The meeting of the Selectmen’s Sub-Committee concerning the
potential uses of the Perkins Property, in particular by the Mills Corporation,
was opened by its Chairman,
Douglas Sears, Selectmen’s representative on the Committee
Jim Carter, Citizen
David Silva, Citizen and Clerk of the Committee
Steve Deackoff, Citizen
Steve Sadwick, Director of Community Development and Ex-Officio of the Committee
Mike Sitar, Citizen
Thomas Ryan, Chief of the Fire Dept. and Fire Dept. Representative
Peter Guglietta, Jr. of
Al Donovan, Deputy Chief of Police representing Police Chief Mackey
Guests: Attorney Richard O’Neill, Representing the Perkins Family Trust
David Wahr, Representing Mills Corporation
Jan Burkholder, Representing Senator Susan Tucker
Mr. Sears requested Clerk David Silva to read the Minutes of
Motion by Mr. Shaw, seconded by Mr. Deackoff, to accept the Minutes as read. Unanimous vote. Mike Sitar stated he had attended that meeting.
Request by the Chairman to Amend the records of the August 18 Minutes to show Mike Sitar was present at that meeting.
Mr. Bob Kelley asked Mr. Sears if a tape would be a record of these meetings.
Mr. Sears replied that he hoped it would be and wanted to open the subject up to others for discussion on the best way to go during the comments portion of the meeting and then open it up to Mr. O’Neill and Mr. Wahr to have an opportunity to present the answers to those here as well, as the questions are valuable to the input here.
Mr. Sears stated that it’s easy to call this the
Mills Committee, it’s not though; it’s looking at the land represented by
Attorney O’Neill of the Perkins Family Development Trust that is at the end of
The Selectmen’s Committee was created to my understanding to have the areas included in the notes Mr. Silva has read, the various public safety infrastructure, traffic and all those considerations viewed by the members of the committee, and their written material will go into a report that will be presented to the Selectmen.
I’d like to say here that if there are people in the
audience who are not here in the hall and some of those folks have concerns and
they would like to have input into this process, it would be helpful if they
would send their emails to: ssadwick@town.tewksbury.ma.us.org
or by mail to 999 Whipple Road to the attention of Steve Sadwick, Community
Development Director. His Fax: 978-640-4365 or contact Mr. Sears at dwsears@comcast.net , home fax
978-851-2919 and cell phone 978-376-7390.
Anyone interested in participation, I hear people saying or read on
“Tewksburyissues.org” that various people feel they’re not involved in some of
the deliberations that take place in this room for this committee and for
others that we want to have as wide an educating experience as possible. That said, the original purpose of the
committee as I believe it to be, is to examine a proposal by the Mills
Corporation. It is my understanding that
a completed proposal, correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. O’Neill, but is not going to
be before us this evening and we have a meeting on September 16 at
Now some concern has been voiced as to, is this just a report or is this going to be a recommendation to the Board of Selectmen and I’ve consulted with my colleagues both here and away from the table and the report will be generated but it will not be a recommendation to the Selectmen. It will be our semi-professional citizen input as to how that particular Perkins parcel can be used, as one of the uses currently contemplated being the Mills Corporation, and that we are not going to make a recommendation to the Selectmen that they are able to read this report and people individually can draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions based on them. So that all said, I thought I would give the opportunity to address the committee to the representatives here of the Mills Corporation and I’m particularly interested, Mr. O’Neill, in a timeline for this and if you could make that part of the record and let us know what you see as the timeline that you have for Mills.
Mr. O’Neill passed out copies of a 2-sided document entitled “The Mills Corporation Tentative Permitting Schedule, Tewksbury, MA” to be entered into the record, showing dates beginning with 11/15/03 thru 05/01/05 and the Action Item beside each date.
Mr. O’Neill took the podium and stated that there are a couple of issues that we have agreed to work somewhat together on that I believe over the next 2 or 3 meetings we will find that we’ve gotten to some common point of having all of the information at least out there in schematic form with detail follow up to occur. With regard to subsequent meetings, Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that at the September 16 meeting, that there will be or you’ve invited a representative from EPA – Mr. Sears responded “Mr. McElroy” – to meet with you and I had the opportunity to be meeting with Mr. Sadwick earlier today and made the comment that we are very happy to hear that you had made that invitation and that someone would be here and hopefully we would be more enlightened as to what it was that the EPA was looking to have happen. One of the suggestions that I had made to Mr. Sadwick was the possibility of inviting Mr. Donahue, Matt Donahue, who is the Town’s legal counsel in this arena as well. Clearly from the discussions that we had in this last week, we were able to suggest to you that we’re willing to work with the town and that’s about as much as we know because there isn’t anybody outside of a very limited number of folks who have been working on this issue and sort of executive committee fashion who knows exactly what it is that the PRP’s are planning to do or thinking about doing and certainly the EPA and Mr. Donahue would be able to shed some light on that for all of us. With that in mind, it would be our intent at the 16th meeting, Mr. Sears, to provide to the committee the preliminary plan that we suggested that we would have available to you; in fact I think we may be providing to you as well, a couple of alternative preliminary site plan designs but we will certainly be able to meet that deadline we had indicated to you that we would strive to hit that point and I think that we’ll be able to do that. In addition, we have been working on first draft of actual zoning bylaw. We’ve had some limited discussions with Mr. Sadwick about at least conceptually how we would wish to proceed here, are we looking at straight ahead zoning districts, are we looking at overlay districts; how would we impact overlay districts; what if the zoning is to actually be enacted but the program is not built, how do we leave the underlying land; all of those sort of philosophical questions that we’ve needed to have some input on as we begin to draft. I think that we will find that by, was it the middle of October, Steve, that we were talking about having that preliminary draft available… Steve Sadwick, “yes”…for the committee, I think that we’ll be able to have by mid October, Mr. Sears, a preliminary draft of that zoning bylaw for the committee’s review and input if you would. One of the sticking points here has been the issue of the housing component and we had hoped to be able to meet with the housing partnership committee and that may have to be reformed a little bit – Mr. Sears, “correct”….I don’t want to go too much into that but that was sort of a like, “what happened” sort of thing for us and we had intended to be meeting with those folks before we actually come out with that bylaw and we really would like to meet with an entity of that nature from the town and talk with them about what they would like to see us do with that component.
Mr. Sears asked the question, when you’re talking about a zoning bylaw change for purposes of educating the audience, what is it that you may propose and what would it accomplish?
Mr. O’Neill replied that as we had indicated to the committee at the last meeting, there were several components of the proposed site plan itself that we were looking at. We were looking at obviously the location of the mall on the site. There had been a number of suggestions to put housing, a housing component on that site, the so-called “smart growth folks” want to see housing. There is some thought within the community that we could assist the town toward its goal under chapter 40B if we located some housing on that site, and there was a modest office proposal as well. But our real effort here was to meet with the housing partnership to talk to them about the housing component.
Mr. Sears: Mr. O’Neill, how is it currently zoned, the property?
Mr. O’Neill: It’s presently zoned residential so the zoning proposal that we would be coming out with, would be a mixed use I think will be more of a mixed use overlay district concept.
Mr. Sears: And how and when do you think that you’ll be presenting this?
Mr. O’Neill: Oh, by mid-October, I think. We’re into draft stage at this point. We needed to touch base with Mr. Sadwick a bit just to get a sense from the planning department, planning department staff, as to where to go on certain conceptual ideas.
Mr. Sears:
When do you believe that you’d be presenting this package to the Town of
Mr. O’Neill: February.
Mr. Sears: And any particular reason to choose February as opposed to the more traditional May?
Mr. O’Neill: Ya, it’s a good month.
Mr. Sears: Okay, say Ground Hog Day.
Mr. O’Neill:
Mr. Sears, if I might, I was understanding where you were coming
from. We’ve presented for you, a listing
this evening of the topic which was a timeline, a tentative timeline in terms
of what it is that we’re looking at and really the answer to your question is
embodied in all of what sits here.
Zoning is but one small component of all of what has to be done
here. And from tonight, if you look to
the very last thing that’s on this sheet on the second page,
Mr. Sears:
Excuse me: I see the
Mr. O’Neill: Quite honestly we think it’s an important enough issue where people are going to come. I would anticipate that it would not be scheduled on a school vacation week; that it will be scheduled at a convenient time and date of the week that folks historically have attended meetings. If I recall, we do have town meetings that occur early April. We do have other off elections, state and federal, that do not come in May, some of which come in March, some of which come in November.
Steve Deackoff: That’s not the issue.
Mr. O’Neill: The issue if I might, isn’t whether we’re going have school vacation. The issue is that as you walk through all of what has to be done, that there is a condition, a pre-condition if you would, that to do that, there needs to be at least a commitment from the town that it’s willing to rezone the underlying parcel. And I’ve been up front with you from day one.
Mr. Sears: We’re just wondering why February and not May if the results are, would be probably equivalent in both instances.
Mr. O’Neill: No, they’re not.
Mr. Sears: This is often asked of me, how come they want to do it in February?
Mr. O’Neill: When you look at the commitment that takes place with what Mr. Wahr has given to you at the last meeting relative to that ramp, and we spent that whole meeting on that ramp, there is the necessity to secure Federal funding for that design; there is monies that Mills will be expending for those designs as well that will literally be in the millions of dollars; and that comes at that point in time as we move toward that EIR process which does not actually finalize itself until some time in June.
Mr. Sears: Okay, we’ll say you’ve answered that then; sorry to interrupt.
Mr. O’Neill: So that in terms of…
Mr. Deackoff was recognized by the Chair: A question along a similar vein, through the Chair. Mr. Sears: What I’d like to do, if possible, is just have Mr. O’Neill keep talking then we’ll have all the board members ask him some questions; then we’ll open it up to the folks out here but keep it relatively limited and then we’ll move on to more general topics about other than Mills.
Mr. O’Neill: I don’t have that much longer, Mr. Sears, other than to point out that I think that this timeline is what you will see is consistent with what we gave to you verbally at the last meeting.
Mr. Sears: Thank you for that. Now you also had a proposal for site visit? If you’d explain that.
Mr. O’Neill: Yes, we had mentioned at the last, I think it was toward the conclusion of the last meeting, that we’d like to arrange a couple of site visits for members of the committee and other folks within the community. We have proposed a site visit for the 8th of September. I do know that we’ve worked out with Town Manager through Town Counsel, a funding mechanism by which the committee members would be able to attend this site visit. We strongly encourage as many of the committee members to attend as possible, most especially the financial members who would be able to interact with the community members at the site to deal with the ups and downs of the finances as well as the public safety officials, the Police and the Fire who will likely have the most heavy impact of resource commitment on the negative side, to be able to explore that.
Mr. Sears: So you’re going down by airplane do I understand?
Mr. O’Neill:
We are proposing to depart
Mr. Sears: Will they have the opportunity to meet with the Mills people?
Mr. O’Neill: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mr. Sears: And what do you think that would do, what’s the positive of doing that?
Mr. O’Neill: Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, as we’re talking about this, it’s actually giving folks the ability to see on site what it is that Mills is about. To talk with those folks, I know in dealing with the Police and the Fire 4 or 5 weeks ago, talking with their counterparts about how Mills has impacted them or thoughts about what they might need to do in order to work the site. Thoughts about, I think Chief, we talked about community room, or a booking room or something of this nature, that would be of assistance; a place to put EMT materials, all of these are things that these folks would have the opportunity to interact with counterparts. When we deal with a site like this, for example, I’m told that Mills is very aggressive with shoplifters. Obviously, Mr. Donovan or Chief Mackey would, I think, very much welcome the opportunity to interface with the security force persons from Mills as well as from the local Police Department in terms of how that issue’s handled; are there additional staff people that are required; what’s the negative down side of staffing; something like that, and so forth.
Mr. Sears: Where are the best places to eat down there?
Mr. O’Neill: I don’t know; I’m told the food court is
pretty good. I don’t think you’ll
starve. In returning, we would suggest
that the return would be on an
Mr. Sears: And you said that you’ve checked this with who in the town?
Mr. O’Neill: Ah, we made the proposal through the committee and then, ah spoke with the Town Manager who spoke with Town Counsel and Town Manager called me to tell me that he had worked with Ray as Chairman of the Finance Committee and with Town Counsel to make sure that the ethical considerations were all taken care of and, ah, Town Counsel has put a green light on this….4 committee members to go….and ah…
Mr. Sears: Did he put it in writing? Or did he….
Mr. O’Neill: He’s not MY boss; I don’t get the writings. I just get the phonecalls.
Mr. Sears: All right.
Mr. O’Neill: And in addition to that, Mr. Chairman, there is another...we’d like to do this twice so if there is a committee member who can’t make this particular trip, we would like to take two site visits that we think...we think that the Baltimore site is, although bigger, it’s in an urban kind of area. We think, we’re thinking we may want to take you to a mega-mall sort of situation so that you can actually see what we’re not talking about.
Mr. Sears: You mean a mega-mall similar to this one?
Mr. O’Neill: Excuse me?
Mr. Sears: A mega-mall similar to this one?
Mr. O’Neill: This one is going to be very unique. This is not a cookie cutter model; this is a sort of Northeast approach that Mills is moving forward with and by Northeast, I mean there’s less land that’s available; it’s not likely…..
Mr. Sears: Where else might people go?
Mr. O’Neill: We don’t have one, I mean this is what I’m saying to you…
Mr. Sears: I mean, if you had a second trip, where would you go?
Mr. O’Neill:
Ah, without committing to it, ah they’ve talked about
Mr. Sears: Okay and I’ve told you I’m not going but if anyone is, what are you recommending, calling say David Cressman’s assistant, Sandy Barbeau?
Mr. O’Neill:
Yes, I’ve talked to Sandy Barbeau.
If there are any committee members who would like to go, they should
call her tomorrow morning. I believe she
has a travel agency that she’s making travel arrangements through and she’s
ready to go with that. So if anybody can
get away, we’d encourage you to go and
Mr. Sears: Now does any committee member have a question for Mr. O’Neill? I know Mr. Deackoff has been chomping at the bit.
Mr. Deackoff: Thank you. In regards to the February 15 meeting. That’s to be a special town meeting?
Mr. O’Neill: Be a special town meeting.
Mr. Deackoff: Is that a regularly-scheduled special town meeting?
Mr. O’Neill: Ah, no.
Mr. Deackoff: And how do you know it’s going to happen; are you going to petition 200 signatures or are you going to have the selectmen…
Mr. O’Neill: Yes, we would petition with the requisite signatures to the Selectmen and the Selectmen would either call the meeting, not call the meeting. We understand that a condition of a special town meeting of that nature, we would be asked to pay for the expense incurred by the town and we would be prepared to do that.
Mr. Deackoff: Is that…you would pay for the special town meeting?
Mr. O’Neill: If there are expenses that are incurred that the town would request that we reimburse them for, such as the tellers who were at the town meeting, the police details and so forth; historically, the town has as I understand it, requested that an invitation of that nature where it essentially is an article of singular importance, that that has occurred. In those events, the Selectmen have kept the warrant article very narrow as well so that folks who want to come or come in for that issue and knowing they’re not going to wait 2 or 3 days for the…
Mr. Sears: You believe this to be a “one-issue” special town meeting?
