of Cambridge itself.
The Cambridge City Council and the Department of Conservation and Recreation destroyed 3.4 acres plus of “irreplaceable” Silver Maple Forest. The quote is from frequent orders by the Cambridge City Council YELLING AT THE OTHER GUY who in turn was obeying zoning controlled by the municipal government.
Here is an after photo. The trees at the edge occupied the entire area UNTIL DESTROYED BY THE CAMBRIDGE CITY COUNCIL AND THE DCR. The Cambridge City Council destroyed the excellent woods at the Harvard Square end of the Cambridge Common. Here are before and after photos.
The Cambridge City Council destroyed the excellent woods at the Harvard Square end of the Cambridge Common. Here are before and after photos.
[Ed: I cannot find the before photo I used in the City Council letter. In any case, on closer observation, it was too far to the south of the after photo. This is the correct before photo. I am correcting the official before photo in a letter being simultaneously prepared with this blog report. The text is at the end of this blog report, Section III.]
In January 2016, the DCR and Cambridge, with the City Council loudly yelling at the other guy (circuses on the public highways and deafeningly silent about the massive outrage), destroyed hundreds of trees between the BU and Longfellow Bridges.
Here are before and after picture at the Hyatt Regency;
.
And of the magnificent cherry grove at the split.
For our video of the achievements of the DCR and Cambridge, please see https://youtu.be.com/h_u-woTPRJ8.
The City Manager has repeatedly reported to the Cambridge City Council on the JOINT Cambridge City Council and DCR project at Magazine Beach.
Funding games are being played. The city council’s presiding officer has disavowed the Cambridge City Council’s Order 1 of April 24, 2017 GIVING THE DCR A BLANK CHECK. It is posted in City Records at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1782&Inline=True, pages 309 and 310, and in the final votes at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=15&ID=1690&Inline=True, page 28.
The City Council’s presiding officer seems to contend that separating funds on this JOINT PROJECT protects the City Council from the responsibility for the outrageous destruction which the DCR has publicly reported to the Conservation Commission. We have communicated reality as opposed to these silly funding games to the Cambridge City Council twice, to the prior City Council and to the current City Council. It is posted at http://focrwg.com/agenda1.html, Here are a few pages of this 51 page report which the City Council does not want to know about. Our 51 page report, matches City Council / DCR destruction plans to targeted excellent trees.
There have been multiple links provided to this document on line. The City Council does not want to know what it is doing.
The Starvation Wall should be trashed and replaced with the lawn to the river which was promised by the supposedly sacred “Charles River Master Plan in the first place.
The responsible maintenance of Magazine Beach grass during the 20th Century should be resumed and the use of poisons be ended with the contempt it deserves. That is another outrage introduced in the 2000's by Cambridge and the DCR. [Footnote: “DCR” as used herein includes the DCR’s predecessor. We will not play name games.] Poison usage is a bizarre practice loved by the DCR and is one of many reasons the DCR should be gotten rid of through the legislature
An excellent example of this reprehensible practice is the annual killing of the Charles River by an invasion of algae. This infestation dates back to the first of the annual Charles River swim ins. Shortly before the first swim in was scheduled to proceed, the DCR determined that the poisons it was using at Ebersol Fields next to Massachusetts General Hospital was not performing up to the DCR’s expectations.
So the DCR dumped on Ebersol Field poisons marked against use near water. THE NEXT DAY, the Charles River was dead from the harbor to the Mass. Ave. Bridge.
The fetish of destroying beautiful, valuable vegetation solely because they arrived without paying contractors should be ended. NOT AT ALL BY COINCIDENCE, the FREE vegetation in question thrives on poisons in the environment which the DCR and Cambridge should not have introduced at Magazine Beach, but which may be expanded as part of the current outrages.
During this forthcoming outrage and the outrage of the 2000's, the DCR and the Cambridge City Council have jointly funded the outrages, with the dirty allocations specifically kept to the DCR and with the supposedly clean items to the Cambridge City Council. City Manager Agenda 5 is the latest in the secret funding games.
