Bob La Trémouille reports.
1. Introductory.
2. Kathy Podgers?
A. Probable Cause of Violation of Her Civil Rights.
B. Explanation of the Cambridge Pols.
C. Explanation of the Cambridge City Council.
D. Explanation of the City of Cambridge according to Kathy.
E. But Kathy Podgers talks about other abuses of the Cambridge City Council and Cambridge Government.
3. Your editor’s reaction.
1. Introductory.
The Cambridge City Council has voted to look into furthering restricting the information they allow the public to present to the Cambridge City Council in the meetings of the Cambridge City Council.
The vote was 8 to 1.
Public participation in Cambridge City Council meetings is dramatically reduced as it is. The public is prohibited from talking in the meetings about anything except things the Cambridge City Council wants to talk about. Then the public has a three minute limit on the amount of words the public can say. And the public can only comment before the matter is discussed by the Cambridge City Council.
The restrictions get so bad that the city staff is allowed to make false statements about the positions that particular members of the public may have. I was once prohibited from responding to a flat out lie made about my position. The chair ruled that it was my flat out duty to foresee the flat out lie and respond to the flat out lie before it was said.
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that very few intrepid souls bother to comment in city council meetings.
The Cambridge City Council, however, seems to think that the Cambridge City Council is hearing too much public opinion.
Thus, the reasonable question is: what is going on?
2. Kathy Podgers?
A. Probable Cause of Violation of Her Civil Rights.
One possible explanation could be that Kathy Podgers is embarrassing the Cambridge City Council by exposing the Cambridge City Council to reality.
You see, the Cambridge City Council and its City Manager has an extremely active and visible group, the Cambridge Pols, who are the approved talkers about the Cambridge City Government. This well organized clique can be relied upon to say some of the most bizarre, favorable things about these people.
The Cambridge Pols have the nerve to call the Cambridge City Council pro-environment. The Cambridge Pols even have the nerve to call the Cambridge City Council pro-civil rights.
The latter is one aspect to where Kathy Podgers comes in. You see, Kathy Podgers has had two findings of probable cause to determine that her civil rights have been violated by the Cambridge City Council. You see, the City of Cambridge and the City Council has problems with Kathy using a guide dog. Things have gotten so bad that a group of rogue cops abused the guide dog in the lobby of the Cambridge Police Station and apparently have not been punished.
The Cambridge City Council, through its mayor, tried to throw Kathy Podgers out of a Cambridge City Council meeting because the Cambridge City Council objected to the presence of her guide dog. So the two findings of probable cause of violation of this handicapped woman’s civil rights.
B. Explanation of the Cambridge Pols.
The explanation of the Cambridge Pols is pretty predictable. This is one little person. How dare anybody object to the Cambridge City Council abusing the civil rights of one little person. This explanation is very similar to the Cambridge Pols explanation of some of the more irresponsible treatment of the environment. You listen to the Cambridge Pols talk about the Charles River White Geese, and you would be certain that you are listening to a wife abuser talk about his wife.
C. Explanation of the Cambridge City Council.
As is usual with the Cambridge City Council on the outrageous behavior by the Cambridge City Council, their explanation is silence.
And you can’t talk in the Cambridge City Council meetings about something on which the Cambridge City Council is silent.
D. Explanation of the City of Cambridge according to Kathy.
Kathy has had a number of incidents in which she has been evicted from public places because the public places object to the presence of her guide dog.
According to Kathy, the City of Cambridge sees nothing wrong with this behavior. Evicting Kathy because of her guide dog violated federal civil rights laws. Cambridge has its own civil rights laws. Cambridge is above obeying federal laws which grant more civil rights than do Cambridge laws.
E. But Kathy Podgers talks about other abuses of the Cambridge City Council and Cambridge Government.
Kathy actually has the nerve to think that the Cambridge should be respecting the laws of Massachusetts and the laws of the United States.
Kathy has the nerve to say these horrible things in public.
Kathy has the nerve to say things which contradict the propaganda put out by the Cambridge Pols as cheerleaders for the Cambridge City Council and Cambridge Government.
Behavior such as this is unacceptable in the City of Cambridge.
3. Your editor’s reaction.
There are various other really nasty explanations for this initiative toward further censorship. I will go into those explanations at a later date.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Rose Kennedy Greenway and Memorial Drive
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Summary.
2. Comment of a Key Cambridge Pol.
3. Response to the Bad Guy.
4. Final Comments.
1. Summary.
The Charles River White Geese are the most valuable asset the City of Cambridge and the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation have in their part of the Charles River.
They have lived, beloved by the general public, in a mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge since 1981.
Nine heartless animal abusers on the Cambridge City Council have deliberately starved these beautiful animals since 2004 as part of a truly bizarre project at Magazine Beach, formerly their principal feeding area. The nine heartless abusers now propose to poison their food at Magazine Beach by replacing GREEN playing fields with CHEMICAL maintained playing fields.
The same City of Cambridge has had two findings of probable cause made against them at the state’s Commission Against Discrimination as part of their fight to keep a handicapped elderly woman from using her guide dog.
The fight against the guide dog was punctuated by a group of rogue cops abusing the guide dog in the lobby of the police station by siccing a pit bull on the guide dog.
Keeping this sick situation going is large well organized group, the Cambridge Pols. Their explanation for their behavior are attacks on the beautiful Charles River White Geese and on the handicapped woman with words that sound strikingly like a WIFE ABUSER justifying his abuse of his wife.
But they do do a lot of lying about which side they are on.
Cambridge has a really, really vile political situation.
2. Comment of a Key Cambridge Pol.
The following comment was placed on his listserve on March 11, 2007 by a Cambridge pol who runs an organization he calls a neighborhood organization.
*************
Subject: The Greenway and the Memorial Drive way
Award winning Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey, (who I am told was asked to leave the Globe as part of cost cutting), wrote a great business section column Friday March 7, 08 on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and the focus of the column was on limiting height and density to preserve the open space, parkway feeling that was the purpose of the Greenway in the first place. Here is a link to Steve Bailey's column.
http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2008/03/07/greenway_sanity/
The development pressures around the Greenway are phenomenal. Builders are proposing 800 foot tall towers according to Bailey, which would make the Greenway a shadow-way. Anyhoo, these issues are of course almost perfectly parallel to the issues that the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association and others have been addressing regarding open space along Mem Drive, so as we learn about the Mem Drive open space issues, it is certainly relevant to be aware of these looming Greenway debates involving parallel issues.
3. Response to the Bad Guy.
I offered the following response to the listserve. It has not been distributed yet. The Cambridge pols find comments which reflect reality unacceptable, but they sure can heap wife-beater type abuse on their victims when nothing else works.
************
The obvious response on Memorial Drive is to kill and otherwise reverse the initiatives of the Cambridge Pols and their buddies.
The destruction of Magazine Beach to replace the GREEN there with chemicals, apparently including chemicals to drive away animal life (Ebersol Fields) must immediately be reversed.
Actions to starve local wildlife must immediately be reversed.
The Memorial Drive Overlay District must be killed.
Actions to turn the Grand Junction Railroad into an extension of the Binney Connector, paired with Vassar Street must be killed.
Any and all actions to assist moving the Mass. Pike exit to the Grand Junction railroad bridge (and then by way of the railroad and Vassar Street to the Binney Connector / Inner Belt must be killed.
Plans to destroy from 499 to 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, including every Cherry Tree must be killed.
Etc.
A lot of stuff the Cambridge pols have been fighting for must die.
Trouble is that the Cambridge pols have been very consistent over the years, great words, exactly the wrong actions.
4. Final Comments.
The language of the bad guy is instructive: "As we learn about the Mem Drive open space issues" gives the impression of good intent.
We have been telling them about the destructive behavior for eight years including very strong documentation, and SOMEHOW, they just cannot understand where the problem is.
I learned quite awhile ago, with regard to another key Cambridge pol, that they just cannot be that stupid.
An excellent example is the "Green" organization this guy's friends have created which claims to represent Cambridgeport, but which does not want to know about the bizarre projects at Magazine Beach.
But the Cambridge pols sure do like Wife Abuser type comments aimed at their victims.
The reality is that, as my comments in 3 above demonstrate, there is a lot going on here, and a fake neighborhood association controlled by them is a well established Cambridge pol tactic to PREVENT ORGANIZATION.
1. Summary.
2. Comment of a Key Cambridge Pol.
3. Response to the Bad Guy.
4. Final Comments.
1. Summary.
The Charles River White Geese are the most valuable asset the City of Cambridge and the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation have in their part of the Charles River.
They have lived, beloved by the general public, in a mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge since 1981.
Nine heartless animal abusers on the Cambridge City Council have deliberately starved these beautiful animals since 2004 as part of a truly bizarre project at Magazine Beach, formerly their principal feeding area. The nine heartless abusers now propose to poison their food at Magazine Beach by replacing GREEN playing fields with CHEMICAL maintained playing fields.
The same City of Cambridge has had two findings of probable cause made against them at the state’s Commission Against Discrimination as part of their fight to keep a handicapped elderly woman from using her guide dog.
The fight against the guide dog was punctuated by a group of rogue cops abusing the guide dog in the lobby of the police station by siccing a pit bull on the guide dog.
Keeping this sick situation going is large well organized group, the Cambridge Pols. Their explanation for their behavior are attacks on the beautiful Charles River White Geese and on the handicapped woman with words that sound strikingly like a WIFE ABUSER justifying his abuse of his wife.
But they do do a lot of lying about which side they are on.
Cambridge has a really, really vile political situation.
2. Comment of a Key Cambridge Pol.
The following comment was placed on his listserve on March 11, 2007 by a Cambridge pol who runs an organization he calls a neighborhood organization.
*************
Subject: The Greenway and the Memorial Drive way
Award winning Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey, (who I am told was asked to leave the Globe as part of cost cutting), wrote a great business section column Friday March 7, 08 on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and the focus of the column was on limiting height and density to preserve the open space, parkway feeling that was the purpose of the Greenway in the first place. Here is a link to Steve Bailey's column.
http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2008/03/07/greenway_sanity/
The development pressures around the Greenway are phenomenal. Builders are proposing 800 foot tall towers according to Bailey, which would make the Greenway a shadow-way. Anyhoo, these issues are of course almost perfectly parallel to the issues that the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association and others have been addressing regarding open space along Mem Drive, so as we learn about the Mem Drive open space issues, it is certainly relevant to be aware of these looming Greenway debates involving parallel issues.
3. Response to the Bad Guy.
I offered the following response to the listserve. It has not been distributed yet. The Cambridge pols find comments which reflect reality unacceptable, but they sure can heap wife-beater type abuse on their victims when nothing else works.
************
The obvious response on Memorial Drive is to kill and otherwise reverse the initiatives of the Cambridge Pols and their buddies.
The destruction of Magazine Beach to replace the GREEN there with chemicals, apparently including chemicals to drive away animal life (Ebersol Fields) must immediately be reversed.
Actions to starve local wildlife must immediately be reversed.
The Memorial Drive Overlay District must be killed.
Actions to turn the Grand Junction Railroad into an extension of the Binney Connector, paired with Vassar Street must be killed.
Any and all actions to assist moving the Mass. Pike exit to the Grand Junction railroad bridge (and then by way of the railroad and Vassar Street to the Binney Connector / Inner Belt must be killed.
Plans to destroy from 499 to 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, including every Cherry Tree must be killed.
Etc.
A lot of stuff the Cambridge pols have been fighting for must die.
Trouble is that the Cambridge pols have been very consistent over the years, great words, exactly the wrong actions.
4. Final Comments.
The language of the bad guy is instructive: "As we learn about the Mem Drive open space issues" gives the impression of good intent.
We have been telling them about the destructive behavior for eight years including very strong documentation, and SOMEHOW, they just cannot understand where the problem is.
I learned quite awhile ago, with regard to another key Cambridge pol, that they just cannot be that stupid.
An excellent example is the "Green" organization this guy's friends have created which claims to represent Cambridgeport, but which does not want to know about the bizarre projects at Magazine Beach.
But the Cambridge pols sure do like Wife Abuser type comments aimed at their victims.
The reality is that, as my comments in 3 above demonstrate, there is a lot going on here, and a fake neighborhood association controlled by them is a well established Cambridge pol tactic to PREVENT ORGANIZATION.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Psychoanalyzing a Heartless Animal Abuser
Bob La Trémouille reports:
When I first became aware of the plans of the City of Cambridge for the Magazine Beach area in Fall 1997, I could not get anybody to believe me.
First of all, there clearly was no need to "improve" Magazine Beach. Second of all, who would be so heartless and wasteful as to harm the habitat of the beautiful and extremely valuable Charles River White Geese.
After the announcement of the City Manager’s plans, the Department of Conservation and Recreation sought to receive complaints against the Charles River White Geese. Cambridge pols who had organized the show-and-tell of the City Manager’s plans happily filed complaint.
After the Cambridge City Manager announced his plans, the Cambridge Pols happily started running around bad-mouthing the Charles River White Geese.
The DCR talked about complaints against the Charles River White Geese as excuse for their heartless treatment of the geese. Friends of the White Geese made a freedom of information demand.
THE ONLY COMPLAINT received against the Charles River White Geese since their first residence in 1981 turned out to be the complaint filed by the Cambridge Pol group IN RESPONSE TO the request of the DCR.
The sort of personal destruction which the Cambridge Pols attempted to inflict on Kathy Podgers in the Cambridge Chronicle was strikingly similar to the activities of the Cambridge Pols against the Charles River White Geese. The Cambridge Pols started badmouthing and belittling beings who were and continue to be the city and state’s most valuable resource on their part of the Charles River.
The geese are the subject of tourist visits. The geese are beloved by commuters, by a large number of locals and by so many people who just happen to encounter them.
The Cambridge Pols got very busy and very nasty.
When Peter Valentine attempted to get Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons to behave like a responsible human being with regard to the Charles River and the Charles River White Geese, Simmons spouted words which reaffirmed the campaign of destruction by the Cambridge pols.
Demeaning your victim is key to an abuser. Dehumanizing, devaluing is key to an abuser.
There was no way Simmons was about to treat the Charles River White Geese as anything of any value whatsoever.
This is not unique to Simmons. It just happens to be specifically recognizable through a recognized third party.
They spout this standard abuser garbage and they fit the mold.
Cambridge politics is a very filthy entity and the heartless animal abusers upon whom Cambridge politics revolve fit the mold.
When I first became aware of the plans of the City of Cambridge for the Magazine Beach area in Fall 1997, I could not get anybody to believe me.
First of all, there clearly was no need to "improve" Magazine Beach. Second of all, who would be so heartless and wasteful as to harm the habitat of the beautiful and extremely valuable Charles River White Geese.
After the announcement of the City Manager’s plans, the Department of Conservation and Recreation sought to receive complaints against the Charles River White Geese. Cambridge pols who had organized the show-and-tell of the City Manager’s plans happily filed complaint.
After the Cambridge City Manager announced his plans, the Cambridge Pols happily started running around bad-mouthing the Charles River White Geese.
The DCR talked about complaints against the Charles River White Geese as excuse for their heartless treatment of the geese. Friends of the White Geese made a freedom of information demand.
THE ONLY COMPLAINT received against the Charles River White Geese since their first residence in 1981 turned out to be the complaint filed by the Cambridge Pol group IN RESPONSE TO the request of the DCR.
The sort of personal destruction which the Cambridge Pols attempted to inflict on Kathy Podgers in the Cambridge Chronicle was strikingly similar to the activities of the Cambridge Pols against the Charles River White Geese. The Cambridge Pols started badmouthing and belittling beings who were and continue to be the city and state’s most valuable resource on their part of the Charles River.
The geese are the subject of tourist visits. The geese are beloved by commuters, by a large number of locals and by so many people who just happen to encounter them.
The Cambridge Pols got very busy and very nasty.
When Peter Valentine attempted to get Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons to behave like a responsible human being with regard to the Charles River and the Charles River White Geese, Simmons spouted words which reaffirmed the campaign of destruction by the Cambridge pols.
Demeaning your victim is key to an abuser. Dehumanizing, devaluing is key to an abuser.
There was no way Simmons was about to treat the Charles River White Geese as anything of any value whatsoever.
This is not unique to Simmons. It just happens to be specifically recognizable through a recognized third party.
They spout this standard abuser garbage and they fit the mold.
Cambridge politics is a very filthy entity and the heartless animal abusers upon whom Cambridge politics revolve fit the mold.
Monday, March 03, 2008
"Environmental" Councilor Can Be Made to Oppose Destruction of Green?
Bob La Trémouille reports:
The letter to the Cambridge Chronicle editor was published in the Chronicle on February 21, 2008.
The following Tuesday one of the usual Cambridge pol type groups held a meeting which discussed the Charles River.
In attendance were the local State Rep, State Senator and a city councilor who has run very beligerently as an environmentalist. The Rep, Walz, continued to support the environmental destruction at Magazine Beach. The Senator was willing to talk and the city councilor offered to allow constituents to talk him into opposing destruction of the Green at Magazine Beach.
I am reminded of an attempt by Peter Valentine, a very fine person and supporter of the Charles River White Geese, to interest the latest Cambridge Mayor in behaving responsibly on the Charles River. She flatly and simply ruled out any discussion of NOT indulging in heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese.
An honest translation of her opinion:
HOW DARE YOU EXPECT ME TO REFRAIN FROM HEARTLESS ABUSE OF THE CHARLES RIVER WHITE GEESE. THEY ARE THE LITTLE GUY!!!
The ongoing destruction of thousands of healthy trees at Fresh Pond combines with the destruction of the homes of thousands of animals and the creation of homelessness for them.
That letter published in the Chronicle referred to the abuse of a guide dog in the lobby of the Cambridge Police Station by a rogue cop in a room containing other rogue cops who did nothing. The rogue cop on duty at the desk both did nothing and refused to accept a complaint concerning an outrage which occurred to his face.
A more accurate condemnation of the situation concerning animals in the City of Cambridge is that we have nine belligerent animal abusers who are proud of it except that they try to hide themselves to responsible people.
Those rogue cops in the police station lobby abusing the guide dog were implementing very sick policy coming straight from a truly reprehensible city government.
I have compared the current situation in the City of Cambridge to the stench I noticed when working with the Walsh law firm in the 80's. None of the people from the Walsh law firm who went to jail were jailed for bribery.
The letter to the Cambridge Chronicle editor was published in the Chronicle on February 21, 2008.
The following Tuesday one of the usual Cambridge pol type groups held a meeting which discussed the Charles River.
In attendance were the local State Rep, State Senator and a city councilor who has run very beligerently as an environmentalist. The Rep, Walz, continued to support the environmental destruction at Magazine Beach. The Senator was willing to talk and the city councilor offered to allow constituents to talk him into opposing destruction of the Green at Magazine Beach.
I am reminded of an attempt by Peter Valentine, a very fine person and supporter of the Charles River White Geese, to interest the latest Cambridge Mayor in behaving responsibly on the Charles River. She flatly and simply ruled out any discussion of NOT indulging in heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese.
An honest translation of her opinion:
HOW DARE YOU EXPECT ME TO REFRAIN FROM HEARTLESS ABUSE OF THE CHARLES RIVER WHITE GEESE. THEY ARE THE LITTLE GUY!!!
The ongoing destruction of thousands of healthy trees at Fresh Pond combines with the destruction of the homes of thousands of animals and the creation of homelessness for them.
