Welcome ladies and gentlemen of the media,
Let me introduce myself. My name is Tom Goodwin. I am a resident of South Weymouth,and one of the co-founders of the citizens group COMPARE. COMPARE is an acronym for Citizens Opposing the Megamall and the Proposed Access Road and Extensions. We formed this group when many of my neighbors, and other citizens of Weymouth, approached me and asked me to speak for them. In response we created an action and discussion group based on an open public forum format. As the group grew a steering committee was added,and eventually grew to nine members representing the towns of Abington, Hingham, Rockland, and Weymouth.
We are proud to announce today, that due to an expanding grass roots opposition to the Mills Mall development , and in response to the wishes of our members and associates,that COMPARE has been incorporated under Massachusetts law as a non-profit corporation. This will afford us a much better position from which to conduct the organizing of the many voices, from many Towns ,that have now joined the fight. The nine steering committee members have now become the Board of Directors of the corporation.The secretary is Linda Mae Ellis of Rockland, the treasurer is Don Pace of Weymouth, and I will serve as the president.
Our original focus was the devastating impact that the Megamall will have on the neighborhoods and quality of life in the four town area directly adjacent to the base.Although this focus will always be our core, it has become more apparent in the past few months that there is an equally large grass roots opposition to this grotesquely inappropriate megamall development in surrounding towns that are not direct abutters. Due to this new request for membership from a now widening base of citizens who feel their elected representatives cannot , or choose not, to hear them, we are extending membership to the citizens of all of the South Shore .
To inaugurate this effort, COMPARE INC. is proud to announce the regional campaign in opposition to the Mill$ Mall development: STOP the M.E.S.S. The MESS is an acronym for Malling the Environment on the South Shore. The campaign is already gearing up to address the concerns of the citizens of all the area towns that have called or written us for information or to voice their concerns. In these towns ,as in our own, we have found most people cannot believe that anyone would even want another mall on the South Shore, let alone in the heart of such a heavily populated area. Many of these people have turned to us now because what they thought was a no brainer has a chance of becoming a nightmarish reality that will affect the lives of all of us , and the generations to come. The proposed megamall development, and its attending infectious sprawl impacts, is so ludicrous , and infamous ,that one of our associates recently returned from the Midwest, heard Al Norman relating the gory details of the proposed debacle at NAS South Weymouth as part of his presentation . Mr. Norman has risen to national prominence as a successful opponent of Wal-Mart and other sprawl - developer projects.
Money,we are told, is the root of all evil! If that is the case then Mill$ Corp. has a reputation for liberally spreading as much green evil as necessary to get what THEY want. We are told recently for instance that they have spent well over 100 large to lobby Federal , and state lawmakers, which has netted them 14.4 million dollars in Federal funds , and upped the States share to 50 million dollars, for what amounts to nothing less than THEIR OWN PERSONAL FEEDING TUBE. This road was designed by Mass. Highway to provide access to the NAS site. It is not, and will not be a State road or highway. It was not designed to relieve traffic. It was intended to provide access to a DESTINATION for thousands of cars, trucks, and busses. The Mill$ Mall DESTINATION is claimed to attract 18 to 22 million visitors a year ,by their own figures. Thats three ,or more , times the population of Massachusetts coming through all of the surrounding towns, by EVERY avenue available, to converge on a proposed 230 acre site in the heart of the Tri-Town area
yearly.The Mill$ Mall may, as SSTDC cries repeatedly, be only 12% of the proposed development of the site, but by Mass. Highways calculations presented at many public meetings, at least 70% of their projected daily traffic figures will be destined for the Mall. That works out to be 48,000 car trips daily! All of this on a road that must, after its construction, be maintained by the towns through which it passes, at their own expense. The town of Hingham has voted to oppose the road since they will also inherit the proposed connector roads and ramps that will encroach to within feet of homes in the Farm Hill neighborhoods, destroying everything from the air quality in their backyards, to the property values of homes that those families have given years of their sweat and toil to have. We applaud the Hingham Selectmen , and the families of the Farm Hill neighborhoods who have chosen to stand and fight, as opposed to acquiescing to the forced move situation created by imminent domain take-over. Why should any resident have to accept the encroachment of this road on their childrens lives, or give up their homes that theyhave worked their lives to have, so that the Mill$ Corporation of VIRGINIA can move in and build a mall whose purpose is to separate the good people of the South Shore from their money and take it back to Virginia. WE already live HERE where we chose to raise our children , why should we be forced by OUR elected officials to live with any burden imposed on our neighborhoods, and towns, so that the Mill$ Corporation can set up their shoppertainment carnival ,and reap the profits at our expense. They are the ones who can move, preferably out of our lives forever. Mr Ken Miller of Mass. Highway said at the Hingham selectmans meeting that if the mall was not built, a connector road might not be necessary.