Mr. O’Neill:
I’ve no guarantee, Doug, that it’s going be a one issue special town
meeting but I’m saying that historically, in the past, one that I can
specifically recall was when we were putting the addition on the
Mr. Sears: One question: I know it’s popular at least in some communities to give options, ballot options. Do you like A, B, C, D and giving particular choices. Now do you see any way of working a scheme like that into the Town Meeting Vote that you’re looking for? We’re looking at options and if you said this and that, and that and this, or do you see we want this particular up or down?
Mr. O’Neill:
I’m not sure, Doug. I mean I
think that we understand that this could be a very complicated zoning article
which is why we want to talk to folks about the various components that we’ve
been asked to include within this zoning article. I mentioned earlier, for example, the
housing, Affordable Housing Partnership.
It’s really important that that be a functioning group. We’re not looking to come into the Town of
Mr. Sears: Are you going to do any polling; do any way of determining the pulse of the town, much as this committee is being asked to do on this particular issue?
Mr. O’Neill: Well, I think we’re going to be doing that in a number of different ways, whether there is just straight out sampling or polling; that may or may not occur. In projects of this scope, typically that is something that is a usual occurrence as opposed to an unusual occurrence so that one gets a broader sense of what the overall sample might be. I think these meetings over and of themselves provide a further sampling of what’s happening there. But again, I think what we all have to be careful of is that we’re not sampling just special interests. That we’re sampling you know, the entity at large. And the discussion that we had last week, for example, I thought was quite good leading some to wrong conclusions but the balancing of the different tensions, the balancing of the different issues. The need to address specific concerns at Jennies Woods with the need to address the Rocco Land Fill.
Mr. Sears: What do you see is the forum for doing that?
Mr. O’Neill: Well, I think that part of this committee’s function was to allow for folks to...
Mr. Sears: I said most of this committee’s function but I’m saying, polling beyond this committee so we’re talking about the folks who are not able to be with us…..
Mr. Deackoff: Mr. Chairman, you’re talking about polling but in fact, wouldn’t this actually be the final decision of the town meeting so my question would be then, you’re having an optional housing component. The plans that you’re going to be presenting on September 16, would it have these 2 alternate….I mean would it have Mall-only presentation and then a Mall-with residential plan? And going back to Mr. Sears’ question, a single issue town meeting, would the article that’s presented be an all or nothing or would you say that you have an article that says well, the Mall and then another article that says and a housing component, and another article that says an Office component. Is that your envisioning?
Mr. O’Neill: No. Only because it’s way too early to do that, Steve. What I’m saying to you is that what we will be doing as soon as we can which will occur within the next 4 weeks. We’ll be providing you with site plans for what it is the people have talked to us about doing and then accompanying that within a couple of weeks following, will be a first draft of a zoning article that would reflect those mixed uses on that site. Once that is out there, I mean this is the openness that I’ve talked about at least to; those are the two components really that need to be produced in order to have that very open discussion. And then based upon the discussion that follows, hopefully, we will have some consensus about what it is that will work well on that site that folks would support at a town meeting. And I’m not reflecting the committee; I’m saying folks in this town would come to town meeting and at least 2/3 of them support that.
Mr. Deackoff:
The question then is, the actual Article. Would you be asking for an overlay district
or whatever that would allow a Mall, housing, hi-density housing, and an office
complex and after that it would be up to some sort of fiscal analysis, the EIR
and the
Mr. O’Neill:
Okay, the thrust here is to deal with a zoning bylaw that still gives to
the
Mr. Sears: Any other questions?
Mr. Deackoff: Final follow up question is my thought on what the study committee was formed was to maybe give a report and recommend to the Selectmen a report that the Selectmen could use and town meeting could use in order to make a decision on the town meeting approval. And after the town meeting approval or disapproval of this overlay district, that would be the end of this study committee. Am I correct or am I incorrect?
Mr. Sears: Seems to be logical and there is still continuing need to look at all of the issues and the way land out there would be used even if something like, if the town went that way on the rezoning of …
Mr. Deackoff:
The
Mr. Sears: Well, we’ll worry about that when we get there. That’s an excellent question.
Mr. Deackoff: So in fact, the scope, the study, the draft…that we basically approved at the last meeting, all of this stuff has to be done in a report submitted to the Selectmen in time for them to make a recommendation for the town meeting vote in February.
Mr. Sears: That’s why I’m wondering why February, why February, why February. Because there are no Monarch notes to writing reports like these things and there’s not much time to do what essentially, you don’t even have your E&F in and we’re kind of like being asked to do a mini-E&F and have it all clear, so I see it a daunting task for this committee to come up with something comprehensive and competent in that particular period of time. I’d like to see this happen but it’s a real challenge. So you keep saying you want February for whatever reason you like February and I think there are other people saying May, May, May and we’re sitting here, we gotta write the report and find out all the information; it does concern us. On our own timeline, and quite frankly, our timeline for the use of that property is not necessarily in synch with you ‘cause the town has its own timeline which may or may not intersect with Mills. Do we have any other committee members in the audience who might like to ask Mr. O’Neill a question?