That letter published in the Chronicle referred to the abuse of a guide dog in the lobby of the Cambridge Police Station by a rogue cop in a room containing other rogue cops who did nothing. The rogue cop on duty at the desk both did nothing and refused to accept a complaint concerning an outrage which occurred to his face.
A more accurate condemnation of the situation concerning animals in the City of Cambridge is that we have nine belligerent animal abusers who are proud of it except that they try to hide themselves to responsible people.
Those rogue cops in the police station lobby abusing the guide dog were implementing very sick policy coming straight from a truly reprehensible city government.
I have compared the current situation in the City of Cambridge to the stench I noticed when working with the Walsh law firm in the 80's. None of the people from the Walsh law firm who went to jail were jailed for bribery.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Letter Published
Bob La Trémouille reports:
On February 16, I reported on the Cambridge Chronicle shutting down comments in its on line edition on reports published in the Chronicle. I included in my report a letter I had submitted to the Chronicle editor on the subject.
The letter I submitted was published on page 10 of the February 21 edition. Without going into a detailed comparison, it definitely sounds unedited.
Frankly, I was very surprised. I only learned about the publication from a friend on the street this morning. I confirmed it in the back issues rack at the Public Library.
Even with with the moderating edits which I pointed out in my report, that was a strong letter. The Chronicle editor is to be thanked and commended.
On February 16, I reported on the Cambridge Chronicle shutting down comments in its on line edition on reports published in the Chronicle. I included in my report a letter I had submitted to the Chronicle editor on the subject.
The letter I submitted was published on page 10 of the February 21 edition. Without going into a detailed comparison, it definitely sounds unedited.
Frankly, I was very surprised. I only learned about the publication from a friend on the street this morning. I confirmed it in the back issues rack at the Public Library.
Even with with the moderating edits which I pointed out in my report, that was a strong letter. The Chronicle editor is to be thanked and commended.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Cambridge Chronicle shuts down on line comments on articles
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Introduction.
2. Civil Rights a saving grace?
3. No way is Civil Rights a saving grace.
4. Self-censorship. Rogue cops. Jim Crow.
5. Cambridge Chronicle editor position.
6. Response by your editor to the Cambridge Chronicle editor.
1. Introduction.
The truly sick abuse being afflicted on the beautiful and extremely popular Charles River White Geese as part of the bizarre project at Magazine Beach says pretty much everything that needs to be known about nine Cambridge City Councilors and their cohorts at state level. They plan to very quickly make things much worse by destroying the green playing fields at Magazine Beach and replacing the green playing fields with grass maintained by poisons.
The nine hypocrites on the Cambridge City Council extended their reprehensible behavior from heartless treatment of the Charles River White Geese and other Charles River animals to the destruction of the homes and habitat of hundreds if not thousands of free animals living at Fresh Pond. These nine hypocrites have proceeded with a bizarre project at Fresh Pond which, among other things, is destroying thousands of healthy trees to plant one thousand saplings.
2. Civil Rights a saving grace?
Throughout their reprehensible behavior against the Cambridge environment, the apologists for these vile indivuals bragged about the record of the nine on civil rights.
3. No way is Civil Rights a saving grace.
Kathy Podgers has been abused by the Cambridge government for a number of years.
Shopkeepers have more than once barred her guide dog in spite of the clear protections that that guide dog has under Federal law.
The Cambridge government has been unsupportive of Kathy's civil rights. They claimed that Cambridge has its own civil rights laws and thus Cambridge does not have to obey Federal civil rights laws.
A little over a year ago, the Cambridge City Council tried to throw Kathy's guide dog out of a City Council meeting.
Kathy filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. The MCAD now has made two findings of probable cause of discrimination.
4. Self-censorship. Rogue cops. Jim Crow.
The Cambridge Chronicle reported the recent victory both in its hard copy and on line.
The on line edition allows comment on stories. The Cambridge Pols unleashed personal attacks and taunts in at least five to ten written on line attacks on Kathy Podgers. I responded three times with objections to their behavior accordingly.
Last summer, Kathy's guide dog was abused in the public area of the Cambridge Police Station by a bunch of rogue cops (one actor, the rest "failing to protect" the victim). She filed complaint with the department head. I am not aware of any punishment or apology. I commented on that abuse in my response.
Cambridge's selective respect for civil rights strikes me as outrageous. An excellent example is Cambridge insistence that Cambridge's ordinance is good enough and that Federal laws be damned if Federal laws provide more protection than Cambridge's ordinance.
This stinks of Jim Crow. The Jim Crow south had their own Civil Rights laws. The Jim Crow south protected those they thought should be protected. The Jim Crow south was outraged that the Federal government actually expected the Jim Crow south to obey federal civil rights laws. The Jim Crow south used rogue cops to enforce their contempt for civil rights.
Cambridge's treatment of Kathy, including the personal attacks and taunts on the Chronicle website, stinks to me of Jim Crow.
My objections were pulled by the Cambridge Chronicle three times. Before the third time, I realized that there were buttons on the comments allowing readers to object to objectionable content. Clearly the sick Cambridge Pols were clicking on that button when they saw comments which meaningfully stood up to them. The third time, I clicked on the buttons associated with the personal attacks and taunts. My comment was pulled. Then the Chronicle shut down public comments.
There was a letter in the Cambridge Chronicle on Thursday objecting to the shutdown of comments.
My letter below, submitted to the Cambridge Chronicle yesterday, omits saying the abuse of the guide dog was done by rogue cops. My letter omits the accurate association of the nine Cambridge City Councilors with the Jim Crow south.
5. Cambridge Chronicle editor position.
The Cambridge Chronicle editor announced the comment shutdown as follows:
**********
Cambridge - Most of the conversations happening at WickedLocal.com/Cambridge are spirited and informational. But a number of them have been just mean-spirited.
With this in mind, we must shut down comments on all our new stories. I personally apologize that we must remove this feature, but until we have the ability to block repeated offenders who wish to spread ignorance, fear and lots of profanity, it must go.
Please keep reading this space for updates, but know there are still ways you can weigh in here on your local news site. Continue to comment on the Chronicle's blog here, where you can talk about all things Cambridge. Feel good about writing a letter to Cambridge@cnc.com which we can publish online. Or call our print-only SpeakOut line at 617-715-5050.
And for those who have kept the conversation clean these past months, thank you. I hope to work with the good folks here to come up with a solution for you soon.
6. Response by your editor to the Cambridge Chronicle editor.
The following, in accordance with Chronicle practice, was sent by me Friday before noon to make it timely for next Thursday's paper:
**********
I think you are to be commended for shutting down what was a nasty situation on line.
Kathy Podgers' interim victory over abuse of her federally guaranteed civil rights by the City of Cambridge exposed the very dirty side of the unified group of Cambridge Pols who keep a nasty situation going by calling it the exact opposite.
When the facts are the opposite of the propaganda, the propaganda gets tossed out anyway. If non stop falsehoods will not work, personal attacks are mercilessly used with the deliberate intent of destroying a person fighting for what the Cambridge Pols falsely claim to stand for.
Cambridge has filthy hands on environmental and civil rights issues.
Cambridge has filthy hands on environmental issues with the worst, but by no means the only, examples being, at Fresh Pond, the needless destruction of perhaps thousands of trees and associated animal habitat in the bizarre project, and, on the Charles River, the heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese as part of the bizarre project.
On civil rights, Cambridge clearly calls itself above federal law. If Cambridge does not protect somebody in its local civil rights ordinance, Cambridge has clearly called itself exempt from Federal laws which do protect people not protected by the Cambridge ordinance. Kathy Podgers has, with success, stood up to this highly irresponsible position and now has two victories at state level.
The Cambridge Pols have responded with great nastiness.
KATHY'S GUIDE DOG HAS BEEN PHYSICALLY ATTACKED. How can anybody be so irresponsible as to attack a guide dog? Well, this is Cambridge, a city governed by holier than thou hypocrisy. So the Cambridge Pols physically attacked her guide dog.
Your report on Kathy's victories was turned into another effort at destroying Kathy rather than obeying the requirements of civil rights law.
Pols abused her on line. Pols mocked her on line. Pols taunted her on line.
Kathy would likely have settled for an apology at the state. The Cambridge Pols will respect nothing less than a big cut of money taken out of the tax rate. Kathy should proceed. What has been physically done to her dog and verbally done to her on line is just part of the problem.
Cambridge politics is a very filthy place and a very hypocritical place.
The Cambridge Chronicle has shut down use of its website as part of standing up to the filthiness.
Thank you.
1. Introduction.
2. Civil Rights a saving grace?
3. No way is Civil Rights a saving grace.
4. Self-censorship. Rogue cops. Jim Crow.
5. Cambridge Chronicle editor position.
6. Response by your editor to the Cambridge Chronicle editor.
1. Introduction.
The truly sick abuse being afflicted on the beautiful and extremely popular Charles River White Geese as part of the bizarre project at Magazine Beach says pretty much everything that needs to be known about nine Cambridge City Councilors and their cohorts at state level. They plan to very quickly make things much worse by destroying the green playing fields at Magazine Beach and replacing the green playing fields with grass maintained by poisons.
The nine hypocrites on the Cambridge City Council extended their reprehensible behavior from heartless treatment of the Charles River White Geese and other Charles River animals to the destruction of the homes and habitat of hundreds if not thousands of free animals living at Fresh Pond. These nine hypocrites have proceeded with a bizarre project at Fresh Pond which, among other things, is destroying thousands of healthy trees to plant one thousand saplings.
2. Civil Rights a saving grace?
Throughout their reprehensible behavior against the Cambridge environment, the apologists for these vile indivuals bragged about the record of the nine on civil rights.
3. No way is Civil Rights a saving grace.
Kathy Podgers has been abused by the Cambridge government for a number of years.
Shopkeepers have more than once barred her guide dog in spite of the clear protections that that guide dog has under Federal law.
The Cambridge government has been unsupportive of Kathy's civil rights. They claimed that Cambridge has its own civil rights laws and thus Cambridge does not have to obey Federal civil rights laws.
A little over a year ago, the Cambridge City Council tried to throw Kathy's guide dog out of a City Council meeting.
Kathy filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. The MCAD now has made two findings of probable cause of discrimination.
4. Self-censorship. Rogue cops. Jim Crow.
The Cambridge Chronicle reported the recent victory both in its hard copy and on line.
The on line edition allows comment on stories. The Cambridge Pols unleashed personal attacks and taunts in at least five to ten written on line attacks on Kathy Podgers. I responded three times with objections to their behavior accordingly.
Last summer, Kathy's guide dog was abused in the public area of the Cambridge Police Station by a bunch of rogue cops (one actor, the rest "failing to protect" the victim). She filed complaint with the department head. I am not aware of any punishment or apology. I commented on that abuse in my response.
Cambridge's selective respect for civil rights strikes me as outrageous. An excellent example is Cambridge insistence that Cambridge's ordinance is good enough and that Federal laws be damned if Federal laws provide more protection than Cambridge's ordinance.
This stinks of Jim Crow. The Jim Crow south had their own Civil Rights laws. The Jim Crow south protected those they thought should be protected. The Jim Crow south was outraged that the Federal government actually expected the Jim Crow south to obey federal civil rights laws. The Jim Crow south used rogue cops to enforce their contempt for civil rights.
Cambridge's treatment of Kathy, including the personal attacks and taunts on the Chronicle website, stinks to me of Jim Crow.
My objections were pulled by the Cambridge Chronicle three times. Before the third time, I realized that there were buttons on the comments allowing readers to object to objectionable content. Clearly the sick Cambridge Pols were clicking on that button when they saw comments which meaningfully stood up to them. The third time, I clicked on the buttons associated with the personal attacks and taunts. My comment was pulled. Then the Chronicle shut down public comments.
There was a letter in the Cambridge Chronicle on Thursday objecting to the shutdown of comments.
My letter below, submitted to the Cambridge Chronicle yesterday, omits saying the abuse of the guide dog was done by rogue cops. My letter omits the accurate association of the nine Cambridge City Councilors with the Jim Crow south.
5. Cambridge Chronicle editor position.
The Cambridge Chronicle editor announced the comment shutdown as follows:
**********
Cambridge - Most of the conversations happening at WickedLocal.com/Cambridge are spirited and informational. But a number of them have been just mean-spirited.
With this in mind, we must shut down comments on all our new stories. I personally apologize that we must remove this feature, but until we have the ability to block repeated offenders who wish to spread ignorance, fear and lots of profanity, it must go.
Please keep reading this space for updates, but know there are still ways you can weigh in here on your local news site. Continue to comment on the Chronicle's blog here, where you can talk about all things Cambridge. Feel good about writing a letter to Cambridge@cnc.com which we can publish online. Or call our print-only SpeakOut line at 617-715-5050.
And for those who have kept the conversation clean these past months, thank you. I hope to work with the good folks here to come up with a solution for you soon.
6. Response by your editor to the Cambridge Chronicle editor.
The following, in accordance with Chronicle practice, was sent by me Friday before noon to make it timely for next Thursday's paper:
**********
I think you are to be commended for shutting down what was a nasty situation on line.
Kathy Podgers' interim victory over abuse of her federally guaranteed civil rights by the City of Cambridge exposed the very dirty side of the unified group of Cambridge Pols who keep a nasty situation going by calling it the exact opposite.
When the facts are the opposite of the propaganda, the propaganda gets tossed out anyway. If non stop falsehoods will not work, personal attacks are mercilessly used with the deliberate intent of destroying a person fighting for what the Cambridge Pols falsely claim to stand for.
Cambridge has filthy hands on environmental and civil rights issues.
Cambridge has filthy hands on environmental issues with the worst, but by no means the only, examples being, at Fresh Pond, the needless destruction of perhaps thousands of trees and associated animal habitat in the bizarre project, and, on the Charles River, the heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese as part of the bizarre project.
On civil rights, Cambridge clearly calls itself above federal law. If Cambridge does not protect somebody in its local civil rights ordinance, Cambridge has clearly called itself exempt from Federal laws which do protect people not protected by the Cambridge ordinance. Kathy Podgers has, with success, stood up to this highly irresponsible position and now has two victories at state level.
The Cambridge Pols have responded with great nastiness.
KATHY'S GUIDE DOG HAS BEEN PHYSICALLY ATTACKED. How can anybody be so irresponsible as to attack a guide dog? Well, this is Cambridge, a city governed by holier than thou hypocrisy. So the Cambridge Pols physically attacked her guide dog.
Your report on Kathy's victories was turned into another effort at destroying Kathy rather than obeying the requirements of civil rights law.
Pols abused her on line. Pols mocked her on line. Pols taunted her on line.
Kathy would likely have settled for an apology at the state. The Cambridge Pols will respect nothing less than a big cut of money taken out of the tax rate. Kathy should proceed. What has been physically done to her dog and verbally done to her on line is just part of the problem.
Cambridge politics is a very filthy place and a very hypocritical place.
The Cambridge Chronicle has shut down use of its website as part of standing up to the filthiness.
Thank you.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Con Game on the Charles from Cambridge City Councillor Craig Kelley
Bob La Trémouille reports:
Cambridge City Councillor Craig Kelley got elected to Cambridge City Council the first time by presenting himself as a meaningful environmental activist.
He played the same game that all the Cambridge Pols and the rest of the hypocrites on the Cambridge City Council do:
Do as I say, not as I do.
In Cambridge that translates into non-stop destruction of that part of the world that only they can destroy while loudly yelling about anything and everything other than their own so reprehensible behavior.
Kelley has discovered the Charles River. Kelley has spent years not wanting to know about Cambridge and the state's consistently reprehensible behavior on the Charles River.
Kelley does not want to know about the 449 to 660 trees slated for destruction by the DCR between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, including every single cherry tree.
Kelley does not want to know about the heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese or the more than three year starvation attack on them by Cambridge and the DCR.
Kelley does not want to know about the bizarre, inexcuseable destruction going on at Magazine Beach which is schedule to get much worse.
Kelley does not want to know about the poisoning of the Charles River AND THE LOCAL WILDLIFE by the dumping of poisons BY THE STATE AND, SOON TO COME, BY HIM on the lands abutting the Charles.
Kelley does not want to know that, in a project strikingly similar to HIS project at Magazine Beach, the Charles River was poisoned by the State from the harbor to the Mass. Ave. Bridge.
Kelley's only comment on the outrage at Magazine Beach came when he learned that a bridge connecting Magazine Beach to the other side of Memorial Drive had been damaged. He specifically said that that FINALLY he had him something to complain about at Magazine Beach. After the destruction of the wetlands, after the heartless starvation, after the bizarre blocking of access between the Charles River and the playing fields, after the destruction of the animal habitat.
Now, Kelley has heard there is something dirty in the Charles near the side facing Magazine Beach of the Longfellow Bridge. Kelley has no reason to think that HE OR HIS BUDDIES might be causing that mess.
So Kelley brought the problem up at Monday's City Council meeting.
What about his own poisoning?
What about all the trees BEHIND HIM, as he stands by the Longfellow Bridge which are slated by the DCR for wasteful destruction as he looks at the dirt HE HOPES somebody else did?
Kelley does not want to know about that.
KELLEY WANTS TO LIE TO HIS CONSTITUENTS that he is DEFENDING the Charles River.
KELLEY WANT TO KEEP HIS CONSTITUENTS FROM LOOKING AT HIS OWN FILTHY HANDS.
Kelley has found something to defend against on the Charles River.
That something could very likely be the results of the POISONING of Ebersol Fields on the other side of the Longfellow bridge and the south side of the Charles River, POISONING BEING FOLLOWED UP WITH BY POISONING SOON TO COME AT MAGAZINE BEACH WITH KELLEY PAYING THE BILL.
But Kelley does not want to know that.
Cambridge City Councillor Craig Kelley got elected to Cambridge City Council the first time by presenting himself as a meaningful environmental activist.
He played the same game that all the Cambridge Pols and the rest of the hypocrites on the Cambridge City Council do:
Do as I say, not as I do.
In Cambridge that translates into non-stop destruction of that part of the world that only they can destroy while loudly yelling about anything and everything other than their own so reprehensible behavior.
Kelley has discovered the Charles River. Kelley has spent years not wanting to know about Cambridge and the state's consistently reprehensible behavior on the Charles River.
Kelley does not want to know about the 449 to 660 trees slated for destruction by the DCR between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, including every single cherry tree.
Kelley does not want to know about the heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese or the more than three year starvation attack on them by Cambridge and the DCR.
Kelley does not want to know about the bizarre, inexcuseable destruction going on at Magazine Beach which is schedule to get much worse.
Kelley does not want to know about the poisoning of the Charles River AND THE LOCAL WILDLIFE by the dumping of poisons BY THE STATE AND, SOON TO COME, BY HIM on the lands abutting the Charles.
Kelley does not want to know that, in a project strikingly similar to HIS project at Magazine Beach, the Charles River was poisoned by the State from the harbor to the Mass. Ave. Bridge.
Kelley's only comment on the outrage at Magazine Beach came when he learned that a bridge connecting Magazine Beach to the other side of Memorial Drive had been damaged. He specifically said that that FINALLY he had him something to complain about at Magazine Beach. After the destruction of the wetlands, after the heartless starvation, after the bizarre blocking of access between the Charles River and the playing fields, after the destruction of the animal habitat.
Now, Kelley has heard there is something dirty in the Charles near the side facing Magazine Beach of the Longfellow Bridge. Kelley has no reason to think that HE OR HIS BUDDIES might be causing that mess.
So Kelley brought the problem up at Monday's City Council meeting.
What about his own poisoning?
What about all the trees BEHIND HIM, as he stands by the Longfellow Bridge which are slated by the DCR for wasteful destruction as he looks at the dirt HE HOPES somebody else did?
Kelley does not want to know about that.
KELLEY WANTS TO LIE TO HIS CONSTITUENTS that he is DEFENDING the Charles River.
KELLEY WANT TO KEEP HIS CONSTITUENTS FROM LOOKING AT HIS OWN FILTHY HANDS.
Kelley has found something to defend against on the Charles River.
That something could very likely be the results of the POISONING of Ebersol Fields on the other side of the Longfellow bridge and the south side of the Charles River, POISONING BEING FOLLOWED UP WITH BY POISONING SOON TO COME AT MAGAZINE BEACH WITH KELLEY PAYING THE BILL.
But Kelley does not want to know that.
Monday, February 11, 2008
MCAD finds probable cause of Cambridge civil rights violations.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
A little over a week ago, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination found probable cause that Cambridge violated the civil rights of Kathy Podgers when Cambridge tried to throw her guide dog out of a Cambridge City Council meeting.
You will recall that Cambridge considers itself above Federal civil rights laws. Cambridge has its own civil rights law, and Cambridge thinks its only duty is to obey ITS civil rights law and that, in Cambridge, people who want more civil rights than Cambridge guarantees are out of luck.
The MCAD is not controlled by Cambridge pols. The MCAD thinks that Cambridge's behavior looks quite unacceptable.
A bunch of rogue cops apparently followed up on the outrage in Cambridge City Council. They followed up by abusing Kathy Podger's guide dog in the lobby of the police station. Last I heard, their fellow police officers continued to treat these rogue cops like police officers.
After all, they are only implementing the clear policy of the Cambridge City Council.
The Cambridge City Council has contempt for civil rights and for guide dogs guaranteed by Federal law.
Nine members of the Cambridge City Council are heartlessly and publicly animal abusers. They have deliberately starved the Charles River White Geese now for more than three years as part of a public works project that only the people paid to do it can love.
And they are heartlessly destroying the animal environment at Fresh Pond while they destroy thousands of healthy trees because the thousands of healthy trees are in the way of a thousand saplings they want to plant.
Hey, so rogue cops implemented their vile positions.
Cambridge, the city in which guide dogs are abused by rogue cops, the city in which civil rights violators call themselves defenders of civil rights, and environmental destroyers and animal abusers call themselves environmentalists.
At least the MCAD stands up to these reprehensible people.
A little over a week ago, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination found probable cause that Cambridge violated the civil rights of Kathy Podgers when Cambridge tried to throw her guide dog out of a Cambridge City Council meeting.
You will recall that Cambridge considers itself above Federal civil rights laws. Cambridge has its own civil rights law, and Cambridge thinks its only duty is to obey ITS civil rights law and that, in Cambridge, people who want more civil rights than Cambridge guarantees are out of luck.
The MCAD is not controlled by Cambridge pols. The MCAD thinks that Cambridge's behavior looks quite unacceptable.
A bunch of rogue cops apparently followed up on the outrage in Cambridge City Council. They followed up by abusing Kathy Podger's guide dog in the lobby of the police station. Last I heard, their fellow police officers continued to treat these rogue cops like police officers.
After all, they are only implementing the clear policy of the Cambridge City Council.
The Cambridge City Council has contempt for civil rights and for guide dogs guaranteed by Federal law.
Nine members of the Cambridge City Council are heartlessly and publicly animal abusers. They have deliberately starved the Charles River White Geese now for more than three years as part of a public works project that only the people paid to do it can love.
And they are heartlessly destroying the animal environment at Fresh Pond while they destroy thousands of healthy trees because the thousands of healthy trees are in the way of a thousand saplings they want to plant.
Hey, so rogue cops implemented their vile positions.
Cambridge, the city in which guide dogs are abused by rogue cops, the city in which civil rights violators call themselves defenders of civil rights, and environmental destroyers and animal abusers call themselves environmentalists.
At least the MCAD stands up to these reprehensible people.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Chronicle on Wolf, Outrageous Wolf Press Release
1. Chronicle Article on Representative Wolf.
2. Wolf's hypocritical press release.
3. Key omission in Wolf on line biography.
4. Environmental outrage starting with the School Committee, continuing to last year.
5. Summary.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Chronicle Article on Representative Wolf.
This morning, I noticed a good sized article in the Cambridge Chronicle's on line edition concerning State Representative Alice Wolf. It is perhaps a precursor to tomorrow's hard copy. They print weekly on Thursdays.
You will recall that, last Saturday, I responded to an on-line, reprehensible piece of hypocrisy from Wolf in which she claimed to be defending the Charles River.
Today's article included not a single word on Wolf's attempted claim to environmental sainthood.
2. Wolf's hypocritical press release.
I followed up by checking her website. She has a press release there which shows the level of hypocrisy to which she will stoop. It may be found at: http://www.alicewolf.org/index.cfm?cdid=10608&pid=10266. This press release gives her outrageous claim to environmental sainthood.
3. Key omission in Wolf on line biography.
I found this outrageous item there looking for Alice Wolf's biography. In particular, I was looking for Alice Wolf's period of service on the Cambridge School Committee.
I think it is telling that Alice Wolf's on line biography does not state when Representative Wolf joined the Cambridge School Committee.
4. Environmental outrage starting with the School Committee, continuing to last year.
Elsewhere on this blog, I thought we had a link to Roy Bercaw's photos of the Public Library site. Right now I cannot find it. After I could not find the link, Roy was kind enough to provide another. It is readily available. Thank you again, Roy.
The Public Library was an environmental masterpiece UNTIL THE CAMBRIDGE CITY GOVERNMENT WITH LEADERSHIP FROM THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL COMMITTEE destroyed that environmental masterpiece.
Between the Public Library and Cambridge Street was a magnificent grove of 30 or more ONE HUNDRED YEAR OLD TREES. It created an excellent frame for the Public Library and visually linked Broadway to Cambridge Street.
The Cambridge School Committee and the Cambridge City Government destroyed two-thirds of those trees for a building which did not have to go on top of those trees.
When the Cambridge School Committee and the Cambridge City Government accomplished this destruction they displayed contempt for the gift of the library site by Frederick Rindge.
Rindge gave the city the Public Library site for use as a library and not for use for regular city purposes "such as a school building." Rindge gave adjacent sites for school construction.
The School Committee and the Cambridge City Government bragged that they were "replacing" the HUNDRED YEAR OLD TREES with saplings on Broadway.
The Cambridge City Government destroyed pretty much all of the saplings for the obvious phase 2 of the project last year.
5. Summary.
So, was Alice Wolf, self-proclaimed and extremely hypocritical environmentalist part of yet another environmental outrage?
The repeated environmental vileness of Cambridge pols is most definitely not limited to the Library site and the Charles River. Wolf is a long time Cambridge pol.
Could the clearly reprehensible behavior on the library site be why Alice Wolf does not give the period during which she served on the Cambridge School Committee?
If it was before her tenure, does she have filthy hands anyway?
The Cambridge Pols, a well organized group of environmentally very destructive hypocrites.
2. Wolf's hypocritical press release.
3. Key omission in Wolf on line biography.
4. Environmental outrage starting with the School Committee, continuing to last year.
5. Summary.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Chronicle Article on Representative Wolf.
This morning, I noticed a good sized article in the Cambridge Chronicle's on line edition concerning State Representative Alice Wolf. It is perhaps a precursor to tomorrow's hard copy. They print weekly on Thursdays.
You will recall that, last Saturday, I responded to an on-line, reprehensible piece of hypocrisy from Wolf in which she claimed to be defending the Charles River.
Today's article included not a single word on Wolf's attempted claim to environmental sainthood.
2. Wolf's hypocritical press release.
I followed up by checking her website. She has a press release there which shows the level of hypocrisy to which she will stoop. It may be found at: http://www.alicewolf.org/index.cfm?cdid=10608&pid=10266. This press release gives her outrageous claim to environmental sainthood.
3. Key omission in Wolf on line biography.
I found this outrageous item there looking for Alice Wolf's biography. In particular, I was looking for Alice Wolf's period of service on the Cambridge School Committee.
I think it is telling that Alice Wolf's on line biography does not state when Representative Wolf joined the Cambridge School Committee.
4. Environmental outrage starting with the School Committee, continuing to last year.
Elsewhere on this blog, I thought we had a link to Roy Bercaw's photos of the Public Library site. Right now I cannot find it. After I could not find the link, Roy was kind enough to provide another. It is readily available. Thank you again, Roy.
The Public Library was an environmental masterpiece UNTIL THE CAMBRIDGE CITY GOVERNMENT WITH LEADERSHIP FROM THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL COMMITTEE destroyed that environmental masterpiece.
Between the Public Library and Cambridge Street was a magnificent grove of 30 or more ONE HUNDRED YEAR OLD TREES. It created an excellent frame for the Public Library and visually linked Broadway to Cambridge Street.
The Cambridge School Committee and the Cambridge City Government destroyed two-thirds of those trees for a building which did not have to go on top of those trees.
When the Cambridge School Committee and the Cambridge City Government accomplished this destruction they displayed contempt for the gift of the library site by Frederick Rindge.
Rindge gave the city the Public Library site for use as a library and not for use for regular city purposes "such as a school building." Rindge gave adjacent sites for school construction.
The School Committee and the Cambridge City Government bragged that they were "replacing" the HUNDRED YEAR OLD TREES with saplings on Broadway.
The Cambridge City Government destroyed pretty much all of the saplings for the obvious phase 2 of the project last year.
5. Summary.
So, was Alice Wolf, self-proclaimed and extremely hypocritical environmentalist part of yet another environmental outrage?
The repeated environmental vileness of Cambridge pols is most definitely not limited to the Library site and the Charles River. Wolf is a long time Cambridge pol.
Could the clearly reprehensible behavior on the library site be why Alice Wolf does not give the period during which she served on the Cambridge School Committee?
If it was before her tenure, does she have filthy hands anyway?
The Cambridge Pols, a well organized group of environmentally very destructive hypocrites.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Representative Wolf Saving the Charles River?
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Introduction. Claim of Wolf to be defending the Charles River.
2. Reconstruction of my Post. I strongly disagreed.
A. Wolf’s Current Record, Ongoing and Continuing Environmental Destruction at Magazine Beach.
B. Related outrage – poisoning the Charles River.
C. Suggestion for constructive action by Representative Wolf — Resign.
3. Explanation of terms. I used the word "lie." It is well intended.
A. Councilor’s Seidel’s Analysis.
B. Comparison of Wolf’s words to Wolf’s Record.
4. Summary. Possible favorable explanation of missing posting.
1. Introduction. Claim of Wolf to be defending the Charles River.
Saturday morning, January 12, 2008, I checked out the Cambridge Chronicle's website at the suggestion of Roy Bercaw. I found a report on an email from Alice Wolf to reporter Erin Smith in which Wolf was claiming that she was getting aggressive in defending the Charles. I filed a response to Representative Wolf. An hour or so later, I checked the Chronicle on line and I was able to find the exchange.
An hour or so after that, I checked it again. At that point, I could not find the exchange, and as of the end of the day, I still could now find the exchange. If anybody reading this report can find the exchange on the Cambridge Chronicle website, I would be very pleased to modify this report accordingly.
2. Reconstruction of my Post. I strongly disagreed.
A. Wolf’s Current Record, Ongoing and Continuing Environmental Destruction at Magazine Beach.
Wolf was claiming that she was getting aggressive in defending the Charles.
I responded that, if Representative Wolf were meaningfully concerned about people destroying the Charles River, she should look in the mirror.
Wolf clearly supports the pending project at Magazine Beach to destroy the GREEN playing fields there and replace the GREEN playing fields with phosphate / poison supported playing fields.
Wolf clearly supported Phase 1 of this outrage commencing in September 2004, in which all wetlands at Magazine Beach, all the protective vegetation at the Magazine Beach playing fields and all the animal habitat at the playing fields were destroyed. The Charles River White Geese commenced to be starved.
Wolf's friends in the Department of Conservation and Recreation had spent four years denying any intent to harm the Charles River White Geese. Wolf's friends say that they, with Wolf's clear blessing, are not harming the geese, they are only starving them.
Wolf's supports this heartless and destructive behavior.
Wolf rather clearly supported and may have participated in a swim-in the following September (not certain of the month) by a bunch of non-profits (at least one with major developer contributors). This swim-in occurred at Magazine Beach and was a well organized photo opportunity. The people in the photo-op bragged that phase 1 would improve swimming in the Charles River.
Phase 1 replaced meaningful environmental entities with a wall of bizarre designer bushes which prevents access between the Magazine Beach playing fields and the Charles River. As is common with the liars so actively destroying the Charles River, phase 1 did exactly the oppositte of "improv[ing] swimming on the Charles River."
These bizarre designer bushes were claimed to be native. These bizarre bushes proved the word "native" false by repeatedly dying.
B. Related outrage – poisoning the Charles River.
The soon to come furtherance of outrage at Magazine Beach by destroying its GREEN character and introducing poisons is not the first such action by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The last such action was at Ebersol Fields on the Boston side of the Charles River near Mass. General Hospital.
The DCR apparently destroyed a GREEN environment and replaced that GREEN environment with an environment sustained by their beloved poisons. The beloved poisons did not work.
About 18 months ago, the DCR applied Tartan herbicide to Ebersol Fields. Tartan’s label prohibits use of Tartan near bodies of water.
THE NEXT DAY, the Charles River was dead from Boston Harbor to the Mass. Ave. Bridge. So now, the Cambridge pols, the DCR and Representative Wolf, want to extend the benefits of replacing GREEN environment maintenance with their beloved poisons at Magazine Beach.
So now, Representative Wolf, who supports this outrage, is making noises about looking into entities damaging the Charles River environment.
C. Suggestion for constructive action by Representative Wolf — Resign.
If Alice Wolf is meaningfully concerned about protective the environment of the Charles River, the best thing she can do is resign in favor of somebody who has not been involved in the environmental lies keyed on the Charles River.
3. Explanation of terms. I used the word "lie." It is well intended.
A. Councilor’s Seidel’s Analysis.
I think Councilor Siedel did the best job imaginable of condemning Cambridge Pols as a bunch of liars on environmental matters in the article he published in the Alewife newspaper which is published elsewhere in these reports. There is a link at the top of the blog page. The URL is http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html.
Siedel, in the Cambridge pol manner, bragged about using words which conveyed the opposite of reality.
Basically Siedel brags that the Cambridge pols have their own SECRET definition of environmentalism. Seidel sniffs that this editor is out of touch when this editor keeps on using the English language definition of environmentalism.
My interpretation of Siedel is that he is accurately branding the Cambridge Pols as a bunch of liars. You do not use secret definitions which exactly reverse the meaning of the words you are using and be anything other than a liar.
B. Comparison of Wolf’s words to Wolf’s Record.
Wolf has been and continues to be on the wrong side of the reprehensible environmental destruction at Magazine Beach. Now she claims to be looking into and trying to prevent damage to the Charles.
The two are mutually inconsistent.
4. Summary. Possible favorable explanation of missing posting.
The Cambridge Chronicle seems to be behaving in a responsible manner in general.
That puts the Cambridge Chronicle at variance with the Cambridge pols.
I hope the Cambridge Chronicle uses this occurrence to provide meaningful reporting on the outrage going on on the Charles River including the participation / willful lack of knowledge of Representative Wolf.
Wolf’s attempt to claim sainthood is very clearly inappropriate.
1. Introduction. Claim of Wolf to be defending the Charles River.
2. Reconstruction of my Post. I strongly disagreed.
A. Wolf’s Current Record, Ongoing and Continuing Environmental Destruction at Magazine Beach.
B. Related outrage – poisoning the Charles River.
C. Suggestion for constructive action by Representative Wolf — Resign.
3. Explanation of terms. I used the word "lie." It is well intended.
A. Councilor’s Seidel’s Analysis.
B. Comparison of Wolf’s words to Wolf’s Record.
4. Summary. Possible favorable explanation of missing posting.
1. Introduction. Claim of Wolf to be defending the Charles River.
Saturday morning, January 12, 2008, I checked out the Cambridge Chronicle's website at the suggestion of Roy Bercaw. I found a report on an email from Alice Wolf to reporter Erin Smith in which Wolf was claiming that she was getting aggressive in defending the Charles. I filed a response to Representative Wolf. An hour or so later, I checked the Chronicle on line and I was able to find the exchange.
An hour or so after that, I checked it again. At that point, I could not find the exchange, and as of the end of the day, I still could now find the exchange. If anybody reading this report can find the exchange on the Cambridge Chronicle website, I would be very pleased to modify this report accordingly.
2. Reconstruction of my Post. I strongly disagreed.
A. Wolf’s Current Record, Ongoing and Continuing Environmental Destruction at Magazine Beach.
Wolf was claiming that she was getting aggressive in defending the Charles.
I responded that, if Representative Wolf were meaningfully concerned about people destroying the Charles River, she should look in the mirror.
Wolf clearly supports the pending project at Magazine Beach to destroy the GREEN playing fields there and replace the GREEN playing fields with phosphate / poison supported playing fields.
Wolf clearly supported Phase 1 of this outrage commencing in September 2004, in which all wetlands at Magazine Beach, all the protective vegetation at the Magazine Beach playing fields and all the animal habitat at the playing fields were destroyed. The Charles River White Geese commenced to be starved.
Wolf's friends in the Department of Conservation and Recreation had spent four years denying any intent to harm the Charles River White Geese. Wolf's friends say that they, with Wolf's clear blessing, are not harming the geese, they are only starving them.
Wolf's supports this heartless and destructive behavior.
Wolf rather clearly supported and may have participated in a swim-in the following September (not certain of the month) by a bunch of non-profits (at least one with major developer contributors). This swim-in occurred at Magazine Beach and was a well organized photo opportunity. The people in the photo-op bragged that phase 1 would improve swimming in the Charles River.
Phase 1 replaced meaningful environmental entities with a wall of bizarre designer bushes which prevents access between the Magazine Beach playing fields and the Charles River. As is common with the liars so actively destroying the Charles River, phase 1 did exactly the oppositte of "improv[ing] swimming on the Charles River."
These bizarre designer bushes were claimed to be native. These bizarre bushes proved the word "native" false by repeatedly dying.
B. Related outrage – poisoning the Charles River.
The soon to come furtherance of outrage at Magazine Beach by destroying its GREEN character and introducing poisons is not the first such action by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The last such action was at Ebersol Fields on the Boston side of the Charles River near Mass. General Hospital.
The DCR apparently destroyed a GREEN environment and replaced that GREEN environment with an environment sustained by their beloved poisons. The beloved poisons did not work.
About 18 months ago, the DCR applied Tartan herbicide to Ebersol Fields. Tartan’s label prohibits use of Tartan near bodies of water.
THE NEXT DAY, the Charles River was dead from Boston Harbor to the Mass. Ave. Bridge. So now, the Cambridge pols, the DCR and Representative Wolf, want to extend the benefits of replacing GREEN environment maintenance with their beloved poisons at Magazine Beach.
