The falsely named Charles River “Conservancy” has posted on its facebook page a photo of a picnic table at Magazine Beach which has been repaired by its volunteers.
The picnic area is across from the foot of Magazine Street in Cambridge.
The lie is that the Department of Conservation and Recreation and Cambridge intend to destroy that picnic area by closing off its parking lot. The picnic area is used by a lot of apparently Hispanic minorities clearly from less expensive parts of the area. Closing off their parking would, at minimum, force a long walk carrying goods including grills. Closing off their parking is just another bizarre, destructive project.
Last I heard, the falsely named “conservancy” supported the destruction without reservation, with, of course, coordinated support of the city manager related front group in the neighborhood.
And it is only a tiny parking area.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Response on the defeat of the Charles River Highway, and on censorship by Davis
1. Charles River Highway.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher responds to our posts:
1. Charles River Highway.
Cher:
I am thrilled to hear your news re the vetoes of the highway. I wonder if anyone is literally turning over in their graves at the very thought of it. disgusting! Its marvelous that you are recognized as someone who is for the people re this situation, literally. To be recognized on the streets of Camb is something! kudos to you again.
Editor:
Thank you. There is a very big difference between the machine and reality. Reality is working well. The machine, as usual, sounds great, but reality is such that they have no credibility.
The machine was properly yelling about a truly bizarre destruction of zoning protections in certain big buildings, but the machine destroyed Alewife. They have no credibility.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher:
Listen, how can she possibly veto your response?? I would if I were you remain respectful and stick to the facts and screw her in plain English.
Editor:
Davis lives in a world in Cambridge which is devoid of reality.
The machine lives a fake world.
Davis thrives on the machine’s fake world with the full knowledge that the machine will praise her no matter what.
Cambridge has a truly “reprehensible” city government, to quote that civil rights judge.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher responds to our posts:
1. Charles River Highway.
Cher:
I am thrilled to hear your news re the vetoes of the highway. I wonder if anyone is literally turning over in their graves at the very thought of it. disgusting! Its marvelous that you are recognized as someone who is for the people re this situation, literally. To be recognized on the streets of Camb is something! kudos to you again.
Editor:
Thank you. There is a very big difference between the machine and reality. Reality is working well. The machine, as usual, sounds great, but reality is such that they have no credibility.
The machine was properly yelling about a truly bizarre destruction of zoning protections in certain big buildings, but the machine destroyed Alewife. They have no credibility.
2. Censorship by Davis.
Cher:
Listen, how can she possibly veto your response?? I would if I were you remain respectful and stick to the facts and screw her in plain English.
Editor:
Davis lives in a world in Cambridge which is devoid of reality.
The machine lives a fake world.
Davis thrives on the machine’s fake world with the full knowledge that the machine will praise her no matter what.
Cambridge has a truly “reprehensible” city government, to quote that civil rights judge.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Environmentally Destructive Cambridge City Councilor attempts censorship
1. General.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
4. Interrelationship among plans.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
1. General.
Tuesday evening, December 13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted one of its regular meetings to discuss its plans for development. The meeting was conducted in a new, very large, dormitory building at the corner of Albany and Pacific Streets in Cambridge. The building is separated from the Grand Junction Railroad only by Albany Street and by a wet shelter for the homeless.
It was a very civil meeting concerning MIT development plans and concerns of the participants about the MIT development plans.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
The meeting got unruly only when City Councilor Henrietta Davis put in a pitch for the small vehicle highway proposal along the Grand Junction. This is the destructive proposal about which the machine stacked the MassDOT meeting last week concerning passenger service on the Grand Junction.
I responded to Davis and she, not the chair, immediately turned a civil meeting into the totalitarian tactics which are normal with the Cambridge Pols.
Davis tried to shut me up because I referred to her highway proposal as a highway proposal. One of the key techniques of lying used by the machine is falsely favorable terms used to describe their irresponsible goals. She attempted to shut me up unless I used her falsely favorable term.
Then, I attempted to communicate that her essentially identical highway in the Charles and on its banks had been killed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation because it was so environmentally irresponsible, and that the portion of her highway in the Destroyed Nesting Area exactly fits the environmental destructiveness of the highly irresponsible highway proposal which had been killed by MassDOT.
Additionally, MassDOT controls the railroad right of way the Pols are trying to build their highway on.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
The discussion had touched on MIT’s building across Memorial Drive from the Destroyed Nesting Area.
MIT had passed around plot maps which showed MIT’s ownership to be larger than I had realized. MIT owns the land under the Grand Junction north of Memorial Drive and a small area to the east of the Grand Junction which they are leasing to that owner, the property at the corner of Vassar and Memorial Drive across from the eastern portion of the not fully destroyed goose habitat.
The Cambridge Pols’ small vehicle highway would pass over that MIT owned land in the railroad right of way, but their plans are larger than the very narrow two track right of way. Is it possible that Davis was trying to hide from MIT her plans to take MIT property?
4. Interrelationship among plans.
The small vehicle highway proposal is irresponsible because of its direct attack on the small habitat of free animals which has not yet been destroyed. This immediate destructiveness can be avoided by turning the small vehicle highway off the Grand Junction before the MIT ownership and running it between the building on the corner and the building behind it on Vassar Street to a point where Vassar Street turns. Vassar Street parallels the Grand Junction to this turning point and then runs perpendicular to Memorial Drive.
The highway lobbyists have contempt for the environment to the extent that the environment is in the way of their lovely highway. They took a very serious blow when MassDOT rejected their destruction of the Charles and the banks of the Charles for their Charles River highway proposal.
But there is a lot more going on than just the small vehicle highway. The next step would appear to stab this highway lobby in the back for the next highway.
The Grand Junction goes under Memorial Drive through a bridge / underpass just wide enough for two tracks.
Cambridge has previously fought to tear down that bridge to widen the opening supposedly to allow this small vehicle highway proposal plus another highway proposal.
That Cambridge initiative came back in 2003/2004 when MassDOT’s predecessor (the MBTA, now amalgamated into MassDOT in a reorganization) announced its analysis that the Grand Junction Bridge under the BU Bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge.
A few months after that announcement, Harvard University bought the off ramps from the Massachusetts Turnpike perhaps a mile down the Grand Junction track in Allston / Brighton, along with the rail yard to which the Grand Junction track is going.
Harvard is clearly planning to move the Harvard Medical School to the Massachusetts Turnpike Allston / Cambridge exit / the Beacon railroad Yards.
The timing of the purchase so very rapidly after the transportation people’s announcement that the Grand Junction railroad bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike is most definitely not a coincidence.
The MBTA would have run their off ramp up the Grand Junction over Massachusetts Avenue to Main Street.
MIT has built a building over the tracks at that point. There is a rather distinctive hole in the MIT building which leaves room for the tracks plus more than just the tracks.
The MIT building north of Memorial Drive has a massive parking lot through which Cambridge has built a new boulevard level street. The plans for that street when they were under public discussion show large numbers of street trees, except between the street and the Grand Junction. The opening in the trees toward the Grand Junction would allow the off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to connect to that street and thus to Memorial Drive and the BU Bridge.
The proposal was only for three lanes, however. The Grand Junction Bridge would be widened to allow a two lane off / on ramp plus the highway proposal. There was not allowance for both the off ramp and the highway, just one or the other. It would appear that the small vehicle highway lobby is, in the long run, being shafted for the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp which, in turn, would allow Harvard to build on the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp to Allston / Cambridge.
The railroad is already far along in planning to move their rail yard to Worcester.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
The first and foremost tactic of the machine is to lie that the victories of their frequently bizarre goal is inevitable.
The machine uses whatever tool is at its disposal to achieve its ends.
One constant lie out of the machine is that the machine is holier than thou.
My use of an accurate term rather than Davis’s lying euphemism was threatening to Davis because I called a spade a spade. Her euphemism calls an environmentally irresponsible proposal something lovely.
But additionally, there is another lie that is always attempted behind everything: “You cannot win.” This lie is constantly used. The presence of a responsible state agency, MassDOT, really puts a kink into the Pol’s non-stop lie, “You cannot win.”
So the censorship.
And bullying.
The abuse of meetings is another very normal tactic.
The meeting with MIT was highly civilized and responsible as long as MIT was running the show. People were treated civilly and allowed without limit to make their comments.
The minute Davis started her abusive tactics, the Cambridge Pol stench pervaded the room.
There is no honor among the Cambridge Pols.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
4. Interrelationship among plans.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
1. General.
Tuesday evening, December 13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted one of its regular meetings to discuss its plans for development. The meeting was conducted in a new, very large, dormitory building at the corner of Albany and Pacific Streets in Cambridge. The building is separated from the Grand Junction Railroad only by Albany Street and by a wet shelter for the homeless.
It was a very civil meeting concerning MIT development plans and concerns of the participants about the MIT development plans.
2. Henrietta Davis pitches her small vehicle highway and censors opposition.
The meeting got unruly only when City Councilor Henrietta Davis put in a pitch for the small vehicle highway proposal along the Grand Junction. This is the destructive proposal about which the machine stacked the MassDOT meeting last week concerning passenger service on the Grand Junction.
I responded to Davis and she, not the chair, immediately turned a civil meeting into the totalitarian tactics which are normal with the Cambridge Pols.
Davis tried to shut me up because I referred to her highway proposal as a highway proposal. One of the key techniques of lying used by the machine is falsely favorable terms used to describe their irresponsible goals. She attempted to shut me up unless I used her falsely favorable term.
Then, I attempted to communicate that her essentially identical highway in the Charles and on its banks had been killed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation because it was so environmentally irresponsible, and that the portion of her highway in the Destroyed Nesting Area exactly fits the environmental destructiveness of the highly irresponsible highway proposal which had been killed by MassDOT.
Additionally, MassDOT controls the railroad right of way the Pols are trying to build their highway on.
3. Property interests disclosed in the meeting.
The discussion had touched on MIT’s building across Memorial Drive from the Destroyed Nesting Area.
MIT had passed around plot maps which showed MIT’s ownership to be larger than I had realized. MIT owns the land under the Grand Junction north of Memorial Drive and a small area to the east of the Grand Junction which they are leasing to that owner, the property at the corner of Vassar and Memorial Drive across from the eastern portion of the not fully destroyed goose habitat.
The Cambridge Pols’ small vehicle highway would pass over that MIT owned land in the railroad right of way, but their plans are larger than the very narrow two track right of way. Is it possible that Davis was trying to hide from MIT her plans to take MIT property?
4. Interrelationship among plans.
The small vehicle highway proposal is irresponsible because of its direct attack on the small habitat of free animals which has not yet been destroyed. This immediate destructiveness can be avoided by turning the small vehicle highway off the Grand Junction before the MIT ownership and running it between the building on the corner and the building behind it on Vassar Street to a point where Vassar Street turns. Vassar Street parallels the Grand Junction to this turning point and then runs perpendicular to Memorial Drive.
The highway lobbyists have contempt for the environment to the extent that the environment is in the way of their lovely highway. They took a very serious blow when MassDOT rejected their destruction of the Charles and the banks of the Charles for their Charles River highway proposal.
But there is a lot more going on than just the small vehicle highway. The next step would appear to stab this highway lobby in the back for the next highway.
The Grand Junction goes under Memorial Drive through a bridge / underpass just wide enough for two tracks.
Cambridge has previously fought to tear down that bridge to widen the opening supposedly to allow this small vehicle highway proposal plus another highway proposal.
That Cambridge initiative came back in 2003/2004 when MassDOT’s predecessor (the MBTA, now amalgamated into MassDOT in a reorganization) announced its analysis that the Grand Junction Bridge under the BU Bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge.
A few months after that announcement, Harvard University bought the off ramps from the Massachusetts Turnpike perhaps a mile down the Grand Junction track in Allston / Brighton, along with the rail yard to which the Grand Junction track is going.
Harvard is clearly planning to move the Harvard Medical School to the Massachusetts Turnpike Allston / Cambridge exit / the Beacon railroad Yards.
The timing of the purchase so very rapidly after the transportation people’s announcement that the Grand Junction railroad bridge could be used for an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike is most definitely not a coincidence.
The MBTA would have run their off ramp up the Grand Junction over Massachusetts Avenue to Main Street.
MIT has built a building over the tracks at that point. There is a rather distinctive hole in the MIT building which leaves room for the tracks plus more than just the tracks.
The MIT building north of Memorial Drive has a massive parking lot through which Cambridge has built a new boulevard level street. The plans for that street when they were under public discussion show large numbers of street trees, except between the street and the Grand Junction. The opening in the trees toward the Grand Junction would allow the off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to connect to that street and thus to Memorial Drive and the BU Bridge.
The proposal was only for three lanes, however. The Grand Junction Bridge would be widened to allow a two lane off / on ramp plus the highway proposal. There was not allowance for both the off ramp and the highway, just one or the other. It would appear that the small vehicle highway lobby is, in the long run, being shafted for the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp which, in turn, would allow Harvard to build on the Massachusetts Turnpike off ramp to Allston / Cambridge.
The railroad is already far along in planning to move their rail yard to Worcester.
5. Cambridge Machine tactics.
The first and foremost tactic of the machine is to lie that the victories of their frequently bizarre goal is inevitable.
The machine uses whatever tool is at its disposal to achieve its ends.
One constant lie out of the machine is that the machine is holier than thou.
My use of an accurate term rather than Davis’s lying euphemism was threatening to Davis because I called a spade a spade. Her euphemism calls an environmentally irresponsible proposal something lovely.
But additionally, there is another lie that is always attempted behind everything: “You cannot win.” This lie is constantly used. The presence of a responsible state agency, MassDOT, really puts a kink into the Pol’s non-stop lie, “You cannot win.”
So the censorship.
And bullying.
The abuse of meetings is another very normal tactic.
The meeting with MIT was highly civilized and responsible as long as MIT was running the show. People were treated civilly and allowed without limit to make their comments.
The minute Davis started her abusive tactics, the Cambridge Pol stench pervaded the room.
There is no honor among the Cambridge Pols.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Two Cambridge, MA, Councilors go public; how Cambridge, MA, has a pariah government
1. The actual vote and the positions.
A. The Project.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
(1) Monteiro.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
(3) The Charles River.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
B. Summary.
1. The actual vote and the positions.
The item under review at the Cambridge, MA, City Council meeting on Monday evening, December 12, was itself innocuous. The problem with it was its place in the larger and very rotten scheme of things.
That rotten part was emphasized by Councilors Toomey and Davis who spoke in that order.
A. The Project.
I have gone into detail concerning the Grand Junction railroad and its great and very harmful potential value if you are concerned about the environment or about the environmental destructiveness of the City of Cambridge on the Charles River.
The matter under consideration can be slightly understood by looking at the Grand Junction Map, http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/Downloads/grandjunction/GrandJunctionmap.pdf, put out by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
The map very visibly shows a large brown area occupied by the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT). It is directly above the Charles River. Directly above MIT is a swath of green which seems to be erroneously indicating open space. Directly above this area is a broken line which indicates the Grand Junction railroad line.
