“We need to keep this on the table and continue to beat this” insisted Enrico Cappucci, Shirley selectman and chairman of the Joint Boards of Selectmen (JBOS), referring to changes suggested by the Devens Committee to Chapter 498.
Chapter 498, the law that established the Devens Regional Enterprise Zone (DREZ) and the Devens enterprise Commission (DEC), specifies how changes are made to the Devens Reuse Plan and Devens zoning. Cappucci has placed the issue of changing 498 on the JBOS agenda continuously over the months he has been chairman. This time the issue was debated at a less-than-packed house, with no Ayer selectmen in attendance, only two from Harvard―Tim Clark and Peter Warren―and only Cappucci himself from Shirley. Devens Committee members Rick Bernklow, Jim Geller, and Tom Kinch had the most to say during the discussion, as Cappucci challenged each selectman around the table to speak on each of the changes suggested by the Devens Committee.
Harvard selectmen Ron Ricci (not in attendance) and Tim Clark had also submitted proposed changes to Chapter 498, but Cappucci chose instead to focus on the Devens Committee’s proposed changes, which, among other things, would allow an all-towns ballot vote instead of votes at concurrent town meetings (so-called “super town meetings”) to make changes to Chapter 498. Other changes suggested by the Devens Committee include eliminating the current Devens housing cap; keeping the Devens Regional Enterprise Zone (DREZ) intact; allowing regional sharing of utilities such as water, sewer, gas and electric; and initiating a mandatory 10-year disposition and final governance plan for Devens once commercial and industrial build-out reaches 75 percent of the 8.5 million square feet allowed by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act. Keeping the DREZ intact at the end of a 10-year period along with the creation of a final governance plan would, effectively, create a new municipality in Massachusetts.
Clark asked the meaning of “intact” in this situation, to which Bernklow replied that he doesn’t want to see the DREZ “carved up,” as was proposed by Scenario 2B in 2006. Kinch stated, “If all three areas were to revert to historic boundaries, the community would be split. To us, that’s unthinkable.”
Cappucci continued to question each person at the table about the five changes proposed by the Devens Committee. In discussion over whether to keep the “super town meeting” model for making changes at Devens, Cappucci asserted, “if you do your homework, you can stuff a town meeting,” meaning that a small number of committed residents can swing a vote in a specific direction. “I don’t know if that’s good government anymore, but it’s good politics,” Cappucci said.
Devens Commitee member Tom Kinch agreed with Cappucci that the New England town meeting model of municipal governance was no longer effective, saying, “when there was no communication, when everyone came to town in horse and buggy for the day” it might have been effective.
Cappucci asked Warren where he stood on the issue, to which Warren replied, “Personally, I think [it should be] the cumulative vote of the three towns.”