So now, Representative Wolf, who supports this outrage, is making noises about looking into entities damaging the Charles River environment.
C. Suggestion for constructive action by Representative Wolf — Resign.
If Alice Wolf is meaningfully concerned about protective the environment of the Charles River, the best thing she can do is resign in favor of somebody who has not been involved in the environmental lies keyed on the Charles River.
3. Explanation of terms. I used the word "lie." It is well intended.
A. Councilor’s Seidel’s Analysis.
I think Councilor Siedel did the best job imaginable of condemning Cambridge Pols as a bunch of liars on environmental matters in the article he published in the Alewife newspaper which is published elsewhere in these reports. There is a link at the top of the blog page. The URL is http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html.
Siedel, in the Cambridge pol manner, bragged about using words which conveyed the opposite of reality.
Basically Siedel brags that the Cambridge pols have their own SECRET definition of environmentalism. Seidel sniffs that this editor is out of touch when this editor keeps on using the English language definition of environmentalism.
My interpretation of Siedel is that he is accurately branding the Cambridge Pols as a bunch of liars. You do not use secret definitions which exactly reverse the meaning of the words you are using and be anything other than a liar.
B. Comparison of Wolf’s words to Wolf’s Record.
Wolf has been and continues to be on the wrong side of the reprehensible environmental destruction at Magazine Beach. Now she claims to be looking into and trying to prevent damage to the Charles.
The two are mutually inconsistent.
4. Summary. Possible favorable explanation of missing posting.
The Cambridge Chronicle seems to be behaving in a responsible manner in general.
That puts the Cambridge Chronicle at variance with the Cambridge pols.
I hope the Cambridge Chronicle uses this occurrence to provide meaningful reporting on the outrage going on on the Charles River including the participation / willful lack of knowledge of Representative Wolf.
Wolf’s attempt to claim sainthood is very clearly inappropriate.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Response to recent publicity about the White Geese
Friends of the White Geese Co-chairs Robert J. La Trémouille and Marilyn Wellons sent the following letter to the Editor of Bostonia, the Boston University alumni magazine. Bostonia's Fall, 2007 issue published an article about the White Geese.
******
To the Editor:
There may be no such thing as bad publicity. However, your recent article on the Charles River White Geese asserts the geese can't fend for themselves in their habitat. This misstatement is not only false but extremely dangerous for the animals and their friends.
For more than 20 years the White Geese did fend for themselves on the river. With waterproof down jackets, acres of meadows for food, an increasingly clean river, and the love of thousands of residents and visitors, they were safe, healthy, and a source of delight and education for their human friends. They enjoyed our contributions of food as much as we enjoyed giving them, but our contributions only supplemented what they independently got from their habitat.
Before September 2004 we had no idea how supplementary our feeding was. That month the DCR-Cambridge "restoration" prevented the geese from going ashore to feed at Magazine Beach. (The fields there have grasses and other plants, including polygonum, a wetland-defining member of the buckwheat family that is an important source of food for waterfowl.) The White Geese were frantic, because they fed here—quite on their own—all day long.
Since then it has been impossible or extremely dangerous for them to feed at Magazine Beach. They have essentially been confined to their nesting area, now their ghetto. This accords with the DCR-Cambridge policy of eliminating them from the river by whatever means necessary. If that includes starvation, too bad for the geese.
A heroic group of people, including the ones featured in your article, have kept the geese from that fate. The geese’s need for such help now is not proof they have always needed it or always will. They undeniably fended for themselves until the DCR and Cambridge deliberately denied them access to food. (This followed the DCR's deliberate destruction of the nesting habitat, using Boston University as its agent, in 1999.)
Saying the geese can't survive in their entire habitat will also allow the DCR and Cambridge to claim the geese shouldn't be there—that they're pets or farm animals, not natives—and should be removed (read: destroyed). This has in fact been the agency's line since 1998, as indicated in a memo Friends of the White Geese obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and in subsequent DCR-Cambridge actions.
Will ignorance of this history condemn us to repeat what followed from that memo?
• In 2000, the MSPCA, working with the DCR and then-State Rep. Barrios, offered "humane measures" to deal with the 1998 memo’s fabricated problems with the geese. When Friends of the White Geese proposed "humane measures" for Rep. Barrios, he claimed we wanted to assassinate him.
• In 2001, the MSPCA, still working with the DCR, again offered "humane treatment" at its happy farm in Methuen to save the geese from DCR-instigated violence. Three people, including an MSPCA employee, independently told [us] the animals would be destroyed there.
• Since 2000, the DCR has claimed it doesn’t intend to harm the geese. Since the starvation began in September, 2004, the DCR has announced that starving the geese is not harming them.
If Boston University, once again the DCR's agent, tells us the White Geese—Charles River natives for 25 generations—aren’t fit to live on the river, what's up? Can we expect another offer of "humane treatment"? DCR "No-Feeding" signs in Cambridge like in Boston and arrests of people who do feed them? More vilification of a "non-native species," more violence?
There’s a simple remedy for the geese's current plight. Restore them to their entire habitat. Recognize it as habitat, the wildlife sanctuary it is. Recognize the White Geese as the treasure they are: sources of delight and knowledge of the natural world, symbols of Cambridge, Boston, the Charles River, and even Boston University, and a sentinel species that warns us of threats to their, and our, habitat here.
With this recognition of the status quo before the DCR, Cambridge, and Boston University began their attacks on them, the Charles River White Geese would be fine.
******
To the Editor:
There may be no such thing as bad publicity. However, your recent article on the Charles River White Geese asserts the geese can't fend for themselves in their habitat. This misstatement is not only false but extremely dangerous for the animals and their friends.
For more than 20 years the White Geese did fend for themselves on the river. With waterproof down jackets, acres of meadows for food, an increasingly clean river, and the love of thousands of residents and visitors, they were safe, healthy, and a source of delight and education for their human friends. They enjoyed our contributions of food as much as we enjoyed giving them, but our contributions only supplemented what they independently got from their habitat.
Before September 2004 we had no idea how supplementary our feeding was. That month the DCR-Cambridge "restoration" prevented the geese from going ashore to feed at Magazine Beach. (The fields there have grasses and other plants, including polygonum, a wetland-defining member of the buckwheat family that is an important source of food for waterfowl.) The White Geese were frantic, because they fed here—quite on their own—all day long.
Since then it has been impossible or extremely dangerous for them to feed at Magazine Beach. They have essentially been confined to their nesting area, now their ghetto. This accords with the DCR-Cambridge policy of eliminating them from the river by whatever means necessary. If that includes starvation, too bad for the geese.
A heroic group of people, including the ones featured in your article, have kept the geese from that fate. The geese’s need for such help now is not proof they have always needed it or always will. They undeniably fended for themselves until the DCR and Cambridge deliberately denied them access to food. (This followed the DCR's deliberate destruction of the nesting habitat, using Boston University as its agent, in 1999.)
Saying the geese can't survive in their entire habitat will also allow the DCR and Cambridge to claim the geese shouldn't be there—that they're pets or farm animals, not natives—and should be removed (read: destroyed). This has in fact been the agency's line since 1998, as indicated in a memo Friends of the White Geese obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and in subsequent DCR-Cambridge actions.
Will ignorance of this history condemn us to repeat what followed from that memo?
• In 2000, the MSPCA, working with the DCR and then-State Rep. Barrios, offered "humane measures" to deal with the 1998 memo’s fabricated problems with the geese. When Friends of the White Geese proposed "humane measures" for Rep. Barrios, he claimed we wanted to assassinate him.
• In 2001, the MSPCA, still working with the DCR, again offered "humane treatment" at its happy farm in Methuen to save the geese from DCR-instigated violence. Three people, including an MSPCA employee, independently told [us] the animals would be destroyed there.
• Since 2000, the DCR has claimed it doesn’t intend to harm the geese. Since the starvation began in September, 2004, the DCR has announced that starving the geese is not harming them.
If Boston University, once again the DCR's agent, tells us the White Geese—Charles River natives for 25 generations—aren’t fit to live on the river, what's up? Can we expect another offer of "humane treatment"? DCR "No-Feeding" signs in Cambridge like in Boston and arrests of people who do feed them? More vilification of a "non-native species," more violence?
There’s a simple remedy for the geese's current plight. Restore them to their entire habitat. Recognize it as habitat, the wildlife sanctuary it is. Recognize the White Geese as the treasure they are: sources of delight and knowledge of the natural world, symbols of Cambridge, Boston, the Charles River, and even Boston University, and a sentinel species that warns us of threats to their, and our, habitat here.
With this recognition of the status quo before the DCR, Cambridge, and Boston University began their attacks on them, the Charles River White Geese would be fine.
Developer type claims to have lost 30 acres of wasteland which existed for up to 30 years in Cambridgeport.
Bob La Trémouille reports.
1. General.
2. Bad Guy, November 19, 2007.
3. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
4. Bad Guy, November 15, 2007.
5. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
6. Allston Community Development Corporation, November 15, 2007.
1. General.
Folks,
The following exchange started on the Cambridgeport listserve and continued.
It has reached the point of typical absurdity when dealing on development matters.
This is a typical tactic from the development lobby. Wear down the good guy with bizarre detail. To respect such demands belittles the statement of the good guy.
In this case, I compared Harvard's landbanking at the Shaw's on Western Avenue in Allston to the highly destructive landbanking which MIT did in Cambridgeport starting in about 1968 with the purchase of the Simplex properties.
MIT created a grassy expanse which reached 30 acres in the middle of one of the most densely developed cities in the United States.
This wasteland destroyed the viability of Central Square in Cambridge by destroying hundreds if not thousands of jobs and the money those people would spend in Central Square.
The wasteland was a blight on Cambridge starting with the eastern side of Brookline Street and extending blocks over to and behind what was then the NECCO factory at Albany and Mass. Ave.
The remnants on Brookline Street are blocks of construction from the 90's to 00's where for decades there was nothing but grass.
So the bad guy wants me to spell out to the bad guy where this 30 acre wasteland was for a period of up to 30 years in this neighborhood.
This sort of question from an outsider makes excellent sense.
This sort of question from somebody who knows Cambridge is an insult. You do not lose 30 acres of wasteland in one of the country's most densely developed cities.
The following exchange followed based on my analysis.
You may read from the bottom if you wish or just start with the nonsense.
Thank you.
2. Bad Guy, November 19, 2007.
[censored to protect the guilty] wrote:
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:36:23 -0500
From: [censored to protect the guilty]
To: "Bob LaTrémouille"
Subject: Re: [cportneighbors] Governor Patrick Coming to Affordable Housing in Near Part of Allston Tomorrow
I am not telling you anything, rather I am asking you a question to which your reply was not responsive. Addresses on Brookline or "I don't know" would be examples of responsive answers. If you want to provide additional history or links beyond the answer to my specific question, that's fine by me.
3. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
On 11/15/07, Bob LaTrémouille wrote:
Golley Gee, I guess we are now being told that
(1) the 70's, 80's and 90's did not happen and
(2) Central Square was not destroyed by the landbanking in Cambridgeport by MIT, and
(3) there was never a wasteland of many, many acres east of Brookline Street.
I am afraid I have always lived in reality and we did live in reality during that outrage.
4. Bad Guy, November 15, 2007.
[censored to protect the guilty] wrote:
Do you know which of the buildings on Brookline St. are part of the MIT landbank, and if there are plans floating out there somewhere for what MIT is going to do with its land in the future?
5. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
On 11/15/07, Bob LaTrémouille wrote [to the Cambridgeport listserve]:
For your information.
These units are off Everett Street in Allston between the Mass. Pike and North Beacon Street. A lot is going on in this part of Allston which impacts Riverside and Cambridgeport.
Everett Street is the major street which crosses Western Avenue just before the Shaw's Shopping Center.
You will recall that Harvard's landbanking has turned the Shaw's Shopping Center into a ghost town worthy of MIT's landbanking in Cambridgeport. Harvard is trying and apparently succeeding in forcing affordable housing tenants from the project at North Harvard and Western to the Shaw's shopping center as part of Harvard's expansion in Allston.
The project where the governor is coming is three to four blocks south of the Shaw's site.
The project where the governor is coming is quite close to Union Square, Allston.
Additionally, many people are interested in affordable housing and could be in this nearby townhouse type of construction.
6. Allston Community Development Corporation, November 15, 2007.
Bob Van Meter < vanmeter@allstonbrightoncdc.org> wrote:
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:01:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Bob Van Meter < vanmeter@allstonbrightoncdc.org>
To: boblat@yahoo.com
Subject: Governor Patrick Coming to the Brian J. Honan Apartments Tomorrow
Governor Patrick Coming Tomorrow to the Brian J. Honan Apartments
Please join Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino, Rep. Kevin Honan and the Allston Brighton CDC at the Brian J. Honan apartments at 33 Everett Street in Allston tomorrow, Friday November 16, at 11 AM. Governor Patrick has chosen the site for the release of his Affordable Housing Bond Bill.
The Brian J. Honan apartments are 50 units of affordable rental housing for families, developed and owned by the Allston Brighton CDC. The housing was named in honor of the late Allston Brighton City Councilor Brian J. Honan who was instrumental in securing the site for the homes that now bear his name.
The Brian J. Honan Apartments were made possible by a unique partnership including suppport from the City of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Harvard University, the Home Funders Collaborative, Massachusetts Housing Partnership, Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, Bank of America, the Massachusetts Life Insurance Community Investment Initiative , Mass Development, Boston Community Capital and the Renewable Energy Trust of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
Allston Brighton CDC
320 Washington Street
Brighton, Massachusetts 02135
617-787-3874
info@allstonbrightoncdc.org
www.allstonbrightoncdc.org
[They had some lovely graphics which got lost]
1. General.
2. Bad Guy, November 19, 2007.
3. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
4. Bad Guy, November 15, 2007.
5. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
6. Allston Community Development Corporation, November 15, 2007.
1. General.
Folks,
The following exchange started on the Cambridgeport listserve and continued.
It has reached the point of typical absurdity when dealing on development matters.
This is a typical tactic from the development lobby. Wear down the good guy with bizarre detail. To respect such demands belittles the statement of the good guy.
In this case, I compared Harvard's landbanking at the Shaw's on Western Avenue in Allston to the highly destructive landbanking which MIT did in Cambridgeport starting in about 1968 with the purchase of the Simplex properties.
MIT created a grassy expanse which reached 30 acres in the middle of one of the most densely developed cities in the United States.
This wasteland destroyed the viability of Central Square in Cambridge by destroying hundreds if not thousands of jobs and the money those people would spend in Central Square.
The wasteland was a blight on Cambridge starting with the eastern side of Brookline Street and extending blocks over to and behind what was then the NECCO factory at Albany and Mass. Ave.
The remnants on Brookline Street are blocks of construction from the 90's to 00's where for decades there was nothing but grass.
So the bad guy wants me to spell out to the bad guy where this 30 acre wasteland was for a period of up to 30 years in this neighborhood.
This sort of question from an outsider makes excellent sense.
This sort of question from somebody who knows Cambridge is an insult. You do not lose 30 acres of wasteland in one of the country's most densely developed cities.
The following exchange followed based on my analysis.
You may read from the bottom if you wish or just start with the nonsense.
Thank you.
2. Bad Guy, November 19, 2007.
[censored to protect the guilty] wrote:
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:36:23 -0500
From: [censored to protect the guilty]
To: "Bob LaTrémouille"
Subject: Re: [cportneighbors] Governor Patrick Coming to Affordable Housing in Near Part of Allston Tomorrow
I am not telling you anything, rather I am asking you a question to which your reply was not responsive. Addresses on Brookline or "I don't know" would be examples of responsive answers. If you want to provide additional history or links beyond the answer to my specific question, that's fine by me.
3. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
On 11/15/07, Bob LaTrémouille
Golley Gee, I guess we are now being told that
(1) the 70's, 80's and 90's did not happen and
(2) Central Square was not destroyed by the landbanking in Cambridgeport by MIT, and
(3) there was never a wasteland of many, many acres east of Brookline Street.
I am afraid I have always lived in reality and we did live in reality during that outrage.
4. Bad Guy, November 15, 2007.
[censored to protect the guilty] wrote:
Do you know which of the buildings on Brookline St. are part of the MIT landbank, and if there are plans floating out there somewhere for what MIT is going to do with its land in the future?
5. Your editor, November 15, 2007.
On 11/15/07, Bob LaTrémouille
For your information.
These units are off Everett Street in Allston between the Mass. Pike and North Beacon Street. A lot is going on in this part of Allston which impacts Riverside and Cambridgeport.
Everett Street is the major street which crosses Western Avenue just before the Shaw's Shopping Center.
You will recall that Harvard's landbanking has turned the Shaw's Shopping Center into a ghost town worthy of MIT's landbanking in Cambridgeport. Harvard is trying and apparently succeeding in forcing affordable housing tenants from the project at North Harvard and Western to the Shaw's shopping center as part of Harvard's expansion in Allston.
The project where the governor is coming is three to four blocks south of the Shaw's site.
The project where the governor is coming is quite close to Union Square, Allston.
Additionally, many people are interested in affordable housing and could be in this nearby townhouse type of construction.
6. Allston Community Development Corporation, November 15, 2007.
Bob Van Meter < vanmeter@allstonbrightoncdc.org> wrote:
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:01:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Bob Van Meter < vanmeter@allstonbrightoncdc.org>
To: boblat@yahoo.com
Subject: Governor Patrick Coming to the Brian J. Honan Apartments Tomorrow
Governor Patrick Coming Tomorrow to the Brian J. Honan Apartments
Please join Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino, Rep. Kevin Honan and the Allston Brighton CDC at the Brian J. Honan apartments at 33 Everett Street in Allston tomorrow, Friday November 16, at 11 AM. Governor Patrick has chosen the site for the release of his Affordable Housing Bond Bill.
The Brian J. Honan apartments are 50 units of affordable rental housing for families, developed and owned by the Allston Brighton CDC. The housing was named in honor of the late Allston Brighton City Councilor Brian J. Honan who was instrumental in securing the site for the homes that now bear his name.
The Brian J. Honan Apartments were made possible by a unique partnership including suppport from the City of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Harvard University, the Home Funders Collaborative, Massachusetts Housing Partnership, Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, Bank of America, the Massachusetts Life Insurance Community Investment Initiative , Mass Development, Boston Community Capital and the Renewable Energy Trust of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
Allston Brighton CDC
320 Washington Street
Brighton, Massachusetts 02135
617-787-3874
info@allstonbrightoncdc.org
www.allstonbrightoncdc.org
[They had some lovely graphics which got lost]
Friday, November 09, 2007
Newly Elected Cambridge City Councilor in Context
Progressive Government in Cambridge Takes Yet Another Step Backwards
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. General Analysis.
2. Specific current issues.
A. Civil rights and the right of the handicapped, Kathy Podgers in context.
B. Environmentalism.
C. Election law.
D. Development issues.
3. Comparison to the Walsh law firm.
A. General.
B. The Boston Globe series and the Worcester bankruptcy records.
4. Summary.
5. Disclaimer.
1. General Analysis.
Samuel Seidel was elected to the Cambridge City Council on Tuesday.
This gives the really destructive fake progressive clique, the Cambridge pols, an outrageous 6 to 3 margin. The other 3 are most definitely not good guys. They just do not care and go along with the destructive group.