Mr. Silva: I have to agree with the February timeframe -- why is it February? Why do we have to call a special town meeting for one article if it’s something that can wait? There’s a lot of information that needs to be gathered especially in relationship to the Master Plan and on my part of the assignment, the environmental and the land use impact, I have been participating on what’s going on at Sutton Brook; have attended several meetings in the past several months with EPA people and I intend to attend several other meetings in the near future with EPA people to understand Sutton Brook and I don’t think it’s an easy quick fix and I don’t think we’ll have an answer by February; we might not have one by May of 2006 but I have a concern about the February timeframe. And the other thing is I need to understand in layman’s terms, Mr. O’Neill. On the 16th, there’ll be like a preliminary plan but as it gets closer, when is the public and myself going to anticipate we’re going to have solid plans on what you and Mills Corporation is planning on doing so that the public can understand what we’re looking at as opposed to it may be this, it may be that?
Mr. O’Neill: I think you will find that the plan you receive on the 16th would be a plan that Mills would be prepared to go to town meeting with, all things being equal. But all things aren’t equal because there will be many changes that will affect that plan. My sense is that by the time the zoning article is ready for submission, that that conceptual plan will accompany that zoning article based upon the input that has been made to that point in time.
Mr. Silva: That’s what I would like to see is when it comes time for that zoning article, that it’s clear on what everybody’s looking at and the understanding of what the intent is there.
Mr. Sears: The sense of what I get listening to various folks both here and elsewhere is that when you come in without a plan that we can….it’s nice that we have their timeline and certainly approve that we don’t have a plan on either side of the papers on what we are supposed to look at and decide do we like it or what and discuss it. Since we don’t have that and then we got a February town meeting coming up people are asking me, what gives? I just ask you that.
Mr. O’Neill: You cannot talk about the town meeting and zoning without taking about the ramp. And you can’t talk about the ramp without talking about commitment and one of the biggest problems the community faces is that there are planning districts out there that do not think that this town will support a zoning change on the underlying property. And if that is the case, then all of the other discussion about the ramp is a moot issue. So when Mr. Wahr was talking last week about what is going on and how the proposed ramps that are part of that plan right now which are the copies which we gave you, or what is likely to come out of that committee, that is exactly what is likely to come out of that committee. That if we are to effect that site, if we’re going to have some impact on that committee, we’re not going to do that without this town stepping up saying yes, we will zone the underlying land. And you have to appreciate what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about what ultimately goes on that site. What you’re talking about is whether the town will say that yes, we would approve a project, or we would approve the zoning that would permit a project of a commercial nature, retail nature to go on that site with whatever other components are there that are discussed over the next 3 or 4 months. Whatever we put together on a site plan, is absolutely within the domain of the planning board. Period. And I’d be presumptuous to suggest otherwise. The Town Meeting can’t do that; the town meeting can’t take from the planning board its authority to approve those special permits for that project. We can show you conceptually what this thing might look like but the bottom line here, and that’s why we keep talking about February because that clock is ticking over there, and if we’re sitting over here waiting, and waiting and waiting, those folks are going to move right down the road and they’re not going to be listening to us and they’re not going to be listening to you because that’s the position that they’re taking.
Mr. Sears: Who are “those folks”?
Mr. O’Neill: The planning agencies that are out there right now.
Mr. Deackoff: I sort of agree with Mr. O’Neill in that I’m not really looking for a firm drawing of the buildings and where they’re located and everything like that. I don’t think that’s really required. What might be interesting to see and it’s not really on the schedule until November, is the actual overlay district, the wording that they’re going to be putting forth.
Mr. O’Neill: We should have that in mid-October, Mr. Deackoff. And I welcome your input by the way.
Mr. Deackoff:
Okay, and the other thing that was a concern to me is, there’s this
whole housing thing, if you wanted to put in housing, you could always do 40B,
get a comp permit and it wouldn’t matter what town meeting approved. The other thing that was promised is no
Mr. O’Neill:
Yes, we’re talking about from our perspective but it leads me to another
question: we’ve talked about deed
restrictions and we’ve talked about a contract with the town that would have in
there a preclusion from us using
Mr. Deackoff: Mr. Chair, so your property or the Perkins property, not your property, is surrounded by other property that’s undeveloped.
Mr. O’Neill: For the most part, yes.
Mr. Deackoff:
That could have access to
Mr. O’Neill: That’s right. Cave and Rocco would both have access to
Mr. Deackoff:
Right so therefore in your proposal with no access to
Mr. O’Neill: That’s correct and if I might, and I know she’ll shoot me, but that’s okay. I had mentioned that there’s also land in Andover on the Tewksbury side of 93 that we have been working with the owners of that project on in terms of road access and Judy Wein is with us this evening who is the principal with Buddy Woods, were the principles of that Trust and we have worked with them and talked to them about if that loop road comes through such that that land locked heavy industrial area of Andover is able to be developed, that they would forego access to South Street but for an emergency vehicle access the same as we have proposed.
Mr. Deackoff: Would that have been that future development opportunity on the land on the Master Plan?
Mr. O’Neill: That’s correct. I’ve mentioned to you that we’ve had these discussions with these folks. We’ve had a pretty good ongoing relationship.
Mr. Deackoff:
They would be willing to put…well we’re not talking about rezoning that
area, that’s
Mr. O’Neill:
No, no I was talking about the access to
Mr. Deackoff:
So that’s in
Mr. O’Neill: If the access road was in and the ramp was there, yep, that’s what they’ve told us.
