1. Introduction.
2. Two key documents.
3. Objections to specificity concerning City Council vote.
4. Nonsense concerning the destructive Bike Highway.
5. Destructive plans and doomed excellent woods.
6. Summary.
1. Introduction.
Monday evening, November 19, 2018, I was attacked on live cable from the chair of the Cambridge City Council by the City Council’s elected head, bearing the title of Mayor.
Following that attack, I attempted to send three communications to the City Council through the City Clerk, anticipating that they would be on the City Council Agenda of November 26, 2018. I understand that, because of special rules for Thanksgiving week communications, and apparent confusion, the communications will be on the City Council agenda for December 3, 2018 instead.
The following replaces and expands on the two email communications, sent during and shortly after the meeting of November 19. The third communication was in hard copy. It quoted and expanded on my recent blog posting concerning the ongoing poisoning of the Charles River.
2. Two key documents.
Two key OUTRAGEOUS positions of Mayor McGovern deserve particular attention. As usual, double clicking greatly increases the size of the reproductions.
McGovern was objecting to the following flier.
Reproduction in this media is less than perfect. Please email me at boblat@yahoo.com for a PDF copy should you wish an excellent copy.
And here is the official record of McGovern’s motion to which it refers. It was passed unanimously including supporting votes by six city councilors who have carried over to the current nine member City Council. Page 1 follows and then page 2.
The official record of the motion is at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1782&Inline=True, pages 308 and 309. The official record of the vote is at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=15&ID=1690&Inline=True, page 28.
The reproduction is better there.
3. Objections to specificity concerning City Council vote.
McGovern states that Order 1 of April 24, 2018, did not specify the destruction of 56 trees.
No. It mentioned “dead or dying” trees, GIVING THE FALSE IMPRESSION THAT THAT WAS ALL THAT WAS BEING DESTROYED, and GAVE THE Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) A BLANK CHECK to destroy whatever it wishes. Now, since the city council is irresponsible enough to give blank checks, the mayor is denying the obvious results of the blank check.
RESPONDING TO THE BLANK CHECK, by my letter of June 6, 2017, re-sent this year, I gave the city council a 51 page, 100+ graphic analysis matching up the DCR’s two destruction plans to photos of pretty much all of the trees at Magazine Beach, and proving that the BLANK CHECK authorized the destruction of 54 trees, MOSTLY EXCELLENT TREES.
Using the blank check, the DCR destroyed two more trees than they promised to. I documented the increase from 54 to 56.
Now with that 51 page DETAILED analysis, McGovern is irresponsible enough to say that the city council’s BLANK CHECK DID NOT LIMIT DESTRUCTION TO 56 TREES. No it didn’t. The City Council was too irresponsible to place a limit on its blank check.
Now McGovern claims that since the city council gave an unlimited authorization, AND THE CITY COUNCIL, IN GREAT DETAIL TWICE had the parameters of that UNLIMITED AUTHORIZATION explained to the City Council, the City Council is not responsible for what the DCR is doing with the City Council’s blank check.
THAT IS TOTAL NONSENSE..
The detailed analysis which was presented twice to the City Council is posted at http://focrwg.com/agenda1.html.
The additional report when two extra trees, lovingly cared for by the MicroCenter shopping center, were destroyed, is in city records at http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1825&Inline=True, pages 151 to 157.
I was going to post here a photo of this irresponsible destruction, but there are 54 other trees being destroyed with the blessing and financial support of the Cambridge City Council for the project.
4. Nonsense concerning the destructive Bike Highway.
Secondly, Mayor McGovern made the blanket statement that the “multi-use” path is not destroying trees. That BLANKET STATEMENT is an admission of incompetence so great as to publicly state lack of fitness for office.
The “multi-use path” was the excuse for the destruction of hundreds of excellent trees between the BU Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge. Almost all of those destroyed trees, if not all of which, were not "necessary" to be destroyed for the “multi-use path,” assuming there is ANY RESPONSIBLE EXCUSE FOR THIS PROJECT.