To give you a feel for just how destructive Seidel is, please look at the following analysis from this blog, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html. In this report, Seidel brags about that he and the rest of the Cambridge pols have a secret definition of "environmentalism." The secret definition of "environmentalism" by the Cambridge pols is highly destructive of the environment.
2. Specific current issues.
A. Civil rights and the right of the handicapped, Kathy Podgers in context.
The sort of treatment Kathy Podgers got by people who almost certainly are owned by the Cambridge pols group is just one part of the tactics of the Cambridge pols.
Kathy Podgers has the nerve to expect the City of Cambridge to respect her Civil Rights as a Person With Disabilities under federal law.
The City of Cambridge contends that the City of Cambridge has its own civil rights laws. The City of Cambridge's law does not protect people like Kathy. The City of Cambridge says that their civil rights and disabilities laws are good enough. How dare anybody expect them to respect Federal civil rights and disabilities laws.
Strange, the Cambridge position sounds a lot like the Jim Crow south.
No wonder the friends of the Cambridge pols are running around making personal attacks against Kathy. There is nothing which offends these people more than somebody who meaningfully stands for causes they are lying about.
B. Environmentalism.
Environmentalism is just the most blatantly vile behavior of these people.
Civil rights is another area in which the Cambridge pols have contempt for decency. Their position has the stench of 50's Jim Crow: they have their civil rights laws; how dare anybody expect the Cambridge pols to obey Federal civil rights laws.
C. Election law.
When I first ran for Cambridge City Councilor four years ago, the Cambridge Election Commission tossed out 51 of 100 nominating signatures. 100 signatures is the maximum which can be submitted. 50 is the absolute minimum to get on the ballot.
The 51 were tossed out because the Cambridge Election Commission refuses to obey the 1998 Jack E. Robinson ballot law case. There is nothing complicated about it. The Cambridge Election Commission simply refuses to obey the 1998 Jack E. Robinson election law case. And the 1998 Jack E. Robinson election law case is very clearly controlling. BY VOTE OF AN ELECTION COMMISSION STACKED WITH LAWYERS WHO CLAIM TO BE PROGRESSIVE.
The most illuminating explanation I ever got for the trashing of those 51 signatures in spite of the very clearly applicable Jack E. Robinson ballot law case was "That is the way things are done in Cambridge."
"That is the way things are done in Cambridge" has the stench of 1950's Jim Crow.
"That is the way things are done in Cambridge" has a very clear stench of lawlessness for which many governments in this country have been roundly held in contempt.
"That is the way things are done in Cambridge" exactly fits the current Cambridge city government.
D. Development issues.
Development issues, of course, are a web of lies.
Reality is that the Cambridge pols are living a lie.
There is a very definite and very strong stench about Cambridge City Government.
3. Comparison to the Walsh law firm.
A. General.
The last time I smelled such a stench was when I tried to do legal business with Cambridge's Walsh law firm in the mid to late 80's.
Bill Walsh was, politically, a very good friend, a person whom I respected politically in spite of major political disagreement on one specific issue (in sharp contrast to the current situation), but the Walsh law office had that stench about it when I did legal business with it.
A number of members of that law office went to jail in the early 90's because of lack of respect for laws which people go to jail for violating.
B. The Boston Globe series and the Worcester bankruptcy records.
The Globe did a three part series on the Walsh law office as the case was unfolding. The Globe documented legally questionable maneuverings in specific, limited parts of the state in the first and third parts of the series (Friday and Sunday). They did an excellent job. They provided an incredible amount of detail.
The middle part expanded on the analysis of the problem by providing related instances in other parts of the state, not the massive detail, but very clear facts expanding the analysis.
The middle part was based on a bankruptcy filing in Worcester by a person who never lived more than two blocks or so from Porter Square in Cambridge.
I had been checking out Boston Land Court records concerning the Walsh matter and another person related to Walsh when I was led to the individual who filed this bankruptcy. When I realized he had filed in Worcester, all sorts of bells went off.
The bankruptcy petition said one thing originally. The bankruptcy petition was amended AFTER the Walsh indictment to add the things which were the middle report in the Boston Globe series.
The amendments related to the Walsh indictment. The amendments related to matters for which Walsh was indicted. The "failure" to include these items in the original filing combined with the addition after the indictment said to me that the filer considered the indictment directly related to the filer's "bankruptcy estate." The preceding sentence should be considered an understatement.
When I saw what was in in those amendments after the Walsh indictment, my response disrupted a very quiet courthouse.
4. Summary.
Mr. Seidel by his incredible position on the definition of environmentalism and by his Conservation Commission actions has gone on record as part of the current stench.
5. Disclaimer.
In no way should my current analysis be interpreted as saying that I have legal grounds to think there are valid grounds for anybody currently in Cambridge city government to go to jail.
The reality was that, when I was trying to do legal business with the Walsh law firm in the mid to late 1980's, I saw the same contempt for law and contempt for reality which I see in the current Cambridge city government.
In the Walsh law firm of the 80's as now, I did not see any reason why people should go to jail. In the Walsh law firm of the 80's as now, I just saw contempt for law and for reality.
I see contempt for law and for reality in Cambridge city government now. I saw contempt for law and for reality in the Walsh law firm in the 80's.
The current problem is most definitely much larger than one person added to the Cambridge City Council. The current problem is most definitely much larger than six people plus three on the Cambridge City Council.
The current problem is a package which stinks to high heaven and there are a very large number of people involved.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. General Analysis.
2. Specific current issues.
A. Civil rights and the right of the handicapped, Kathy Podgers in context.
B. Environmentalism.
C. Election law.
D. Development issues.
3. Comparison to the Walsh law firm.
A. General.
B. The Boston Globe series and the Worcester bankruptcy records.
4. Summary.
5. Disclaimer.
1. General Analysis.
Samuel Seidel was elected to the Cambridge City Council on Tuesday.
This gives the really destructive fake progressive clique, the Cambridge pols, an outrageous 6 to 3 margin. The other 3 are most definitely not good guys. They just do not care and go along with the destructive group.
To give you a feel for just how destructive Seidel is, please look at the following analysis from this blog, http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html. In this report, Seidel brags about that he and the rest of the Cambridge pols have a secret definition of "environmentalism." The secret definition of "environmentalism" by the Cambridge pols is highly destructive of the environment.
2. Specific current issues.
A. Civil rights and the right of the handicapped, Kathy Podgers in context.
The sort of treatment Kathy Podgers got by people who almost certainly are owned by the Cambridge pols group is just one part of the tactics of the Cambridge pols.
Kathy Podgers has the nerve to expect the City of Cambridge to respect her Civil Rights as a Person With Disabilities under federal law.
The City of Cambridge contends that the City of Cambridge has its own civil rights laws. The City of Cambridge's law does not protect people like Kathy. The City of Cambridge says that their civil rights and disabilities laws are good enough. How dare anybody expect them to respect Federal civil rights and disabilities laws.
Strange, the Cambridge position sounds a lot like the Jim Crow south.
No wonder the friends of the Cambridge pols are running around making personal attacks against Kathy. There is nothing which offends these people more than somebody who meaningfully stands for causes they are lying about.
B. Environmentalism.
Environmentalism is just the most blatantly vile behavior of these people.
Civil rights is another area in which the Cambridge pols have contempt for decency. Their position has the stench of 50's Jim Crow: they have their civil rights laws; how dare anybody expect the Cambridge pols to obey Federal civil rights laws.
C. Election law.
When I first ran for Cambridge City Councilor four years ago, the Cambridge Election Commission tossed out 51 of 100 nominating signatures. 100 signatures is the maximum which can be submitted. 50 is the absolute minimum to get on the ballot.
The 51 were tossed out because the Cambridge Election Commission refuses to obey the 1998 Jack E. Robinson ballot law case. There is nothing complicated about it. The Cambridge Election Commission simply refuses to obey the 1998 Jack E. Robinson election law case. And the 1998 Jack E. Robinson election law case is very clearly controlling. BY VOTE OF AN ELECTION COMMISSION STACKED WITH LAWYERS WHO CLAIM TO BE PROGRESSIVE.
The most illuminating explanation I ever got for the trashing of those 51 signatures in spite of the very clearly applicable Jack E. Robinson ballot law case was "That is the way things are done in Cambridge."
"That is the way things are done in Cambridge" has the stench of 1950's Jim Crow.
"That is the way things are done in Cambridge" has a very clear stench of lawlessness for which many governments in this country have been roundly held in contempt.
"That is the way things are done in Cambridge" exactly fits the current Cambridge city government.
D. Development issues.
Development issues, of course, are a web of lies.
Reality is that the Cambridge pols are living a lie.
There is a very definite and very strong stench about Cambridge City Government.
3. Comparison to the Walsh law firm.
A. General.
The last time I smelled such a stench was when I tried to do legal business with Cambridge's Walsh law firm in the mid to late 80's.
Bill Walsh was, politically, a very good friend, a person whom I respected politically in spite of major political disagreement on one specific issue (in sharp contrast to the current situation), but the Walsh law office had that stench about it when I did legal business with it.
A number of members of that law office went to jail in the early 90's because of lack of respect for laws which people go to jail for violating.
B. The Boston Globe series and the Worcester bankruptcy records.
The Globe did a three part series on the Walsh law office as the case was unfolding. The Globe documented legally questionable maneuverings in specific, limited parts of the state in the first and third parts of the series (Friday and Sunday). They did an excellent job. They provided an incredible amount of detail.
The middle part expanded on the analysis of the problem by providing related instances in other parts of the state, not the massive detail, but very clear facts expanding the analysis.
The middle part was based on a bankruptcy filing in Worcester by a person who never lived more than two blocks or so from Porter Square in Cambridge.
I had been checking out Boston Land Court records concerning the Walsh matter and another person related to Walsh when I was led to the individual who filed this bankruptcy. When I realized he had filed in Worcester, all sorts of bells went off.
The bankruptcy petition said one thing originally. The bankruptcy petition was amended AFTER the Walsh indictment to add the things which were the middle report in the Boston Globe series.
The amendments related to the Walsh indictment. The amendments related to matters for which Walsh was indicted. The "failure" to include these items in the original filing combined with the addition after the indictment said to me that the filer considered the indictment directly related to the filer's "bankruptcy estate." The preceding sentence should be considered an understatement.
When I saw what was in in those amendments after the Walsh indictment, my response disrupted a very quiet courthouse.
4. Summary.
Mr. Seidel by his incredible position on the definition of environmentalism and by his Conservation Commission actions has gone on record as part of the current stench.
5. Disclaimer.
In no way should my current analysis be interpreted as saying that I have legal grounds to think there are valid grounds for anybody currently in Cambridge city government to go to jail.
The reality was that, when I was trying to do legal business with the Walsh law firm in the mid to late 1980's, I saw the same contempt for law and contempt for reality which I see in the current Cambridge city government.
In the Walsh law firm of the 80's as now, I did not see any reason why people should go to jail. In the Walsh law firm of the 80's as now, I just saw contempt for law and for reality.
I see contempt for law and for reality in Cambridge city government now. I saw contempt for law and for reality in the Walsh law firm in the 80's.
The current problem is most definitely much larger than one person added to the Cambridge City Council. The current problem is most definitely much larger than six people plus three on the Cambridge City Council.
The current problem is a package which stinks to high heaven and there are a very large number of people involved.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Rumor campaign against Kathy Podgers
Friends of a friend who saw City Council candidate Kathy Podgers on Sunday's CCTV debate called her to say they were impressed. Kathy was solid on the issues, thoughtful, and she didn't seem like a "nut case."
Where could they have gotten the idea she was a "nut case"?
This is the rumor the bad guys have been spreading about Kathy.
It repeats the slander against her at the Cambridge City Council meeting a year ago when city officials mocked, threatened, and publicly humiliated her to try to silence her and get her out of the Council chamber.
They violated her civil rights to attend and participate in the Council meeting as a person with a physical disability accompanied by her service animal. The Mass. Commission Against Discrimination found "Probable Cause" to believe city officials (including two candidates for re-election) discriminated against her as she said. The persons named in Kathy's complaint are encouraged to resolve the problem before a public hearing set for December 12.
In attempting to dismiss Kathy as a "nut case," anyone spreading this rumor simply confirms his or her own bias against persons with disabilities. Would a rumor using the "N word" about a candidate spread without revealing the rumor-mongers as bigots?
On the one hand we read that mental illness is a true disability, that its sufferers have a right to respect and dignity. On the other we have people right here in Cambridge using the designation to indicate a person can be ignored or abused with impunity. Whether they apply this or other derogatory terms to a person with mental illness or a person with a physical disability, like Kathy, it is bigotry, and it plays to bigotry.
Who, and what, is sick here?
Marilyn Wellons
Where could they have gotten the idea she was a "nut case"?
This is the rumor the bad guys have been spreading about Kathy.
It repeats the slander against her at the Cambridge City Council meeting a year ago when city officials mocked, threatened, and publicly humiliated her to try to silence her and get her out of the Council chamber.
They violated her civil rights to attend and participate in the Council meeting as a person with a physical disability accompanied by her service animal. The Mass. Commission Against Discrimination found "Probable Cause" to believe city officials (including two candidates for re-election) discriminated against her as she said. The persons named in Kathy's complaint are encouraged to resolve the problem before a public hearing set for December 12.
In attempting to dismiss Kathy as a "nut case," anyone spreading this rumor simply confirms his or her own bias against persons with disabilities. Would a rumor using the "N word" about a candidate spread without revealing the rumor-mongers as bigots?
On the one hand we read that mental illness is a true disability, that its sufferers have a right to respect and dignity. On the other we have people right here in Cambridge using the designation to indicate a person can be ignored or abused with impunity. Whether they apply this or other derogatory terms to a person with mental illness or a person with a physical disability, like Kathy, it is bigotry, and it plays to bigotry.
Who, and what, is sick here?
Marilyn Wellons
Cambridge Pol Advertises for Election Help, Withdraws Ad
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Ad on Craigslist.
2. Responses.
3. Counterad.
4. Ad pulled.
1. Ad on Craigslist.
The following ad appeared on Craigslist on November 2, 2007 with regard to Cambridge, MA:
**********
Progressive candidate for city council is looking for last minute help Monday
and Tuesday. The campaign is very tight and we are looking for the final push to
take us over the top.
Are you a leader? Put together a team and we will pay you more!
Support Workers' Rights! Make Housing Affordable! End the War!
2. Responses.
I distributed a copy of the ad to perhaps a hundred of my closest friends.
One suggested that it sounded like Decker or Seidel.
3. Counterad.
I posted the following counterad on Sunday, November 5. The PPS was added after the suggestion that it could be Decker or Seidel.
************
Work for a “Progressive” Cambridge City Councilor?
A recent posting sought workers for a “progressive” Cambridge City Councilor.
There is no such thing.
A recent MCAD ruling found probable cause of discrimination in the City Council’s attempt to keep a handicapped woman in her 60’s from using her guide dog in a city council meeting. Cambridge is appealing.
Cambridge seems to claim that Cambridge has a right to ignore federal civil rights of the handicapped because Cambridge has their own civil rights laws which do not protect this woman’s dog. They want to obey their less protective laws, not the fed’s more protective laws. Sounds like state’s rights in the Jim Crow south, but this is worse. Cambridge may think it is a People’s Republik, but it is not even a state.
The City of Cambridge is in the process of destroying hundreds if not thousands of healthy trees at Fresh Pond. Cambridge has no problem with the state Department of Recreation and Development’s plans to destroy 449 to 660 trees on Memorial Drive between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge including every cherry tree. Cambridge routinely destroys healthy trees as part of its projects.
Cambridge and the DCR destroyed the wetlands and animal habitat at Magazine Beach to put in designer bushes which kept dying.
The feds have prohibited more phosphate addition to the Charles. Cambridge and the DCR are digging up seven acres of dirt at Magazine Beach to replace it with seven acres of dirt and phosphates.
Cambridge’s buddies at the DCR spent four years denying their plans would harm the 25 year resident gaggle of Charles River White Geese. They then explained that starving them is not harming them.
Their buddies did a similar project at Ebersol Fields near Mass. General last year. The Phosphates did not work, so they added Tartan. The next day, the Charles River was dead with algae from the harbor to Mass. Ave.
A young woman was raped and murdered near the BU Bridge apparently by a guy who graduated from killing mother geese on their nests. The DCR and Cambridge were belligerently neutral on the goose killings. Then Cambridge’s city council spent more than an hour discussing the rape and murder but DID NOT WANT TO KNOW where she was raped and murdered.
Will Cambridge and the DCR obey the feds on phosphates? Cambridge considers its rules more important than the fed’s when it comes to Cambridge abusing the handicapped.
PS: The guide dog was attacked by a pit bull belonging to a Cambridge cop in the lobby of the Cambridge police station. No negative comment by Cambridge city council and no known punishment of the cop.
PPS: I just reread the posting and realize that this could be a non-incumbent. One non-incumbent has previously posted on Craigslist and claims to be progressive.
He is a member of the Cambridge Conservation Commission who, I believe, has been on the scene since after the rape and murder. His hand are filthy with the environmental destruction after that.
He has publicly defended Cambridge pols’ environmental destructiveness claiming that they have a “better” definition of environmentalism.
Sounds roughly like the claim of the City Council to defend their barring the guide dog, and their apparent response to the EPA objection to their new phosphates.
Most of us live in reality.
4. Ad pulled.
As of this morning, November 5, when I checked Craigslist, the "progressive" Cambridge City Council candidate seems to have pulled the ad.
1. Ad on Craigslist.
2. Responses.
3. Counterad.
4. Ad pulled.
1. Ad on Craigslist.
The following ad appeared on Craigslist on November 2, 2007 with regard to Cambridge, MA:
**********
Progressive candidate for city council is looking for last minute help Monday
and Tuesday. The campaign is very tight and we are looking for the final push to
take us over the top.
Are you a leader? Put together a team and we will pay you more!
Support Workers' Rights! Make Housing Affordable! End the War!
2. Responses.
I distributed a copy of the ad to perhaps a hundred of my closest friends.
One suggested that it sounded like Decker or Seidel.
3. Counterad.
I posted the following counterad on Sunday, November 5. The PPS was added after the suggestion that it could be Decker or Seidel.
************
Work for a “Progressive” Cambridge City Councilor?
A recent posting sought workers for a “progressive” Cambridge City Councilor.
There is no such thing.
A recent MCAD ruling found probable cause of discrimination in the City Council’s attempt to keep a handicapped woman in her 60’s from using her guide dog in a city council meeting. Cambridge is appealing.
Cambridge seems to claim that Cambridge has a right to ignore federal civil rights of the handicapped because Cambridge has their own civil rights laws which do not protect this woman’s dog. They want to obey their less protective laws, not the fed’s more protective laws. Sounds like state’s rights in the Jim Crow south, but this is worse. Cambridge may think it is a People’s Republik, but it is not even a state.
The City of Cambridge is in the process of destroying hundreds if not thousands of healthy trees at Fresh Pond. Cambridge has no problem with the state Department of Recreation and Development’s plans to destroy 449 to 660 trees on Memorial Drive between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge including every cherry tree. Cambridge routinely destroys healthy trees as part of its projects.
Cambridge and the DCR destroyed the wetlands and animal habitat at Magazine Beach to put in designer bushes which kept dying.