Mr. Deackoff: So we’re talking about this Land Use Master Plan and it’s kind of like a looping road that would access that property.
Mr. O’Neill: It’s from the river down across in front of Wyeth so those folks, they’ve talked about putting in some biotech office spaces.
Mr. Deackoff:
It’s all in
Mr. O’Neill: Yes.
Mr. Sears: Any more questions from the board, gentlemen? Any questions from the audience for Mr. O’Neill, if you would come up to a microphone to give it.
Al Donovan: I
have a question for Mr. O’Neill as far
as the end of
Mr. O’Neill: That’s correct.
Mr. Donovan:
So the only access to
Mr. O’Neill:
There is the possibility of going through Krochmal Farm; there is also
the possibility of going out through the access way that was left when Jennies
Way was constructed; there is an ability to cross out to
Mr. Donovan:
And that’s already in the property, right? There is an access road for further
development through
Mr. O’Neill: Right.
Mr. Sears: Any further questions for Attorney O’Neill? Let me just, in wrapping this part up so there is no question in the public’s mind about sources of funding of the proposed field visit you are mentioning for town employees. Could you describe how that would take place financially?
Mr. Shaw: Based on the number of people that would be willing to travel, a request would be submitted through the Finance Committee to make a transfer out of the Reserve Fund to a Selectmen’s travel account and Mrs. Barbeau has secured pricing on tickets for Manchester and would be in a position to do that providing the Finance Committee approved that tomorrow evening.
Mr. Sears: And how does the town, so the town loses that amount of money essentially, or not loses but uses that amount of money; does it get…is there any reimbursement involved?
Mr. Shaw: Doug, without beating around the bush, I mean we have a situation with a potential conflict of interest where the Mills Corporation cannot pay on behalf of the people from the town. We’re limited to a $50.00 in kind contribution from them. The cost of the tickets has been placed about $190,000.00 and if Mr. O’Neill and Mr. Wahr are going to have contemporaries that we can meet with down there, would be a benefit and we should in fact, you know that will go before the Finance Committee tomorrow evening to fund that portion of the travel. If the Mills Corporation sees fit, they can make a contribution of sorts through the General Fund of the town to offset that but in no way can they buy the individual tickets.
Mr. O’Neill: And I would point out, Mr. Sears, that this was partially discussed with us and we did indicate to Town Manager that we would make that contribution. The question arises as to whether you could do that through, what’s it, 4253A through a gift to the town that would as soon…
Interrupted by Mr. Deackoff: Mr. Chair, I don’t think that we should be discussing what contribution Mills is going to be making to the town.
Mr. Sears: I think that we should discuss if we have town officials traveling and there is some question that this may cost a certain amount of money. I think it is good to know out of whose budget this comes and if it doesn’t come out of a budget, where does….how does it…..
Mr. O’Neill: It would be your budget. I mean we had these discussions with Town Manager. Town Manager discussed this with Town Counsel. Town Counsel’s opinion was to keep an arm’s length; we agreed with that and they then talked to the Finance Committee and so you’re right Steve, so there ‘s no discussion about funds.
Deputy Police Chief Al Donovan: There is a conflict. I know that the Town Manager spoke with Charles Zaroulis and Town Counsel and there is a conflict of interest concern and they decided that it would be better if the town did it rather than put us at risk.
Mr. Sears: Thank you.
Mr. Silva: I want to thank Mr. O’Neill or whoever is setting up the trip but I just want to let it be known that I will not attend. What I would appreciate is any names and phone numbers of anybody that you would like me to talk to and I will visit web sites or other venues to get information but I will not be attending.
Mr. O’Neill: Happy to do that.
Mr. Sears opened the meeting to members of the audience.
Bob Kelley,
Mr. Sadwick: Spot zoning is something that you have to look at very cautiously. I can point to a couple of places in town where we’ve had some re-zonings that have occurred. One parcel of property with a number of different uses on it which did not trigger spot zoning denial from the Attorney General’s office. It’s the Attorney General’s office that would make that determination based on a number of different court decisions that have come out over a period of time so that’s unfortunately, kind of an ambiguous answer but in reality, you can’t just look at something and on its face, call it spot zoning. I think you always have to be cautious when you’re crafting articles for specific properties of the spot zoning issue but to look at something and just call it spot zoning without really delving into the court cases and all of that history that’s behind it, doesn’t do anyone any benefit unfortunately.
Mr. Sears asked if there were any more questions for Mr. O’Neill or should we let him off the hook; if there is anyone in the audience here who would like to address the committee on any issue germain to its mission, I would encourage them to do so now.
Bob Kelley,
The other issues I had was on the contamination on the Perkins site. As it said in the meeting, the Minutes of this meeting, is that Mr. O’Neil confirmed, that the report, and it’s a report done back in 2002 in I think in May of 2002 which was reported to the DET and the comments
and the Minutes say “it was mostly arsenic was found from an
organic source..”. Well it really wasn’t
an organic source. The arsenic and beryllium
that was found on that site which is the Perkins property which adjacent to the
Rocco landfill was down gradient from the Rocco’s landfill. So the source of the contamination on the Perkins
property was from Rocco’s. That’s not
organic material; that’s dumped material, that’s fill, that’s all the stuff
that’s been dumped there over the years and you can read the report and it
specifically says that. I’d like to
have the Minutes corrected for that for the record.
