A Tangled Web

 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive "

Abutters have asked for the engineering plan for the 25% design submittal or what Stanton called the "revised" 25% design.  Since, on January 10, Michalak (PE or Project Engineer) announced that the Public Hearing had been scheduled then this revised plan had to exist at that date. 

JS requested it from MassDOT Public Records on Februaru 23 and waited and waited.  Finally around March 14-15, JS received documents: the original, unrevised 25% design submission from November 2021, ROW papers, and the bridge worksheet with a submission date of January 24. (It's a tunnel or underpass but technically it becomes a bridge).  

Note that it is the original 25% not the revised design so it still has a figure indicating that the tunnel will be "jacked".   The other fun part is that the bridge worksheet was submitted on January 24th not by December 21, 2023 as Michalak had said at the December 13th meeting  (he was a whole month off on his scheduling!).   Upon submission, MassDOT rules specify that it has to be reviewed for 30 days, comments returned to the PE who has to address issues raised by the comments, then return the doc to MassDOT for another review period and so on until the process is completed and the PH can be scheduled..  

So how was the PH scheduled already by January 10th?  Did someone had a very nice Christmas gift to ease the release of the date?  

Btw, I've wondered for a while why did this project end up with a District 5 Project Manager, Tom Currier, who fawned  - oh! so  much! - on Michalak during the PH.  Why Currier and not PMs in District 4 which is Belmont's district?  

This reminds me that this project was given a PM as soon as it was approved as a project which several MassDOT engineers told me was highly unusual and that it indicated this project was of great importance to .... someone.  That first PM, Michael Trepanier, was also not a District 4 PM; he was assigned specifically to handle bike/ped trails. From that viewpoint that makes sense but why appointed when the project still had to go through gestation?

Is it coincidence that an attorney that works for the state was made Chairman of the committee overseeing this project?

Someone powerful has tried to make this project move through at lightning speed by appointing sitters and rolling over the abutters that have been bound and gagged. It must be frustrating that nevertheless this project has moved at a snail's pace and that now, another shortcut or rule breaking move had to be done i.e. scheduling the PH out of sync with the design in order to appear as making progress before the Boston-MPO. 

How many more shortcuts? And what will be the price? Abutters have already been sacrificed. Who's next? Riders on the commuter rail?


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