The feds have prohibited more phosphate addition to the Charles. Cambridge and the DCR are digging up seven acres of dirt at Magazine Beach to replace it with seven acres of dirt and phosphates.
Cambridge’s buddies at the DCR spent four years denying their plans would harm the 25 year resident gaggle of Charles River White Geese. They then explained that starving them is not harming them.
Their buddies did a similar project at Ebersol Fields near Mass. General last year. The Phosphates did not work, so they added Tartan. The next day, the Charles River was dead with algae from the harbor to Mass. Ave.
A young woman was raped and murdered near the BU Bridge apparently by a guy who graduated from killing mother geese on their nests. The DCR and Cambridge were belligerently neutral on the goose killings. Then Cambridge’s city council spent more than an hour discussing the rape and murder but DID NOT WANT TO KNOW where she was raped and murdered.
Will Cambridge and the DCR obey the feds on phosphates? Cambridge considers its rules more important than the fed’s when it comes to Cambridge abusing the handicapped.
PS: The guide dog was attacked by a pit bull belonging to a Cambridge cop in the lobby of the Cambridge police station. No negative comment by Cambridge city council and no known punishment of the cop.
PPS: I just reread the posting and realize that this could be a non-incumbent. One non-incumbent has previously posted on Craigslist and claims to be progressive.
He is a member of the Cambridge Conservation Commission who, I believe, has been on the scene since after the rape and murder. His hand are filthy with the environmental destruction after that.
He has publicly defended Cambridge pols’ environmental destructiveness claiming that they have a “better” definition of environmentalism.
Sounds roughly like the claim of the City Council to defend their barring the guide dog, and their apparent response to the EPA objection to their new phosphates.
Most of us live in reality.
4. Ad pulled.
As of this morning, November 5, when I checked Craigslist, the "progressive" Cambridge City Council candidate seems to have pulled the ad.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Cambridge, MA: A city government with a stench about it
The following was published in the November 1, 2007, Cambridge Chronicle:
************
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is to be commended for standing up to Cambridge environmentally reprehensible city government.
The EPA order for no new phosphate sources on the Charles River is a direct prohibition of Phase II of the outrageous Magazine Beach project with its combined animal starvation / poisoning and the poisoning of the Charles River through phosphate runoff.
Without phase II of Cambridge city's project, Magazine Beach is now a “green” place in the best sense of the word, except for the bizarre designer bushes for which wetlands and animal habitat was destroyed along with the usual deliberate animal starvation.
In city whose pols mouth holier than thous almost incessantly including on environmental matters, it should be a foregone conclusion that the EPA order would kill the balance of this reprehensible project.
Regrettably, the Chronicle, in its major fight to review the mayor’s spending has seen the contempt for law which is normal in the City of Cambridge .
Another recent example of Cambridge contempt for law is the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination’s recent finding of probable cause in Cambridge ’s abuse of a guide dog being used by a handicapped person and Cambridge ’s refusal to enforce Federal law protecting that guide dog (I know the fights, not the specific details of the finding). Cambridge , in a position strikingly similar to the Jim Crow south, says that Cambridge ’s civil rights laws are good enough. Cambridge refuses to obey federal civil rights laws which give more civil rights to the handicapped than Cambridge cares to give.
Another example of Cambridge contempt for law was the trashing of 51 nominating petition signatures on this candidate’s election papers (making those papers invalid) a few years ago. Cambridge Election Commission, filled with lawyers, considers itself above the clearly applicable Jack E. Robinson election law decision.
Lawlessness is the norm in the granting of property variances, unless the city, through lying to the public, has trashed the zoning laws sufficiently that variances are no longer necessary.
The contempt for law, the contempt for basic principals of good government and the contempt for basic principals of a good city combine with the holier than thou lies to really create a vile stench about our government.
Keep up the good fight on your part of watching this government in action.
I myself will keep an eye on Magazine Beach and an eye on a whole bunch of Cambridge pols who lie about being pro-environment.
************
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is to be commended for standing up to Cambridge environmentally reprehensible city government.
The EPA order for no new phosphate sources on the Charles River is a direct prohibition of Phase II of the outrageous Magazine Beach project with its combined animal starvation / poisoning and the poisoning of the Charles River through phosphate runoff.
Without phase II of Cambridge city's project, Magazine Beach is now a “green” place in the best sense of the word, except for the bizarre designer bushes for which wetlands and animal habitat was destroyed along with the usual deliberate animal starvation.
In city whose pols mouth holier than thous almost incessantly including on environmental matters, it should be a foregone conclusion that the EPA order would kill the balance of this reprehensible project.
Regrettably, the Chronicle, in its major fight to review the mayor’s spending has seen the contempt for law which is normal in the City of Cambridge .
Another recent example of Cambridge contempt for law is the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination’s recent finding of probable cause in Cambridge ’s abuse of a guide dog being used by a handicapped person and Cambridge ’s refusal to enforce Federal law protecting that guide dog (I know the fights, not the specific details of the finding). Cambridge , in a position strikingly similar to the Jim Crow south, says that Cambridge ’s civil rights laws are good enough. Cambridge refuses to obey federal civil rights laws which give more civil rights to the handicapped than Cambridge cares to give.
Another example of Cambridge contempt for law was the trashing of 51 nominating petition signatures on this candidate’s election papers (making those papers invalid) a few years ago. Cambridge Election Commission, filled with lawyers, considers itself above the clearly applicable Jack E. Robinson election law decision.
Lawlessness is the norm in the granting of property variances, unless the city, through lying to the public, has trashed the zoning laws sufficiently that variances are no longer necessary.
The contempt for law, the contempt for basic principals of good government and the contempt for basic principals of a good city combine with the holier than thou lies to really create a vile stench about our government.
Keep up the good fight on your part of watching this government in action.
I myself will keep an eye on Magazine Beach and an eye on a whole bunch of Cambridge pols who lie about being pro-environment.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
What happens to the White Geese in the Winter? Plus election recommendation.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
We got the following very appropriate question in email. Here is the question and a slightly cleaned up answer:
1. Please let me know what happens to the White Geese in the winter. Thanks!
2. Response:
The Charles River White Geese lived in freedom on the Charles River for 23 years, from 1981 to 2004 when the state and Cambridge pols and bureaucrats started to deliberately starve them.
They have goose down jackets and survive cold temperatures quite happily.
Winter extremes are the reason free animals including the CRWG stuff themselves during the good parts of the year, so that they can survive the winter with its lack of food.
Many friends would visit them during the off year with cracked corn, bread and veggies to help, as we did during the good times of the year.
When the DCR started starving the geese, the DCR explained that they did not consider starving them to be harming them.
Since the starvation attacks started, concerned people have aggressively been feeding the Charles River White Geese, and local charities have contributed day old greens, of great value.
These contributions have been necessary because we are dealing with PROUDLY reprehensible people, although the DCR spent years insisting they would do no harm to the CRWG.
We have found that our prior feedings were very much supplemental. We have found that the principal food was the grass at Magazine Beach and across from the Hyatt, all of which were taken away at once.
In the feedings, we and, more recently, a separate feeding organization carefully balanced the CRWG’s diet. Full feedings now continue year round.
If you are a Cambridge resident, please be advised that heartless individuals include each and every current city council incumbent. The conservation committee member who is a candidate, Samuel Sidel, could reasonably be considered worse.
The ONLY Cambridge City Council Candidate that I am aware of who has shown herself fit to be voted for is Kathy Podgers.
We got the following very appropriate question in email. Here is the question and a slightly cleaned up answer:
1. Please let me know what happens to the White Geese in the winter. Thanks!
2. Response:
The Charles River White Geese lived in freedom on the Charles River for 23 years, from 1981 to 2004 when the state and Cambridge pols and bureaucrats started to deliberately starve them.
They have goose down jackets and survive cold temperatures quite happily.
Winter extremes are the reason free animals including the CRWG stuff themselves during the good parts of the year, so that they can survive the winter with its lack of food.
Many friends would visit them during the off year with cracked corn, bread and veggies to help, as we did during the good times of the year.
When the DCR started starving the geese, the DCR explained that they did not consider starving them to be harming them.
Since the starvation attacks started, concerned people have aggressively been feeding the Charles River White Geese, and local charities have contributed day old greens, of great value.
These contributions have been necessary because we are dealing with PROUDLY reprehensible people, although the DCR spent years insisting they would do no harm to the CRWG.
We have found that our prior feedings were very much supplemental. We have found that the principal food was the grass at Magazine Beach and across from the Hyatt, all of which were taken away at once.
In the feedings, we and, more recently, a separate feeding organization carefully balanced the CRWG’s diet. Full feedings now continue year round.
If you are a Cambridge resident, please be advised that heartless individuals include each and every current city council incumbent. The conservation committee member who is a candidate, Samuel Sidel, could reasonably be considered worse.
The ONLY Cambridge City Council Candidate that I am aware of who has shown herself fit to be voted for is Kathy Podgers.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Destruction resumes on the Charles River West of the BU Bridge
Marilyn Wellons follows up on Bob La Tremouille's early morning report:
Bob La Tremouille posted this alert early Wednesday morning. As soon as I could, I went to Magazine Beach to find out what was up.
Fortunately, for the moment, there's no major construction at Magazine Beach now. According to the MWRA workers I talked to, the extensive stack of items at Magazine Beach is a large quantity of pontoons, leftovers from the Head of the Charles regatta, now removed from the river.
If not today, major construction is nevertheless coming, if the City of Cambridge has its way. Phase 2 of the joint Cambridge-DCR project here--replacing 7 acres of ball fields and wildlife habitat there with 7 acres of commercial sod (zero wildlife value but lots of chemicals)--will go out to bid in November.
Cambridge City Councillors, the Conservation Commission, and State Senator Galluccio insist on going ahead with this project. They seem to believe, or want voters to believe, that they're giving Cambridge children more playing fields. In fact the project adds ZERO to the number of playing fields, ZERO to the city's inventory of open space, and $1.5 million of city funds to the DCR and its contractors.
This project also gives us more toxic algae blooms in the river. The blooms in 2006 and 2007 followed the installation of 6 acres of commercial sod downriver, at the Ebersol ball fields in Boston near MGH. Runoff from the chemicals applied there fed the algae and will continue to do so. Now Cambridge is paying $1.5 million to repeat the blunder and add more chemicals to the river from these 7 acres for bigger and better blooms.
We've paid $60 million so far to clean up the river, but that will be down the drain, so to speak, when Cambridge and the DCR are done.
What a deal.
Bob's alarm this morning was certainly reasonable.
One morning in October, 1999, the DCR's agent (Boston University) began destroying the goose meadow, where the White Geese nest, before the ConCom even met to consider the DCR's request for permission to do it. And BU's contractors cleared and poisoned much more than they ultimately told the ConCom they planned to. When dealing with the White Geese, the DCR has, to put it delicately, not been bothered by laws.
Three years ago, in September, 2004, the City of Cambridge and the DCR suddenly put up 3 lines of barriers between the water and the fields at Magazine Beach. Suddenly, the White Geese, who had been feeding there for more than 20 years, couldn't. They couldn't get ashore--and this at a time of year when they would ordinarily have been feeding from before sunup to after sundown on the grass, to prepare for winter.
The geese were frantic. We, their friends, tried to feed them as best we could, but it has been very hard to keep them from starving in the three years since that September. Until that time I had no idea how merely supplementary any food the White Geese got from their human friends was. That is, the geese--vegetarians--had survived for more than 20 years on the Charles on the grass and other riverfront plants. It is their primary food. Three years later, the geese still cannot get to their primary feeding grounds safely.
The DCR and Cambridge are very clear they don't want the White Geese on the river. So it's fair to say that preventing the geese from feeding at Magazine Beach is a deliberate policy. (Our Freedom of Information search of DCR documents in 2000 revealed the agency's written policy against the White Geese.)
So by noon today we knew that construction hadn't started yet. However, since the Cambridge City Council, the ConCom, and Senator Galluccio insist on proceeding with this project despite knowing about the algae blooms of 2006 and 2007, we are alert for the start of construction at any time.
Marilyn Wellons
********
Bob's report, early Wednesday morning, October 31, 2007:
There is a tradition in Cambridge, MA.
The really vile behavior is commonly saved until just after the election.
This morning early symptoms were at Magazine Beach and across the Charles River on the Boston side.
On Magazine Beach were seen 14 to 15 combinations of 15 packages each of nearly rectangular hollow black plastic objects. These objects were identical to each other, one to two feet in flat dimensions, a bit less than a foot high.
The last time this sort of this showed up at Magazine Beach, the vile City of Cambridge and Department of Conservation and Recreation created three walls in the Charles River blocking access between the river and Magazine Beach with the obvious starvation impacts.
On the south side of the river was a work crew with police protection. The plastic walls were in place pretty much walling off the south shore from the river in an area starting from about the BU Bridge and ending across from the outfield at Magazine Beach.
We have bureaucrats and pols with contempt for the environment.
The last time this happened at Magazine Beach, wetlands, native protective vegetation and animal habitat were destroyed to put in bizarre bushes which kept dying and which were unfit for the Charles River. Deliberate starvation was targeted at the Charles River White Geese. The leadership of the DCR explained four years of promises not to harm them by saying that they did not consider starving them harming them.
On the south side, the DCR would appear to be going public with its contempt for native, protective vegetation and animal habitat. Previously, they hid behind the Charles River Conservancy.
Reprehensible, business as usual in the City of Cambridge and with their state bureaucrats and pols.
Bob La Tremouille posted this alert early Wednesday morning. As soon as I could, I went to Magazine Beach to find out what was up.
Fortunately, for the moment, there's no major construction at Magazine Beach now. According to the MWRA workers I talked to, the extensive stack of items at Magazine Beach is a large quantity of pontoons, leftovers from the Head of the Charles regatta, now removed from the river.
If not today, major construction is nevertheless coming, if the City of Cambridge has its way. Phase 2 of the joint Cambridge-DCR project here--replacing 7 acres of ball fields and wildlife habitat there with 7 acres of commercial sod (zero wildlife value but lots of chemicals)--will go out to bid in November.
Cambridge City Councillors, the Conservation Commission, and State Senator Galluccio insist on going ahead with this project. They seem to believe, or want voters to believe, that they're giving Cambridge children more playing fields. In fact the project adds ZERO to the number of playing fields, ZERO to the city's inventory of open space, and $1.5 million of city funds to the DCR and its contractors.
This project also gives us more toxic algae blooms in the river. The blooms in 2006 and 2007 followed the installation of 6 acres of commercial sod downriver, at the Ebersol ball fields in Boston near MGH. Runoff from the chemicals applied there fed the algae and will continue to do so. Now Cambridge is paying $1.5 million to repeat the blunder and add more chemicals to the river from these 7 acres for bigger and better blooms.
We've paid $60 million so far to clean up the river, but that will be down the drain, so to speak, when Cambridge and the DCR are done.
What a deal.
Bob's alarm this morning was certainly reasonable.
One morning in October, 1999, the DCR's agent (Boston University) began destroying the goose meadow, where the White Geese nest, before the ConCom even met to consider the DCR's request for permission to do it. And BU's contractors cleared and poisoned much more than they ultimately told the ConCom they planned to. When dealing with the White Geese, the DCR has, to put it delicately, not been bothered by laws.
Three years ago, in September, 2004, the City of Cambridge and the DCR suddenly put up 3 lines of barriers between the water and the fields at Magazine Beach. Suddenly, the White Geese, who had been feeding there for more than 20 years, couldn't. They couldn't get ashore--and this at a time of year when they would ordinarily have been feeding from before sunup to after sundown on the grass, to prepare for winter.
The geese were frantic. We, their friends, tried to feed them as best we could, but it has been very hard to keep them from starving in the three years since that September. Until that time I had no idea how merely supplementary any food the White Geese got from their human friends was. That is, the geese--vegetarians--had survived for more than 20 years on the Charles on the grass and other riverfront plants. It is their primary food. Three years later, the geese still cannot get to their primary feeding grounds safely.
The DCR and Cambridge are very clear they don't want the White Geese on the river. So it's fair to say that preventing the geese from feeding at Magazine Beach is a deliberate policy. (Our Freedom of Information search of DCR documents in 2000 revealed the agency's written policy against the White Geese.)
So by noon today we knew that construction hadn't started yet. However, since the Cambridge City Council, the ConCom, and Senator Galluccio insist on proceeding with this project despite knowing about the algae blooms of 2006 and 2007, we are alert for the start of construction at any time.
Marilyn Wellons
********
Bob's report, early Wednesday morning, October 31, 2007:
There is a tradition in Cambridge, MA.
The really vile behavior is commonly saved until just after the election.
This morning early symptoms were at Magazine Beach and across the Charles River on the Boston side.
On Magazine Beach were seen 14 to 15 combinations of 15 packages each of nearly rectangular hollow black plastic objects. These objects were identical to each other, one to two feet in flat dimensions, a bit less than a foot high.
The last time this sort of this showed up at Magazine Beach, the vile City of Cambridge and Department of Conservation and Recreation created three walls in the Charles River blocking access between the river and Magazine Beach with the obvious starvation impacts.
On the south side of the river was a work crew with police protection. The plastic walls were in place pretty much walling off the south shore from the river in an area starting from about the BU Bridge and ending across from the outfield at Magazine Beach.
We have bureaucrats and pols with contempt for the environment.
The last time this happened at Magazine Beach, wetlands, native protective vegetation and animal habitat were destroyed to put in bizarre bushes which kept dying and which were unfit for the Charles River. Deliberate starvation was targeted at the Charles River White Geese. The leadership of the DCR explained four years of promises not to harm them by saying that they did not consider starving them harming them.
On the south side, the DCR would appear to be going public with its contempt for native, protective vegetation and animal habitat. Previously, they hid behind the Charles River Conservancy.
Reprehensible, business as usual in the City of Cambridge and with their state bureaucrats and pols.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Injured Canada Near WBZ
Reported by Bob La Trémouille
An old friend wrote to seek help for an injured Canada near WBZ on Soldiers Field Road in Allston - Brighton.
The following are his comments and my reply. If anybody can help, it would be appreciated.
Since this was initially published, comments have come in from Marilyn, Cheri and Ellen as well, plus a few others.
I have added a nice summary from Cheri. Of necessity, this is the end and I cannot include all the comments. This is getting too long.
1. Injured Goose.
2. Your editor's reply.
3. Marilyn.
4. Cheri of Maple Farm Sanctuary in Mendon, MA.
5. Bob in Response to Cheri.
6. Cheri - Summary.
1. Injured Goose.
William Budington writes:
*********
Hello friends of the Charles River White Geese,
I am contacting you because Cheri from Maple Farm Sanctuary in Mendon, MA alerted me to a situation which has been troubling her. A man that works for a radio station in Boston located at 1200 Storrow Drive called Cheri and told her that there is a Canadian Goose with one foot living near his place of work, and that this goose would often cross Storrow when looking for food and water. He is concerned that the Goose will get hit by oncoming traffic, especially given its disabled condition.
The goose is also ostracized from the other geese living there because of its condition.
Since Cheri has to take care of the animals on the farm, she doesn't really have any time to come into Boston. So she called me to see if I could look into it and hopefully bring the duck to her, so that it can live out its life in peace on the farm. Today, myself and a friend of mine went to investigate, and we found the goose. After numerous attempts to approach the goose, he just flew away.
