Take My Council, Please: REVOKED!...

(WMassP&I)

After all of the drama, all the testimony, all the passion, the Springfield City Council voted this evening to deny a permit for a used car dealership on Newhouse Street in the City’s Outer Belt Neighborhood.  Yes, the tension and the anxiety over what may be among the council’s most important votes this year gave way as councilors accepted the concerns of neighbors about the impact the dealership would have.

No, there really was a vote on a car dealership, but it by far overshadowed by the vote of the city council to revoke the permit for Palmer Renewable Energy’s proposed biomass plant on Cadwell Drive and Page Boulevard just off I-291.  Although the chamber was not as packed as it was for last week’s testimony phase, there was a significant showing of plant opponents and a few supporters, mostly craft union members.

Councilor Fenton (Facebook)

Ward 2 Councilor Mike Fenton read into the record a report from City Solicitor Ed Pikula which said that the council had sufficient evidence upon which it could base its decision to revoke the permit.  The City Solicitor stated the changes from the original project may deviate from the permit, could have a profound impact on the neighborhood, environment and public health and may justify the council’s revocation.


Ward 4 Councilor E. Henry Twiggs announced his support for revocation in remarks which outlined the council’s role as a regulatory body.  In that spirit, Twiggs noted that he resisted efforts to broadcast his position.  “We are here to be neutral,” Twiggs said explaining that he felt the contradictions and changes to the biomass proposal led him to oppose the plan

Councilor Walsh (Facebook)

At-large Councilor Kateri Walsh opened the debate for those in support of sustaining the permit.  Walsh said that her own research and calls to state environmental officials had led her to conclude that the impact of this project would not be different from the original plans (WMassP&I’s twitter feed misidentified Walsh’s position as saying it was different).  Absent that difference, Walsh said the city council should not revoke the permit and that she would vote likewise.


Ward 6 Councilor Amaad Rivera reminded the council that they were sitting in a regulatory setting and that their job was to make a judgment as to the status of the permit based on the evidence before them.  It was the council’s duty, Rivera argued, to determine whether the current project was different from the project originally approved, but to do so without being swayed by the prospect of job creation alone.


At-large Councilor Tim Rooke took a similar, but more forceful stand than Walsh.  He suggested that there was “no just cause” for the city to revoke the permit.  He also implied that the council was on a “dangerously reckless path” by voting to revoke.  Rooke appeared to argue that the city was acting out of turn.  Although it is rare for the council to so revoke a permit, it has with time practically become a reserve power of the council, in part because of misunderstanding or indifference to the council’s functions.  In that way, Rooke may have missed the mark in his broad admonition to the council.

Councilor Lysak (Official Site)

Undaunted, Ward 8 Councilor John Lysak, whose district include the site of the plant, replied “no amount of money was worth the risk” to to the health and safety of his constituents and others throughout the Springfield area.  Council President Jose Tosado also reminded Rooke of the posture of the council with regard to the permit.  The council was not acting as a legislative body, but a regulatory one, however elected.  Walsh attempted a parliamentary maneuver to get Tosado to step down to speak (which would have yielded her the dais), but he resisted.  After some additional comments from councilors, the vote was taken.


As the vote proceeded, it became increasingly clear where the result would come down.  Some of the biomass supporters could be heard during the meeting muttering that it was over.  Revocation required nine votes, consistent with special permit actions.  At-large councilor Jimmy Ferrera was absent due to a family emergency, but it clear that by the time City Clerk Wayman Lee had made his way to councilor Amaad Rivera, jubilation was pulsing through the crowd.  With the ninth vote cast for revocation (it happened to be Fenton), the crowd burst out in cheers nearly drowning out the recording of Tosado’s vote.


Take My Breath Away...

(WMassP&I)

In many ways, we have abdicated our responsibility on the Biomass issue.  When the permit was rammed through the city council on a 7-2 vote in 2008, it was hailed as a jobs creator period. Since then there has been a growing movement to stop the plant, slated for development off of Page Boulevard near I-291.  Palmer Renewable Energy, owned by the Callahan family that owns a paving company by the same name sought to use renewable energy grants to build the facility.

The plan calls for a power plant fueled by wood chip.  At first biomass was seen as being a great alternative energy source because it was renewable and ostensibly admitted less pollution.  However, it may be helpful to think biomass in the same way as LASIK laser eye surgery.  It is so new we do not have any idea what the long term effects are. As what data we do have began to come to light, the power plant began to look more and more like a liability for public health in the Greater Springfield area.

(WMassP&I)

The council faced a room filled with supporters and opponents of the biomass plant, but the supporters clearly had an advantage in homemade signs and possibly numbers as well.  Both sides were fairly civil throughout the process, but the opponents of the plant held their colorful signs highest on their experts' best points and throughout much of their opponents' comments.

From a legal standpoint, the Council's options are limited to revocation of the 2008 permit.  According to some legal sources, they can vote to revoke it, but as with granting a special permit they need 9 votes.  If last night's vote to close the meeting is any indication, they probably are close if not past that threshold.  However, the council can only revoke it for "just cause." 


