Bill to create Surface Artery trust in peril

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff, 7/19/2002

RELATED STORY Complete text of bill establishing Mass. Millennium Greenway Trust

egislation creating a governing trust for the Surface Artery land being reclaimed by the Big Dig, which city and state officials promised would be passed by the end of the month, may be dead.

''It's possible but not likely,'' Arlington Democratic Senator Robert A. Havern, cochairman of the Legislature's joint transportation committee, said yesterday after a searing three-hour hearing during which the bill was ripped as being flawed and incomplete.

Legislation to create the Massachusetts Millennium Greenway Trust, announced last week by Acting Governor Jane M. Swift, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, would put 30 acres of valuable open space and development parcels in the hands of a group controlled by seven appointed trustees.

But as soon as a draft circulated last week, after being closely held for three months, neighborhood, environmental, and business groups identified what they considered serious problems.

Representative Paul Demakis, a Boston Democrat and committee member who has urged legislators to produce a final piece of legislation by July 10, said it is too late to pass such an important bill this session. ''To the extent there is any consensus revealed today,'' he said, ''it's one that says this legislation is going to take an enormous amount of work.''

Other legislators agreed, including Representative Salvatore F. DiMasi, who represents downtown and warned, ''We don't want to make a colossal mistake.''

A dozen people testified at yesterday's public hearing on the bill, most of whom have been involved for years in planning for post-Big Dig use of the strip of land from Causeway to Kneeland streets.

They repeated criticisms that have tumbled out over the last few days in reaction to the 31-page draft released last Thursday.

Some commended legislators for producing anything at all. Almost all of the bill's critics agreed with the fundamental premise - there is a need for a well-funded, single-purpose organization to look after the land yielded by the Central Artery/Ted Williams Tunnel project after a decade of dust, detours, and noise.

But the criticism was intense, so much so that even two weeks more of hard work may not be enough to produce a bill most will support.

The problems raised at yesterday's hearing included:

Possible legal issues with a provision that would give revenues from the corridor's development parcels to the new trust, when Title 23 of federal transportation law may require that the money be used for other purposes. ''The Title 23 problems are very acute,'' said Havern.

A perception by several that the trust could become too powerful and would be focused too much on development, to the neglect of the parks and open space that are the first concern of members of the Mayor's Surface Artery Completion Task Force and others. Task force co-chairman Rob Tuchmann said he wanted to ensure that, ''The trust would not become a separate planning authority in the heart of downtown Boston.''

A possibly overly complicated structure of the trust, which under the current proposal would have a 27-member board of directors and a larger board of advisers, neither with any direct power. Neighborhood groups and residents want representation on the powerful board of trustees, even if it has to be expanded in size from seven to nine or more.

Mark Maloney, cochairman of the mayor's task force, said most of what is in the new law was suggested by the task force members - the individuals now taking issue with its details.

''Folks whom we've been talking to about the changes are focusing on the changes and not recognizing that fundamentally we are in agreement,'' he said.

''I really very strongly feel what the task force put together at the end of last year is the basis of what this legislation is based on,'' Maloney said. ''We are in agreement.''

Most who testified yesterday would disagree. Richard Dimino, president of the Artery Business Committee, said the funding provisions need to be fine-tuned but wants the trust created soon, saying, ''We could lose the opportunity to create a visionary client for the corridor.''

Shirley Kressel of the Alliance for Boston Neighborhoods accused business interests of capturing the new land for their purposes. ''It's a grave situation,'' she said.

Representative Joseph Sullivan, a Braintree Democrat and cochairman of the committee, was not giving up. ''This is not a rush job. It's been discussed in earnest, mightily, for the last six years,'' he said, vowing to ''keep working at it.''

Havern assured critics that, ''This committee has made no commitment to move the bill in its current form. However long it takes to get it right, that's how long we'll have this bill.''

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at [email protected].