Mr. Deackoff: Mr. Kelley, this report that you’re talking about is, what report is that?
Mr. Kelley: It’s the report I have here, Steve, that’s by Higgins Associates. Was done for Gator and Perkins, actually done for the Perkins Trust; the date is August 17, 2002 and it’s on parcel A, portions of Map 114, lots 1 and 2 South Street. And I remember Gator talking about this when they were in front of us.
Mr. Deackoff: So when we were discussing contamination on the Perkins site that first meeting, was there ever a request to see that report that was proposed? Did we ask that petitioner for that report?
Mr. Sears: Absolutely, let’s put it in the form of a Motion. Can we have a copy of the report there that you’re referencing?
Mr. Kelley: I do; I checked with the DEP today and the woman in charge of this project from the state’s standpoint said there was some indication that there was a report filed with the DEP back in I think September of 2002 which probably is this report but she couldn’t find it on the web site as to what the report contains.
Mr. Deackoff: This has been part of, well I mean...I know that you’re not the expert.
Mr. Sears: Why don’t we put it in the form of a Motion, do I have a second? Second by Mr. Silva.
Mr. Deackoff: The motion actually, is this part of a 21E and are there other reports that we should be finding out about; that’s more of a question to Mr. O’Neill.
Mr. Sears: Would you do the services of putting something in the form of a motion?
Mr. Deackoff: Well, I just want to know what this report was in relation to. Was it a preliminary 21E site assessment? For the title?
Mr. Kelley: Preliminary site assessment I think is probably, you might read what it says, is a “status opinion...”; technically, it’s a site investigation.
Mr. Deackoff: I just want to know what we’re asking for is the actual, my discussion.
Mr. Kelley: I would suggest you probably go to the DEP and get a copy of the report or maybe the Perkins family has a copy of it. This is my copy. I don’t know if that should be the official record or not.
Mr. Deackoff: And it’s entitled?
Mr. Sears: Well, we’ve made a Motion, had a second, had discussion and we want a copy of that report and will get it somehow. Unanimous vote in favor.
Motion by Mr. Deackoff, seconded by Mr. Silva, to request a copy of a report filed on or around September 2002 with the DEP relating to the preliminary site assessment or site investigation of the Perkins property. Unanimous vote in favor.
Mr. Kelley:
One of the other issues in the Minutes of that meeting was the issue of
the public drinking water source for that area.
I think Mr. Cressman and I have a copy of the news article. Mr. Cressman mentioned we need to look at a
study of water needs in South Tewksbury, East Tewksbury and he threw out a
number of like $6.5 Million to find water storage for that area of town. It would seem to me that this is part of the
whole concept to redevelop that land out there and for me, 750,000 sq. ft. mall
would bring in and I’ve said this before and these are my numbers, not Mills
Corp. numbers, but in their larger malls they bring in 14 – 15 million visits a
year. So let’s take it in half and say 7
million for a 750,000 sq. ft. mall. That
would equate to I think about 100,000 visits or cars a year; 140,000 probably
during the holiday seasons. That’s a lot
of toilet flushes, a lot of drinking water, a lot of things going on at a mall
that if it’s going to cost us $6.5 million to support a mall because of all that
traffic, then I’m not for it.
Mr. Sears: You’re saying we’re
being asked to subsidize the Mall?
Mr. Kelley:
No; what I’m saying and
suggesting is we talked about the public drinking water source here. And the only source we have now is through the
Mr. Sears referred this to Mr. Sadwick.
Mr. Sadwick replied he didn’t have the answer off the top of his head on this issue but understands what the question is.
Mr. Sears asked if he could find out for the next meeting.
Mr. Sadwick will have the information for the next meeting.
Mr. Shaw: To Mr. Kelley, as the Chair of the subcommittee handling fiscal impacts, this is one of the topics that we will be exploring. Mr. Cressman and I have had some discussions concerning water issues in the town. There is a meeting scheduled with Mr. Cressman and other dept. heads to get from their perspective, things that we’ll be facing. That’s scheduled for the morning and I anticipate reporting it to the committee at our next meeting.
Mr. Deackoff: Concerning that water study, I guess I’m in charge of water and safety impacts so when is that meeting; can I go to it, is it open?
Mr. Shaw:
It’s
Mr. Deackoff: And what will be discussed there?
Mr. Shaw: I requested, Mr. Sadwick will be there, Mrs. Walsh, and Mr. Kelley, Mr. Guglietta, myself, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Sears.
Mr. Sears: Does this need to be posted?
Mr. Shaw: Good question; it is more of an administrative meeting to just hear from their perspective the different assessment models that can be used for the models.
Mr. Deackoff: So this isn’t that Water Committee that Mr. Selissen has come up with?
Mr. Shaw: No, not at all. It’s just to establish a wish list of things that we need to know about from the fiscal impact.
Mr. Kelley: A couple more things. I’m finished with the Minutes but I would suggest that maybe from the last meeting, I know the video’s out there. Maybe we should have the minutes transcribed onto paper as well so anybody who doesn’t have a VCR today and can’t get on or can’t see it on the town’s official TV site, then maybe you should have it available. Just a suggestion.
