[MassHistPres] s.2053 redux

[Dennis De Witt]

Here is a further update of the s.2053 story by way of another Fall River Herald News article.  In an unfortunate turn of events, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs is now backing the Meditech bill that will greatly impair MHC.  

It's not clear that this article is telling the MHC side of this story fully and fairly.

In any case contacting your State Representatives and Senators with your feelings about this bill would seem even more in order than before.

Dennis De Witt


FALL RIVER —
The Patrick administration, through its energy secretary, this week issued support for a bill to help enable a new $65 million Meditech facility to be built by clarifying — and possibly limiting — the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Historical Commission over state historic assets.

And while the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Michael Rodrigues, remains hopeful a legislative public hearing can be held in the next two weeks, no one is predicting the project that has been stalled for the past four months is ready to move ahead.

Richard Sullivan Jr., secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said they support the Rodrigues bill “clarifying that MHC’s jurisdiction applies to the known universe of properties listed on the official Massachusetts Historic Register.”

“The land is not on the historic register,” Sullivan said in an interview.
Meditech proposes building on 21 of its 138 acres off Route 24 within the Riverfront Business Park, deeding the remaining acreage to the Trustees of Reservations.

It’s been held up over disputes with the MHC, overseen by Secretary of State William Galvin, over the commission identifying Native American settlements dating back thousands of years and requiring excavation and data assessment that Meditech opposes.

Whether Sullivan and the Patrick administration believe MHC has jurisdiction over the land Meditech wants to develop remains unanswered.

“That’s a legal question,” Sullivan said. “You’re asking me to make a determination on jurisdiction on what I don’t have authority over.”

Sullivan’s office on Aug. 26 issued an expedited Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act certificate on Meditech’s completed and condensed environmental application, which said the same thing — MEPA cannot “usurp” a MHC permit.

The certificate allows Meditech to seek its project permits, Sullivan said.
Neither does the executive branch have jurisdiction to overrule the MHC, only Galvin, who until the past two or three weeks has been largely unresponsive to inquiries and concerns over Meditech’s dispute.

His office did not return a call Friday for comment following endorsement of the bill by the Patrick administration.

Rodrigues said after speaking directly with Patrick, he was told “send me the bill and I will sign it.”

“They agree with me and many others that Mass Historic is overextending their reach because (the Meditech property is) not on the historic  register,” Rodrigues said.

Senate Bill 2053 would amend and attempt to clarify Massachusetts General Law Chapter 9, Section 27C governing state projects, reviews and adverse effects.

The confusion, Rodrigues indicated, comes from an initial portion of the law that says a developing party must notify the MHC and have the  commission determine any adverse effects if the property is listed on the state register of historic places.

It later says mitigating adverse effects need to be “included in the inventory of the historic assets of the commonwealth.”

“I can see where it can be interpreted a couple of ways,” Rodrigues said of the law.

He said there are two ways to fix it: Go to court or “amend the statute and make it unequivocal.”

While the Legislature’s formal session concluded Wednesday, Rodrigues said that’s not an obstacle. He’s spoken with the Senate and House chairmen on the 17-member Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulator Oversight, where the bill’s been assigned. “The next step is we have to have a public hearing,” he said.

“Next week or the first week in December” remain possibilities, he said, adding, “The prospects for a public hearing are very good.”

He expects “busloads” of supporters, as well as “a lot of people who are opposed.”

Galvin’s office wrote in an email three weeks ago he opposed the bill as “special-interest legislation.”

Rodrigues and other legislators said they see the bill as “a last resort” after Meditech and MHC failed to reach a compromise.

While state Rep. Kevin Aguiar of Fall River last week criticized Meditech as unwilling to compromise, Rodrigues would not say that.

“It’s Meditech that’s got the ultimate decision to make here. They’re the ones with 800 jobs and with $70 million to spend here,” he said.

Among a flurry of letters since talks on archaeological mitigation broke down in late June and with Meditech announcing on Sept. 1 it would look elsewhere for a site, Galvin’s office shared one letter it sent Nov. 3 to Gregory Bialecki, secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.

Galvin criticized news stories reporting development advocates’ statements on what MHC was requiring for archaeological investigation of the site.

“These published reports have now caused new inquiries about the exact recommendation of MHC,” Galvin wrote. He said they were told to  Meditech, then put in writing in an Aug. 2 letter to Sullivan from MHC Executive Director Brona Simon.

That letter said MHC had recommended “that topsoil stripping for limited portions of the project construction impact area be conducted.”

Three months later, Galvin’s letter to Bialecki identified stripping 5 to 7 acres of topsoil with a backhoe.

Meditech, when it announced its intention to abandon the Freetown project, said MHC was requiring the entire 21 acres to be excavated.

Meditech’s designated spokesman, Kenneth Fiola Jr. of the Fall River Office of Economic Development, maintains MHC and Galvin never reported the 5 to 7 acres requirement to them, and it became public when Galvin spoke with a Boston newspaper in late October.

“He (Galvin) had an opportunity to make is position known at the end of June, and he did not… There was no mention in the Aug. 2 letter to  Secretary Sullivan… or on Sept. 1,” Fiola said.

“Why didn’t he come out and say it? And then he stonewalled everyone,” said Fiola, who attended the meeting at Galvin’s office on Nov. 7.

While there have been new speculation about Meditech packing its bags and leaving $2 million invested on the ground in Freetown, Rodrigues said after talks with founder and company chairman Neil Pappalardo he is not hearing that.

“Meditech made it very clear they’re not interested in looking at other places right now,” Rodrigues said.

On the one hand, Rodrigues said, “I’m not giving up.”

On the other, he admitted, “I have not dealt with anything more frustrating in my 15 years in office.”


Read more: http://www.heraldnews.com/business/x2075766032/In-Meditech-dispute-Patrick-backs-bill-limiting-Historical-Commission#ixzz1eNMzca8T
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