Following that line to the Charles River, you see a green area on both sides of the line which is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. Moving east / right on that line, you see a green rectangle above the line which represents the Fort Washington Park which is at the corner of two streets. There is a no longer used railroad spur which runs off the Grand Junction near Fort Washington to the near side of the very large former NECCO (as in NECCO wafers) factory which is located on the south / near side of Massachusetts Avenue in the second block above the Grand Junction railroad line.
This siding was constructed to support the factory operations of the NECCO building when it was an industrial site.
The discussion was on the expenditure of $100,000 to plan the conversion of this no longer used siding into a highway for pedestrians and small vehicles.
It would connect to a comparable highway the City of Cambridge wants built on the Grand Junction right of way.
Responsible construction would have this highway terminate a little north of Memorial Drive, which is the highway paralleling the Charles River, and having users go to Memorial Drive on the ground.
The street immediately below the Grand Junction has a bend just before it reaches Memorial Drive. That is where a responsible government would make connections. It is unbuilt upon and could readily be used.
The irresponsible Cambridge proposal would have the highway go through the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese with corresponding greater heartless animal abuse and environmental destruction.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
Toomey and Davis supported the destructive proposal on the Grand Junction with all its destructiveness.
The only other member of the Cambridge City Council to talk was Kelley who attempted to bring out of the Cambridge City Manager the exact location of the construction in question.
Planning for conversion of the siding to a small vehicle highway will run $100,000. That money was approved Monday night by a unanimous city council with Seidel not attending the meeting.
The next step of planning, for the destructive new highway to the Charles River on the Grand Junction, would cost $900,000. That has not been approved, YET.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
Cambridge MA deserves to be a pariah among the Politically Correct.
I will try to be succinct. In particular, I will not go into the details of the very common lies, or, if you wish to be politically correct, the deliberate withholding of relevant information so as to cause the listener to do exactly the opposite of what the listener would otherwise do.
(1) Monteiro.
Cambridge has decisions of a trial judge and jury plus an appeals court panel indicating that the Cambridge City Manager has been guilty of malfeasance in office because he destroyed the life of a female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The Trial Judge said “reprehensible.” The Appeals Court said “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial jury said $1.1 million real damages, $3.5 million penal damages. The check the City of Cambridge has paid said $8.3 million.
A very real, moderate, interpretation of the court messages is that the Cambridge City Manager has committed quite severe malfeasance in office.
A city government which non stop proclaims itself as a beacon to the politically correct should have no question as to how to handle the situation.
The city manager should be fired without golden parachute and without pension.
There has been exactly ZERO attempts to fire the Cambridge City Manager for Monteiro. ZERO.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
The City of Cambridge, lying that it was providing flood protection for North Cambridge, has destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation with massive destruction of excellent trees and killings of massive numbers resident animals who could not get out of the way. Destruction runs over acres of land which were previously prides of people concerned about our world.
Directly across the street from this Cambridge created strip mine is a massive parking lot which, if taken by eminent domain could readily provide the claimed flood storage. The owner of the nearest part wants to build office buildings. Those office buildings could readily be built on air rights, but the owner could go forward at any time.
Boston.com has, pretty much non stop for many months published a photo of hawks nesting on an office building between the Alewife reservation and the Fresh Pond reservation. For a number of years now, Cambridge has been destroying the environment and animal habitat around Fresh Pond. The hawks are nesting on the office building because their habitat has been destroyed.
(3) The Charles River.
Outrageous and downright bizarre.
Magazine Beach is slightly west of the BU Bridge. It, for most of the last 30 years, has been the home and principle food of the magnificent Charles River White Geese, who had created a community centered on the BU Bridge. They lived at Magazine Beach most of the year and fed there.
During extremely bad weather and during nesting, they lived in the balanced animal sanctuary immediately east of the BU Bridge.
This was a balanced ecosystem in the middle of the city with a wide variety of resident animals.
This area has seen repeated destruction over the past ten years and heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese, the very visible residents who were not capable of leaving.
Since the Charles River Conservancy became the “volunteer” environmental destroyer for the state in 2003, almost all ground vegetation has been destroyed in the green area on both sides of the Grand Junction including their primary nesting area next to the BU Bridge and a secondary mostly hilly area to the east.
Since their food was destroyed to them at Magazine Beach in 2004, this is the ghetto to which the Charles River White Geese have been confined.
This is the area that Toomey and Davis would run their small vehicle highway through.
The bizarre projects at Magazine Beach simply cannot be justified by any sane grounds.
Normal human beings looking at Magazine Beach agreed that it did not need improving.
For the better part of a century this has been playing fields with free animals having access from the Charles River. It was a haven in its wetlands for water fowl.
The wetlands have been replaced by a bizarre wall of introduced vegetation which keeps people and animal from moving between Magazine Beach and the Charles River. The only break in this bizarre wall is a former boat ramp which has been destroyed for boating use by the placing of obstacles preventing access to the ramp by boats and preventing access to the mainland by the Charles River White Geese.
The state brags that its work on the Charles emphasizes uses which need the water. Their original master plan for Magazine Beach called for a lawn to the water. They admitted their master plan to be a lie by changing the master plan after the dirty work was done.
Everywhere else on the Charles River Basin, protective vegetation is destroyed twice a year. The introduced stuff has been allowed to grow and grow. The manager has bragged it starves the Charles River White Geese.
Grass which grew in an environmentally responsible manner for the better part of a century has been destroyed and replaced by introduced sickly grass which will not survive without poisons.
To keep the poisons out of the Charles River, the playing fields have been significantly reduced in size to put in a massive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be used.
Plans exist for the destruction of between 449 and 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the second bridge east of the BU Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge. The state agency, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, sought Obama moneys for this destruction, flatly lying that all the hundreds of trees they wanted to destroy were sickly. The sickly trees were destroyed years earlier, and the plans they filed with the Cambridge Conservation Commission so indicated.
Somebody, perhaps the governor, prevented this outrage.
Plans also exist to destroy the picnic area just west of the playing fields at the river end of Magazine Street by destroying their tiny parking area. Destruction of this parking would destroy a tiny picnic area used by little people. No reason has been given for the destruction.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
Small groups of people run around Cambridge claiming sainthood and claiming that they are protecting Cambridge. These small groups work with each other and support each other. They have gotten together for zoning changes which all too frequently achieve the exact opposite of what they claim.
Key in the destruction of the Alewife reservation was a fake protective group which claimed to be defending Alewife but told people to look at everything other that what Cambridge was destroying, an irresponsible project which could not achieve its stated goals, stated goals which could be responsibly be achieved. But the fake group achieved its purpose. The core Alewife reservation has been destroyed and well meaning people do not know what hit them. After all, they were told they were protecting Alewife.
A comparable group in Cambridgeport supported the Alewife destructive organization, but now, after they have destroyed Alewife, claims that Alewife is too far away to be interested in.
This fake group has held public meeting on Magazine Beach in which they flat out censored the destructiveness of their friends in Cambridge and at the DCR. Now they claim to be “defending” Magazine Beach. In light of their record at Alewife, need I say more.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
The public relations of these people is outrageous and false, but it keeps a really rotten city government in place in a city which expects behavior exactly the opposite of what they are getting.
B. Summary.
I am sorry about the length of this analysis.
Of necessity, exact correctness on all issues is impossible. I, like a newspaper reporter, have attempted to communicate reality as simply as possible.
I realize that this has been anything but simple.
A. The Project.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
(1) Monteiro.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
(3) The Charles River.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
B. Summary.
1. The actual vote and the positions.
The item under review at the Cambridge, MA, City Council meeting on Monday evening, December 12, was itself innocuous. The problem with it was its place in the larger and very rotten scheme of things.
That rotten part was emphasized by Councilors Toomey and Davis who spoke in that order.
A. The Project.
I have gone into detail concerning the Grand Junction railroad and its great and very harmful potential value if you are concerned about the environment or about the environmental destructiveness of the City of Cambridge on the Charles River.
The matter under consideration can be slightly understood by looking at the Grand Junction Map, http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/Downloads/grandjunction/GrandJunctionmap.pdf, put out by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
The map very visibly shows a large brown area occupied by the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT). It is directly above the Charles River. Directly above MIT is a swath of green which seems to be erroneously indicating open space. Directly above this area is a broken line which indicates the Grand Junction railroad line.
Following that line to the Charles River, you see a green area on both sides of the line which is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. Moving east / right on that line, you see a green rectangle above the line which represents the Fort Washington Park which is at the corner of two streets. There is a no longer used railroad spur which runs off the Grand Junction near Fort Washington to the near side of the very large former NECCO (as in NECCO wafers) factory which is located on the south / near side of Massachusetts Avenue in the second block above the Grand Junction railroad line.
This siding was constructed to support the factory operations of the NECCO building when it was an industrial site.
The discussion was on the expenditure of $100,000 to plan the conversion of this no longer used siding into a highway for pedestrians and small vehicles.
It would connect to a comparable highway the City of Cambridge wants built on the Grand Junction right of way.
Responsible construction would have this highway terminate a little north of Memorial Drive, which is the highway paralleling the Charles River, and having users go to Memorial Drive on the ground.
The street immediately below the Grand Junction has a bend just before it reaches Memorial Drive. That is where a responsible government would make connections. It is unbuilt upon and could readily be used.
The irresponsible Cambridge proposal would have the highway go through the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese with corresponding greater heartless animal abuse and environmental destruction.
B. The position of two environmentally destructive Cambridge City Councilors.
Toomey and Davis supported the destructive proposal on the Grand Junction with all its destructiveness.
The only other member of the Cambridge City Council to talk was Kelley who attempted to bring out of the Cambridge City Manager the exact location of the construction in question.
Planning for conversion of the siding to a small vehicle highway will run $100,000. That money was approved Monday night by a unanimous city council with Seidel not attending the meeting.
The next step of planning, for the destructive new highway to the Charles River on the Grand Junction, would cost $900,000. That has not been approved, YET.
2. Cambridge, MA, a pariah to the politically correct.
A. General.
Cambridge MA deserves to be a pariah among the Politically Correct.
I will try to be succinct. In particular, I will not go into the details of the very common lies, or, if you wish to be politically correct, the deliberate withholding of relevant information so as to cause the listener to do exactly the opposite of what the listener would otherwise do.
(1) Monteiro.
Cambridge has decisions of a trial judge and jury plus an appeals court panel indicating that the Cambridge City Manager has been guilty of malfeasance in office because he destroyed the life of a female department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The Trial Judge said “reprehensible.” The Appeals Court said “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial jury said $1.1 million real damages, $3.5 million penal damages. The check the City of Cambridge has paid said $8.3 million.
A very real, moderate, interpretation of the court messages is that the Cambridge City Manager has committed quite severe malfeasance in office.
A city government which non stop proclaims itself as a beacon to the politically correct should have no question as to how to handle the situation.
The city manager should be fired without golden parachute and without pension.
There has been exactly ZERO attempts to fire the Cambridge City Manager for Monteiro. ZERO.
(2) West Cambridge, especially but not solely Alewife.
The City of Cambridge, lying that it was providing flood protection for North Cambridge, has destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation with massive destruction of excellent trees and killings of massive numbers resident animals who could not get out of the way. Destruction runs over acres of land which were previously prides of people concerned about our world.
Directly across the street from this Cambridge created strip mine is a massive parking lot which, if taken by eminent domain could readily provide the claimed flood storage. The owner of the nearest part wants to build office buildings. Those office buildings could readily be built on air rights, but the owner could go forward at any time.
Boston.com has, pretty much non stop for many months published a photo of hawks nesting on an office building between the Alewife reservation and the Fresh Pond reservation. For a number of years now, Cambridge has been destroying the environment and animal habitat around Fresh Pond. The hawks are nesting on the office building because their habitat has been destroyed.
(3) The Charles River.
Outrageous and downright bizarre.
Magazine Beach is slightly west of the BU Bridge. It, for most of the last 30 years, has been the home and principle food of the magnificent Charles River White Geese, who had created a community centered on the BU Bridge. They lived at Magazine Beach most of the year and fed there.
During extremely bad weather and during nesting, they lived in the balanced animal sanctuary immediately east of the BU Bridge.
This was a balanced ecosystem in the middle of the city with a wide variety of resident animals.
This area has seen repeated destruction over the past ten years and heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese, the very visible residents who were not capable of leaving.
Since the Charles River Conservancy became the “volunteer” environmental destroyer for the state in 2003, almost all ground vegetation has been destroyed in the green area on both sides of the Grand Junction including their primary nesting area next to the BU Bridge and a secondary mostly hilly area to the east.
Since their food was destroyed to them at Magazine Beach in 2004, this is the ghetto to which the Charles River White Geese have been confined.
This is the area that Toomey and Davis would run their small vehicle highway through.
The bizarre projects at Magazine Beach simply cannot be justified by any sane grounds.
Normal human beings looking at Magazine Beach agreed that it did not need improving.
For the better part of a century this has been playing fields with free animals having access from the Charles River. It was a haven in its wetlands for water fowl.
The wetlands have been replaced by a bizarre wall of introduced vegetation which keeps people and animal from moving between Magazine Beach and the Charles River. The only break in this bizarre wall is a former boat ramp which has been destroyed for boating use by the placing of obstacles preventing access to the ramp by boats and preventing access to the mainland by the Charles River White Geese.
The state brags that its work on the Charles emphasizes uses which need the water. Their original master plan for Magazine Beach called for a lawn to the water. They admitted their master plan to be a lie by changing the master plan after the dirty work was done.
Everywhere else on the Charles River Basin, protective vegetation is destroyed twice a year. The introduced stuff has been allowed to grow and grow. The manager has bragged it starves the Charles River White Geese.
Grass which grew in an environmentally responsible manner for the better part of a century has been destroyed and replaced by introduced sickly grass which will not survive without poisons.
To keep the poisons out of the Charles River, the playing fields have been significantly reduced in size to put in a massive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be used.
Plans exist for the destruction of between 449 and 660 healthy trees between Magazine Beach and the second bridge east of the BU Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge. The state agency, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, sought Obama moneys for this destruction, flatly lying that all the hundreds of trees they wanted to destroy were sickly. The sickly trees were destroyed years earlier, and the plans they filed with the Cambridge Conservation Commission so indicated.
Somebody, perhaps the governor, prevented this outrage.
Plans also exist to destroy the picnic area just west of the playing fields at the river end of Magazine Street by destroying their tiny parking area. Destruction of this parking would destroy a tiny picnic area used by little people. No reason has been given for the destruction.
(4) Manipulating of well meaning people under false pretenses by undisclosed agents of the city government.
Small groups of people run around Cambridge claiming sainthood and claiming that they are protecting Cambridge. These small groups work with each other and support each other. They have gotten together for zoning changes which all too frequently achieve the exact opposite of what they claim.
Key in the destruction of the Alewife reservation was a fake protective group which claimed to be defending Alewife but told people to look at everything other that what Cambridge was destroying, an irresponsible project which could not achieve its stated goals, stated goals which could be responsibly be achieved. But the fake group achieved its purpose. The core Alewife reservation has been destroyed and well meaning people do not know what hit them. After all, they were told they were protecting Alewife.
A comparable group in Cambridgeport supported the Alewife destructive organization, but now, after they have destroyed Alewife, claims that Alewife is too far away to be interested in.
This fake group has held public meeting on Magazine Beach in which they flat out censored the destructiveness of their friends in Cambridge and at the DCR. Now they claim to be “defending” Magazine Beach. In light of their record at Alewife, need I say more.
(5) The non stop lying of sainthood by a really rotten city government, directly and through the undisclosed agents.
The public relations of these people is outrageous and false, but it keeps a really rotten city government in place in a city which expects behavior exactly the opposite of what they are getting.
B. Summary.
I am sorry about the length of this analysis.
Of necessity, exact correctness on all issues is impossible. I, like a newspaper reporter, have attempted to communicate reality as simply as possible.
I realize that this has been anything but simple.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
MassDOT tables Grand Junction Passenger Service; Cambridge Pols push environmental destruction anyway
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation conducted a neighborhood briefing on the status of its study of passenger service on the Grand Junction Railroad in Cambridge. This is the track that runs through the eastern part of the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese. The proposal would be very harmful to the Charles River White Geese and to the environment abutting the Charles River.
MassDOT has determined that, as of the current situation, passenger service on the Grand Junction has significantly less value than using the expansion of South Station in Boston to receive expanded Worcester / Framingham service. So they are tabling the concept to work on expanding South Station.
They emphasized that Framingham / Worcester service needs to expand and that the best way to do that is to put the added trains on the South Station route. The big problem they have is that there is no money to expand South Station and it would be very expensive since it would require tearing down the main Post Office mail handling facility in Boston. The post office is amenable, but the post office expect Massachusetts to bear all associated costs.
The actual expansion in South Station is targeted as part of returning train service to the “South Coast”, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton, MA. That project is also deferred. Apparently because of the money problem as well.
MassDOT will post the slides from the presentation on their website on December 9. This report is based on my memory of the presentation and I am giving my best memory.
The numbers which stood out to me were MassDOT’s projections of service under the most extreme usage they projected for the Grand Junction. Under this projection, total daily ridership would increase by 300 passengers, and, with a stop near Kendall Square in Cambridge, 500 passengers would be using that stop.
The way the numbers work indicates that, after the new Kendall passengers, ridership would DECREASE elsewhere on the service. This is my point and my understanding of what I got out of them on questioning.
Basically, this just makes no sense to them or to me. So they are going to work for the expansion of South Station and, if they cannot expand South Station, will look once again at adding trains to North Station by the Grand Junction.
The Cambridge Pols had their usual destructive contingent out. The Pols have organized the highway lobby in a very aggressive manner. These are the same types who are fighting for massive environmental destruction on the Charles for their silly highway proposal there.
They emphasized that they want their new highway following the Grand Junction no matter what. As with their destructive proposal following and running in the Charles River, these individuals could care less about the environmental harm or heartless animal abuse.
Cambridge City Councilor Henrietta Davis, of the needless destruction of the core Alewife reservation as part of that bizarre project which cannot achieve its stated objectives but which could be done in the parking lot across the street, very piously supported this highway concept with its harm to the environment and the animals of the Charles. Davis is highly consistent. She, however, has the nerve to claim to be an environmentalist.
MassDOT has determined that, as of the current situation, passenger service on the Grand Junction has significantly less value than using the expansion of South Station in Boston to receive expanded Worcester / Framingham service. So they are tabling the concept to work on expanding South Station.
They emphasized that Framingham / Worcester service needs to expand and that the best way to do that is to put the added trains on the South Station route. The big problem they have is that there is no money to expand South Station and it would be very expensive since it would require tearing down the main Post Office mail handling facility in Boston. The post office is amenable, but the post office expect Massachusetts to bear all associated costs.
The actual expansion in South Station is targeted as part of returning train service to the “South Coast”, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton, MA. That project is also deferred. Apparently because of the money problem as well.
MassDOT will post the slides from the presentation on their website on December 9. This report is based on my memory of the presentation and I am giving my best memory.
The numbers which stood out to me were MassDOT’s projections of service under the most extreme usage they projected for the Grand Junction. Under this projection, total daily ridership would increase by 300 passengers, and, with a stop near Kendall Square in Cambridge, 500 passengers would be using that stop.
The way the numbers work indicates that, after the new Kendall passengers, ridership would DECREASE elsewhere on the service. This is my point and my understanding of what I got out of them on questioning.
Basically, this just makes no sense to them or to me. So they are going to work for the expansion of South Station and, if they cannot expand South Station, will look once again at adding trains to North Station by the Grand Junction.
The Cambridge Pols had their usual destructive contingent out. The Pols have organized the highway lobby in a very aggressive manner. These are the same types who are fighting for massive environmental destruction on the Charles for their silly highway proposal there.
They emphasized that they want their new highway following the Grand Junction no matter what. As with their destructive proposal following and running in the Charles River, these individuals could care less about the environmental harm or heartless animal abuse.
Cambridge City Councilor Henrietta Davis, of the needless destruction of the core Alewife reservation as part of that bizarre project which cannot achieve its stated objectives but which could be done in the parking lot across the street, very piously supported this highway concept with its harm to the environment and the animals of the Charles. Davis is highly consistent. She, however, has the nerve to claim to be an environmentalist.
Appeals Court considering case relevant to environmental destruction on Charles River
We are getting hits on this blog from Google News. I have hunted, but I am very bewildered where the link / post is.
Nevertheless, on hunting for the link, I found a very relevant report on Google News. It is relevant to the details of any possible firing of the Cambridge City Manager. The Cambridge City Manager is, of course, the source of the environmental destruction, combined with a unanimously bad city council.
The Salem News reports, http://www.salemnews.com/local/x2088052838/Appeals-Court-decision-on-Bettencourt-pension-likely-within-130-days, that the Appeals Court is considering whether a former Peabody police officer can be stripped of his pension for using the department computer to illegally access information about his fellow officers.
This cop’s misbehavior is one heck of a lot less than destroying the life of an employee in retaliation for the filing of a civil rights complaint. The Cambridge City Manager has resoundingly been found civilly guilty of destroying that woman’s life, with a strong concurrence from the Appeals Court.
I have been strongly in support of firing Healy for destruction of that woman’s life. Such a firing would automatically void his golden parachute, or, to be more exact, would make it inconceivable that he could save it in Court.
The very existence of this police officer case strongly indicates that stripping the Cambridge City Manager of his pension, as well, is an excellent idea, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible city council, which it emphatically does not.
Nevertheless, on hunting for the link, I found a very relevant report on Google News. It is relevant to the details of any possible firing of the Cambridge City Manager. The Cambridge City Manager is, of course, the source of the environmental destruction, combined with a unanimously bad city council.
The Salem News reports, http://www.salemnews.com/local/x2088052838/Appeals-Court-decision-on-Bettencourt-pension-likely-within-130-days, that the Appeals Court is considering whether a former Peabody police officer can be stripped of his pension for using the department computer to illegally access information about his fellow officers.
This cop’s misbehavior is one heck of a lot less than destroying the life of an employee in retaliation for the filing of a civil rights complaint. The Cambridge City Manager has resoundingly been found civilly guilty of destroying that woman’s life, with a strong concurrence from the Appeals Court.
I have been strongly in support of firing Healy for destruction of that woman’s life. Such a firing would automatically void his golden parachute, or, to be more exact, would make it inconceivable that he could save it in Court.
The very existence of this police officer case strongly indicates that stripping the Cambridge City Manager of his pension, as well, is an excellent idea, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible city council, which it emphatically does not.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Cambridge City Councilor feels disrespected by Cambridge City Manager over Monteiro
A few days ago, I reported that the Cambridge City Council would be considering a motion last night, December 5, to get key details about the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge. The report may be viewed at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/civil-rights-retaliation-case.html. The order may be viewed at http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/PolicyOrder.cfm?item_id=33584.
Cambridge City Councilor Kenneth Reaves was the only councilor to speak on the matter last night.
He said that he filed the order because a lot of people are wondering about the details of the payment. He pointed out that this was a repeated motion, that the Cambridge City Council needs to know this sort of matter. He felt disrespected by the City Manager in that the City Manager is failing to provide this information.
This is a councilor who is a lawyer and has had at least two very strong judicial opinions come down on Monteiro. The Appeals Court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust and refused to dignify it with a formal opinion. They commented “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial judge described the behavior as “reprehensible.” The jury multiplied their $1.1 award of damages with $3.5 million PENAL damages.
This is a councilor who just cannot understand why the city manager should be fired. After all, all the city manager did was destroy the life of a woman in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The councilor is fully capable of reading those opinions. The opinions justify firing and, in fact, strongly direct the firing of the Cambridge without his golden parachute and possibly without pension. But this lawyer just cannot understand.
This is a councilor who just destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation in a bizarre project which will not and cannot achieve its stated objectives, meaningful flood control, while the stated objectives can be achieved by taking the massive parking lot across the street to put flood control underground without destroying the magnificent core Alewife reservation. Perhaps thousands of excellent animals were killed as part of this outrage.
This is a councilor who has been party to years of outrageous destruction at Fresh Pond. Hawks are nesting on office buildings because of the destruction of their habitat.
This is a councilor has been part of the outrages on the Charles River as part of those bizarre projects since they began. He has been part of the heartless animal abuse, the dumping of poisons on the banks, the walling off of the banks from the river, the massive destruction of habitat.
This is a councilor who loudly proclaims his sainthood on environmental and civil rights matters.
This is a councilor who would have contempt and disgust for people with contempt for civil rights and for people with contempt for the environment and for beautiful, valuable animals.
The city manager is treating this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council exactly the way decent people should treat this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council, with disgust and contempt.
This councilor has earned this treatment, with a vengeance.
Cambridge City Councilor Kenneth Reaves was the only councilor to speak on the matter last night.
He said that he filed the order because a lot of people are wondering about the details of the payment. He pointed out that this was a repeated motion, that the Cambridge City Council needs to know this sort of matter. He felt disrespected by the City Manager in that the City Manager is failing to provide this information.
This is a councilor who is a lawyer and has had at least two very strong judicial opinions come down on Monteiro. The Appeals Court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust and refused to dignify it with a formal opinion. They commented “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The trial judge described the behavior as “reprehensible.” The jury multiplied their $1.1 award of damages with $3.5 million PENAL damages.
This is a councilor who just cannot understand why the city manager should be fired. After all, all the city manager did was destroy the life of a woman in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The councilor is fully capable of reading those opinions. The opinions justify firing and, in fact, strongly direct the firing of the Cambridge without his golden parachute and possibly without pension. But this lawyer just cannot understand.
This is a councilor who just destroyed the magnificent core Alewife reservation in a bizarre project which will not and cannot achieve its stated objectives, meaningful flood control, while the stated objectives can be achieved by taking the massive parking lot across the street to put flood control underground without destroying the magnificent core Alewife reservation. Perhaps thousands of excellent animals were killed as part of this outrage.
This is a councilor who has been party to years of outrageous destruction at Fresh Pond. Hawks are nesting on office buildings because of the destruction of their habitat.
This is a councilor has been part of the outrages on the Charles River as part of those bizarre projects since they began. He has been part of the heartless animal abuse, the dumping of poisons on the banks, the walling off of the banks from the river, the massive destruction of habitat.
This is a councilor who loudly proclaims his sainthood on environmental and civil rights matters.
This is a councilor who would have contempt and disgust for people with contempt for civil rights and for people with contempt for the environment and for beautiful, valuable animals.
The city manager is treating this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council exactly the way decent people should treat this city councilor and the Cambridge City Council, with disgust and contempt.
This councilor has earned this treatment, with a vengeance.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
The environmental outrage at Magazine Beach and the Destroyed Nesting Area.
1. General.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
8. The boat dock area.
9. Photos.
1. General.
One thing that normal human beings all agreed on was that there was nothing wrong at Magazine Beach.
So naturally, Cambridge and MA destroyed it.
The Charles River White Geese have lived for 30 years in a mile long habitat on the Charles River centered on the BU Bridge.
They spent most of the year at Magazine Beach feeding off the grasses there, beloved by all normal people.
During bad weather and the spring, they lived in their nesting area just to the east of the BU Bridge. I have recently posted photos of that outrage. They went to the nesting area to mate and raise their babies.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
I have recently provided photos of the latest destruction.
First destruction of the Nesting Area occurred in October 1999. It started the morning before a Cambridge Conservation Commission meeting to discuss the destruction proposed. It was completed before the earliest date work could be completed.
The work in October 1999 was done by Boston University who proceeded to lie that they had nothing to do with the destruction until they were condemned for their lawlessness by the Cambridge Conservation Commission six months later. Then BU blamed six months of lies of their president’s secretary who was not fired.
BU acting for MA entered into an urban wild area and destroyed it.
MA called the destruction a gift. The work was totally illegal. NO AGREEMENTS WERE SIGNED.
The destroyed nesting area was a wild ecosystem in the middle of the city. It was block off by fences from public access.
The fences were broken in two places.
At the corner of the BU Bridge and the ramp to Memorial Drive, a concrete ramp and stairs replaced the wild area.
At the eastern end of that access ramp, a staircase was dug into the wild hillside.
Until then, the nesting area was filled with protective ground vegetation.
The protective ground vegetation was destroyed en mass and replace with silly grass and a winding black stone covered walkway. Animals homes were casually destroyed
This “improvement” was almost totally unused by humans. The “improvements” steadily washed into the Charles.
The only major users were the Charles River White Geese. A video of the area in spring 2000 is posted at
Routinely friends of MA and Cambridge went through the Destroyed Nesting Area destroying nests. Mother Geese who defended their nests were frequently killed and carried away.
The vegetation destroyed regrew. Earth renewed itself.
In 2003, MA contracted with the Charles River Conservancy for environmental destructions services on the Charles River.
Since 2003, almost all the ground vegetation in the Destroyed Nesting Area has been destroyed again. The only exceptions were two tiny patches: (1) abutting the eastern area of the totally unnecessary east leg of the BU Bridge repair destruction and (2) abutting the southern end of the needed access area for BU Bridge repairs.
Protective vegetation in the eastern part of the area, beyond the Grand Junction tracks was totally destroyed.
None of this destruction has regrown, indicating deliberate poisoning, although there has been expansion of the tiny area left around the BU Bridge Construction.
Details on the damage done in the BU Bridge repair project were recently provided with photos at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/photo-record-september-2011-destruction.html.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
Initial funding of $1.5 million for destruction at Magazine Beach was voted by the Cambridge City Council in December 1999.
Flat out lies have been normal. The most important lie, constantly repeated was that MA had no intention to “harm” the Charles River White Geese. It developed that “harm” had a secret definition. Starving them and destroying their home is not included in the definition of “harm.”
During the first season after the destruction of the nesting area, this outrage got major publicity. The flat out lies of no intent to harm quieted the publicity.
Cambridge and MA have played games with money which has shifted from one pot to another to allow the parties to lie that the worst was done by MA.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
In 2004, the wetlands bordering the Charles River were destroyed and the Charles River White were barred from their food of thirty years. They went from being almost totally self-sufficient to being totally fed by responsible human beings protecting them from a highly irresponsible city and state.
The wetlands were first walled off. Then they were dug up and a series of introduced bushes were attempted to be grown. They all died until MA finally found something which would grow.
MA and the Charles River Conservancy destroys all bordering vegetation on the Charles River twice a year. I have seen the Boston Conservation Commission shocked at the harm done by their practices to migrating waterfowl.
Now the only bordering vegetation not grown is the bizarre wall of introduced bushes blocking off Magazine Beach from the Charles River. The MA manager has bragged that this wall starves the Charles River White Geese.
The Charles River Conservancy conducted a swim in during the early days of the work to brag that this outrage would help swimming in the Charles River.
So playing fields which abutted the Charles in which nature and humans survived together for the mutual benefit of all have been blocked off to the principal resident.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
Small numbers of Canadas returned to feed. The Charles River Conservancy started poisoning their eggs for MA in 2003.
I attended a “public meeting” before the poisoning started. I disputed the flat out lie that the Canadas were a problem. I was thrown out of the meeting. They would not allow discussion of whether there was a problem. The meeting was called solely to discuss the resolution of a problem which did not exist and which they would not discuss.
One of the key lies in the “Charles River Master Plan” was that Magazine Beach would consist of a lawn to the river.
After Cambridge and MA walled off the river, MA changed the Charles River Master Plan.
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
Coordinated with the destruction at Magazine Beach was a sewer project by Cambridge across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
MA and Cambridge plans call for the destruction of hundreds of excellent trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, the second bridge east of the BU Bridge which is in turn between Magazine Beach and the Destroyed Nesting Area.
The sewer project started the destruction of trees, wiping out a number of excellent trees across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Cambridge completed the project by walling of the riverbanks across from the Hyatt from the river.
So simultaneously, all their traditional food was taken from the Charles River White Geese, both at Magazine Beach and across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
The area to the east of the Hyatt riverbanks is a sea wall.
The area to the west of the playing fields is a steep hill. They considered it and gave up on it.
The Boston side is in heavy public use east of the BU Bridge and is steep west of the BU Bridge.
Plus, if they had tried to use the publicly used area, they would have been killed off as pests.
7.. Destruction of native grass and replacement with poisons.
In 2007, MA and Cambridge dug up seven acres of perfectly good grass and replaced it with grass and poisons. The poisons are “needed” because the introduced grass would die without poisons. The stuff they destroyed lived the better part of a century without poisons.
Large parts of Magazine Beach’s playing fields have been destroyed for an expensive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be dumped there.
The lie given to the Cambridge City Council when the money was voted for the project was “improvement” of the playing area. NO IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE WHICH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DONE WITHOUT the massive destruction which has occurred.
The playing fields being “improved” have been vastly decreased in size to drain off poisons to keep alive sickly grass introduced in place of grass which did not need poisons to survive.
8. The boat dock area.
The eastern end of Magazine Beach next to a sewerage treatment plant was a parking lot.
In the 2007 destruction, the parking lot was rearranged with destruction of trees.
The 2004 destruction continued the boat dock which had been there the better part of a century and installed a silly artificial lagoon which the Charles River White Geese loved.
Until the 2004 destruction, the Charles River White Geese slept at Magazine Beach.
The geese returned after the destruction through the opening for the boats. They carefully worked their way out into a tiny area where they fed until humans and dogs came.
The 2007 destruction filled in the lagoon while continuing a bridge which had been built about it for access to the boat dock.
The boat dock is still there but barriers have been placed for access to the boat docks. So totally access to the Charles River has been destroyed at Magazine Beach by MA and Cambridge loudly proclaiming that the projects on the Charles are water oriented.
Further barriers have been placed discouraging access to the grasses to the Charles River White Geese.
9. Photos.
I have rambled long enough.
Photos will follow.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
8. The boat dock area.
9. Photos.
1. General.
One thing that normal human beings all agreed on was that there was nothing wrong at Magazine Beach.
So naturally, Cambridge and MA destroyed it.
The Charles River White Geese have lived for 30 years in a mile long habitat on the Charles River centered on the BU Bridge.
They spent most of the year at Magazine Beach feeding off the grasses there, beloved by all normal people.
During bad weather and the spring, they lived in their nesting area just to the east of the BU Bridge. I have recently posted photos of that outrage. They went to the nesting area to mate and raise their babies.
2. Destruction at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
I have recently provided photos of the latest destruction.
First destruction of the Nesting Area occurred in October 1999. It started the morning before a Cambridge Conservation Commission meeting to discuss the destruction proposed. It was completed before the earliest date work could be completed.
The work in October 1999 was done by Boston University who proceeded to lie that they had nothing to do with the destruction until they were condemned for their lawlessness by the Cambridge Conservation Commission six months later. Then BU blamed six months of lies of their president’s secretary who was not fired.
BU acting for MA entered into an urban wild area and destroyed it.
MA called the destruction a gift. The work was totally illegal. NO AGREEMENTS WERE SIGNED.
The destroyed nesting area was a wild ecosystem in the middle of the city. It was block off by fences from public access.
The fences were broken in two places.
At the corner of the BU Bridge and the ramp to Memorial Drive, a concrete ramp and stairs replaced the wild area.
At the eastern end of that access ramp, a staircase was dug into the wild hillside.
Until then, the nesting area was filled with protective ground vegetation.
The protective ground vegetation was destroyed en mass and replace with silly grass and a winding black stone covered walkway. Animals homes were casually destroyed
This “improvement” was almost totally unused by humans. The “improvements” steadily washed into the Charles.
The only major users were the Charles River White Geese. A video of the area in spring 2000 is posted at
Routinely friends of MA and Cambridge went through the Destroyed Nesting Area destroying nests. Mother Geese who defended their nests were frequently killed and carried away.
The vegetation destroyed regrew. Earth renewed itself.
In 2003, MA contracted with the Charles River Conservancy for environmental destructions services on the Charles River.
Since 2003, almost all the ground vegetation in the Destroyed Nesting Area has been destroyed again. The only exceptions were two tiny patches: (1) abutting the eastern area of the totally unnecessary east leg of the BU Bridge repair destruction and (2) abutting the southern end of the needed access area for BU Bridge repairs.
Protective vegetation in the eastern part of the area, beyond the Grand Junction tracks was totally destroyed.
None of this destruction has regrown, indicating deliberate poisoning, although there has been expansion of the tiny area left around the BU Bridge Construction.
Details on the damage done in the BU Bridge repair project were recently provided with photos at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/photo-record-september-2011-destruction.html.
3. Destruction at Magazine Beach, General.
Initial funding of $1.5 million for destruction at Magazine Beach was voted by the Cambridge City Council in December 1999.
Flat out lies have been normal. The most important lie, constantly repeated was that MA had no intention to “harm” the Charles River White Geese. It developed that “harm” had a secret definition. Starving them and destroying their home is not included in the definition of “harm.”
During the first season after the destruction of the nesting area, this outrage got major publicity. The flat out lies of no intent to harm quieted the publicity.
Cambridge and MA have played games with money which has shifted from one pot to another to allow the parties to lie that the worst was done by MA.
4. 2004, initial starvation.
In 2004, the wetlands bordering the Charles River were destroyed and the Charles River White were barred from their food of thirty years. They went from being almost totally self-sufficient to being totally fed by responsible human beings protecting them from a highly irresponsible city and state.
The wetlands were first walled off. Then they were dug up and a series of introduced bushes were attempted to be grown. They all died until MA finally found something which would grow.
MA and the Charles River Conservancy destroys all bordering vegetation on the Charles River twice a year. I have seen the Boston Conservation Commission shocked at the harm done by their practices to migrating waterfowl.
Now the only bordering vegetation not grown is the bizarre wall of introduced bushes blocking off Magazine Beach from the Charles River. The MA manager has bragged that this wall starves the Charles River White Geese.
The Charles River Conservancy conducted a swim in during the early days of the work to brag that this outrage would help swimming in the Charles River.
So playing fields which abutted the Charles in which nature and humans survived together for the mutual benefit of all have been blocked off to the principal resident.
5. The Canadas, the poisoning of eggs, the “Charles River Master Plan.”
Small numbers of Canadas returned to feed. The Charles River Conservancy started poisoning their eggs for MA in 2003.
I attended a “public meeting” before the poisoning started. I disputed the flat out lie that the Canadas were a problem. I was thrown out of the meeting. They would not allow discussion of whether there was a problem. The meeting was called solely to discuss the resolution of a problem which did not exist and which they would not discuss.
One of the key lies in the “Charles River Master Plan” was that Magazine Beach would consist of a lawn to the river.
After Cambridge and MA walled off the river, MA changed the Charles River Master Plan.
6. The sewer project across from the Hyatt.
Coordinated with the destruction at Magazine Beach was a sewer project by Cambridge across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
MA and Cambridge plans call for the destruction of hundreds of excellent trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge, the second bridge east of the BU Bridge which is in turn between Magazine Beach and the Destroyed Nesting Area.
The sewer project started the destruction of trees, wiping out a number of excellent trees across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Cambridge completed the project by walling of the riverbanks across from the Hyatt from the river.
So simultaneously, all their traditional food was taken from the Charles River White Geese, both at Magazine Beach and across from the Hyatt.
7. Alternate food sources.
The area to the east of the Hyatt riverbanks is a sea wall.
The area to the west of the playing fields is a steep hill. They considered it and gave up on it.
The Boston side is in heavy public use east of the BU Bridge and is steep west of the BU Bridge.
Plus, if they had tried to use the publicly used area, they would have been killed off as pests.
7.. Destruction of native grass and replacement with poisons.
In 2007, MA and Cambridge dug up seven acres of perfectly good grass and replaced it with grass and poisons. The poisons are “needed” because the introduced grass would die without poisons. The stuff they destroyed lived the better part of a century without poisons.
Large parts of Magazine Beach’s playing fields have been destroyed for an expensive drainage system to drain off poisons which should not even be dumped there.
The lie given to the Cambridge City Council when the money was voted for the project was “improvement” of the playing area. NO IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE WHICH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DONE WITHOUT the massive destruction which has occurred.
The playing fields being “improved” have been vastly decreased in size to drain off poisons to keep alive sickly grass introduced in place of grass which did not need poisons to survive.
8. The boat dock area.
The eastern end of Magazine Beach next to a sewerage treatment plant was a parking lot.
In the 2007 destruction, the parking lot was rearranged with destruction of trees.
The 2004 destruction continued the boat dock which had been there the better part of a century and installed a silly artificial lagoon which the Charles River White Geese loved.
Until the 2004 destruction, the Charles River White Geese slept at Magazine Beach.
The geese returned after the destruction through the opening for the boats. They carefully worked their way out into a tiny area where they fed until humans and dogs came.
The 2007 destruction filled in the lagoon while continuing a bridge which had been built about it for access to the boat dock.
The boat dock is still there but barriers have been placed for access to the boat docks. So totally access to the Charles River has been destroyed at Magazine Beach by MA and Cambridge loudly proclaiming that the projects on the Charles are water oriented.
Further barriers have been placed discouraging access to the grasses to the Charles River White Geese.
9. Photos.
I have rambled long enough.
Photos will follow.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Core Alewife Reservation destroyed by Cambridge and MA, usual lie of explanation
I have dreaded this day and put it off and put it off, but I could no longer put it off.
I went to Alewife to inspect. When I got out of the car at the reservation lot, I was shocked by the emptiness I saw where there previously was an excellent native forest with massive numbers of animals.
I was not able to fully realize the horror of the situation until I walked around and saw the devastation up close.
My first meaningful view was at the interim destruction area. Its boundary of trees was gone.
I walked along a pathway that previously had been overwhelmed by this excellent forest. The woods was so thick that I could not photograph it last time. Now it looked like a mining operation.
The explanation of Cambridge and MA: just more lies, tossed out with the assurance that Cambridge has a massive organization which will back up whatever lie that Cambridge comes up with.
The lie this time was that they are protecting against floods. Their secret definition of “protecting against floods” translates into protecting against the worst possible rainstorm in a two year period. But this area has seen two fifty year floods in the last twenty years, and Cambridge and MA are fully aware that anybody listening to their comments will think that Cambridge and MA were protecting against such meaningful events.
I also walked by the massive parking lot across the street which could provide protection against the worst possible rainstorm in a fifty year period with underground flood protection and storage. The massive parking lot is still untouched and “environmental saints” have just accomplished a massive killing of all animals which did not get out of their way.
A highly rotten city council knows it is protected by the lies of this massive organization. This highly rotten city council does not have significant integrity to even consider firing a city manager who has been found guilty of malfeasance in office by judge, jury and appeals court. Destruction of a woman's life because she filed a civil rights complaint.
The Cambridge City Council knows that that massive, destruction organization will protect them.
But this massive organization did not protect this really bad City Council last time. A member of that massive organization publicized typically rotten comments by several members of the Cambridge City Council with regard to the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro. The second worst member of the Cambridge City Council environmentally was fired.
That massive parking lot is still there. The Destroyed Core Alewife Reservation can be returned to what it was. It will take a hundred years of nature repairing nature with very minimal human minimization of the destruction of this rotten government, but it can be done.
Absolutely crucial is the firing of the Cambridge City Manager. Judge, jury and appeals court have given any decent city council ample grounds to fire the Cambridge City Manager without golden parachute and possibly without pension.
After the well deserved firing, a responsible city council would take the massive parking lot by eminent domain. Then cancel all existing contracts at Alewife and replace plans for designer vegetation with minimal work. Then put the flood storage under the parking lot, coordinating work with the existing owner who wans to construct massive office buildings above the storage. Oh yes, while nature is repairing what a rotten city government destroyed, the Cambridge, MA city government should post discrete signs of apology to decent human beings.
At the same time as taking the parking lot by eminent domain, a responsible city council would start to heal the outrage on the Charles River, a much smaller effort, all it takes is decent human beings doing the obvious to repair equally bizarre destruction on the Charles River.
I went to Alewife to inspect. When I got out of the car at the reservation lot, I was shocked by the emptiness I saw where there previously was an excellent native forest with massive numbers of animals.
I was not able to fully realize the horror of the situation until I walked around and saw the devastation up close.
My first meaningful view was at the interim destruction area. Its boundary of trees was gone.
I walked along a pathway that previously had been overwhelmed by this excellent forest. The woods was so thick that I could not photograph it last time. Now it looked like a mining operation.
The explanation of Cambridge and MA: just more lies, tossed out with the assurance that Cambridge has a massive organization which will back up whatever lie that Cambridge comes up with.
The lie this time was that they are protecting against floods. Their secret definition of “protecting against floods” translates into protecting against the worst possible rainstorm in a two year period. But this area has seen two fifty year floods in the last twenty years, and Cambridge and MA are fully aware that anybody listening to their comments will think that Cambridge and MA were protecting against such meaningful events.
I also walked by the massive parking lot across the street which could provide protection against the worst possible rainstorm in a fifty year period with underground flood protection and storage. The massive parking lot is still untouched and “environmental saints” have just accomplished a massive killing of all animals which did not get out of their way.
A highly rotten city council knows it is protected by the lies of this massive organization. This highly rotten city council does not have significant integrity to even consider firing a city manager who has been found guilty of malfeasance in office by judge, jury and appeals court. Destruction of a woman's life because she filed a civil rights complaint.
The Cambridge City Council knows that that massive, destruction organization will protect them.
But this massive organization did not protect this really bad City Council last time. A member of that massive organization publicized typically rotten comments by several members of the Cambridge City Council with regard to the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro. The second worst member of the Cambridge City Council environmentally was fired.
That massive parking lot is still there. The Destroyed Core Alewife Reservation can be returned to what it was. It will take a hundred years of nature repairing nature with very minimal human minimization of the destruction of this rotten government, but it can be done.
Absolutely crucial is the firing of the Cambridge City Manager. Judge, jury and appeals court have given any decent city council ample grounds to fire the Cambridge City Manager without golden parachute and possibly without pension.
After the well deserved firing, a responsible city council would take the massive parking lot by eminent domain. Then cancel all existing contracts at Alewife and replace plans for designer vegetation with minimal work. Then put the flood storage under the parking lot, coordinating work with the existing owner who wans to construct massive office buildings above the storage. Oh yes, while nature is repairing what a rotten city government destroyed, the Cambridge, MA city government should post discrete signs of apology to decent human beings.
At the same time as taking the parking lot by eminent domain, a responsible city council would start to heal the outrage on the Charles River, a much smaller effort, all it takes is decent human beings doing the obvious to repair equally bizarre destruction on the Charles River.
What does firing the Cambridge City Manager have to do with the Charles River White Geese.
I have posted exactly the same posts on the facebook page as the last few posts on this blog.
I got the following very valid question in response to the post on strategy and timing in firing the Cambridge City Manager:
**********
Hey Robert, Can you give us the short version on how this affects the well-being of the geese? I'm interested, but need it in more of a nutshell.
Response:
It is all one big rotten situation. The contempt for the life of a human being which the City Manager showed in Monteiro is an extension of the heartless abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese and the Charles River, and there were key outrages added to the abuse.
The apparent destruction of Alewife and mass animal killing also was inflicted with a lot of key lying.
In the background is a very large, very rotten organization which rubber stamps whatever lie and whatever destruction the City Manager is pulling this week.
And the City Council is very happy with the rotten behavior as long as the Cambridge pol organization protects them.
The City Council raising the issue of failure to communicate on Monteiro Monday night.
The massive destructiveness and lying on top of that fake organization is one big house of cards. Because there is a very concerned electorate.
One city councilor is being fired apparently as part of that house of cards starting to collapse.
They are staying in office because they are doing a lot of lying.
I am trying to get that house of cards to collapse.
The lies are falling apart in Monteiro.
The Cambridge City Council is in position to amend the request for information on Monteiro with the firing process. All they have to do is attach those decisions and refer to the case and they have full grounds to fire.
Will they clean up their own house? Monteiro was an extension of the environmental destruction, same mentality. Alewife is an extension of the Charles River, same mentality.
The house of cards has started to collapse. Firing the city manager could be a very big removal of key cards.
Would they clean up the messes they have created? Alewife will take a century to fix. The Charles could be corrected in a week. All it takes is a will on the part of people who have been very rotten because their lies have worked.
PS: Excellent point. I will post it on the blog along with my response and not use your name.
Thank you very much.
I got the following very valid question in response to the post on strategy and timing in firing the Cambridge City Manager:
**********
Hey Robert, Can you give us the short version on how this affects the well-being of the geese? I'm interested, but need it in more of a nutshell.
Response:
It is all one big rotten situation. The contempt for the life of a human being which the City Manager showed in Monteiro is an extension of the heartless abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese and the Charles River, and there were key outrages added to the abuse.
The apparent destruction of Alewife and mass animal killing also was inflicted with a lot of key lying.
In the background is a very large, very rotten organization which rubber stamps whatever lie and whatever destruction the City Manager is pulling this week.
And the City Council is very happy with the rotten behavior as long as the Cambridge pol organization protects them.
The City Council raising the issue of failure to communicate on Monteiro Monday night.
The massive destructiveness and lying on top of that fake organization is one big house of cards. Because there is a very concerned electorate.
One city councilor is being fired apparently as part of that house of cards starting to collapse.
They are staying in office because they are doing a lot of lying.
I am trying to get that house of cards to collapse.
The lies are falling apart in Monteiro.
The Cambridge City Council is in position to amend the request for information on Monteiro with the firing process. All they have to do is attach those decisions and refer to the case and they have full grounds to fire.
Will they clean up their own house? Monteiro was an extension of the environmental destruction, same mentality. Alewife is an extension of the Charles River, same mentality.
The house of cards has started to collapse. Firing the city manager could be a very big removal of key cards.
Would they clean up the messes they have created? Alewife will take a century to fix. The Charles could be corrected in a week. All it takes is a will on the part of people who have been very rotten because their lies have worked.
PS: Excellent point. I will post it on the blog along with my response and not use your name.
Thank you very much.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Firing the Cambridge, MA, USA City Manager because of Monteiro: A small window
1. Introduction.
2. Details.
1. Introduction.
A few caveats.
First of All, Decades of experience have given me the very strong opinion that it is difficult to UNDERestimate the Cambridge Pols.
Secondly, as I have repeatedly gone into, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible City Council, the Cambridge City Manager would have been fired long ago.
Notwithstanding that, there are two factors which place time crunch on the actions of the next few weeks, assuming, and a very silly assumption, that the Cambridge City Council fulfills very basic levels of responsibility. I keep dreaming on decency from this group. I keep getting proven wrong.
But, assuming decency, the key issues are:
Very quickly, the Cambridge City Council has to give the Cambridge City Manager six months notice as to whether they will hire or fire him.
Secondly, the most responsible choice for acting city manager, should the Cambridge City Council do the right thing, is rumored on the verge of retiring, probably at the end of January. The city clerk, Margaret Drury, is competent and highly respected. She not only has no interest in being a permanent city manager, she probably would have to be talked into taking the position rather than retiring.
But, the appointment would be a great honor and a culmination of her honorable and achieving career, and, although I know nothing about the legalities, I would assume that the much higher pay during the temporary appointment could significantly increase her retirement figures.
But both factors are time limiting.
Most definitely, the city manager can and should be fired for malfeasance in office as determined by Superior Court judge and jury and by the Appeals Court panel, but it would be quite a bit more awkward to do so after the Cambridge City Council has told the Cambridge City Manager it is going to rehire him. Additionally, certainly other people could be acting city manager during the process, but there is no possible alternative with the very great qualities of City Clerk Margaret Drury.
2. Details.
I really do not know how many more details I should go into. I have beat this case to death.
The fact that the city manager is still in office after being found guilty of severe malfeasance in office as stated in the strong, clear key opinion of the Trial Judge, and the informal comments of the Appeals Court, is an indictment of the Cambridge City Council and of the truly rotten Cambridge Pol organization which keep the Cambridge City Council from being thrown out of office.
Once again, the key court opinions may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html (appeals court), and at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html (trial judge).
And I have done a lot of analyses of this particular outrage.
2. Details.
1. Introduction.
A few caveats.
First of All, Decades of experience have given me the very strong opinion that it is difficult to UNDERestimate the Cambridge Pols.
Secondly, as I have repeatedly gone into, if Cambridge, MA had a responsible City Council, the Cambridge City Manager would have been fired long ago.
Notwithstanding that, there are two factors which place time crunch on the actions of the next few weeks, assuming, and a very silly assumption, that the Cambridge City Council fulfills very basic levels of responsibility. I keep dreaming on decency from this group. I keep getting proven wrong.
But, assuming decency, the key issues are:
Very quickly, the Cambridge City Council has to give the Cambridge City Manager six months notice as to whether they will hire or fire him.
Secondly, the most responsible choice for acting city manager, should the Cambridge City Council do the right thing, is rumored on the verge of retiring, probably at the end of January. The city clerk, Margaret Drury, is competent and highly respected. She not only has no interest in being a permanent city manager, she probably would have to be talked into taking the position rather than retiring.
But, the appointment would be a great honor and a culmination of her honorable and achieving career, and, although I know nothing about the legalities, I would assume that the much higher pay during the temporary appointment could significantly increase her retirement figures.
But both factors are time limiting.
Most definitely, the city manager can and should be fired for malfeasance in office as determined by Superior Court judge and jury and by the Appeals Court panel, but it would be quite a bit more awkward to do so after the Cambridge City Council has told the Cambridge City Manager it is going to rehire him. Additionally, certainly other people could be acting city manager during the process, but there is no possible alternative with the very great qualities of City Clerk Margaret Drury.
2. Details.
I really do not know how many more details I should go into. I have beat this case to death.
The fact that the city manager is still in office after being found guilty of severe malfeasance in office as stated in the strong, clear key opinion of the Trial Judge, and the informal comments of the Appeals Court, is an indictment of the Cambridge City Council and of the truly rotten Cambridge Pol organization which keep the Cambridge City Council from being thrown out of office.
Once again, the key court opinions may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html (appeals court), and at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html (trial judge).
And I have done a lot of analyses of this particular outrage.
Civil Rights Retaliation Case information still secret from Cambridge City Council
Cambridge city council order number 4 for this coming Monday, December 5, at http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/PolicyOrder.cfm?item_id=33584, says way too much about the situation on the Cambridge City Council.
This order indicates that the Cambridge City Manager is still keeping key information secret from the Cambridge City Council on the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge.
This is the case in which judge, jury, and appeals court are in agreement that the Cambridge City Manager destroyed the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The appeals court panel showed its disgust at Cambridge’s appeal by refusing to issue a formal opinion, and said “ample evidence [of] outrageous action.” The trial judge called Cambridge’s behavior “reprehensible.” The jury awarded $1.1 million for destroying her life and $3.5 million penal damages to show its disgust. The city manager has announced, without explanation, the city solicitor’s retirement.
The key court opinions may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html (appeals court), and at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html (trial judge).
There is nothing complicated about this situation. Jury, judge and appeals court are in agreement that the Cambridge City Manager committed gross malfeasance in office. That translates into ample cause to fire him without golden parachute and probably without pension.
The refusal of the Cambridge City Manager to provide the Cambridge City Council with key information on the case rather reminds me of the treatment of the Cambridge City Council by the predecessor to the Sullivan / Healy regime. He was fired for a lot less than findings of Superior Court judge and Jury and Appeals Court Panel of gross malfeasance in office.
The Cambridge City Manager is treating the Cambridge City Council with the lack of respect that the Cambridge City Council amply deserves.
This order indicates that the Cambridge City Manager is still keeping key information secret from the Cambridge City Council on the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge.
This is the case in which judge, jury, and appeals court are in agreement that the Cambridge City Manager destroyed the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The appeals court panel showed its disgust at Cambridge’s appeal by refusing to issue a formal opinion, and said “ample evidence [of] outrageous action.” The trial judge called Cambridge’s behavior “reprehensible.” The jury awarded $1.1 million for destroying her life and $3.5 million penal damages to show its disgust. The city manager has announced, without explanation, the city solicitor’s retirement.
The key court opinions may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html (appeals court), and at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html (trial judge).
There is nothing complicated about this situation. Jury, judge and appeals court are in agreement that the Cambridge City Manager committed gross malfeasance in office. That translates into ample cause to fire him without golden parachute and probably without pension.
The refusal of the Cambridge City Manager to provide the Cambridge City Council with key information on the case rather reminds me of the treatment of the Cambridge City Council by the predecessor to the Sullivan / Healy regime. He was fired for a lot less than findings of Superior Court judge and Jury and Appeals Court Panel of gross malfeasance in office.
The Cambridge City Manager is treating the Cambridge City Council with the lack of respect that the Cambridge City Council amply deserves.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Grand Junction Map in Cambridge, MA, USA, details of next meeting on Passenger Service
The Mid Cambridge Neighborhood Association has posted state links on the Grand Junction passenger rail project along with the decidedly misleading statement that the Cambridge City Council has opposed the passenger rail project. The truth on the “opposition” is that the “opposition” is to current plans. Current plans are not irresponsible enough to please almost certainly a majority of the Cambridge City Council. One irresponsible vote was fired in the recent elections effective in January.
There is a map of the Grand Junction railroad in Cambridge that could be of general interest. It may be seen at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/Downloads/grandjunction/GrandJunctionmap.pdf.
This map could be used to exactly locate the areas of destruction on the Charles River. Directly to the left of the railroad at the Charles River is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese, which extends slightly to the right as well. Ground vegetation has been fully destroyed to the right and mostly destroyed to the left. The first white line to the left is the BU Bridge. Most of the green area to the left of that is Magazine Beach. The area in which massive tree destruction is sought by Cambridge and the state starts with the BU Bridge and goes east to the second bridge to the East, the Longfellow Bridge. The 105 tree grove which is slated to be decimated and for which I have twice provided photos may be located by realizing that Memorial Drive is an undivided highway at the BU Bridge and extending perhaps half a mile to the east where a split with a park in the middle of two separate travel areas is visible. This split is the location of the targeted grove, but the trees in the targeted grove are much smaller than other targeted healthy trees.
The more general Massachusetts Department of Transportation posting is at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/planning/GrandJunctionTransportationStudy.aspx. This has links to other matters of value, including the map of the Grand Junction in Cambridge.
The scheduled meeting is at the Kennedy-Longfellow School Auditorium at 158 Spring Street in Cambridge, Thursday, December 8, 2011, 6:30 pm to 8 pm. A relevant flier is also provided by link.
There is a map of the Grand Junction railroad in Cambridge that could be of general interest. It may be seen at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/Downloads/grandjunction/GrandJunctionmap.pdf.
This map could be used to exactly locate the areas of destruction on the Charles River. Directly to the left of the railroad at the Charles River is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese, which extends slightly to the right as well. Ground vegetation has been fully destroyed to the right and mostly destroyed to the left. The first white line to the left is the BU Bridge. Most of the green area to the left of that is Magazine Beach. The area in which massive tree destruction is sought by Cambridge and the state starts with the BU Bridge and goes east to the second bridge to the East, the Longfellow Bridge. The 105 tree grove which is slated to be decimated and for which I have twice provided photos may be located by realizing that Memorial Drive is an undivided highway at the BU Bridge and extending perhaps half a mile to the east where a split with a park in the middle of two separate travel areas is visible. This split is the location of the targeted grove, but the trees in the targeted grove are much smaller than other targeted healthy trees.