This is fraud on the voters with little value except to allow an environmentally destructive city council to split costs on the JOINT PROJECT at Magazine Beach and all the City Council to lie to the voters that the imminent destruction of 56 mostly excellent trees and other outrages are not the City Council’s fault. Look, we have split costs and allocated the bad costs to the DCR.
Very much notable in the tiny, plan-less description of the shoreline work is a plaza to be paid for by the designated provider of dirty money, the DCR, obviously something destructive and vile handled in such a manner as to allow city councilors to lie about environmental sainthood. YET ANOTHER WALL TO STARVE THE 38 YEAR RESIDENT CHARLES RIVER WHITE GEESE.
The prior secret project was work at the destroyed boat dock of the 20th Century which, in the 2000's was rendered useless by being blocked by a manufactured wetland and a bridge too narrow to handle vehicles previously used on the boat dock. The important part here was and continues to be the deliberate starvation of the valuable tourist attraction, the 38 year resident gaggle of the Charles River White Geese.
Just as Cambridge and the DCR habitually destroy excellent trees, both aggressively kill resident animals by taking away their food.
The first day of starvation of the 38 year resident
gaggle of the Charles River White Geese.
In violation of the supposedly sacred Charles River Master Plan’s promised lawn to the river, Cambridge and the DCR introduced this bizarre wall of vegetation alien to the Charles River blocking access to the habitat and food of the Charles River White Geese for most of the last 38 years at the Magazine Beach playing fields. Here is a view from the Boston Side.
And here is a view from the main parking lot behind the tiny opening which previously was an active boat dock.
The tiny opening in these massive introduced bushes in the only opening on the parking lot side of the bizarre bridge.
To the right [ed: below] is a photo from more than five years ago of an adult woman standing in the tiny opening.
The entire riverfront was accessible to the Charles River White Geese and other free animals until the heartless introduction of the Starvation Wall.
And below is a side view of the BLOCKING bridge.
This is before the starvation wall reached maturity and before the introduction of the interior wall.
The introduced pond was loved by the Charles River White Geese. They used to love to swim in it on their way to the food on the north side of the pond.
Resident animals eating was unacceptable to the City of Cambridge and the DCR. So the pond was turned into wetlands and the massive interior wall of bushes was added.
The first secret construction during this round of outrages came at this location. AS WITH THE CURRENT PROPOSAL, THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF MEANINGFUL PLANS WAS PRESENTED.
Here is what the City Council was told it was voting for.
Here are the SECRET PLANS which were implemented, along with a blow up of the pinch point, in the very middle, by which apparent widening, in reality is the same old narrow bridge, a narrow opening which further prevents access to their food of most of the last 38 years by the Charles River White Geese.
Here are, first, the pinch point, then a distance shot. These show what the Cambridge City Council did not want to know what they were doing
Once again, ramping up the heartless abuse of the 38 year resident Charles River White Geese and continuing the blocking as well of the boats which had access throughout the 20th Century.
Here is the land side of the hated Starvation Wall.
As part of the 2000's outrage, Cambridge and the DCR introduced poisons into the formerly clean Magazine Beach Playing Fields. To drain off the poisons, they introduced a complicated drainage system. In December 2017, “volunteers” working for the DCR / ITS AGENT, WITH HELP FROM CAMBRIDGE EMPLOYEES blocked the drainage system and thus allowed the poisons to stay in the fields / drain into the Charles River.
Here is Phil Barber’s photo of an algae pool created by this outrage.
The latest SECRET work is offered by City Manager Agenda item 5.
There is more SECRET about this work than about the fake boat dock. There is not even a representation of what is planned, just a map and LOVELY WORDS. All that is publicly NOT SECRET is the map showing that work from the continued destroyed boat dock to west of the bathhouse which still has not been used for 80 years.
The area being worked on apparently includes the poison drainage blockage which continues but is bedraggled. The vegetation which grows without anybody paying tithes to contractors has returned to control, but the plastic covering, while heavily bedraggled, continue to pollute the drainage system which they are intended to block.
Key words concerning the ongoing heartless starvation of the Charles River White Geese is “new naturalized bank treatments” (river bank and wetland area).
Here is a photo of what the DCR and their Cambridge accomplices consider appropriate river edge, as installed across from the Hyatt Regency. Cambridge and the DCR destroyed EVERY tree across from the Hyatt Regency.