STOP the MESS will in its campaign show that this road proposal, if implemented ,will have far reaching impacts on the environment of all our neighborhoods,on the traffic flow in all of the surrounding towns, and on the flow of traffic North through the Split, and south to the canal. Sprawl is responsible for some of our most intractable environmental problems. Sprawl spreads these problems over larger and larger areas. writes the Mass. Executive Office of Environmental affairs. Issues such as polluted run off, the expansion of impervious surfaces that deny the percolation of rain water back into the ground water system, are only two of a long list of environmental issues that STOP the MESS will be addressing on informational and legal levels. To this end , we are announcing today that we have now entered into a partnership agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation to jointly pursue all aspects of this campaign, to include strategic legal policy, community outreach, fund raising, and public information access, to name a few.
It is also with great pride that we announce today that we announce that Paul Leary, president of the Weymouth town council, has joined COMPARE INC. and will sit on our Board of Directors. Paul is a lifelong Weymouth resident, and a true son of the town. A staunch and savvy Democrat, Paul is known through out the South Shore area and feels strongly that the adverse effects of this mall projects will irrevocably destroy the very essence of the way of life’ that we have CHOSEN to enjoy by raising OUR families in these towns.
To chose the environment, the neighborhood, the quality of life, that we will raise our families in is a right of choice that we all have exercised. Its one of the most beautiful aspects of being born an American . As a boy I grew up in a small town that was nationally known for it’s school system, it’s historic charm, in all respects it’s quality of life. It was the greatest place in the world to grow up in. One day though a mall proposal came to town. I listened with my father as the concerned people were told that their fears of everything from traffic, and business impacts, to quality of life were unfounded. It would be located near the highway, and the local route would be widened which would also probably improve traffic at the worst intersection in town. Only occasional traffic would be on town streets. Local business would not be impacted, in fact they may even benefit.
Needless to say , the mall came. The customers came and filled the highway ramps,they filled the widened road, they filled the local streets that were in any way connected to the mall. Local business in competition with the mall disappeared, and a famous downtown shopping area in the next city became a wasteland that to this day has never recovered. Residents living in close proximity to the mall frequently found it nearly impossible to travel their own neighborhood streets without delays. The noise from the mall and the highway became an incessant background roar, and the starry night sky was a thing of the past. A town whose crime rate was generally topped by parking tickets, became the stolen car capital of the state. Her officers have now to deal with the incursion of hardcore urban street gangs ,who will use their mall hanging groupies from the naive local population , to hold their guns and loot as they prey on the mall patrons.
At the age of 19 I entered the service,and on my return two years later I found that the town I grew up in was gone. The mall had continually gotten bigger, as had the residents problems. The way of life I had grown up there was gone, irrevocably destroyed by a poorly thought out decision of elected leaders. I left that town and have never lived there again. I searched and found that quality of life, that environment I want for my children to grow up in here in the Town of Weymouth where their lives can be enriched by their experiences in the community as mine was so long ago.
One day though, a mall proposal came to town..................