In the dumps

Part 2

by Kristen Lombardi

The day after the Park Spirit meeting, Morgan and McCarthy sit at a coffee table, reflecting on the previous night's success. After listening to Dusoe's spiel, Park Spirit denounced the city plan and offered to help. Several residents suggested forcing the issue during election season -- by planting people at upcoming political debates to ask city-council candidates their positions on the landfill.

More important, though, McCarthy acknowledges that Park Spirit's support provides the coalition with increased status, effectively undermining landfill supporters and T&G editors who for months have painted the coalition as radical, even though the group's renewed widespread interest in park policy. Several community groups and labor unions favor an immediate, clean-fill cap; Worcester County Horticultural Society dismissed city cost arguments in a July 8 letter to Mayor Raymond Mariano, saying "practical reasons can always be found to justify misuse of parks."

"We're not some `small, self-appointed group,'" McCarthy says, referring to a T&G editorial against citizen involvement in the landfill debate. "Support for our position is snowballing."

The coalition stems from members' involvement in a citizens advisory committee that Hoover convened last September to examine park conditions and recommend improvements. Citizens, fed up with years of park abuse, worked with officials on a Green Hill revitalization project, which included the DPW plan. But, residents say, collaboration collapsed once officials sidestepped questions about the landfill. In the end, all 28 citizens voted to "properly" cap the landfill, while eight favored using street-sweepings as fill for 12 years.

But Hoover disbanded the committee, and then included the DPW proposal in a park-improvement plan. After Hoover's dismissal of citizen concerns, members say, several advisory-committee members organized the coalition to push for their notion of a proper cap -- one that appropriately considers this landfill's surroundings.

"We're forcing the administration to behave as it should," says Morgan. Officials aren't looking at alternatives because they've found a solution but, she adds, "city bureaucrats can easily set a policy not to dump in that park."

To pressure officials into investigating further, coalition co-chairs and 298 residents filed two petitions with the city council in July. The first asks Hoover to examine alternatives to dumping street-sweepings in landfills, while the second requests "a plan forthwith for immediate capping of landfill with clean, approved fill." Both petitions are held up in council subcommittees, awaiting a response from the administration.

Lately, coalition members are trying more refined methods to push their agenda. They've called politicians to drum up support and locate grants for an immediate capping plan which, officials say, would cost $2 million. They've identified state funds that would cover the expense of having the landfill capped according to state standards. Members have also sought out alternatives for depositing street waste.

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See Landfill alternatives

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Although city administrators say they're willing to work with the coalition, they've yet to look at its research, members say. The administration's also gone to curious lengths to prevent the plans from being viewed in public; Dusoe, for instance, called DPW officials repeatedly to request architectural designs of the city plan -- city officials agreed, but only after he agreed to purchase the drawings for $20 a page.

The city administration still insists on pursuing its proposal. Moylan writes to Hoover that his plan is "clearly the preferred option," but the DPW would accept a variation calling for street waste at Green Hill's landfill for six years. (The project would take nine years in all, since DPW wouldn't start dumping for three years.) Hoover's publicly stated support for the nine-year variation, and recently he's suggested the administration will prove the plan's merits. Hoover could not be reached for comment.

"The city keeps saying it needs to put street-sweepings up at [the park]," explains coalition supporter state Representative William McManus (D-Worcester), who served on the advisory committee. "The city says it needs to do this to save money, but I don't care. The bottom line is this isn't just a piece of property; it's a public park."

The city's apparent stonewalling of landfill-options discussion has only heightened visibility of the coalition's agenda. McManus introduced a bill into the state legislature that, if approved, would prohibit communities from dumping solid or liquid waste in public parks. The bill is pending before the House Natural Resources Committee.

Now, McCarthy says, coalition members are discussing ways to boost visibility at home. The group hosted its first fundraiser to purchase banners and bumper stickers with its slogan -- "Green Hill Park. Dumped on long enough." Members are considering where to use the propaganda, such as in city-council chambers, on Lincoln Street (a neighborhood where many supporters live), and at Green Hill.

"If we keep enough pressure up, we'll get our way," McCarthy says.

On to part 3 Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com.