While the public debate over the MBTA Zoning law has been ongoing since last year no town board or local journalist has procured or published the information that the FOIA response indicates took under two hours to obtain.
It turns out that it isn’t that difficult to find what isn’t there.
G.L. c. 40A, §3A specifically identified three categories of grants that may be withheld if Marblehead rejects compliance with the statute.
The answer to how much money Marblehead has received from January 1, 2014 to present under these three grant programs is — NOTHING. Marblehead doesn’t even qualify or hasn’t even applied for these grants, as the FOIA response states.
Now, I will point out that the Select Board, probably noticing that the FOIA response was a Cliff Notes version of The Emperor Has No Clothes, gratuitously added a sentence in the FOIA request that “[t]here are other discretionary state grants that the town could lose if the MBTA zoning were not to pass.” This interests me for two reasons.
First, the sentence added by Ms. Noonan and Ms. Singer and Messrs. Grader, Murray and Nye exceed the scope of the FOIA request. I only asked about the grants that the statute itself identifies to be in peril. The Select Board doesn’t add under what legal authority Healey-Driscoll would withhold funds.
Second, the Select Board isn’t tasked with this issue — the Planning Board is tasked with it. Time and time again town boards point out that they can’t answer a question when asked because they need to stay in their respective lanes — except, of course, when they decide otherwise. Maybe they could be a bit more liberal with that type of information in future meetings.
In fairness to the Select Board, there probably are other funds that the town maybe, might, possibly, perhaps, hypothetically, in the future, someday, that we are going to apply for, could lose if compliance as recommended by all but one Planning Board member (Marc Lieberman) with G.L. c. 40A is defeated at Town Meeting. Healey-Driscoll has demonstrated that it is nothing if not vindictive when a town stubbornly insists on determining its own land use issues. But, in my opinion, there are some issues worth civil disobedience. And, if deciding how a town is going to develop itself in the context of this debate isn’t one of those issues, I don’t know what qualifies.
At a time when our collective journalists are hounding the School Committee with overbroad and burdensome FOIA requests that is taking that committee away from its work and costing the town a lot of money, not a single journalist had the investigative sense to send the request I sent to find out what most people have been asking. I even sent a $100 check with the request to cover the cost in excess of the free two hours we get under the state FOIA law for research and response. I got my money back.
And while the Planning Board has been dooming and glooming over the retribution that might, maybe, potentially, someday, hypothetically, in the future, perhaps befall Marblehead should it join Milton and Marshfield and other towns objecting to having G.L. c. 40A shoved down its throat, not a single peep was uttered by any board member, to my knowledge, about the fact that under the three categories of grants specifically identified in that statute Marblehead has never received a dime.
To its credit, the Planning Board did confirm at the last Zoom meeting (why are these meetings not in person?) that G.L. c. 40A is not an affordable housing measure. That’s an important morsel of truth for voters to take to Town Meeting.
Yet we still hear things like, “just because a developer can develop doesn’t mean they will develop” during these debates. This is dishonest. Developers don’t wake up in the morning and decide what opportunities to do their job they are going to pass up today — like our board members and journalists seem to do.
I can hear it now. “We’re volunteers. Give us a break.”
So am I.
While city hall and the media fail to data mine and publish the data essential for voters to make an informed decision at Town Meeting in under two weeks from the date of this letter – here is my contribution to the effort to inform.
To be clear, Marblehead’s rejection of G.L. c. 40A could result in legal action and some sort of potential financial loss to the town. We have seen that already with other towns.
And that is a fight worth fighting for me.
I plan to vote no on Article 36 on the Town Meeting Warrant.
John G. DiPiano
Trager Road