Mr. Sears: Verbatim transcript?
Mr. Kelley:
Well, whatever. I for one and I
guess maybe others here as well, I just don’t agree with this February target
date. I think it’s and I don’t know how
many town meetings; maybe we need to find out how many special town meetings
were ever held in the winter in this town on one single issue. I would find that to be a little odd and I
think that town meetings are meant for the fall and the springtime when people
aren’t on vacation and aren’t otherwise distracted by snowstorms and trying to
get out of their homes in the middle of winter.
For me that doesn’t work. Lastly,
on your opinion survey, I think that issue is something very important. I think we need to get the pulse of the town
beyond the people who attend these meetings or watch these meetings and are
paying attention here. In the
Mr. Sears opened the meeting to any other citizens who would like to address the committee at this time and to step forward to the microphone. Seeing none, he requested any committee members to add their comments at this time.
Mr. Silva: In regards to Mr. Kelley’s comment about the survey, seeing that we have Senator Susan Tucker’s representative here, maybe we can get at the October meeting, we could do a survey at the town meeting; you know how they hand them out and have people just give their opinion about the mall.
Mr. Deackoff: I think Mr. Miceli does that more than Senator Tucker’s office.
Mr. Silva: Well, somebody whether it’s Susan Tucker, Mr. Miceli, Ted Kennedy, doesn’t matter to me.
Mr. Deackoff: I do know what you’re talking about.
Mr. Sears: Duly noted and sounds like a good idea. Any other comments from committee members?
Mr. Sadwick: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to mention that Thursday I’ll be meeting with the web master so we should have a page up on the town web site, “tewksbury.info” probably Friday or Monday of next week and also following up on the public input piece, I’ll be talking with the local newspapers to find out how we can advance that polling issue or taking the pulse of the town. So I’ll have a report for the next meeting.
Mr. Sears: Please take good advantage of ssadwick@town.tewksbury.ma.us .
Mr. Deackoff: I apologize for missing last meeting when we were going over the scope of the study and I was assigned the water and sewer impact and the health, noise and air pollution impacts. I was wondering what sort of resource I’m going to have available when these…is this in fact going to be a report that I’m going to be making up as part of the overall report or am I going to be kind of like…
Mr. Sears: We’re going to do the best we can with what we we’ve got and I think we’re going to lean heavily, sorry Steve Sadwick, on Steve Sadwick and some others to fill in these particular area.
Mr. Deackoff: So what exactly is my responsibility being in charge of these so-called pieces of the study?
Mr. Sears: To be able to cover the topic in brief, lucid, competent, newsy form. And put it in a report.
Mr. Deackoff: And is there any time line for when this stuff is due from us? Are these going to be separate meetings?
Mr. Sears:
Well, if we go to the town meeting and it ends up one way or the other
at the town meeting, I think that’s part of the time line but is only part
because the Perkins land, whatever happens, is still there to have something to
be done with as are the neighbors of the Perkins land and as is Rocco’s dump
which I’ll announce again, Mr. McElroy who is an EPA guy in charge of knowing
what they’re going to do to it, will be at our next meeting. We’ll put a plug in here for the 16th
of September at
Mr. O’Neill: Just real quickly, Mr. Chairman for Mr. Deackoff, and I think this was a real good illustration of the comment that I made at the very beginning about where to point to coordinate efforts here. There have been substantial interactions with the engineers over those issues, Mr. Deackoff, the water, sewer issues. The sewer probably more accelerated as a result of that area being out to bid pretty quickly so there had to be some calculations and assumptions that would be made that could be dealt with alternatively. Secondarily with Mr. Kelley’s comments, we’ve had some preliminary discussions with the engineers, CDM and the Perkins engineers, and it’s not an issue of flow, it’s an issue of pressure and it’s how to deal with that pressure and I would suggest that you might want to talk to Bill Burris, the superintendent of the Dept. of Public Works and I will certainly provide to you the names of the people from our side who have been interfacing with the town side to provide you the documentation that has exchanged so you can get up to speed on that. But that is something that you should pay attention to right now, those discussions are ongoing and…
Mr. Deackoff: Does this have anything to do with increasing the water mains from 2 inch to 8 inch down there?
Mr. O’Neill:
Right. The replacing of the mains
isn’t the problem; it’s the pressure.
There are pressure issues in
Mr. Deackoff: The town’s engineers? You mean Mr. Mile?—not sure of name--char
Mr. O’Neill: CDM who work through, am I right Steve, who work through Bill Burris’ office?
Mr. Sadwick: Town engineer.
Mr. O’Neill: That’s where I would start and then I’ll make certain from our side of the equation, that you get all of the materials that we’ve submitted to the town on the assumptions that were made by us with regard to use and flow. Part of what we’ve had to do is to, depending upon the different uses, calculate them out in different scenarios if you follow what I mean. If there’s a housing component, clearly there’s more sewerage than if there’s a mall; it’s a much different kind of component. We’ll provide that.
Mr. Sears thanked Mr. O’Neill and asked for a Motion to adjourn.
Motion to adjourn at 8:25P.M by Mr. Deackoff, seconded by Mr. Silva. Unanimous vote in favor.