The following is a video shot in November 2009 by Ernie Sarno showing the Charles River White Geese getting up in the middle of the night to feed in this location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2-xSIYrB5o.
This is the heartless barrier to access installed as a result of the January 2016 destruction. Those stones are impossible for the Charles River White Geese to cross to get to food.
Also in the very limited word description of shoreline work, NO PLAN PROVIDED, is mention of a plaza to be created by the designated provider of dirty money the DCR. There is no question, particularly looking at the funds game being played, that this “plaza” will block access, with further starvation imposed. Use of spelling out the designated source of funds says way too much.
Here is a photo of the ESTABLISHED TOURIST ATTRACTIONS WHICH, ALONG WITH 56 MOSTLY EXCELLENT TREES TO BE DESTROYED are yet again targeted by SECRET WORK WITH FUNDS DESIGNATED BY THE ENTITY DESIGNATED TO “PROTECT” CAMBRIDGE’S DESTRUCTIVE CITY COUNCIL FROM THE WELL DESERVED BLAME FOR THE BAD PARTS OF THEIR SHARED, REPREHENSIBLE PROJECT.
3. Summary.
So the SECRET project at the destroyed boat dock is being succeeded by another SECRET project from two entities, the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the City of Cambridge for whom there is no reason to have any trust.
And here is a plaque included in a propaganda show in the City Hall Annex which shows the attitude of the heartless people involved in this accelerating outrage.
It supports plans of the supposedly sacred Charles River Master Plan to kill or drive away all resident animals.
The Starvation Wall, under this supposedly sacred document was promised to be a “lawn to the river.” The Starvation Wall is the reality. It should be trashed, BUT RESPONSIBLY TRASHED.
And the Cambridge City Council still does not want to know about the massive destruction filed by the DCR with the Cambridge Conservation Commission as part of their JOINT PROJECT at Magazine Beach, with financing nonsense to lie that Cambridge has a responsible City Council..
But the Cambridge City Council will loved to BLAME THE OTHER GUY.
Our solution in addition to and expanding on the above
The City Council should be:
(1) Reversing and rescinding its vote in Order 1 of April 24, 2017 supporting and seeking funds for the possibly imminent outrage at Magazine Beach and reversing and rescinding all related praise and funding of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation;
(2) Voting against this latest SECRET outrage;
(3) Through the legislature, replacing the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation in all of its responsibilities in Cambridge with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation; and
(4) Repairing, insofar as possible, all damage inflicted on the Charles by the City of Cambridge, the DCR, its predecessor, and or / by agents / assistants of one or more, directly or indirectly, since November 1, 1999, and terminating all pending such destruction.
Continued failure to do all three would be in direct conflict with the self proclamations of environmental sainthood which are so common from members of the Cambridge City Council.
Sincerely,
Robert J. La Trémouille
Chair, Friends of the White Geese.
III. Correction filed. Original too nice.
On February 27, 2019, I filed the following correction:
RE: Correction to letter submitted at February 25, 2019 meeting. Destruction on Cambridge Common.
Gentlemen / Ladies:
In preparing my objections to the extreme destructiveness of the City of Cambridge, I got rather overwhelmed. There have been so many reprehensible actions, and the pending outrages with the nonsensical and nasty excuses are so extreme, along with bizarre word games, that, occasionally, I do fail to keep all the terrible things the Cambridge City Council and its accomplices are doing and are trying to do straight.
In preparing the blog version of my letter of February 23, 2019, I discovered that I used the wrong sample before picture for the outrage inflicted by the Cambridge City Council on the Cambridge Common..
Here are correct before and after pictures of the outrage the Cambridge City Council committed THERE.
This before picture was provided in a letter of objection in approximately May 26, 2014. Please excuse my difficulty to keep all the outrages straight, particularly in the short period of time to prepare that 13 page letter..
After picture correctly included in my letter.:
The behavior and destructiveness of the Cambridge City Council are so extreme that they occasionally overwhelms me.
I do my best to keep up on the many outrages.
Sincerely,
Robert J. La Trémouille
Chair