As former City Solicitor and City Councilor Pat Markey put it to the Council, they get to decide what just cause is, but they have plenty to base their conclusion on.  Markey noted (he was one of two councilors in 2008 that voted no, Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty was the other) that the original permit was for a recycling center.  Markey explained that that made sense at the time because the original project called for burned construction and demolition waste to power the plant.  That idea was later abandoned as skeptical regulators demurred.  As such, the new plan uses so-called green wood chips.  These chips are sometimes from tree debris, but other times from living trees.  Markey argued that the new plan fails to be recycling as that term implies previous used material.  This plan is an incinerator, instead, which requires a separate special permit, Markey said.

Pat Markey with Karen Powell in 2007 (WMassP&I)

Markey said the permit change, the change in truck movements, the lower threshold for regulation, and the EPA's own misgivings about biomass amount to plenty of "just cause" for the council.  Furthermore, he assured the council, the worst Palmer Paving could do is sue, win and get their permit anyway.  Susan Reid, Massachusetts Director of the  Conservation Law Foundation, a New England environmental legal group, argued that the increase in relative pollution by the plant could actually negate any positive effect.  Among her arguments was that the pollution increase could raise local temperatures and thereby increase energy usage for Air Conditioning.


A Northampton doctor that works in Springfield noted that the added pollution could have a particularly deleterious effect on days with air quality alerts.  Others spoke to the additional harmful effects caused by the additional truck trips.  Michaelann Bewsee, an activist in the city, took great pains to note that she and others had done their homework on the situation.  An asthma sufferer noted a connection to asthma rates and school absenteeism.


Representing the Biomass plant were Attorneys Frank Fitzgerald and Thomas Mackie.  Fitzgerald protested the legitimacy of this hearing and claimed that the only "just cause" for the city to revoke the permit was non-compliance with the original permit. At times he and his co-counsel claimed that even the original permit were unnecessary.  Fitzgerald also made several references to the direct economic benefit to the city.

Our 100th: Worse for the Wear...

**UPDATE** This Post has been updated to reflect News about the Cape Cod Times Editorial referenced below and news on Setti Warren's Senate Announcement on 5/13 & 5/18.

(Created from Fair Use image of Brown and other)

Last week should have been a good week for our Senator Scott Brown.  Despite the big news that Osama bin Laden had been taken out by a Navy Seals Special Operations team, Brown's delightfully self-serving tidbit about doing his two-week National Guard stint in Afghanistan was dutifully picked up by a swooning media.  It was largely buried, but anybody who follows the news probably saw it.  Perhaps Brown had probably hoped for more adulation from a media establishment prone to pleasur..err, gratifying him, but the understated delivery of his message was enough.  Even as Brown blamed somebody else for leaking the story, Politico's Ben Smith was quick to note the leaker was none other than Brown himself.  This was planned.

Then, last Wednesday, as President Barack Obama was weighing whether to release photos of bin Laden's bullet-ridden corpse, Scott Brown took to the airways.  He agreed with Obama's decision  not to release the photos and affirmed that he had seen them.  Except the photos that Scott Brown saw were fakes, the very same that had been discredited by numerous news organizations as much as 48 hours before Brown's television appearances.  So Brown got punked.  Big deal, right?  Maybe, except that Brown led the interviewers on NECN and another Boston television station to believe he had seen them in an official briefing.  So, did Brown, as a member of the Armed Services Committee see the pictures, but was otherwise not supposed to blab? 

Bin Laden Graffitt in Romania (wikipedia)

That is unlikely because according to numerous news outlets the classified briefing which all senators were invited included zero photographs.  Borderline Christian Extremist Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire junior senator and Georgia's Sen. Saxby Chambliss (also a Gang of Six gangster) also claimed to have seen the same photos, but their goofs thus far merely reflect being taken in by low-quality hoaxes.  Brown, on the other hand implied he saw what he thought was bin Laden's body, that is the fake, in an official briefing.  Except no briefing available to him included those images., unless Brown got non-official illegal look at the classified pictures.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee claims she could have seen them, but declined.  Feinstein, it is worth noting, probably saw her fill of closeup fatal shots to the head when she found the bodies of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

When Brown refused to respond to requests for clarification from Boston Phoenix reporter David Bernstein, the latter engaged Twitter in a concerted and hilarious effort to ridicule the commonwealth's junior senator.  Armed with the hashtag #scottosawit, several days of tweets filled with what "Scott saw" flew back and forth ranging from the serious to the silly.  Many including a few tweeted by WMassP&I poked fun at Scott Brown's incongruous political positions.  Neither of Brown's twitter accounts appeared to acknowledge the Twitter assault.

While Twitter guffawed over what Scotto saw, the traditional media did not miss a beat.  Columns and opinions from BOTH the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald took swipes at the senator.  Brian McGrory, a Globe Colunist, mocked Brown's sloppiness and called his response to the League of Women Voters EPA ad "whiny" (it is and we will get to that).  McGrory also derided Brown for attacking the media sales tactic (re: bin Laden photos) while being the ultimate salesman himself. 

"This admonition from a guy who posed with next to nothing on for Cosmopolitan and is pushing his ghost-written memoir so hard that his constituent meetings are held at Barnes & Noble and Borders — in other words, a guy who has never shied from salesmanship."