Notwithstanding this, the excuse for destruction claimed by the DCR THIS TIME is irrelevant. It is plain and simple that the DCR is destructive. Period. Their destruction and the Cambridge City Council’s on Magazine Beach is explained by maximum secrecy. Neither entity has any meaningful excuse for the continuing outrage. The latest excuse by the Cambridge City Council, that the lead destroyer is their “kind of activist” shows just how extremely low the two entities can sink in their explanation for the unexplainable.
This latest nonsense amounts to, “How dare you say we are destroying 56 mostly excellent trees. We gave a blank check. It could easily be more. The number has already increased since we gave the blank check.”
The DCR is now planning phase III of destruction on the Charles River. That would follow up on the hundreds of excellent trees destroyed in January 2016, and rather clearly destroy the trees in that part of its plans for destruction which it did not destroy in January 2016. Phase II is the current attack on 56 mostly excellent trees on Magazine Beach by the DCR and the Cambridge City Council.
I have documented that outrage in my video presenting the Final Cut of my analysis of the destruction of Memorial Drive in January 2016 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTplCCEJP7o. This analysis INCLUDES in detail the destruction which is the obvious target of phase III, the essentially total destruction of the Wild Area between the Grand Junction and the BU Boathouse.
Plus the Goose Meadow, located between the Grand Junction and the BU Bridge would, at minimum, be further devastated by this outrage. It is the ghetto to which the 38 year resident gaggle of the Charles River White Geese have been confined by multiple instances of habitat destruction. It is clearly designated to be doomed based on a moderately knowledgeable review of the plans.
The first two of the preceding references are included in our highly true flier publicizing the outrageous behavior of this Cambridge City Council at Magazine Beach. The increase from 54 to 56 AUTHORIZED BY THE BLANK CHECK is a too narrow a point to include in a flier which is limited in space.
An additional analysis of this continuing outrage by an international expert, “Nature and Beauty Ripped out on the Charles River, “ may be viewed on video at https://youtu.be/dWyCdcWMuAA.
5. Destructive plans and doomed excellent woods.
Here are the DCR plans from their package presenting the January 2016 outrage.
And here is the thick woods seen from the BU Bridge. The white figures in the water are part of the gaggle of the Charles River White Geese. The Goose Meadow is to the left.
"Somehow" the Cambridge Mayor would appear to be uninterested in this thick woods.
6. Summary.
Mayor McGovern’s false comments directed at me in the November 19, 2018, meeting are so totally divergent from reality and so nasty that I most definitely deserve an apology from the Cambridge City Council.
Above in section 2 are a true copy of the flier in question and of the city council’s blank check, order 1 of April 24, 2017.
Above in section 5 is a copy of the DCR “plan” for destruction of the thick woods between the Grand Junction and the BU Boathouse showing EXACTLY ONE TREE NOT DESTROYED, plus, once again, my photo of the thick woods the plans lie do not exist.
The fake DCR plans for the thick woods show the thick woods to the right of the Grand Junction railroad, which runs diagonally bottom to top between the Goose Meadow on the left and the Wild Area to the right.
As detailed greatly in my video and in the below photo, there are a lot more trees than the ONE TREE falsely showing in the DCR “plan.” Why the falsehood? Just more dishonesty. Dishonesty works.
The mayor flat out lied about me because I have broadly publicized the above motion initiated by the mayor and passed by the City Council. He called me a liar.
How dare I publicize the obvious authorizations of the city council’s blank check, while including in the publicity a link to my very clear debunking of the false “dead or dying” statement included in the city council’s blank check, and to my very detailed video placing all in context, including my analysis of willful destruction rather clearly intended for Phase III.
My debunking of the blank check has been provided twice to the city council in large, 51 pages, 100+ graphics, detail. Wantonly ignoring that massive, detailed debunking of the “dead or dead” nonsense can only be described as willful.
My debunking is very clear, and is willfully ignored.
I expect a formal and prompt apology from the City Council, and achievement of the following objectives.