The more general Massachusetts Department of Transportation posting is at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/planning/GrandJunctionTransportationStudy.aspx. This has links to other matters of value, including the map of the Grand Junction in Cambridge.
The scheduled meeting is at the Kennedy-Longfellow School Auditorium at 158 Spring Street in Cambridge, Thursday, December 8, 2011, 6:30 pm to 8 pm. A relevant flier is also provided by link.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Environmentally destructive Cambridge Pol is Attorney to North Point Project
Former Cambridge Mayor / Vice Mayor , City Councilor and State Senator Anthony Galluccio was introduced at the East Cambridge meeting on November 30, 2011 concerning the North Point project as the attorney for the project.
Galluccio was Cambridge Vice Mayor and in favor for the key vote in December 1999 giving the Cambridge City Council’s $1.5 million funding for the environmental outrage at Magazine Beach.
As mayor / vice mayor / city councilor it is inconceivable that he, in any way, objected to environmental destruction at Magazine Beach or to the heartless animal abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese as part of this bizarre project.
As State Senator from Cambridge, it is equally inconceivable that he objected in any way to further implementation of the escalating outrages at Magazine Beach.
His current position as attorney on the North Point project puts him smack in the middle of one of the largest developments ever seen in Cambridge, MA or the Boston, MA area. The area is the former railroad yard complex associated with North Station in Boston. It is close to Bunker Hill Community College, Sullivan Square in Charlestown, Washington Street in Somerville, and to the McGrath / O’Brien Highway in Somerville / Cambridge. It abuts the Gilmore Bridge connecting Bunker Hill in Charlestown to East Cambridge / Lechmere.
The most comparable project would be the creation of the Back Bay neighborhood in Boston in the 19th Century, except, in dramatic contrast, the Back Bay was not developed by one developer and probably was smaller.
And smack dab in the middle of this is a Cambridge Pol with a Cambridge Pol’s record of environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse.
Galluccio was Cambridge Vice Mayor and in favor for the key vote in December 1999 giving the Cambridge City Council’s $1.5 million funding for the environmental outrage at Magazine Beach.
As mayor / vice mayor / city councilor it is inconceivable that he, in any way, objected to environmental destruction at Magazine Beach or to the heartless animal abuse inflicted on the Charles River White Geese as part of this bizarre project.
As State Senator from Cambridge, it is equally inconceivable that he objected in any way to further implementation of the escalating outrages at Magazine Beach.
His current position as attorney on the North Point project puts him smack in the middle of one of the largest developments ever seen in Cambridge, MA or the Boston, MA area. The area is the former railroad yard complex associated with North Station in Boston. It is close to Bunker Hill Community College, Sullivan Square in Charlestown, Washington Street in Somerville, and to the McGrath / O’Brien Highway in Somerville / Cambridge. It abuts the Gilmore Bridge connecting Bunker Hill in Charlestown to East Cambridge / Lechmere.
The most comparable project would be the creation of the Back Bay neighborhood in Boston in the 19th Century, except, in dramatic contrast, the Back Bay was not developed by one developer and probably was smaller.
And smack dab in the middle of this is a Cambridge Pol with a Cambridge Pol’s record of environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse.
Cambridge City Councilor on Monteiro, Healy
The voters of the City of Cambridge fired the second worst city councilor environmentally after he was quoted as saying that destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint was no big thing.
The worst member as far as environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse goes is Henrietta Davis. The same letter that quoted the soon to be former city councilor also quoted her in the same breath. The letter was published by the Cambridge Chronicle on line. Davis responded with her own letter on line. The photo attached by the Chronicle to her response looks like it was taken from the candidate forum. Neither made the Cambridge Chronicle hard copy.
English translation of the Davis comments are the usual. She abhors discrimination by anybody else and in no way gave in on her indifference to the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro.
Elizabeth Anne Kanze just posted a link on facebook to the Davis comments in the August 31 2011 candidate forum with the comment, ”Henrietta Davis on Retaliation Lawsuit : money more important.” The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnYwPv5RiKg&feature=share.
One interesting comment by her at the forum is that the jury award exceeds the possible award in response to killing somebody.
Davis totally fails to mention that $3.5 million of the $4.6 million jury award was PENAL DAMAGES intended to express the jury’s disgust at the City of Cambridge. The judge followed by referring to Cambridge’s behavior as “reprehensible” in support of the jury award. The appeals court panel showed its disgust at Cambridge’s appeal by refusing to issue a formal opinion and commenting that there was “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”
I am not positive, but I presume this is the forum the letter was referring to.
The letter from the former head of the Cambridge Women’s Commission, Nancy Ryan, may be read at: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x236282661/Guest-commentary-The-heart-of-the-Monteiro-case-a-matter-of-values-governance#axzz1f6jP4nyD. In addition to the Chronicle publication, she distributed these comments widely apparently as part of an email mailing. I received a copy of the email mail on a listserve.
Davis’ supposed response may be read at: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x671084598/Davis-I-abhor-retaliation-and-discrimination-in-the-workplace#axzz1f6jP4nyD.
Addendum:
The key opinion of the Trial Judge may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html.
The Appeals Court panel’s comments may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html.
The worst member as far as environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse goes is Henrietta Davis. The same letter that quoted the soon to be former city councilor also quoted her in the same breath. The letter was published by the Cambridge Chronicle on line. Davis responded with her own letter on line. The photo attached by the Chronicle to her response looks like it was taken from the candidate forum. Neither made the Cambridge Chronicle hard copy.
English translation of the Davis comments are the usual. She abhors discrimination by anybody else and in no way gave in on her indifference to the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro.
Elizabeth Anne Kanze just posted a link on facebook to the Davis comments in the August 31 2011 candidate forum with the comment, ”Henrietta Davis on Retaliation Lawsuit : money more important.” The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnYwPv5RiKg&feature=share.
One interesting comment by her at the forum is that the jury award exceeds the possible award in response to killing somebody.
Davis totally fails to mention that $3.5 million of the $4.6 million jury award was PENAL DAMAGES intended to express the jury’s disgust at the City of Cambridge. The judge followed by referring to Cambridge’s behavior as “reprehensible” in support of the jury award. The appeals court panel showed its disgust at Cambridge’s appeal by refusing to issue a formal opinion and commenting that there was “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”
I am not positive, but I presume this is the forum the letter was referring to.
The letter from the former head of the Cambridge Women’s Commission, Nancy Ryan, may be read at: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x236282661/Guest-commentary-The-heart-of-the-Monteiro-case-a-matter-of-values-governance#axzz1f6jP4nyD. In addition to the Chronicle publication, she distributed these comments widely apparently as part of an email mailing. I received a copy of the email mail on a listserve.
Davis’ supposed response may be read at: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x671084598/Davis-I-abhor-retaliation-and-discrimination-in-the-workplace#axzz1f6jP4nyD.
Addendum:
The key opinion of the Trial Judge may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/judge-issues-decision-denying.html.
The Appeals Court panel’s comments may be read at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeals-court-decision-in-monteiro.html.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
February 2011, Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese, Photos of what once was beauty
We have just posted some September 2011 photos of the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
A little bit earlier, we posted photos of a grove of excellent trees, about 105, about half a mile east of the Destroyed Nesting Area. This excellent grove is on the verge of being destroyed for what the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the City of Cambridge, and their apologists call “improvement.”
We have also posted photos of the pristine Alewife reservation, excellent massive trees with untold animals within sight of the Boston Red Line’s Alewife Station.
Last I heard, the powers that be claimed to be destroying the Alewife reservation for flood storage to protect North Cambridge. They are protecting against the worst flooding event to occur every two years, a two year storm, in an area which has seen two fifty year storms in the last twenty years. Directly across the street from this outrage is a massive parking lot which could readily handle fifty year storms.
The massive parking lot is not being destroy for what would be real value. The jewel of the core Alewife Reservation is being destroyed for a cause that cannot be achieved but which can be achieved across the street.
Winter is coming at the destroyed nesting area of the Charles River White Geese.
The following are photos which were taken on February 13, 2011. I will walk you through the area as I took the photos.
To avoid repeating myself, all areas of destruction in the Destroyed Nesting Area were destroyed to this date.
We have had a meeting and site view with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation which is doing the work.
MassDOT accurately told us that the plans were written by the DCR and MassDOT was stuck with them.
The area next to the BU Bridge needed to be destroyed for access to the BU Bridge to do work, but that work was over in February 2011 when these photos were taken. This is the western part of the Destroyed Nesting Area.
The area next to the on ramp to Memorial Drive should not have been destroyed in the first place. There was ample places in the area which are not sensitive which could have been used without this destruction.
The destruction occurred and continues.
This photo was taken approaching the destroyed nesting area from the west.
The road curving from left to right and then to left again is the BU Bridge rotary. It is under Memorial Drive.
Note the total absence of anything in that part of the BU Bridge rotary which is visible. Nothing is there because what should have been put there was used to destroy part of the nesting area of the Charles River White Geese.
Straight ahead, where the cars are pointing, is the on ramp to Memorial Drive from the BU Bridge / the BU Bridge rotary. At the bottom of the picture, barely visible, is another roadway. It is the off ramp from Memorial Drive to the BU Bridge / the BU Bridge rotary.
Beyond the traffic cones is an area which used to connect to the BU Bridge. That area is now part of the construction zone for work on the near side of the BU Bridge. Straight ahead and to the right is the BU Bridge.
The very large concrete and green structure straight ahead is Boston University’s School of Law, located on the south, opposite, side of the BU Bridge.
Immediately below BU Law and straight ahead in the picture but below the street level and not visible is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
This photo is taken from the BU Bridge. You are looking primarily at the biggest tree in the Destroyed Nesting Area, plus some Whites and some Canadas.
This area was heavily vegetated until the vegetation was destroyed by the DCR / its representatives. The failure of the vegetation to grow back indicates poisoning.
The items in the foreground are in the destroyed part of the Destroyed Nesting Area.
Again taken from the BU Bridge. To the right is the eastern side of the BU Bridge. The vast emptiness used to be natural habitat. As you can see, at the time of this photograph, it was simply empty.
Straight ahead is the core part of the Boston University campus, west of the School of Law. Below of it can be seen a sliver of the Charles River. Below that is the Grand Junction Railroad Bridge. The white area between that and the BU Bridge is the snow and ice covered Charles River. The trees are at the edge of the Destroyed Nesting Area. The line is the end of the BU Bridge construction destruction.
The structure to the left of the line are structures blocking access to the unused wasteland.
This photo is of the area beyond the artificially created wasteland next to the BU Bridge. The structure at the top is a bridge support in the middle of the Charles River.
The Charles River White Geese are enjoying a small part of the river which is not frozen.
Minimally changed land abutting the river is at the bottom of the photo.
The geese are excellently adapted for this environment. They have lived free here for 30 years. They have goose down jackets. Their biggest problem is that the DCR and Cambridge are deliberately starving them.
This photo is taken of the view in the opposite direction from the prior photo, with the camera moving north.
The totally unnecessary destruction is straight ahead. Immediately above it is the hillside which is the northern extremity of the Destroyed Nesting Area. Above that is the on ramp to Memorial Drive. Then Memorial Drive. Then a building now owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formerly owned by Polaroid Corporation and before that by Ford Motor Company.
Photo from the top of the staircase illegally constructed as part of an apparently unwritten (and thus illegal) agreement with the DCR by Boston University at the eastern end of the ramp to Memorial Drive.
This used to be beautiful, and the snow hides the worst of the destruction. Beneath the snow is a very significant part of dirt created by the destruction of ground vegetation by the DCR / its agents. To the right can barely be seen that portion of the construction zone which constituted totally useless destruction.
Straight ahead is the BU Bridge. Above the BU Bridge is a new dormitory complex built on top of what was an historical armory, which a lot of people thought BU should not destroy.
As I recall, the agreement by which BU obtained the armory is another of those strange agreements.
Whites and Canadas under the big tree, Charles and BU Bridge in the background.
Whites admire the water of the Charles River. Canadas feeding below them. Above them are the supports for the Grand Junction bridge. Taken from the eastern part of the Destroyed Nesting Area between the big tree and the water, another area formerly heavily vegetated, vegetation destroyed.
The Whites enjoy the Charles and some free water. Taken below the wasteland that was needed for access to the BU Bridge but which still has not been returned to nature. Artificial wall blocking off wasteland can be seen to the right.
A further distance shot of the previous. The plastic wall is seen again with apparently stronger support above.
View from close to the previous location looking up at the empty no longer needed access area at the BU Bridge.
Additional view of the previous, camera moving slightly to the east, nothing there. The Ford / Polaroid / MIT building is above and to the right.
This used to be a heavily vegetated woods.
It is the hillside below the Grand Junction, taken from below the large tree.
Visible are Charles River White Geese and Canadas.
Photo from the illegally constructed staircase. The never sensible construction area is to the right. The artificially created dirt is straight ahead. There is some view, under the snow, of the little bit of ground vegetation which has not been destroyed. At the top is the Charles, the BU Bridge and those dormitories which used to be a historical armory and which have the strange history.
A little bit earlier, we posted photos of a grove of excellent trees, about 105, about half a mile east of the Destroyed Nesting Area. This excellent grove is on the verge of being destroyed for what the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the City of Cambridge, and their apologists call “improvement.”
We have also posted photos of the pristine Alewife reservation, excellent massive trees with untold animals within sight of the Boston Red Line’s Alewife Station.
Last I heard, the powers that be claimed to be destroying the Alewife reservation for flood storage to protect North Cambridge. They are protecting against the worst flooding event to occur every two years, a two year storm, in an area which has seen two fifty year storms in the last twenty years. Directly across the street from this outrage is a massive parking lot which could readily handle fifty year storms.
The massive parking lot is not being destroy for what would be real value. The jewel of the core Alewife Reservation is being destroyed for a cause that cannot be achieved but which can be achieved across the street.
Winter is coming at the destroyed nesting area of the Charles River White Geese.
The following are photos which were taken on February 13, 2011. I will walk you through the area as I took the photos.
To avoid repeating myself, all areas of destruction in the Destroyed Nesting Area were destroyed to this date.
We have had a meeting and site view with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation which is doing the work.
MassDOT accurately told us that the plans were written by the DCR and MassDOT was stuck with them.
The area next to the BU Bridge needed to be destroyed for access to the BU Bridge to do work, but that work was over in February 2011 when these photos were taken. This is the western part of the Destroyed Nesting Area.
The area next to the on ramp to Memorial Drive should not have been destroyed in the first place. There was ample places in the area which are not sensitive which could have been used without this destruction.
The destruction occurred and continues.
This photo was taken approaching the destroyed nesting area from the west.
The road curving from left to right and then to left again is the BU Bridge rotary. It is under Memorial Drive.
