Font ResizeDEVENS -- "I put a million bucks on the table," said MassDevelopment President and CEO Robert Culver to the Joint Boards of Selectmen (JBOS). "You owe it to the communities to be more specific in what you want to know."
Culver was responding to increasing pressure on the Devens developer to provide the JBOS with more financial data to aid in its multi-year deliberations over how much it costs, in municipally-formatted figures, to run Devens. MassDevelopment's budgets commingle both development and town management-like revenues and expenses.
The JBOS retained the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission for $8,500 to try to tease apart the numbers. The MRPC's work on the project came to a formal close at the Feb. 25 JBOS meeting, with the municipal number still undetermined for a variety of reasons.
Getting a handle on the cost of running Devens has been an ongoing discussion for the selectmen as they ponder the ultimate fate of the decommissioned Army base. In 2005, Culver's MassDevelopment Board of Directors funded $1 million to retain the professional planning services of Sasaki Associates to provide an assist in the disposition issue.
Voters were asked to vote on the so-called "2B" scenario via a October 2006 tri-town Super Town Meeting and November 2006 town elections to create a new municipality of most of the Devens land instead of having the land revert to the three towns. Ayer and Shirley town meetings voted "yes," while Harvard's said
Culver fumed at Harvard Selectman Lucy Wallace, who'd asked for an update on development plans for Grant Road. "I'm just looking for information," she said.
He answered, "There's no housing market."
Wallace responded, "At some point you'd want to catch the wave when it returns." She asked about either a three-year plan or a request for proposals from developers on the property.
Culver didn't like the questions. "When the market loosens up, I'll look forward. It will either be housing, or housing and some retail," he said before offering, "If all else fails, it will be commercial."
"I had a timeline five to six years ago that would have had 500 (housing) units, but people would have objected to that, no?" Culver said to Wallace, a vocal opponent of the 2006 "2B" scenario.
"Stay -- engage with me," Culver debated Wallace. "If I told you I had a timeline, what would it matter?"
She responded that the JBOS, "might benefit from understanding" how Grant Road, and the revived push to rezone Vicksburg Square as housing, "may intersect."
"2B was on the table. People asked me what we wanted to happen. It was a town. That was voted down," said Culver, before airing an oft heard question he's asked. "'What are you going to do with Devens, MassDevelopment?' I think that question is out of place. I put time and effort on the table for the disposition of Devens."
Culver's tone was terse, which led to some lighter verbal sparring between JBOS Chairman Enrico Cappucci and MassDevelopment's Director of Land Entitlements Edward Starzec over the status of the potential redevelopment of Vicksburg Square. There are two developers in a run-off to refurbish the hulking structures into housing.
Cappucci has been increasingly vocal in recent months, opposed to MassDevelopment's setting of meetings for a small subset of the JBOS membership, and binding some but not all of those attendees at one meeting to sign secrecy agreements to protect the developer's proprietary financial blueprints.
Harvard Selectman Tim Clark sought clarification. "What's the JBOS role?"
"Advisory is the word that we've used," answered Starzec. "I don't think that's been resolved. Let's meet with the JBOS (Vicksburg Square) Subcommittee."
Dissatisfied, Cappucci said, "I recommend you meet with the JBOS collectively."
Cappucci suggested to his peers at the Jan. 28 JBOS meeting that they may hold the trump card if the towns feel dissatisfied with the information flow on Vicksburg Square. "We have the pen...that's the key," he said, making reference to a developer's need for the towns' selectmen to sign a warrant calling the required town meetings to garner triton approval.
Last summer, the three towns considered the first Vicksburg rezoning proposal, where potential unidentified developers were allegedly waiting in the wings with undisclosed plans. Harvard and Shirley town meetings approved of that proposed zoning change. Ayer Town Meeting voted against the proposal. Now with a dueling duo of developers, CSM of Acton and Vicksburg Trinity Partnership of Boston, there are to be proposals presented for voter review prior to a revote. No date has been announced for the Vicksburg briefing for JBOS by MassDevelopment or the developers themselves.
Ayer Selectman Gary Luca announced, "I was given different information" about Cappucci's desire to stay aboard as JBOS chairman. In the quarterly rotation of the JBOS chairmanship, Ayer's turn in the cycle started Jan. 1. While the Ayer Board of Selectmen voted recently to select Luca as their pick for chairman in the rotation, Luca said he hadn't been apprised by his peers of Cappucci's willingness to stay on.
Cappucci will ride out the remainder of the quarter, ending March 31. "I'm here to serve the board and I'm pleased to do it .... unless you'd like to, Leo?"
"No thank you," replied former Harvard Selectman and JBOS chairman Leo Blair, from the audience. Blair resigned from both his town and regional selectmen roles last summer, citing a desire to attend to family and business interests.
Luca has announced a run for Ayer town treasurer and serves as Ayer's Postmaster. He's indicated that if he wins the treasurer's post on election day, April 26, he'll resign from the Ayer Board of Selectmen.
Mass Development Chief of Staff Meg Delorier has been serving as the acting Devens manager in the aftermath of the departure of prior Devens Operations Manager Rich Montuori, who left this winter to become town manager of Tewksbury.
Delorier told the JBOS that some 70 resumes have rolled in.
