The Devens Disposition Executive Board (DDEB) at its Nov. 9 meeting approved a motion not to submit any recommendations to the state legislature, acknowledging the failure of scenario 2B, the only Devens disposition proposal formally submitted to voters and stakeholders.
Scenario 2B was voted down at the Oct. 24 town meetings in Ayer and Harvard, while Shirley’s and Devens’ meetings approved it. The Nov. 7 ballot vote in Harvard confirmed its town meeting sentiments; Ayer reversed its decision by a handful of votes. Two more of the six stakeholders, MassDevelopment’s Board of Directors and the Devens Enterprise Commission, voted to approve 2B at meetings before the town meetings’ votes. The approval of five of the six stakeholders was required for passage.
Had scenario 2B been approved by the stakeholders and then enacted by the state legislature, it would have created a new town of Devens; returned jurisdiction over portions of the Devens Regional Enterprise Zone to the towns of Ayer, Harvard and Shirley; modified the composition of the DEC and put revised versions of the Devens Zoning Bylaw and Reuse Plan into effect.
Full Circle – Back to the Selectmen
In the absence of clear direction following the defeat of 2B, DDEB members decided to seek advice and authorization to proceed from the Ayer, Harvard and Shirley boards of selectmen, which comprise the Joint Boards of Selectmen (JBOS), the body that created the DDEB in 2004. The DDEB’s 15-member board includes a selectman, planning board member and citizen-at-large from each of the three towns, three Devens residents, a board member and a staff member of MassDevelopment and a DEC member. The board discussed turning the Devens disposition process back to an expanded JBOS that would include representatives of the planning boards as well as the Devens community.
The DDEB approved a four-part motion offered by Harvard Selectman Bill Marinelli to: 1) suspend further DDEB operations pending instructions from the Ayer, Harvard and Shirley boards of selectmen, 2) request that these boards provide, by Feb. 1, 2007, instructions on how they want the DDEB to proceed, 3) recommend that the Devens community be included as a stakeholder on a reactivated JBOS or other body charged with continuing disposition discussions and 4) recommend that the three boards and the Devens Citizens Advisory Committee (Devens Committee) implement a proposal submitted by the Devens Committee Nov. 9 to “investigate, analyze and report” on the Oct. 24 and Nov. 7 votes as a means of providing a “resource for understanding and shaping a final disposition scenario.” This proposed report would be prepared with the “active participation of all stakeholder groups.” Results and findings would be included in the Boards’ instructions to DDEB “as they see fit.”
While a few members were inclined to take a break from the process, others favored analyzing the results and the process sooner rather than later, while memories are still fresh, which fits the timeline spelled out in the proposal. They asserted that the DDEB has a responsibility to finish the job and honor the time and money that was spent. DDEB member and Shirley Selectman Chip Guercico said that the combined vote for the three town meetings and the Devens caucus was split almost down the middle. Devens community proponent Phil Crosby, a member of the Devens Committee and the DDEB, said that when he asked himself how he would feel if 2B had passed, he thought he would be saying, “How will we get along with Harvard in 15 or 20 years?”
Following the Nov. 7 election, Crosby described himself as “energized,” citing what he called a challenge for “residents of the region to stay with it and make decisions based on fact, not emotion.” He said that an objective, thorough and timely analysis of what happened and of what the “no” vote meant is needed to further the disposition process.
“You can’t fiddle and diddle forever,” he warned, “MassDevelopment is losing opportunities.”
According to Selectman Marinelli, approximately $100,000 of DDEB’s $390,000 appropriation remains, although it is not funded. DDEB member Rick Maiore said that it could be funded in the 2007 fiscal year, provided that the DDEB earmarks it for valid projects.
Ayer Town Administrator Shaun Suhoski informed the DDEB that plans are already underway to reconvene the JBOS, including the Devens Committee.
Guercio fretted that the disposition process could go back to the JBOS and die. “Time is of the essence,” he said, because Devens residents, as well as the Shirley selectmen and residents, “want to have some control over what happens.”
Maiore said in an interview this week that any meeting of the JBOS would not occur until the individual boards have had a chance to meet separately.
Citing lack of representation for Devens residents and noting that 80 percent of Devens caucus voters were in favor of 2B, Mike Boucher, chairman of the Devens Committee and DDEB member, said that the Devens Committee “has a mandate.” He continued, “There is no going back, we want to go forward with this body. Activity is necessary regardless of who does it.”
A motion by Paul von Loesecke of the DEC to ask the legislature to amend Chapter 498 §23 (the Devens disposition instructions) to formally include the Devens community as a shareholder and participant in the disposition process to give it standing was withdrawn after several members questioned DDEB’s authority to initiate such a request. According to Maiore, the proposed change would not correct an oversight as some had suggested. When §23 was adopted, there were no residents on Devens, he explained.
Following the meeting, Richard Montouri, MassDevelopment senior vice president of operations for Devens, had no comment about MassDevelopment’s position or options that it might exercise unilaterally now or in the future
