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‘Progressive’ City Council abuses vulnerable persons—and free speech
This could be the big one
Central Plaza Lot
Which People's Republic?
Learning from the Goldschmidt Report: Land Reform and American Agriculture
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Harvard’s neighbors want to know—what lies under Mahoney’s site?
What lies beneath Harvard’s construction site at the corner of Western Avenue and Memorial Drive?
Harvard’s contractors made test borings on the Mahoney’s site to see what was in the soil. The core samples, which they extracted, are still not available for examination.
Sam Lipson, the City’s Environmental Health Unit director, is allowed to go on Harvard’s property and read the environmental data they have assembled. However, he isn’t allowed to make copies or even write anything down.
He hasn’t noticed anything that he considers dangerous. Still, he says, “that monitoring data should be open to the public”— but it is not. Besides Lipson, only one Fire Department employee is allowed access. For seventy years, the corner of Western and Mem Drive was the home of a succession of garden supply and nursery businesses, the last of which was Mahoney’s. Before that, the area was largely industrial.
A few months ago, Turner Construction stopped working on the Mahoney’s site and sent their crews and equipment to New Orleans. Neither Harvard nor Turner will say why the contractor quit.
But the Mahoney’s site is only half of Harvard’s expansion project in Riverside. Work continues apace in the Kerry Corner section, along the east side of Banks Street. That’s where 78-year-old Gladys Evans perished in a Thanksgiving night fire in a Harvard-owned building.
The day before the fire, the streets quaked as the contractor’s heavy equipment pounded the ground nearby. The day after the fire, all traces of the burned building had been removed. Small trucks now use the lot for parking.
Kerry Corner neighbors had complainedabout the danger of heavy equipment pounding and undermining the ground.
The neighbors also complained to Harvard about the health hazard posed by high-sulfur fuel being used to power construction machinery. To make a very long story short, the neighbors received promises, but the same fuel is still being used.
“It’s illegitimate what they did to Kerry Corner…They were deceived...” says Lawrence Adkins, the president of the Riverside Neighbor Association (RNA).
Privatizing the public’s business
Just a few years ago, Riverside residents concerned about Harvard’s development plans came up with a petition to change the zoning. But only four city councilors supported the Carlson Petition. Harvard, of course, opposed it and Carpenters Local 40 backed Harvard.
RNA representatives agreed to serve on a negotiating committee appointed by City Manager Robert Healy. The committee was dominated by people who worked for him or for Harvard. This committee met behind closed doors, in defiance of State open meetings law.
Healy claimed that “chapter 2.110 of the Cambridge Municipal Code on the disposition of city-owned property allows for diminution of the full process otherwise required by the ordinance if that process would be unduly burdensome."
Roy Bercaw notes that the city manager omitted an essential element of the City ordinance; that the land be "of such little significance."
The ordinance says: “For the disposition of city property that is of such little signifi cance that the above described process wouldbe unduly burdensome, the City Manager may request of the City Council a diminution of this process.”
For those of you who aren’t lawyers, “diminution of process” here means doing deals behind closed doors. When Harvard got what it wanted out of the committee, the agreement was presented to the city council for rubber-stamping. Part of the agreement was that the City give Hingham Street to Harvard without an open bidding process— contrary to the State procurement act.
All the councilors praised the manager and each other for the nimble deed that they had done. “A truly significant groundbreaking, path-breaking, landmark agreement," said City Councilor Brian Murphy, who resides in Kerry Corner. “We are laying the seeds of trust here," said City Councilor Marjorie Decker, who now sits on the Riverside Oversight Committee.
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The RNA folks were used in this process to create the illusion of open negotiation and settlement. It also helped fend off potential lawsuits. A powerless Oversight Committeewas set up to keep grievances away from the spotlight.
RNA president Lawrence Adkins, who has sat on both the negotiating committee and the Riverside Oversight Committee, says: “The real deal was, everything that we talked about, as soon as the signatures were on the paper, they were going to go back to business as usual.
“The oversight committee should have been given authority to stop the project,” he added.
This scenario is not unique to Riverside, of course. City manager Healy appoints committees like this all the time.
When the Trolley Square committee came up with a plan that he didn’t like, Healy simply brushed it aside. “I should have gone to their first meeting and made my message more clear,” he said. City Councilor Galluccio stepped up to the plate for the city manager: “We need to restore some faith that there is no conspiracy here.”
Councilor Galluccio also sits on the Riverside Oversight Committee.