I'm an equal-opportunity mocker. I just don't usually read the Newburyport Current since my unfortunate 'incarceration' there. But I was reading it a while ago, on line.
The story I was reading was about Newbury's River at Little Village, or whatever. It has about 3 different names, at least in the papers.
So, I was reading this big, long story by Ms. Buckley, the editor, and trying to stay awake. Then I came to the final paragraph, which reads:
Should the project win approval at Newbury’s special Town Meeting Tuesday, June 24, the final hurdle would be Newburyport’s decision about water and sewer service. Without that OK, the project would be scrapped, Tymon said. (That would be the delightful Judy Tymon, Newbury's town planner.)
The first paragraph, by the way, reads:
With recent approvals from the Newbury Planning Board and Finance Committee and a special Town Meeting planned for next month to approve the plan, Newbury’s Village at Little River mixed-use development project is nearing reality.
I would think that bit about scrapping the project should be one of the first paragraphs, not the last. Maybe I'm being too critical. But I remember being instructed on more than one occasion by said Ms. Buckley on how to construct a news story. I believe that should have been the "nut" paragraph?
4 comments:
I was more concerned about the content...
It seems like we're setting the bar pretty low...
"...try to have the developers not only pay for whatever infrastructure is needed to extend the services but to also compensate the city of any impact to our general water and sewer capacity..."
To me that should be the starting point for any discussion since we essentially sell our water and sewer services at cost.
Newbury on the other hand gets an on-going net revenue stream of $300-$500K per year.
Thanks, Bubba. I agree. I also think the bar has been set pretty low at the landfill and with Karp.
We have far more leverage with Newbury than we do with Karp or New Ventures. Karp can so some pretty ugly things by-right so we need to encourage him to do the right thing. As for the landfill, the city signed-on to a bad deal and the state is throwing us under to bus to avoid having to pay anything.
Reading local Snooze reports and 'other' reporting weeklies, one would gather the impression that the 'Little River' project was a 'done deal'. But, attending both the Water and Sewer Commissions meetings, there seems to be some disagreement as to the 'hoops' that need jumping through. The mayor's stance does not reflect the Commissions stated position and the Commissions set policy not politicians (yet) on operational issues of these enterprise divisions.Set policies on connections and affects on the system have not been addressed and impacts to the Newburyport systems are a major concern when discussing the possibility of Newburyport's assumed growth in all areas of the city, not just the Route one corridor.
Unfortunately the $$$$$$ may dictate the political pressure placed on the overseers of our utilities and not the continued logic that these commissions are charged with managing. the Newburyport planner and related departments should be continuing to evaluate and present the Newburyport re-development of the traffic circle before representing the Newbury suggested development to assure the ratepayers get the proper service in the future and no 'deals' are made to sell our own growth future to accommodate a political whim.
The Sewer Commission was reluctant at their last meeting to allow changes in their policies to allow build out in the sewer system that would lessen or limit flows. Lets see what a little political pressure will do to these policies.
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