Your Voice: A letter from Selectman Mike Beaulieu

Milton Selectman Mike Beaulieu

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

You may have recently received a letter from Tom Gray, and may have inferred that the letter was representative of the Milton Board of Selectmen.

I wish to reassure you that I, personally, do not support article 3, and also to remind you that the Board of Selectmen officially voted to NOT recommend article #3, during the public meeting held on January 21, 2014.

As a citizen, I have watched the people of Milton face the threat of a massive mineral excavation and landfill before. Each time, they were able to stop these proposals because of their right to be heard in a public forum. If warrant article #3 passes, landfills would be legal in Milton for the first time in history, and the decision would be removed from the local public control and limited to the Zoning Board Special Exception process. Article 3 will open the town to lawsuits filed by the parties unhappy with the ZBA ruling, whether it is the developer or the abutting landowners.

The legal meaning of warrant article #3 has been deeply scrutinized by myself and others. As written, article #3 would allow any developer to pursue this process to open a landfill in any zone within Milton, including residential areas. The "limited uses" being marketed by ReEnergy would not be enforced by the new zoning. The payments, jobs and other benefits promised by ReEnergy would not be enforced by the new zoning. If warrant article #3 passes, the town of Milton will be at risk with no tangible or legally binding benefits to justify it.

This is why I personally urge Milton residents to vote "no" on Article 3.

The information provided by ReEnergy has been misleading. Their promises of revenue do not withstand scrutiny. Their claims of safety, which were developed for them by a waste industry advocacy group, are misleading and have been contradicted by more recent science. Their claim of a conservation easement/environmental park is corporate marketing and not realistic. I have visited some of the homes near the proposed site, and to impose such a drastic change on a quiet residential neighborhood is unjust.

The proposed landfill simply isn't the right thing for Milton.

Again, I strongly urge you to vote NO on warrant article #3.

- Mike Beaulieu,

Milton selectman