Note the total absence of anything in that part of the BU Bridge rotary which is visible. Nothing is there because what should have been put there was used to destroy part of the nesting area of the Charles River White Geese.
Straight ahead, where the cars are pointing, is the on ramp to Memorial Drive from the BU Bridge / the BU Bridge rotary. At the bottom of the picture, barely visible, is another roadway. It is the off ramp from Memorial Drive to the BU Bridge / the BU Bridge rotary.
Beyond the traffic cones is an area which used to connect to the BU Bridge. That area is now part of the construction zone for work on the near side of the BU Bridge. Straight ahead and to the right is the BU Bridge.
The very large concrete and green structure straight ahead is Boston University’s School of Law, located on the south, opposite, side of the BU Bridge.
Immediately below BU Law and straight ahead in the picture but below the street level and not visible is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
This photo is taken from the BU Bridge. You are looking primarily at the biggest tree in the Destroyed Nesting Area, plus some Whites and some Canadas.
This area was heavily vegetated until the vegetation was destroyed by the DCR / its representatives. The failure of the vegetation to grow back indicates poisoning.
The items in the foreground are in the destroyed part of the Destroyed Nesting Area.
Again taken from the BU Bridge. To the right is the eastern side of the BU Bridge. The vast emptiness used to be natural habitat. As you can see, at the time of this photograph, it was simply empty.
Straight ahead is the core part of the Boston University campus, west of the School of Law. Below of it can be seen a sliver of the Charles River. Below that is the Grand Junction Railroad Bridge. The white area between that and the BU Bridge is the snow and ice covered Charles River. The trees are at the edge of the Destroyed Nesting Area. The line is the end of the BU Bridge construction destruction.
The structure to the left of the line are structures blocking access to the unused wasteland.
This photo is of the area beyond the artificially created wasteland next to the BU Bridge. The structure at the top is a bridge support in the middle of the Charles River.
The Charles River White Geese are enjoying a small part of the river which is not frozen.
Minimally changed land abutting the river is at the bottom of the photo.
The geese are excellently adapted for this environment. They have lived free here for 30 years. They have goose down jackets. Their biggest problem is that the DCR and Cambridge are deliberately starving them.
This photo is taken of the view in the opposite direction from the prior photo, with the camera moving north.
The totally unnecessary destruction is straight ahead. Immediately above it is the hillside which is the northern extremity of the Destroyed Nesting Area. Above that is the on ramp to Memorial Drive. Then Memorial Drive. Then a building now owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formerly owned by Polaroid Corporation and before that by Ford Motor Company.
Photo from the top of the staircase illegally constructed as part of an apparently unwritten (and thus illegal) agreement with the DCR by Boston University at the eastern end of the ramp to Memorial Drive.
This used to be beautiful, and the snow hides the worst of the destruction. Beneath the snow is a very significant part of dirt created by the destruction of ground vegetation by the DCR / its agents. To the right can barely be seen that portion of the construction zone which constituted totally useless destruction.
Straight ahead is the BU Bridge. Above the BU Bridge is a new dormitory complex built on top of what was an historical armory, which a lot of people thought BU should not destroy.
As I recall, the agreement by which BU obtained the armory is another of those strange agreements.
Whites and Canadas under the big tree, Charles and BU Bridge in the background.
Whites admire the water of the Charles River. Canadas feeding below them. Above them are the supports for the Grand Junction bridge. Taken from the eastern part of the Destroyed Nesting Area between the big tree and the water, another area formerly heavily vegetated, vegetation destroyed.
The Whites enjoy the Charles and some free water. Taken below the wasteland that was needed for access to the BU Bridge but which still has not been returned to nature. Artificial wall blocking off wasteland can be seen to the right.
A further distance shot of the previous. The plastic wall is seen again with apparently stronger support above.
View from close to the previous location looking up at the empty no longer needed access area at the BU Bridge.
Additional view of the previous, camera moving slightly to the east, nothing there. The Ford / Polaroid / MIT building is above and to the right.
This used to be a heavily vegetated woods.
It is the hillside below the Grand Junction, taken from below the large tree.
Visible are Charles River White Geese and Canadas.
Photo from the illegally constructed staircase. The never sensible construction area is to the right. The artificially created dirt is straight ahead. There is some view, under the snow, of the little bit of ground vegetation which has not been destroyed. At the top is the Charles, the BU Bridge and those dormitories which used to be a historical armory and which have the strange history.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Cambridge City Solicitor to Retire - Over Monteiro?
1. General.
2. Two Alternative Interpretations.
3. Monteiro.
A. General.
B. Malpractice against the trial attorney?
C. Finding that the City Solicitor was responsible for the debacle?
Addendum.
1. General.
In a letter being presented to the Cambridge City Council by the Cambridge City Manager this evening (November 21, 2011), the Cambridge City Manager informs the City Council of the intention of the City Solicitor to retire on January 20, 2012. The letter may be read at: http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/cmLetter.cfm?item_id=20456.
2. Two Alternative Interpretations.
It is impossible to react to this notice through anything other than through informed speculation. Therefore, let us be clear that I know nothing directly behind the circumstances of the City Solicitor’s retirement.
There are two reasonable and readily thinkable reactions to this news.
One very likely reason for this action is that the Cambridge City Solicitor thinks it is time for him to retire.
One alternate reason is the case of Monteiro v. City of Cambridge.
3. Monteiro.
A. General.
Malvina Monteiro was recently paid $8.3 million by Cambridge as the result of decisions of superior court judge and jury and a panel of the Appeals Court.
Findings were strongly against the Cambridge City Manager in a case where judge, jury and appeals court found that the Cambridge City Manager destroyed the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The jury awarded about $1.1 million in real damages and a strikingly large $3.5 million in penal damages. The trial judge, in her key opinion, reviewed the award and went into great detail concerning the testimony of the Cambridge City Manager. She found his actions “reprehensible.” The appeals court reacted to the city’s appeal with disgust. Its reviewing panel refused to dignify the appeal with a formal opinion in comments which cited “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”
The key opinion of the trial judge quoted the City Manager as saying he was fully aware of the pendency of the civil rights case during his actions against Monteiro and that he carefully operated in communication with council.
The judge interpreted this comment as communicating deliberate action by the Cambridge City Manager.
B. Malpractice against the trial attorney?
There have been various speculations by Cambridge Pol types of the possibility of a malpractice suit against the attorney representing the city in the case.
My reaction is that these contentions amount to yet another change of subject by the Cambridge Pols. The decision says that the Cambridge City Manager has committed “outrageous” and “reprehensible” malfeasance in office.
The Cambridge City Council has not even heard a motion to fire the Cambridge City Manager. A majority of five of the nine incumbents (one not reelected) committed themselves to rehiring the Cambridge City Manager during the recent election.
Exactly zero City Councilors presently on the council or newly elected have publicly supported firing the Cambridge City Manager for Monteiro.
It is always impossible to fully evaluate comments made by Cambridge Pols on major issues. A long time ago, I stopped trying to determine intent, but rather evaluate their comments by impact. The impact of the malpractice idea against the trial attorney, to me, is changing the subject.
First of all, the city manager, according to jury, judge and appeals court, should be fired.
Secondly however, the city council voted to fund the appeals WITHOUT SEEKING INDEPENDENT COUNCIL. This is absolutely outrageous.
With the comments of the judge and jury in the trial, absolute minimum action by the Cambridge City Council would have been to get a second opinion. Failure to get a second opinion communicates, as usual, that the Cambridge City Council did not want to know what it was doing.
The trial attorney can be expected to be biased toward appeal. The trial attorney is trying to achieve his/her agreed upon results as best as he/she can. Failure to check that opinion is very much failure on the part of the Cambridge City Council, not the attorney.
C. Finding that the City Solicitor was responsible for the debacle?
Really, this is the other possibility.
I am raising it. There are a whole bunch of permutations on this part of the analysis.
I really do not want to go there, pretty much for the same reason I find a malpractice action against the trial attorney outrageous.
You are changing the subject.
The City Manager has civilly been found guilty of “outrageous” and “reprehensible” malfeasance in office by jury, judge and appeals court, to wit, destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The games should end.
The City Manager should be fired.
Addendum.
I attended the meeting long enough to see the city council had no comment on the retirement.
2. Two Alternative Interpretations.
3. Monteiro.
A. General.
B. Malpractice against the trial attorney?
C. Finding that the City Solicitor was responsible for the debacle?
Addendum.
1. General.
In a letter being presented to the Cambridge City Council by the Cambridge City Manager this evening (November 21, 2011), the Cambridge City Manager informs the City Council of the intention of the City Solicitor to retire on January 20, 2012. The letter may be read at: http://www2.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/cmLetter.cfm?item_id=20456.
2. Two Alternative Interpretations.
It is impossible to react to this notice through anything other than through informed speculation. Therefore, let us be clear that I know nothing directly behind the circumstances of the City Solicitor’s retirement.
There are two reasonable and readily thinkable reactions to this news.
One very likely reason for this action is that the Cambridge City Solicitor thinks it is time for him to retire.
One alternate reason is the case of Monteiro v. City of Cambridge.
3. Monteiro.
A. General.
Malvina Monteiro was recently paid $8.3 million by Cambridge as the result of decisions of superior court judge and jury and a panel of the Appeals Court.
Findings were strongly against the Cambridge City Manager in a case where judge, jury and appeals court found that the Cambridge City Manager destroyed the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The jury awarded about $1.1 million in real damages and a strikingly large $3.5 million in penal damages. The trial judge, in her key opinion, reviewed the award and went into great detail concerning the testimony of the Cambridge City Manager. She found his actions “reprehensible.” The appeals court reacted to the city’s appeal with disgust. Its reviewing panel refused to dignify the appeal with a formal opinion in comments which cited “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”
The key opinion of the trial judge quoted the City Manager as saying he was fully aware of the pendency of the civil rights case during his actions against Monteiro and that he carefully operated in communication with council.
The judge interpreted this comment as communicating deliberate action by the Cambridge City Manager.
B. Malpractice against the trial attorney?
There have been various speculations by Cambridge Pol types of the possibility of a malpractice suit against the attorney representing the city in the case.
My reaction is that these contentions amount to yet another change of subject by the Cambridge Pols. The decision says that the Cambridge City Manager has committed “outrageous” and “reprehensible” malfeasance in office.
The Cambridge City Council has not even heard a motion to fire the Cambridge City Manager. A majority of five of the nine incumbents (one not reelected) committed themselves to rehiring the Cambridge City Manager during the recent election.
Exactly zero City Councilors presently on the council or newly elected have publicly supported firing the Cambridge City Manager for Monteiro.
It is always impossible to fully evaluate comments made by Cambridge Pols on major issues. A long time ago, I stopped trying to determine intent, but rather evaluate their comments by impact. The impact of the malpractice idea against the trial attorney, to me, is changing the subject.
First of all, the city manager, according to jury, judge and appeals court, should be fired.
Secondly however, the city council voted to fund the appeals WITHOUT SEEKING INDEPENDENT COUNCIL. This is absolutely outrageous.
With the comments of the judge and jury in the trial, absolute minimum action by the Cambridge City Council would have been to get a second opinion. Failure to get a second opinion communicates, as usual, that the Cambridge City Council did not want to know what it was doing.
The trial attorney can be expected to be biased toward appeal. The trial attorney is trying to achieve his/her agreed upon results as best as he/she can. Failure to check that opinion is very much failure on the part of the Cambridge City Council, not the attorney.
C. Finding that the City Solicitor was responsible for the debacle?
Really, this is the other possibility.
I am raising it. There are a whole bunch of permutations on this part of the analysis.
I really do not want to go there, pretty much for the same reason I find a malpractice action against the trial attorney outrageous.
You are changing the subject.
The City Manager has civilly been found guilty of “outrageous” and “reprehensible” malfeasance in office by jury, judge and appeals court, to wit, destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
The games should end.
The City Manager should be fired.
Addendum.
I attended the meeting long enough to see the city council had no comment on the retirement.
Large housing project announced south of Alewife
Cambridge Day is reporting a 429 unit complex announced as “The Residences at Fresh Pond. Their report may be read at: http://www.cambridgeday.com/2011/11/16/project-will-add-429-apartments-at-alewife-developer-says/.
I attended two Cambridge Conservation Commission discussions on this project.
The construction impacts Belmont perhaps half a mile to the west and Arlington perhaps half a mile to the north plus traffic coming in on Route 2. Route 2 is the northern of the two major east-west superhighways in Massachusetts. The Route 2 super highway ends just north (above) of the area in the Cambridge Day photo, just north of Alewife station.
The Cambridge Day report provides excellent details although its photo does not go far enough south. If the project is in the photo, it is at the very bottom. The photo shows the massive Alewife Red Line station with a portion of the Alewife reservation which is being destroyed by Cambridge and the Department of Conservation and Reservations. A whole bunch of lies and a key fake “protective” group are helping that destruction.
The project in question in the Cambridge Day report is south of the railroad tracks / below the railroad tracks in the photo. The massive parking lot directly above the tracks is but a tiny portion of the massive parking area which should be used for flood storage rather than destroying the Alewife reservation and then “discovering” that the destruction will not provide the needed flood storage.
I do not know the exact zoning history of the particular project in the Cambridge Day report. I do know about the very recent upzoning that impacts the area of the project.
The game was “transfer of development rights,” a variation of the beggar your neighbor politics which is one of many dirty tricks normal in Cambridge politics. They have a predictable script. “Beggar your neighbor” is one of the standard tactics in the script.
I lived in Cambridge to the west of the project area for nearly two years, the Cambridge Highlands neighborhood.
Between the north south highway (Alewife Brook Parkway / Route 16) is a low density industrial area. The key lie in the zoning change was that development would be transferred from the area near where I lived to the area near Route 16. The secret behind the lie was that the resulting zoning density near my former home was set at a density which simply and clearly will not be allowed by Cambridge. The zoning density in the “protected area” was way below even the density allowed in my residential neighborhood, after the games / development transfer is played.
Thus massive development is encouraged to go in in that portion of the industrial area in toward Route 16 while the portion toward Cambridge Highlands is “protected.”
When the area next to Route 16 is filled in, the powers that will look at the area which was “protected” in that zoning change with shock. Totally unacceptable to have such small industrial buildings next to their massive new buildings. They will have to correct that.
And they would not get the increase in density of the zoning near Route 16 if they did the upzoning in an honest manner.
So a massive industrial area gets a massive upzoning in two steps. Very similar to the total destruction of the publicly owned and irreplaceable Alewife reservation in two steps with bizarre claims of “protection.”
Yet another lie from the City of Cambridge.
I attended two Cambridge Conservation Commission discussions on this project.
The construction impacts Belmont perhaps half a mile to the west and Arlington perhaps half a mile to the north plus traffic coming in on Route 2. Route 2 is the northern of the two major east-west superhighways in Massachusetts. The Route 2 super highway ends just north (above) of the area in the Cambridge Day photo, just north of Alewife station.
