[MassHistPres] HB 3953 - An Act relative to a certain parcel of land in the town of Freetown

[Dennis De Witt]

Agreed that 2053 is pernicious but there may be an interesting message to the legislature from the Native American Community about not messing with graves and historic sites in this bill (2953).  My understanding is that 2953 is not at all what was originally desired by the proponents to come from Freetown's special town meeting.  However, they had not counted on push-back from the Native American community (which is about to have casinos).

It is an interesting read.

2953 times out after only 180 days from the passage of the bill -- after which it is back to the status quo.  (Of course there has been bulldozing on the site in the mean time).

2953  requires a professional archaeologist on site and professional archaeology to be done, at the proponent's expense -- admittedly supervised by an agency other than MHC.  But it does not seem likely it would be pro forma.

It also requires a 100 acre, MGL 184, conservation restriction -- something that might have happened anyway.

It could have been worse.

Dennis De Witt
Brookline


On Mar 23, 2012, at 1:04 PM, Sara Wermiel wrote:

> I have just been informed that this bill, HB 3953 – “An Act relative to a certain parcel of land in the town of Freetown” – passed both chambers of the legislature and is on its way to the Governor. For the text, seehttp://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/House/H03953
>  
> This bill is part of the south coast legislators’ attempt to lure the medical software business Meditech to build an office on a particular site. The legislation eliminates MHC’s review of a project on this site. Meditech has said it will not build on the site, and the owners of the site said they do not want to be saddled with the requirements of this bill. And of course, people interested in protecting historic resources and maintaining a proper process for reviewing projects that involve state actions that might harm historic resources don’t want this bill. Yet it sailed through.
>  
> The more pernicious bill S. 2053 is still alive in the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
>  
> Sara Wermiel
> History of technology/historic preservation consulting
> Jamaica Plain, MA
> ******************************
> For administrative questions regarding this list, please contact Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us directly.  PLEASE DO NOT "REPLY" TO THE WHOLE LIST.
> MassHistPres mailing list
> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
> http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/listinfo/masshistpres
> ********************************

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/private/masshistpres/attachments/20120323/ced6dfac/attachment.htm>