Recognizing that the attempt was futile, we stopped and figured we would need some additional help in this situation.
We were wondering if any of you have any experience with this sort of stuff, and if not, if you can refer us to someone that can help us.
Cheri has a net that we can possibly use, but we personally have no experience with capturing geese.
If you can help, please let me know. I am available at this email and my phone number is 857 204 6906.
Thank you,
Bill
Volunteer, Boston Animal Defense League
2. Your editor's reply.
I am copying a number of people who might be interested. (Aside to Marilyn: I can't find our Brighton contacts.)
Unfortunately, Little Brook, the Native American who cared for the Charles River White Geese for a number of years and who also does not live that far from you (1) does not have direct email access and (2) is not in very good physical shape.
Little Brook, however, is the only person I am aware of with experience providing comfort and native medications to water fowl in need.
I will also post your notice of the Charles River White Geese blog.
A few thoughts, however. In 2001, a nut ran around the Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. He killed a number of nesting geese and finally graduated to the rape and murder of a young woman for which he has been tried and convicted.
He was emulating the environmentally reprehensible City of Cambridge and Department of Conservation and Recreation. These two entitities egged him on with the silence of the guilty.
The nut's attacks on animals reached a pinnacle in July 2001 when, in an clearly political act, he apparently was the killer of Bumpy, the leader of the gaggle. WBZ-TV telecast the removal of Bumpy's body from the Charles as the lead of its 11 pm newscast.
Our first knowledge that something was wrong when Bumpy was killed was when some youths found a young female goose who had been stabbed in the side. She was one of five other geese, besides Bumpy, attacked in that outrage.
Iowa, as we called her, hopped around on one foot until the following November or December when she finally was able to start using that leg. She got a lot of treatment from Little Brook. After a period of years, she recovered so much that her prior infirmity was fully healed for all practical purposes.
I find the fact that the Canada is flying away from you to be a positive thing.
Iowa hopped around on one leg for many months, either fully off her injured leg or, then, favoring the injured leg. Iowa also kept away from all humans other than Little Brook. I would think that your one-legged Canada should be able to survive quite adequately, especially since he has retained his ability to fly.
Iowa was never rejected by the gaggle. The fact that he is ostracized is ominous. [I, however, remember a Canada who was similarly ostracized. I saw him during the spring in the park between the Gardner Museum and the Museum School. If this is the same one, the fact that he is still alive says a lot. This other guy's problem, however, looked like angel-wing, an odd wing formation.
My and Marilyn Wellons' (my co-chair with the Friends of the White Geese) experience has been that free animals, more than anything else, want to remain free. When they are so hurt that they allow themselves to be carried by somebody wishing to help, especially to be carried away from their habitat, they commonly have been beyond help.
Thank you for your true concern about animals (and your name is familiar).
PS: I also remember Cheri, and I do so with good feelings. I am copying her as well.
3. Marilyn.
Bob, Mr. Budington,
I'm trying to see Little Brook sometime this week and
will raise the issue of the injured goose.
My own reaction is that if the goose can fly and is
eating, it will recover or not, as nature decides.
Iowa, the goose Bob mentions, wasn't excluded by the
flock when she was so hurt. She definitely kept
herself apart to nurse her wounds, though. In time
she recovered and rejoined the group.
I've seen solitary geese over the years of walking on
the Charles. Since geese are social animals this is
unusual. Given all the water traffic from big motor
boats in the summer and shells leading up to and
including the Head of the Charles, it wouldn't
surprise me if there were injuries among migrating
birds whose flocks moved on without them.
There are, apparently, ways of treating injured geese,
and Little Brook knows them. I will ask him what he
recommends.
Thank you so much for caring about the goose! I'll
get back to you asap.
Marilyn Wellons
4. Cheri of Maple Farm Sanctuary in Mendon, MA.
I received your email that you also sent Bill regarding the goose on Soldier's Field Rd. The fellow who originally called me (from the radio station) called me a few minutes ago, still concerned. I explained I had several people that went there over the weekend to observe the goose.
Like you, I'd rather see a wild animal remain where it feels safe and live out it's life. If he were in desperate pain I would take a different action. But it sounds like the goose can fly (although it can't push off as well as a normal goose) and it eats well. According to this concerned fellow, the flock left and this goose is all by itself now. This fellow has found another group in Bellerica that is willing to take the goose in but they need someone to bring the goose to them (the group is Beaks and Noses I believe). I tried to discourage him from putting the goose through that trauma but ultimately I can't control his final decision.
Any further words of wisdom would be deeply appreciated...
Peace,
Cheri
Maple Farm Sanctuary
5. Bob in Response to Cheri.
It sounds like we are in agreement.
My only words of wisdom (aside from passing your comments on to the same key people who got the original transmittal of my response to him) are that I would love to add your comments to the blog report.
As far as the Canada being left back by his gaggle, my strongest wish is that he find the Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese in such a manner that he is comfortable going there.
The Charles River Urban Wilds people (one of the bcc's) regularly feed needy water fowl. I have been aware of, in one case, a Canada whose mate was killed who simply stayed her. I and some others referred to him as the lone Canada.
Food is available for this valiant bird in addition to what he would normally find anyway. I hope he finds it, but birds survive during the off season.
You are a good person and an old friend. Thank you for reaffirming my faith in you.
6. Cheri - Summary.
Bob, Ellen, Marilyn,
It's been so wonderful having this support system even though my instincts have certainly guided me to our combined opinion. The fellow who first contacted about this goose is very concerned about the wellbeing of this bird, and I'm grateful for anyone having concern for the environment and it's inhabitants. I think his concerns brought him to the conclusion that captivity would protect and heal the goose.
Hopefully he is beginning to understand that the best thing is to allow the goose to live out it's life in the wild, with some assistance. Some of my friends are now making regular visits to make certain the goose has food. At some point I'm hoping the goose will find the feeding station by the BU bridge.
My thoughts, prayers and respect go out to Little Brook if anyone talks to him...
I will contact Bob if there are any changes we need to be concerned
about. Thank-you all for your kind hearts.
Peace,
Cheri
Maple Farm Sanctuary
An old friend wrote to seek help for an injured Canada near WBZ on Soldiers Field Road in Allston - Brighton.
The following are his comments and my reply. If anybody can help, it would be appreciated.
Since this was initially published, comments have come in from Marilyn, Cheri and Ellen as well, plus a few others.
I have added a nice summary from Cheri. Of necessity, this is the end and I cannot include all the comments. This is getting too long.
1. Injured Goose.
2. Your editor's reply.
3. Marilyn.
4. Cheri of Maple Farm Sanctuary in Mendon, MA.
5. Bob in Response to Cheri.
6. Cheri - Summary.
1. Injured Goose.
William Budington writes:
*********
Hello friends of the Charles River White Geese,
I am contacting you because Cheri from Maple Farm Sanctuary in Mendon, MA alerted me to a situation which has been troubling her. A man that works for a radio station in Boston located at 1200 Storrow Drive called Cheri and told her that there is a Canadian Goose with one foot living near his place of work, and that this goose would often cross Storrow when looking for food and water. He is concerned that the Goose will get hit by oncoming traffic, especially given its disabled condition.
The goose is also ostracized from the other geese living there because of its condition.
Since Cheri has to take care of the animals on the farm, she doesn't really have any time to come into Boston. So she called me to see if I could look into it and hopefully bring the duck to her, so that it can live out its life in peace on the farm. Today, myself and a friend of mine went to investigate, and we found the goose. After numerous attempts to approach the goose, he just flew away.
Recognizing that the attempt was futile, we stopped and figured we would need some additional help in this situation.
We were wondering if any of you have any experience with this sort of stuff, and if not, if you can refer us to someone that can help us.
Cheri has a net that we can possibly use, but we personally have no experience with capturing geese.
If you can help, please let me know. I am available at this email and my phone number is 857 204 6906.
Thank you,
Bill
Volunteer, Boston Animal Defense League
2. Your editor's reply.
I am copying a number of people who might be interested. (Aside to Marilyn: I can't find our Brighton contacts.)
Unfortunately, Little Brook, the Native American who cared for the Charles River White Geese for a number of years and who also does not live that far from you (1) does not have direct email access and (2) is not in very good physical shape.
Little Brook, however, is the only person I am aware of with experience providing comfort and native medications to water fowl in need.
I will also post your notice of the Charles River White Geese blog.
A few thoughts, however. In 2001, a nut ran around the Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. He killed a number of nesting geese and finally graduated to the rape and murder of a young woman for which he has been tried and convicted.
He was emulating the environmentally reprehensible City of Cambridge and Department of Conservation and Recreation. These two entitities egged him on with the silence of the guilty.
The nut's attacks on animals reached a pinnacle in July 2001 when, in an clearly political act, he apparently was the killer of Bumpy, the leader of the gaggle. WBZ-TV telecast the removal of Bumpy's body from the Charles as the lead of its 11 pm newscast.
Our first knowledge that something was wrong when Bumpy was killed was when some youths found a young female goose who had been stabbed in the side. She was one of five other geese, besides Bumpy, attacked in that outrage.
Iowa, as we called her, hopped around on one foot until the following November or December when she finally was able to start using that leg. She got a lot of treatment from Little Brook. After a period of years, she recovered so much that her prior infirmity was fully healed for all practical purposes.
I find the fact that the Canada is flying away from you to be a positive thing.
Iowa hopped around on one leg for many months, either fully off her injured leg or, then, favoring the injured leg. Iowa also kept away from all humans other than Little Brook. I would think that your one-legged Canada should be able to survive quite adequately, especially since he has retained his ability to fly.
Iowa was never rejected by the gaggle. The fact that he is ostracized is ominous. [I, however, remember a Canada who was similarly ostracized. I saw him during the spring in the park between the Gardner Museum and the Museum School. If this is the same one, the fact that he is still alive says a lot. This other guy's problem, however, looked like angel-wing, an odd wing formation.
My and Marilyn Wellons' (my co-chair with the Friends of the White Geese) experience has been that free animals, more than anything else, want to remain free. When they are so hurt that they allow themselves to be carried by somebody wishing to help, especially to be carried away from their habitat, they commonly have been beyond help.
Thank you for your true concern about animals (and your name is familiar).
PS: I also remember Cheri, and I do so with good feelings. I am copying her as well.
3. Marilyn.
Bob, Mr. Budington,
I'm trying to see Little Brook sometime this week and
will raise the issue of the injured goose.
My own reaction is that if the goose can fly and is
eating, it will recover or not, as nature decides.
Iowa, the goose Bob mentions, wasn't excluded by the
flock when she was so hurt. She definitely kept
herself apart to nurse her wounds, though. In time
she recovered and rejoined the group.
I've seen solitary geese over the years of walking on
the Charles. Since geese are social animals this is
unusual. Given all the water traffic from big motor
boats in the summer and shells leading up to and
including the Head of the Charles, it wouldn't
surprise me if there were injuries among migrating
birds whose flocks moved on without them.
There are, apparently, ways of treating injured geese,
and Little Brook knows them. I will ask him what he
recommends.
Thank you so much for caring about the goose! I'll
get back to you asap.
Marilyn Wellons
4. Cheri of Maple Farm Sanctuary in Mendon, MA.
I received your email that you also sent Bill regarding the goose on Soldier's Field Rd. The fellow who originally called me (from the radio station) called me a few minutes ago, still concerned. I explained I had several people that went there over the weekend to observe the goose.
Like you, I'd rather see a wild animal remain where it feels safe and live out it's life. If he were in desperate pain I would take a different action. But it sounds like the goose can fly (although it can't push off as well as a normal goose) and it eats well. According to this concerned fellow, the flock left and this goose is all by itself now. This fellow has found another group in Bellerica that is willing to take the goose in but they need someone to bring the goose to them (the group is Beaks and Noses I believe). I tried to discourage him from putting the goose through that trauma but ultimately I can't control his final decision.
Any further words of wisdom would be deeply appreciated...
Peace,
Cheri
Maple Farm Sanctuary
5. Bob in Response to Cheri.
It sounds like we are in agreement.
My only words of wisdom (aside from passing your comments on to the same key people who got the original transmittal of my response to him) are that I would love to add your comments to the blog report.
As far as the Canada being left back by his gaggle, my strongest wish is that he find the Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese in such a manner that he is comfortable going there.
The Charles River Urban Wilds people (one of the bcc's) regularly feed needy water fowl. I have been aware of, in one case, a Canada whose mate was killed who simply stayed her. I and some others referred to him as the lone Canada.
Food is available for this valiant bird in addition to what he would normally find anyway. I hope he finds it, but birds survive during the off season.
You are a good person and an old friend. Thank you for reaffirming my faith in you.
6. Cheri - Summary.
Bob, Ellen, Marilyn,
It's been so wonderful having this support system even though my instincts have certainly guided me to our combined opinion. The fellow who first contacted about this goose is very concerned about the wellbeing of this bird, and I'm grateful for anyone having concern for the environment and it's inhabitants. I think his concerns brought him to the conclusion that captivity would protect and heal the goose.
Hopefully he is beginning to understand that the best thing is to allow the goose to live out it's life in the wild, with some assistance. Some of my friends are now making regular visits to make certain the goose has food. At some point I'm hoping the goose will find the feeding station by the BU bridge.
My thoughts, prayers and respect go out to Little Brook if anyone talks to him...
I will contact Bob if there are any changes we need to be concerned
about. Thank-you all for your kind hearts.
Peace,
Cheri
Maple Farm Sanctuary
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Do Cambridge Pols Have a right to Lie about Environmentalism?
Bob La Trémouille Reports:
1. Introduction.
2. Kelley and Friends Claim to be Pro-Environment While Being Environmentally Destructive.
3. Kelley's Campaign Manager: How Dare You Call Kelley a Liar without a vote of an Impartial Jury!!!!
4. Editor's Response.
5. Cambridge Chronicle Publication.
1. Introduction.
On the front page of the October 4, 2007 Cambridge Chronicle, the newspaper reported that Cambridge City Councilor Craig Kelley's campaign manager acted in a key capacity in a candidate's night without being disclosed as his Campaign Manager.
This failure to disclose struck me as business as usual from Kelley and his buddies on environmental issues, so I wrote a letter to the editor saying that. The letter I sent is reprinted in section 2.
I was rather pleased with the letter, so I distributed it to 400 or 500 of my closest friends on about a third of an email list I used for perhaps 500 environmental reports before Friends of the White Geese started this blog.
One of the members of the list is Kelley's campaign manager. She responded with the email quoted in section 3.
Section 4 is my response to a key point in her response.
The Cambridge Chronicle printed my letter very prominently this morning, Thursday, October 11. It was preceded only by Kelley's response to the article. The Chronicle omitted two paragraphs of my letter. That reporting is quoted in section 5.
The secret definition of "environmentalism" as elaborated by Sam Seidel on behalf of the Cambridge pols may be found at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html.
2. Kelley and Friends Claim to be Pro-Environment While Being Environmentally Destructive.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciated your front page exposure of Craig Kelley giving people the false impression that his campaign manager was a neutral party at East Cambridge ’s candidate’s night. On environmental matters people giving the false impression about where they are coming from is the norm in Cambridge. Kelley's 2005 race was an excellent example.
Kelley went so far in 2005 as to put on a special presentation telling people about environmental protection. He actually gave people the impression that he was pro-environment, rather than being as environmentally destructive as all nine of the then incumbents.
Sam Seidel did an excellent presentation in The Alewife a few months ago in which he mocked me for being consistent in my protection of the environment. Seidel bragged that the Cambridge pols have their own (secret) definition of environmentalism which he called much better than the one I (and most people in our world) live by.
Kelley and the rest of the active pols have shown flat out contempt for the environment on matters particular to the City of Cambridge and particular to the REAL powers of the Cambridge City Council.
The continuing outrage on Memorial Drive is only one example.
Nine city councilors told their constituents that they were protecting the Radisson Hotel area by the Memorial Drive Overlay District. They neglected to mention that their protections were a flat out lie as is demonstrated by the building soon to come there towering over the sidewalk.
Kelley and the others claim to be "green." They neglect to mention that the green they are talking about includes algae they are inviting to the Charles River by the second part of the outrage continuing on Magazine Beach. Poisons are not now necessary to protect the playing fields at Magazine Beach. Kelley and the others have demanded that the governor go forward with digging up our perfectly good playing fields and replacing them with dirt, sod and poisons. Cambridge kids are expected to roll around in this stuff.
The predecessor project to Magazine Beach , Ebersol Fields near MGH, saw the DCR dump on Tartan (prohibited near water) when the basic poisons did not work. The next day, the Charles River was infested with algae from the harbor to Mass. Ave.
I could go on with massive, needless destruction of healthy trees. I could go on with destruction of wetlands. I could go on with the encouragement of WORSE traffic on Memorial Drive. I could mention the apparently thousands of healthy trees being destroyed at Fresh Pond.
I, and the rest of us, live in reality. Kelley and the rest of the Cambridge pols live in a fake reality in which they casually define "environmentalism" to include environmental destruction.
Once again, thanks for the front page article and the editorial. On Kelley's key issue, environmentalism, I see only one candidate so far who is fit to be respected, and there is no similarity between the spelling of "Podgers" and the spelling of "Kelley."
3. Kelley's Campaign Manager: How Dare You Call Kelley a Liar without a vote of an Impartial Jury!!!!
Bob,
I thought the American Justic System stated that a person was innocent until proven guilty. You don't know me nor have you asked me what has happened. How sad. To go from a simple error which could not have been corrected to stating I was not a neutral party without knowing the facts to Kelley is against the environment leads me to think there is something very wrong with your thought process. The two are not related. Please take me off your list.
4. Editor's Response.
The outrage which passes for environmentalism in Cambridge is based exactly on your argument.
Kelley and the other destroyers claim to have a right to destroy our city's environment while loudly calling themselves environmental protectors.
"It is improper to call me a flat out liar without a jury decision calling me a liar. I have a flat out right to lie and lie and lie while at the same time destroying and destroying and destroying."
That is a little bit clearer than Sam Seidel's piece.
Thank you.
PS: You are off the list.
5. Cambridge Chronicle Publication.
In the first of the two letters, Kelley's second paragraph of two (referring to his campaign manager activities in that candidate night) read:
***********
People in Cambridge rightly expect me and everything I'm associated with, to be as open and transparent as possible. I blew it in this case and will strive to learn from this mistake to make sure my actions are even more open and transparent in the future.
***********
The Chronicle deleted two paragraphs in my letter. The result was that Kelley's letter and mine were pretty much the only letters on the letters/editorial page. They printed the beginning of a third letter on that page.
The Chronicle's printing deleted the third paragraph of my letter, starting with "Sam Seidel" and deleted the third paragraph from the end providing more general examples of environmental destruction by Kelley and his friends.
1. Introduction.
2. Kelley and Friends Claim to be Pro-Environment While Being Environmentally Destructive.
3. Kelley's Campaign Manager: How Dare You Call Kelley a Liar without a vote of an Impartial Jury!!!!
4. Editor's Response.
5. Cambridge Chronicle Publication.
1. Introduction.
On the front page of the October 4, 2007 Cambridge Chronicle, the newspaper reported that Cambridge City Councilor Craig Kelley's campaign manager acted in a key capacity in a candidate's night without being disclosed as his Campaign Manager.
