Posted by Ed on March 3, 2007, 2:55 pm Statement of Purpose: Candidates for all surrounding towns and our town boards should and must explain and express their concerns before the upcoming elections or not be supported. We need people on our town boards asking the hard questions and not playing politics with our futures!!!!!!! ED
24.34.144.49
Question:
Can anyone tell me when the power plant is on the agenda of the
planning board, the Board of Selectment, the board of Health, etc?
Also, are the state reps, Bill Green and Bob Havern being asked to
attend these meeting to hear citizen concerns?
Ansewer:
A town meeting member has submitted a warrant article to the Conservation Commission and this article will be discussed on 3-14 (those meetings usually start at 7 and we will post the agenda as soon as we get it.)
One member (that I know of) has contacted Bill Greene's office and, at this time, he does not have an official stance.
We have been informed that Mr. Fitzpatrick is willing to speak to anyone with questions regarding the plant. We hope to get some sort of public forum, so all will get to ask any questions at one time. We will keep you posted if we hear anything on this.
We are putting together a list of questions to submit to the various boards and hope to raise awareness and have them understand we need a public forum. The Billerica Minuteman actually wrote a great article, and the editorial really hit home for capturing our needs. We should have a "shell" letter for everyone to use soon, and whoever would like to use this is great.
We are hoping for all members to ask any questions, either we can gather and submit them, or you can even add to the "shell" letter once drafted.
I hope that helps with questions and if anyone has any additional information that I missed please feel free to add.
Comment:
It is unlikely that any town board is going to put the power plant on their agenda without a written request to do so. One on ones will not get you the protections that you will need if the plant is approved. It is likely that it will be approved unless a lot of public attention is brought to this and each board must publicly discuss and address your concerns.
You are absolutely right Dave, which is one of the reasons this group was formed to promote public awareness on many issues not just the power plant. The power plant was brought to our attention and after reviewing the information we felt as a group, questions needed to be addressed. As concerned residents we discovered most people in town had no idea about the proposal. For example, if you would walk into a store with say ten people in it for instance and ask what do you think about the power plant proposal in town? Nine of them had no idea and one may have heard something about it! For some reason the only question on peoples minds was, what’s happening with Home Depot? Our response was there are many more issues confronting the residents of this town and the area than just Home Depot! We as a group feel this plant may affect the “quality of life” relating to all surrounding towns in the area and more attention relating to this decision was called for. Input is needed from all surrounding towns not just Billerica. What we as a group will be doing is posting pieces from the new March Newsletter from the power plants web site and would like some input to find out what everyone’s concerns are about each piece as we post it. Let me just add this point, if the citizens of the area do not wish to sacrifice their own personal time to review what is being proposed here and let others speak for them, the plant will definitely be approved and all legitimate concerns will not be heard. I will finish in saying, every member of this group needs to go out and speak to everyone for and against the proposal by encouraging membership now because the process will be coming up in the next few months and it takes time and the correct information to form an intelligent opinion.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread