The abutters and people from the Riverside Neighborhood Association have been repressed for months and months. As some of you know Harvard’s development at Mahoney’s, in Riverside, has been closed down. Turner’s, the construction company on this project, has left the site.

We understand they now have contracts in New Orleans for at least three years of work. They won’t be returning for awhile. We were informed that there were two dumping sites that they had picked, even prior to the soil tests. As far as we can tell the mess never made it to a dumping site. They dug up huge mounds of dirt that they covered with sheets of something that seems to be plastic and left. It seems we never find out the truth. We don’t even know why they left. It has never been clear why the work stopped.

Harvard has never made it clear to us but we believe it is because of a contract disagreement with the University. It is hard to get into Riverside these days. The concern is that Hingham street is tied up and blocked off. You can’t get off Memorial drive where you usually do. There is a lot more congestion and less parking.

Another thing is that Harvard is not responding to is the Kerry Corner neighbors’ wishes and concerns about the fuel that the construction company at that site is using. They call it high sulfur fuel. It is bad for people to breathe and Harvard is using it so close to their houses. It will be illegal to use this fuel come November. Harvard’s contractor is still using it even though it would take only pennies a day to start to use the safer fuel. The concern here is that the City signed away neighborhood rights to Harvard. The City doesn’t seem to care about us.

Our communities are changing. Going up and down Western Ave, the families that have been there for generations have all gone because of gentrification, the high rents, and condos that replace the old apartments. I can walk up and down to the square and never see the old neighbors because they are not there.

The City caters to the people who have money and power. We are at the mercy of the university and their expansion. There is a lot of big development throughout the city, like up in the Agassiz neighborhood. Down near MIT there are no abutters to complain about whatever they are doing down there. People are disenfranchised. They got that ugly building across from

Washington Elms, on Portland, a cold building, with nothing soft about it. It is terrible to look at. There is a camera on that building pointing down Washington Street. I wonder what that is for.

The city council is in bed with these developers and the universities to change the city. You can see this because the low and middle income people are moving out. I am retired now, but I worked for the school system for years. We have just lost another thousand kids from our school system. It might not seem blatant to you but when I worked for the city parents would come to you and say we can’t live here anymore.

In the summer camp I ran people would sign up for it but I would be unable to reach them a few weeks later because there phones were turned off as people decided they can’t afford them or the skyrocketing rents. Headstart, is a low income program for children. It now has to recruit for its kids. There use to be a long waiting list. Whole Foods Market is packed with people and this thriving expansion happens at the expense of the working class. People are being pushed around like cattle.

So, I wonder, who is going to stand up and find out about soil testing and sulfur gasoline. You don’t really get the support they say they are going to give you. There is always a master plan, a hidden agenda. There is always a stall tactic. The people forget. You are working hard on one thing and something else comes up. All these different issues come up that you are concerned about. It just piles up. They have a paid staff. We don’t. They wear people out.

I think too when these issues come up you get people against people. It divides the people. Their plan is to divide and conquer. The Oversight Committee never had any abutters on it. The city manager wanted to hand pick everybody.

So, how does our situation in Riverside relate to the the Urban Ring? You are going to be working with the same system, the same city hall bureaucrats that tend to bend to the developers and the powers that be, the people with the money.

The Urban Ring study showed that they think the population of Cambridgeport will change radically and the low income people, who the Urban Ring was designed to transport won’t be living here. The high technology types, the ones with money, the ones with no kids, will be. Some of that is fine. But the city is lopsided. We are losing all the long term families, the generations that represented Cambridge.

The question is who is this Urban Ring really for? What targeted population? What is it really for? Who will benefit from the Urban Ring?

You all can formulate your own opinions but here is my suggestion: The Urban Ring seems to be connecting the Boston University bioterror lab near the South End, Harvard’s Science City, right across the river in Allston, for which Harvard is raising 6 billion dollars, and MIT’s property at University Park and Kendall Square.

If this is what it is all about then I think we shouldn’t do it. Why spend taxpayer money to further clog up our neighborhoods with more people who will make it harder and harder for long term people to continue to live here.