This failure to disclose struck me as business as usual from Kelley and his buddies on environmental issues, so I wrote a letter to the editor saying that. The letter I sent is reprinted in section 2.
I was rather pleased with the letter, so I distributed it to 400 or 500 of my closest friends on about a third of an email list I used for perhaps 500 environmental reports before Friends of the White Geese started this blog.
One of the members of the list is Kelley's campaign manager. She responded with the email quoted in section 3.
Section 4 is my response to a key point in her response.
The Cambridge Chronicle printed my letter very prominently this morning, Thursday, October 11. It was preceded only by Kelley's response to the article. The Chronicle omitted two paragraphs of my letter. That reporting is quoted in section 5.
The secret definition of "environmentalism" as elaborated by Sam Seidel on behalf of the Cambridge pols may be found at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_29_archive.html.
2. Kelley and Friends Claim to be Pro-Environment While Being Environmentally Destructive.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciated your front page exposure of Craig Kelley giving people the false impression that his campaign manager was a neutral party at East Cambridge ’s candidate’s night. On environmental matters people giving the false impression about where they are coming from is the norm in Cambridge. Kelley's 2005 race was an excellent example.
Kelley went so far in 2005 as to put on a special presentation telling people about environmental protection. He actually gave people the impression that he was pro-environment, rather than being as environmentally destructive as all nine of the then incumbents.
Sam Seidel did an excellent presentation in The Alewife a few months ago in which he mocked me for being consistent in my protection of the environment. Seidel bragged that the Cambridge pols have their own (secret) definition of environmentalism which he called much better than the one I (and most people in our world) live by.
Kelley and the rest of the active pols have shown flat out contempt for the environment on matters particular to the City of Cambridge and particular to the REAL powers of the Cambridge City Council.
The continuing outrage on Memorial Drive is only one example.
Nine city councilors told their constituents that they were protecting the Radisson Hotel area by the Memorial Drive Overlay District. They neglected to mention that their protections were a flat out lie as is demonstrated by the building soon to come there towering over the sidewalk.
Kelley and the others claim to be "green." They neglect to mention that the green they are talking about includes algae they are inviting to the Charles River by the second part of the outrage continuing on Magazine Beach. Poisons are not now necessary to protect the playing fields at Magazine Beach. Kelley and the others have demanded that the governor go forward with digging up our perfectly good playing fields and replacing them with dirt, sod and poisons. Cambridge kids are expected to roll around in this stuff.
The predecessor project to Magazine Beach , Ebersol Fields near MGH, saw the DCR dump on Tartan (prohibited near water) when the basic poisons did not work. The next day, the Charles River was infested with algae from the harbor to Mass. Ave.
I could go on with massive, needless destruction of healthy trees. I could go on with destruction of wetlands. I could go on with the encouragement of WORSE traffic on Memorial Drive. I could mention the apparently thousands of healthy trees being destroyed at Fresh Pond.
I, and the rest of us, live in reality. Kelley and the rest of the Cambridge pols live in a fake reality in which they casually define "environmentalism" to include environmental destruction.
Once again, thanks for the front page article and the editorial. On Kelley's key issue, environmentalism, I see only one candidate so far who is fit to be respected, and there is no similarity between the spelling of "Podgers" and the spelling of "Kelley."
3. Kelley's Campaign Manager: How Dare You Call Kelley a Liar without a vote of an Impartial Jury!!!!
Bob,
I thought the American Justic System stated that a person was innocent until proven guilty. You don't know me nor have you asked me what has happened. How sad. To go from a simple error which could not have been corrected to stating I was not a neutral party without knowing the facts to Kelley is against the environment leads me to think there is something very wrong with your thought process. The two are not related. Please take me off your list.
4. Editor's Response.
The outrage which passes for environmentalism in Cambridge is based exactly on your argument.
Kelley and the other destroyers claim to have a right to destroy our city's environment while loudly calling themselves environmental protectors.
"It is improper to call me a flat out liar without a jury decision calling me a liar. I have a flat out right to lie and lie and lie while at the same time destroying and destroying and destroying."
That is a little bit clearer than Sam Seidel's piece.
Thank you.
PS: You are off the list.
5. Cambridge Chronicle Publication.
In the first of the two letters, Kelley's second paragraph of two (referring to his campaign manager activities in that candidate night) read:
***********
People in Cambridge rightly expect me and everything I'm associated with, to be as open and transparent as possible. I blew it in this case and will strive to learn from this mistake to make sure my actions are even more open and transparent in the future.
***********
The Chronicle deleted two paragraphs in my letter. The result was that Kelley's letter and mine were pretty much the only letters on the letters/editorial page. They printed the beginning of a third letter on that page.
The Chronicle's printing deleted the third paragraph of my letter, starting with "Sam Seidel" and deleted the third paragraph from the end providing more general examples of environmental destruction by Kelley and his friends.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Cambridge City Council votes to pollute the Charles, expose children to pesticides and other chemicals
On September 24, 2007 the Cambridge City Council voted to endorse the joint Cambridge-DCR project at Magazine Beach. Councillor Davis's Order, described here on September 23 ("Environmental Destroyer"), passed, 8-0-1. Councillor Galluccio was absent.
The September 23 blog also posted the text of Marilyn Wellons's letter to the City Council and a copy of her July 29, 2007 e-mail to to Rep. Marty Walz ("Reality on the 'Renovation' of Magazine Beach").
After the Council's vote, Wellons sent the following letter to the Cambridge legislative delegation and attached the July 29 e-mail to Walz as documentation. (This entry reposts that e-mail.) She sent similar letters, with the attachment, to the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, and to the Governor.
Since these elected officials represent non-Cambridge municipalities and voters who have paid to clean up the Charles River and Boston Harbor, they may bring some common sense to the issue if the Cambridge City Council will not or cannot.
Cambridge voters might ask themselves and candidates this election year why we should pay for the ill-conceived project. Like Ebersol Fields, it will create toxic algae blooms in the river. According to the city's agreement with the DCR, it will give Cambridge public school children first priority for exposure to the herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides needed to maintain the 7 acres of commercial sod.
Voters might also ask candidates for City Council and School Committee how this project affects natural ecosystems, water quality, pollution of the environment, and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.
Leaving aside fears of brain-eating amoebas that feed on algae in warm water, anyone with hopes of swimming in the Charles should ask how this project advances that goal.
****
Dear Members of the Cambridge Legislative Delegation:
Last night the Cambridge City Council voted to urge you to "assure that work goes forward [with the joint Cambridge-DCR project] at Magazine Beach according to the current timeline," i.e., contract out to bid in October, construction in 2008. Cambridge has placed $1.5 million in escrow for it, to be released at the Governor's discretion.
The project will replace 7 acres of dirt and grass adapted to the riverfront environment with 7 acres of gravel, topsoil, commercial sod, an irrigation system, and fences.
Its prototype is "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" in Boston, near MGH. Runoff from the 6 acres of commercial sod there polluted the Charles River in 2006 and 2007, creating a public health hazard. As a result of DCR ongoing maintenance of the professional-level turf, pollution from this source and resulting dangerous algae blooms will continue.
The fields now at Magazine Beach simultaneously accommodate an existing regulation Little League field, soccer, frisbee, golf practice, other active uses, and "Bordering Land Subject to Flooding"--rich wildlife habitat and important passive open space for us city dwellers. A second regulation Little League field is less than 200 yards away, at Lindstrom Field between Memorial Drive and Granite Street.
As at Ebersol, at Magazine Beach the commercial sod will get repeated applications of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides to maintain it. Children and adults, pets and wildlife, all will be exposed to these chemicals. As downstream, runoff from the fields will pollute the river and, subsequently, the harbor.
You represent not only Cambridge but other municipalities in the Charles River watershed, whose taxpayers have already paid $60 million to clean it up. Another $19 million will be spent before 2013 for this purpose. Please exercise judgment and urge the Governor to protect the river, not destroy it.
I am writing the Governor and members of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, to alert them to these problems and ask for common sense from them as well.
Attached please find my e-mail of July 29, 2007, to Rep. Marty Walz. It outlines the connection between installation and maintenance of Ebersol Fields and the resulting algae blooms of 2006 and 2007.
****
July 29 e-mail:
Dear Rep. Walz,
Thank you for sending the DCR’s response. Unfortunately it doesn’t address the problem for water quality caused by the DCR’s 6 acres at Ebersol Fields (installed spring 2006) and by the one planned for 6 acres at Magazine Beach (set for this summer).
The DCR has heavily fertilized and otherwise chemically treated Ebersol Fields. Boaters could smell the fertilizer in the middle of the river offshore from the fields all last summer. Runoff from fertilizers and other chemicals is a well-known cause of algae bloom.
Contrary to the DCR’s statement to you, documents filed with the Boston Conservation Commission indicate ongoing maintenance of the Ebersol Fields is with fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals as necessary. The DCR lists “slow-release organic fertilizers” and “integrated pest management practices using biological controls and minimizing [but not prohibiting] the use of chemical alternatives.” (“Operation and Maintenance Plan,” DCR Notice of Intent, submitted May 4, 2005.)
Fertilizers, organic or not, have nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that wash into the river, as do the other chemicals applied. Standard chemical care of a home lawn is: 5 applications of fertilizer, 6 of herbicides, and 1 of pesticides, in five treatments from early spring to late fall. (Mailing received from TLC, The Lawn Company, P.O. Box 698, Shrewsbury, MA.)
Maintenance of the 6 acres at Ebersol Fields is estimated at $200,000 per year. Mr. Dick Ebersol has pledged up to $500,000 to match private contributions for this purpose. (Charlestown Patriot-Bridge, June 15, 2006.)
In July, 2006, the Ebersol Fields developed a fungus, as is common with overwatered, fertilized turf (New York Times, July 6, 2007, p. B1, “When the Grass Was Greener”). On August 2, 2006, the DCR asked for and received permission to apply “Tartan,” a fungicide, to the entire 6 acres. The first “Tartan” application was August 10-11, the second, September 1. (Communication from Richard Scott, DCR, September 11, 2006.) Geller Sport, DCR designer of Ebersol, supplemented the two fungicide treatments with “field fertilization” and irrigation. (Memo, July 19, 2006, Stephen D. Brown, DCR Project Manager, to Boston Conservation Commission.)
The algae count exploded after the first treatment, then dropped toward the end of August. After the second, the count climbed again.
The DCR has not hesitated to fertilize and otherwise chemically treat the sod at Ebersol Fields. It has an ample budget to do so. The DCR representative told the ConCom on August 2 that “Tartan” was required to provide “the quality of turf our players deserve.” The agency is eager to provide the same at Magazine Beach. Cambridge also is giving an ample budget for maintenance.
The label warning for “Tartan” reads: “Toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Do not apply directly to water, to areas where surface water is present or to intertidal areas . . . . Drift and runoff from treated areas may be hazardous to fish/aquatic organisms in adjacent sites. . . Do not apply when weather conditions favor runoff or drift.” (Material Safety Data Sheet, attachment to DCR Request for Determination of Applicability, July 19, 2006.)
The Boston ConCom’s Order of Conditions for “Tartan” requires that “[i]f at any time during the implementation of the project a fish kill or significant water quality problem occurs in the vicinity of the project, all site related activities impacting the water shall cease until the source of the problem is identified and adequate mitigating measures employed to the satisfaction of the Commission.” (Attachment A—Project Conditions, Negative Determination of Applicability, August 2, 2006.)
The unprecedented algae bloom of August, 2006, occurred in the twenty days between the two applications of “Tartan” and fertilizer. I have found no evidence that there has ever been an inquiry into the cause of the bloom or its relation to Ebersol Fields. The DCR has offered none to you.
In sum, the DCR says it doesn’t usually use fertilizers or herbicides on the Charles. Nevertheless it did so at Ebersol Fields. It didn’t plan to use “Tartan” there, but did so. The reply does not deny the use of pesticides.
With regard to Magazine Beach, this response means nothing good to residents of the Charles River watershed. We’ve already spent $60 million to clean up the river, with another $19 million to go before 2013. Our water rates in Cambridge continue to rise. Now we’re set to pay $1.5 million to repeat the blunder at Ebersol Fields and pollute the river at Magazine Beach.
I hope you will ask the Governor not to disperse the Cambridge funds for this imminent, ill-conceived project.
The September 23 blog also posted the text of Marilyn Wellons's letter to the City Council and a copy of her July 29, 2007 e-mail to to Rep. Marty Walz ("Reality on the 'Renovation' of Magazine Beach").
After the Council's vote, Wellons sent the following letter to the Cambridge legislative delegation and attached the July 29 e-mail to Walz as documentation. (This entry reposts that e-mail.) She sent similar letters, with the attachment, to the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, and to the Governor.
Since these elected officials represent non-Cambridge municipalities and voters who have paid to clean up the Charles River and Boston Harbor, they may bring some common sense to the issue if the Cambridge City Council will not or cannot.
Cambridge voters might ask themselves and candidates this election year why we should pay for the ill-conceived project. Like Ebersol Fields, it will create toxic algae blooms in the river. According to the city's agreement with the DCR, it will give Cambridge public school children first priority for exposure to the herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides needed to maintain the 7 acres of commercial sod.
Voters might also ask candidates for City Council and School Committee how this project affects natural ecosystems, water quality, pollution of the environment, and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.
Leaving aside fears of brain-eating amoebas that feed on algae in warm water, anyone with hopes of swimming in the Charles should ask how this project advances that goal.
****
Dear Members of the Cambridge Legislative Delegation:
Last night the Cambridge City Council voted to urge you to "assure that work goes forward [with the joint Cambridge-DCR project] at Magazine Beach according to the current timeline," i.e., contract out to bid in October, construction in 2008. Cambridge has placed $1.5 million in escrow for it, to be released at the Governor's discretion.
The project will replace 7 acres of dirt and grass adapted to the riverfront environment with 7 acres of gravel, topsoil, commercial sod, an irrigation system, and fences.
Its prototype is "Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Fields at Lederman Park" in Boston, near MGH. Runoff from the 6 acres of commercial sod there polluted the Charles River in 2006 and 2007, creating a public health hazard. As a result of DCR ongoing maintenance of the professional-level turf, pollution from this source and resulting dangerous algae blooms will continue.
The fields now at Magazine Beach simultaneously accommodate an existing regulation Little League field, soccer, frisbee, golf practice, other active uses, and "Bordering Land Subject to Flooding"--rich wildlife habitat and important passive open space for us city dwellers. A second regulation Little League field is less than 200 yards away, at Lindstrom Field between Memorial Drive and Granite Street.
As at Ebersol, at Magazine Beach the commercial sod will get repeated applications of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides to maintain it. Children and adults, pets and wildlife, all will be exposed to these chemicals. As downstream, runoff from the fields will pollute the river and, subsequently, the harbor.
You represent not only Cambridge but other municipalities in the Charles River watershed, whose taxpayers have already paid $60 million to clean it up. Another $19 million will be spent before 2013 for this purpose. Please exercise judgment and urge the Governor to protect the river, not destroy it.
I am writing the Governor and members of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, to alert them to these problems and ask for common sense from them as well.
Attached please find my e-mail of July 29, 2007, to Rep. Marty Walz. It outlines the connection between installation and maintenance of Ebersol Fields and the resulting algae blooms of 2006 and 2007.
****
July 29 e-mail:
Dear Rep. Walz,
Thank you for sending the DCR’s response. Unfortunately it doesn’t address the problem for water quality caused by the DCR’s 6 acres at Ebersol Fields (installed spring 2006) and by the one planned for 6 acres at Magazine Beach (set for this summer).
The DCR has heavily fertilized and otherwise chemically treated Ebersol Fields. Boaters could smell the fertilizer in the middle of the river offshore from the fields all last summer. Runoff from fertilizers and other chemicals is a well-known cause of algae bloom.
Contrary to the DCR’s statement to you, documents filed with the Boston Conservation Commission indicate ongoing maintenance of the Ebersol Fields is with fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals as necessary. The DCR lists “slow-release organic fertilizers” and “integrated pest management practices using biological controls and minimizing [but not prohibiting] the use of chemical alternatives.” (“Operation and Maintenance Plan,” DCR Notice of Intent, submitted May 4, 2005.)
Fertilizers, organic or not, have nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that wash into the river, as do the other chemicals applied. Standard chemical care of a home lawn is: 5 applications of fertilizer, 6 of herbicides, and 1 of pesticides, in five treatments from early spring to late fall. (Mailing received from TLC, The Lawn Company, P.O. Box 698, Shrewsbury, MA.)
Maintenance of the 6 acres at Ebersol Fields is estimated at $200,000 per year. Mr. Dick Ebersol has pledged up to $500,000 to match private contributions for this purpose. (Charlestown Patriot-Bridge, June 15, 2006.)
In July, 2006, the Ebersol Fields developed a fungus, as is common with overwatered, fertilized turf (New York Times, July 6, 2007, p. B1, “When the Grass Was Greener”). On August 2, 2006, the DCR asked for and received permission to apply “Tartan,” a fungicide, to the entire 6 acres. The first “Tartan” application was August 10-11, the second, September 1. (Communication from Richard Scott, DCR, September 11, 2006.) Geller Sport, DCR designer of Ebersol, supplemented the two fungicide treatments with “field fertilization” and irrigation. (Memo, July 19, 2006, Stephen D. Brown, DCR Project Manager, to Boston Conservation Commission.)
The algae count exploded after the first treatment, then dropped toward the end of August. After the second, the count climbed again.
The DCR has not hesitated to fertilize and otherwise chemically treat the sod at Ebersol Fields. It has an ample budget to do so. The DCR representative told the ConCom on August 2 that “Tartan” was required to provide “the quality of turf our players deserve.” The agency is eager to provide the same at Magazine Beach. Cambridge also is giving an ample budget for maintenance.
The label warning for “Tartan” reads: “Toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Do not apply directly to water, to areas where surface water is present or to intertidal areas . . . . Drift and runoff from treated areas may be hazardous to fish/aquatic organisms in adjacent sites. . . Do not apply when weather conditions favor runoff or drift.” (Material Safety Data Sheet, attachment to DCR Request for Determination of Applicability, July 19, 2006.)
The Boston ConCom’s Order of Conditions for “Tartan” requires that “[i]f at any time during the implementation of the project a fish kill or significant water quality problem occurs in the vicinity of the project, all site related activities impacting the water shall cease until the source of the problem is identified and adequate mitigating measures employed to the satisfaction of the Commission.” (Attachment A—Project Conditions, Negative Determination of Applicability, August 2, 2006.)
The unprecedented algae bloom of August, 2006, occurred in the twenty days between the two applications of “Tartan” and fertilizer. I have found no evidence that there has ever been an inquiry into the cause of the bloom or its relation to Ebersol Fields. The DCR has offered none to you.
In sum, the DCR says it doesn’t usually use fertilizers or herbicides on the Charles. Nevertheless it did so at Ebersol Fields. It didn’t plan to use “Tartan” there, but did so. The reply does not deny the use of pesticides.
With regard to Magazine Beach, this response means nothing good to residents of the Charles River watershed. We’ve already spent $60 million to clean up the river, with another $19 million to go before 2013. Our water rates in Cambridge continue to rise. Now we’re set to pay $1.5 million to repeat the blunder at Ebersol Fields and pollute the river at Magazine Beach.
I hope you will ask the Governor not to disperse the Cambridge funds for this imminent, ill-conceived project.
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