Corrected and updated April 22 at 6:00 p.m.
When four of the stakeholder groups considering the future of Devens met last Thursday to discuss the sudden departure of MassDevelopment from their committee, there were two questions on everyone’s mind: Why had the agency decided to leave? And who was behind it?
Without answers and unhappy with their treatment, members of the Devens Jurisdiction Framework Committee were preparing this week to use the committee’s clout—the united voices of three municipalities and the Devens Enterprise Commission—plus that of its state delegation to demand that MassDevelopment provide a better explanation and reconsider. its withdrawal.
“We are deeply disappointed,” said member and DEC environmental planner Neil Angus, a sentiment shared by other framework committee members at last week’s meeting. “It is essential to have all parties at the table, and without MassDevelopment I think it’s going to be very difficult to continue to move forward. And we want to move forward,” said Angus.
In an April 6 email to committee members announcing her agency’s withdrawal, Jessica Strunkin, executive vice president for Devens, said that the agency’s staff was too busy to spend time on a study that didn’t need to get underway until 2030. “But,” said DEC Chair Bill Marshall at the committee’s April 13 meeting, “we all know that is just an excuse.”
‘Going to the source’
Ayer’s town manager and committee member Robert Pontbriand agreed. Strunkin and MassDevelopment land development director Ed Starzec, who helped the committee draft key documents, had been working with the DJFC in good faith, he said. Strunkin was MassDevelopment’s messenger, but to understand the agency’s rationale the committee needed to go “to the source,” namely MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera, to whom Strunkin and the Devens team report—and perhaps to the MassDevelopment board of directors as well. They owed the committee an explanation. “That’s the minimum,” Pontbriand said.
After first tabling other business, the committee pivoted to a discussion of how to deal with MassDevelopment’s departure.
Committee member Mike McGovern, Shirley’s town administrator, said that the group should ask the Devens state delegation for help: Sen. Jamie Eldridge, who represents Harvard and Ayer, incoming Sen. John Cronin, who will represent Shirley starting in 2023, and Rep. Dan Sena, who represents all three towns.
“We need to get them on board,” said McGovern, “And then let them do what they do behind the scenes and figure out if they can either just get MassDevelopment back to the table or they can organize some kind of meeting between MassDevelopment and our group. But I think the first step really is just to reach out to our legislators.”
DEC Chair Marshall said, however, that while it was important to enlist the help of the area’s state legislators, the committee needed to go directly to the MassDevelopment board of directors and its chair, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Mike Kennealy. He said that while “going to the delegation” would ultimately be required, the committee needed to first address the MassDevelopment board, to whom CEO Rivera reports, “to make sure that they understand what’s at stake here, and whether they’re complicit with MassDevelopment’s leadership in walking away.”
Enlisting help from Sec. Kennealy, legislators
DEC director and committee member Peter Lowitt said time was of the essence. The MassDevelopment board “needs to see that this is an issue for the communities,” he said. “I think the maximum leverage point is going to be over the next month, and the more information they see, the more responsive they will be.”
After further discussion, DJFC members agreed that while the various stakeholder communities could choose to send letters of their own to MassDevelopment and state delegations, the committee, acting as a whole, needed to make its concerns known directly to Kennealy, with copies to each board member and to area legislators.
DJFC Chair Victor Normand agreed to compose a draft for the committee’s review and approval at a special meeting on Thursday this week. The Press was unable to obtain a copy of the draft letter in time for this week’s paper. But the approval will require two steps, he said. First, because the committee recently agreed that all six stakeholders must be present for any vote, it will have to amend the rule to allow decisions with only the five remaining stakeholders present. The second step would be a vote by the five groups to approve the letter.
Meanwhile, DEC’s Lowitt said his commission will likely send a letter of its own to the MassDevelopment board. Harvard member Lucy Wallace said her town’s Select Board would be doing the same.
As for what comes next, Wallace said she hoped the committee could find a way to continue to meet and talk about the common interests of the three towns and the DEC. Planning for the future of Devens has to include MassDevelopment at some point, she acknowledged. “I’m not saying we don’t include them, but I would hate to have the wind knocked out of our sails [by their withdrawal],” she said.
Moving forward with, or without, MassDevelopment
If it turns out that MassDevelopment is really not willing to participate on any level, “then perhaps we can discuss how to move forward without them,” said Brian Sawyer, a member of the Shirley Select Board and of the DJFC. “But I would like to try to get them to participate,” he added. “Until we resolve that I wouldn’t want to move forward.”
The Devens Jurisdiction Framework Committee was formed in 2019 to begin a study of how Devens might be governed once MassDevelopment has finished its commercial and residential redevelopment of the 4,400-acre former Army base. Chapter 498, the law that established Devens, says that study must begin no later than 2030 and be presented to the Legislature by 2033.
The committee includes representatives chosen by the towns of Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley, as well as members of the Devens Enterprise Commission, and, until recently, MassDevelopment. Each group is allotted three voting members. The framework committee recently added a sixth stakeholder group to represent the businesses and residents at Devens; three of its members were recruited by Strunkin, acting on behalf of MassDevelopment.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the name of state’s Secretary of Housing and Economic Development. He is Mike Kennealy.