The Cambridge Day report provides excellent details although its photo does not go far enough south. If the project is in the photo, it is at the very bottom. The photo shows the massive Alewife Red Line station with a portion of the Alewife reservation which is being destroyed by Cambridge and the Department of Conservation and Reservations. A whole bunch of lies and a key fake “protective” group are helping that destruction.
The project in question in the Cambridge Day report is south of the railroad tracks / below the railroad tracks in the photo. The massive parking lot directly above the tracks is but a tiny portion of the massive parking area which should be used for flood storage rather than destroying the Alewife reservation and then “discovering” that the destruction will not provide the needed flood storage.
I do not know the exact zoning history of the particular project in the Cambridge Day report. I do know about the very recent upzoning that impacts the area of the project.
The game was “transfer of development rights,” a variation of the beggar your neighbor politics which is one of many dirty tricks normal in Cambridge politics. They have a predictable script. “Beggar your neighbor” is one of the standard tactics in the script.
I lived in Cambridge to the west of the project area for nearly two years, the Cambridge Highlands neighborhood.
Between the north south highway (Alewife Brook Parkway / Route 16) is a low density industrial area. The key lie in the zoning change was that development would be transferred from the area near where I lived to the area near Route 16. The secret behind the lie was that the resulting zoning density near my former home was set at a density which simply and clearly will not be allowed by Cambridge. The zoning density in the “protected area” was way below even the density allowed in my residential neighborhood, after the games / development transfer is played.
Thus massive development is encouraged to go in in that portion of the industrial area in toward Route 16 while the portion toward Cambridge Highlands is “protected.”
When the area next to Route 16 is filled in, the powers that will look at the area which was “protected” in that zoning change with shock. Totally unacceptable to have such small industrial buildings next to their massive new buildings. They will have to correct that.
And they would not get the increase in density of the zoning near Route 16 if they did the upzoning in an honest manner.
So a massive industrial area gets a massive upzoning in two steps. Very similar to the total destruction of the publicly owned and irreplaceable Alewife reservation in two steps with bizarre claims of “protection.”
Yet another lie from the City of Cambridge.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Public meeting scheduled on possibility of Grand Junction Passenger Service
1. Meeting announcement.
2. Reality in Cambridge.
1. Meeting announcement.
The following email was received from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on November 18:
************
Grand Junction Commuter Rail Feasibility Study -- Public Meeting
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is pleased to announce a community meeting to discuss progress on the Grand Junction Commuter Rail Feasibility Study.
This meeting will be held:
Thursday, December 8, 6:30pm-8:00pm
Kennedy-Longfellow School – Auditorium
158 Spring Street, Cambridge
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss an ongoing study of the potential use of the Grand Junction Railroad for supplemental MBTA Commuter Rail service to Cambridge and North Station. At this meeting, MassDOT staff members will discuss results of a ridership analysis and traffic impact analysis, as well as overall study findings, and next steps. This meeting follows up on a community meeting held last June. For more information on prior meetings, see out study website at: http://massdot.state.ma.us/planning/GrandJunctionTransportationStudy.aspx.
All are welcome at the meeting, and please feel free to share this notice. For more information, or to request alternative language or other special accommodations, please contact Matthew Ciborowski at matthew.ciborowski@state.ma.us, or (617) 973-7180.
Please join us on December 8th!
Matthew Ciborowski | Office of Transportation Planning
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
10 Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
phone 617.973.7180 | email matthew.ciborowski@state.ma.us
************
2. Reality in Cambridge.
The same group which “protected” Alewife is extremely visible in this effort, just different faces.
The Cambridge proposal is highly destructive of the environment on the Charles River and, as usual, destructive to the causes they claim to stand for.
The Pols are fighting for commuter passenger service on the Grand Junction railroad, the track that goes through the edge of the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
Their proposal would cross at grade a number of very active streets in the eastern part of Cambridge with associated disruption of traffic and environmental pollution from standing, idling cars.
This railroad track has seen perhaps four trips a day in connector service between the railroad yards associated with Boston’s passenger oriented North Station and the freight dominated Beacon Yards.
Harvard University owns Beacon Yards along with the adjacent exit ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge and the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Harvard bought Beacon Yards and the Massachusetts Turnpike exit shortly after a state agency demonstrated that it is possible to put an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge over the rail bridge under the BU Bridge which is part of the Grand Junction Railroad.
The Pols claim that the adding passenger trains would benefit Worcester. The Pols claim to oppose the “existing plans.” They give the impression that their opposition is to passenger service on the Grand Junction. The reality is that there are no “existing plans,” just a study.
Worcester currently has all its passenger service run out of Boston’s South Station. South Station is being expanded to add trackage which would be needed for service to New Bedford and Fall River, plus a lot of extra tracks. Worcester has no need to use the Grand Junction. Studies have shown only a small percentage of Worcester residents would have any benefit from the use of that line.
On the other hand, going inbound on the South Station - Worcester line from the point where traffic would be diverted to the Grand Junction, you come to Yawkey Station.
Cambridge wants an irresponsible subway line which would cross the Charles at a point that requires moving Yawkey Station. The legislature is spending millions upgrading Yawkey Station in place. Yawkey Station in place is an integral part of the responsible subway alternative to Cambridge’s irresponsible subway proposal.
Moving ALL Framingham trains to the Grand Junction would make Yawkey Station useless in the subway plans.
Additionally, passenger service on that line would support the massive development Cambridge is building in that area.
Cambridge claims its plan only would create a few passenger trains on the Grand Junction.
Cambridge also claims it is “only” destroying the core of the Alewife reservation, but that proposal cannot do what it claims to with those stated limits either.
Fake limits are the norm with these people.
2. Reality in Cambridge.
1. Meeting announcement.
The following email was received from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on November 18:
************
Grand Junction Commuter Rail Feasibility Study -- Public Meeting
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is pleased to announce a community meeting to discuss progress on the Grand Junction Commuter Rail Feasibility Study.
This meeting will be held:
Thursday, December 8, 6:30pm-8:00pm
Kennedy-Longfellow School – Auditorium
158 Spring Street, Cambridge
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss an ongoing study of the potential use of the Grand Junction Railroad for supplemental MBTA Commuter Rail service to Cambridge and North Station. At this meeting, MassDOT staff members will discuss results of a ridership analysis and traffic impact analysis, as well as overall study findings, and next steps. This meeting follows up on a community meeting held last June. For more information on prior meetings, see out study website at: http://massdot.state.ma.us/planning/GrandJunctionTransportationStudy.aspx.
All are welcome at the meeting, and please feel free to share this notice. For more information, or to request alternative language or other special accommodations, please contact Matthew Ciborowski at matthew.ciborowski@state.ma.us, or (617) 973-7180.
Please join us on December 8th!
Matthew Ciborowski | Office of Transportation Planning
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
10 Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
phone 617.973.7180 | email matthew.ciborowski@state.ma.us
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2. Reality in Cambridge.
The same group which “protected” Alewife is extremely visible in this effort, just different faces.
The Cambridge proposal is highly destructive of the environment on the Charles River and, as usual, destructive to the causes they claim to stand for.
The Pols are fighting for commuter passenger service on the Grand Junction railroad, the track that goes through the edge of the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.
Their proposal would cross at grade a number of very active streets in the eastern part of Cambridge with associated disruption of traffic and environmental pollution from standing, idling cars.
This railroad track has seen perhaps four trips a day in connector service between the railroad yards associated with Boston’s passenger oriented North Station and the freight dominated Beacon Yards.
Harvard University owns Beacon Yards along with the adjacent exit ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge and the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Harvard bought Beacon Yards and the Massachusetts Turnpike exit shortly after a state agency demonstrated that it is possible to put an off ramp from the Massachusetts Turnpike to Cambridge over the rail bridge under the BU Bridge which is part of the Grand Junction Railroad.
The Pols claim that the adding passenger trains would benefit Worcester. The Pols claim to oppose the “existing plans.” They give the impression that their opposition is to passenger service on the Grand Junction. The reality is that there are no “existing plans,” just a study.
Worcester currently has all its passenger service run out of Boston’s South Station. South Station is being expanded to add trackage which would be needed for service to New Bedford and Fall River, plus a lot of extra tracks. Worcester has no need to use the Grand Junction. Studies have shown only a small percentage of Worcester residents would have any benefit from the use of that line.
On the other hand, going inbound on the South Station - Worcester line from the point where traffic would be diverted to the Grand Junction, you come to Yawkey Station.
Cambridge wants an irresponsible subway line which would cross the Charles at a point that requires moving Yawkey Station. The legislature is spending millions upgrading Yawkey Station in place. Yawkey Station in place is an integral part of the responsible subway alternative to Cambridge’s irresponsible subway proposal.
Moving ALL Framingham trains to the Grand Junction would make Yawkey Station useless in the subway plans.
Additionally, passenger service on that line would support the massive development Cambridge is building in that area.
Cambridge claims its plan only would create a few passenger trains on the Grand Junction.
Cambridge also claims it is “only” destroying the core of the Alewife reservation, but that proposal cannot do what it claims to with those stated limits either.
Fake limits are the norm with these people.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Most of Letter Calling out Destructive “Protector” of Alewife Reservation Printed by Cambridge Chronicle
Last Friday, November 11, 2011, I passed on on this blog, at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/response-to-protector-of-environment.html, a letter I sent to the Cambridge Chronicle.
My submittal of this letter was highly unusual and the fact that almost all of it was printed is even more unusual because of very severe procedural oddities. Nevertheless this letter was one of the few which make sense being printed in spite of the oddities.
The biggest environmental problem in or near Cambridge, MA, is a bunch “protective” groups I consider fakes. The “protective” groups, once you scratch the highly polished surface have a very strong tendency to be highly influenced by the Cambridge City Manager / City Council. They commonly have the problem of achievements which are in conflict with their stated goals.
One of the worst of these groups has been running around for 15 years or so claiming to be defending the Alewife reservation but maneuvering people away from the winnable / savable part of the reservation, that owned and controlled by public agencies, with the City of Cambridge smack dab in the middle of the situation.
The Alewife reservation is / was a virgin forest only a few hundred feet west of Alewife Station, the northern terminus of the subway systems Red Line. The leader has been crying for 15 years her love for Alewife. A few weeks ago, in the Chronicle, she praised the destruction of the core Alewife reservation, controlled by Cambridge / the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The destruction planned / accomplished involves clear cutting acres of massive, excellent trees with the associated killing of all animals who do not get out of their way and the gutting of massive numbers of nests.
Two weeks ago, the Chronicle published my letter building on a letter from a number of former members of Cambridge’s Human Rights Commission. They had had the nerve to ask about the Monteiro case to the Cambridge City Manager. This case has resulted in the City of Cambridge paying Ms. Monteiro $8.3 million after orders of the appeals court and superior court. That number includes $1.1 million actual damages and $3.5 million penal damages.
The city solicitor apparently treated the request as a violation of the expectation that all people associated with the City of Cambridge pay obeisance to Team Healy [Cambridge City Manager].
My letter two weeks ago applied the principal expressed by the city solicitor and said that his apparent position goes a long way to explain the very commonly irresponsible behavior of these supposed “protective” groups. Three of the points directly hit the Alewife issue.
Last week, after her earlier letter was printed supporting destruction of the core Alewife reservation, the key woman had an other letter bemoaning lack of interest in protecting that part of the reservation she is not trying to destroy. Her letter followed mine by a week and totally ignored my letter and the points which destroy her argument for destroying the core Alewife reservation.
So I sent a letter, printed at the link, asking why she had not responding to the three points in my letter which destroy her position supporting destruction of the core Alewife reservation. My letter was printed at page 17 of the November 17, 2011 Chronicle. Interestingly, my last sentence did not make it into the Chronicle. That was the sentence quoting her prior letter statement of her support for the destruction, without mentioning yet another letter, for obvious reasons.
The letter and its printing was unusual because it constitutes a direct attack by name on the supposed protector of the Alewife reservation. Perhaps the last sentence was omitted to bring the letter closer to what really is normal procedure. The situation, however, called for my letter to be printed, and, once again, the Cambridge Chronicle printed it.
Thank you to the Cambridge Chronicle.
My submittal of this letter was highly unusual and the fact that almost all of it was printed is even more unusual because of very severe procedural oddities. Nevertheless this letter was one of the few which make sense being printed in spite of the oddities.
The biggest environmental problem in or near Cambridge, MA, is a bunch “protective” groups I consider fakes. The “protective” groups, once you scratch the highly polished surface have a very strong tendency to be highly influenced by the Cambridge City Manager / City Council. They commonly have the problem of achievements which are in conflict with their stated goals.
One of the worst of these groups has been running around for 15 years or so claiming to be defending the Alewife reservation but maneuvering people away from the winnable / savable part of the reservation, that owned and controlled by public agencies, with the City of Cambridge smack dab in the middle of the situation.
The Alewife reservation is / was a virgin forest only a few hundred feet west of Alewife Station, the northern terminus of the subway systems Red Line. The leader has been crying for 15 years her love for Alewife. A few weeks ago, in the Chronicle, she praised the destruction of the core Alewife reservation, controlled by Cambridge / the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The destruction planned / accomplished involves clear cutting acres of massive, excellent trees with the associated killing of all animals who do not get out of their way and the gutting of massive numbers of nests.
Two weeks ago, the Chronicle published my letter building on a letter from a number of former members of Cambridge’s Human Rights Commission. They had had the nerve to ask about the Monteiro case to the Cambridge City Manager. This case has resulted in the City of Cambridge paying Ms. Monteiro $8.3 million after orders of the appeals court and superior court. That number includes $1.1 million actual damages and $3.5 million penal damages.
The city solicitor apparently treated the request as a violation of the expectation that all people associated with the City of Cambridge pay obeisance to Team Healy [Cambridge City Manager].
My letter two weeks ago applied the principal expressed by the city solicitor and said that his apparent position goes a long way to explain the very commonly irresponsible behavior of these supposed “protective” groups. Three of the points directly hit the Alewife issue.
Last week, after her earlier letter was printed supporting destruction of the core Alewife reservation, the key woman had an other letter bemoaning lack of interest in protecting that part of the reservation she is not trying to destroy. Her letter followed mine by a week and totally ignored my letter and the points which destroy her argument for destroying the core Alewife reservation.
So I sent a letter, printed at the link, asking why she had not responding to the three points in my letter which destroy her position supporting destruction of the core Alewife reservation. My letter was printed at page 17 of the November 17, 2011 Chronicle. Interestingly, my last sentence did not make it into the Chronicle. That was the sentence quoting her prior letter statement of her support for the destruction, without mentioning yet another letter, for obvious reasons.
The letter and its printing was unusual because it constitutes a direct attack by name on the supposed protector of the Alewife reservation. Perhaps the last sentence was omitted to bring the letter closer to what really is normal procedure. The situation, however, called for my letter to be printed, and, once again, the Cambridge Chronicle printed it.
Thank you to the Cambridge Chronicle.
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