Last October, when the Valley Advocate published my first story about the development on Northampton’s Hospital Hill and the demolition of the historic buildings there, I naively thought it might get at least get a reaction from those I was writing about, if not an actual dialog.
My reporting indicated that the people who had been empowered and entrusted to preserve as many of the historically significant buildings as possible on Hospital Hill—the city of Northampton, the Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC), and the site’s developer, MassDevelopment—instead spent a decade explaining why it was impossible to save any of them. I’d spent years following the developments on the hill and researching the back story. I’d tried to make the article as clear and unassailable as possible. I was eager for an opportunity to defend my arguments about Hospital Hill.
I got some good feedback from friends and strangers on the piece, but elsewhere there was radio silence. A few weeks ago, reading through the CAC’s meeting minutes, I discovered why this was. In the “other business” section of the November 28, 2007 meeting, this conversation was documented:
Bruce Fogel: Do CAC members wish to make a formal response to the Valley Advocate for its “How Not to Save Old Main” article of 10/25/07?
Joseph Blumenthal: The best response is to ignore it. (Several CAC members nodded in agreement.)
Bruce Fogel: I took great offense.
Daniel Yacuzzo: We have nothing to be ashamed of. I wouldn’t honor the article’s writer by responding publicly.
Frandy Johnson: There was a good response to the article in the next issue.
Mayor Higgins: The article did mention one concrete issue that can be addressed here: at any time the Citizens Advisory Committee may vote a new chair of these meetings. I am quite willing to turn over the gavel at any time. Are there any takers? (Nobody volunteered.)
The mayor was referring to the 1994 legislation creating the CAC, which had specified, “The chairman of said committee shall be elected by the membership of said committee by a majority vote and shall serve a one year term.” Clare Higgins has been the one and only chairperson.
As a rule, the CAC, under Higgins, doesn’t permit the public to speak or ask questions at its meetings.
During its May 22, 2008 meeting, the CAC was first presented by MassDevelopment and the mayor with the question of whether to permit Kollmorgen to relocate to Hospital Hill from King Street, necessitating a major revision of the site’s master plan. After only an hour or so of discussion, where a whole list of good reasons to reject the plan were raised, the committee said they were eager to vote.
City Councilor David Narkewicz: …The purpose of tonight’s meeting was advertised in the newspaper only yesterday. We should ensure ample opportunity to hear from residents.
Joseph Blumenthal: Throughout the process for the entire site, development of the South Campus was always a question of how it would occur. We never knew who would locate there. The city has been presented with a win-win opportunity and we should take advantage of it. I am very comfortable voting tonight. I don’t think this project needs more process.
[Note: Thus far, according to the minutes, there had been no more than 90 minutes of “process.”]
Edward Skroski: I second that notion. Keeping Kollmorgen in the city is a given, we don’t need to question them.
The conversation contined.
Narkewicz: I don’t want to give the impression in any way that I don’t want us to keep Kollmorgen in the city. I’m comfortable with the move since Kollmorgen was part of the Village Hill earlier equation. The reduction in traffic on the South Campus is a real bonus for residents.
Jack Hornor: South Campus development now has reached its second period of recession. Kollmorgen becomes the anchor tenant on the South Campus. We’ve lost square footage but gained in tax revenue. I am ready to vote.
Frandy Johnson: There will be ample time for the public to weigh in. The CAC is voting only on whether it makes sense to move forward with this new scenario.
Harriet Diamond: I agree that we should vote. The public still can weigh in.
The members went on to vote unanimously in favor of approving the change to the Master Plan. Nearly two months later, the only opportunity so far for the public to weigh in on this decision was not announced beforehand. During the CAC’s meeting on June 22, the mayor/chair broke with tradition and invited the half dozen people who had come to ask questions. They unanimously voiced deep concern about permitting a high-security manufacturing plant in the middle of their neighborhood.
Allowing questions may have seemed like a benevolent gesture, and possibly a ray of hope that the ban against public input on Hospital Hill was weakening. But then an awkward question presented itself. If Mayor Higgins, as chair of the committee deciding what happens on Hospital Hill, has always had the power to allow s public dialog on Hospital Hill, why would she wait so long to use it? Why would she choose, instead, to use this authority to shut the public out?
Not only do the mayor and the CAC ignore public criticism, they don’t see a need to solicit it, and they’ve actively sought to suppress it. I’ve also found, should a criticism somehow permeate the membrane between the mayor and her public, she’s unlikely to understand it. There’s even a danger that she might change what you say slightly, and share that version with her friends and colleagues.
On June 19, I arrived at Higgins’ chambers for an interview. The mayor told me that Teri Anderson, the city’s economic development director, would sit in on the meeting.
Advocate: My goal is…
Mayor Higgins: Before we begin with where you want to go, I need to understand some things… Every article you’ve written has clearly had a point of view that’s been that nobody here really knows what they’re doing. So probably you can understand why I’d be concerned with you showing up at this late date, and I’m very worried that you’re going to sandbag me with my own words.
Advocate: I can understand you being worried, and I was grateful that you welcomed me here—
Mayor: I’ve never said no to a reporter.
Advocate: I understand that, and I heard you on the radio say that was the case. …I’m here to learn more.
Mayor: I’m a citizen.
Advocate: All right?
Mayor: You can’t run for mayor and not be a citizen of the community that you live in.
Advocate: Right, but once you—
Mayor: It’s my turn to be in this office. And someday it won’t be my turn.
Apparently, the mayor was referring to a line in one of my recent pieces: “As the mayor, Mary Clare Higgins is … not a member of the public.” My point: the mayor is a public official, with power, influence, access and privileges the public doesn’t have.
During the interview, however, I didn’t know exactly what she was talking about—I’d never said she wasn’t a citizen, just not a member of the public as it is usually defined. She continued to press the point for a while, and then Teri Anderson interjected.
Teri Anderson: The other thing I would add about your articles is that there were a lot of incorrect facts in them.
Advocate: Okay.
Anderson: Not facts so much as statements. It would have been good to check the facts before you wrote them.
Advocate: Well, I’m all ears, and I’ve already put in for one correction.
Mayor: I don’t need the citizen thing corrected. Everyone who’s read it has said to me, “What the hell is he talking about?”
Advocate: All right. Okay.
Mayor: It’s self correcting by the people who will read it.
Advocate: It often is.
Mayor: Okay, so what’s your goal today?
I gave them a list of a dozen or so questions I’d printed up beforehand. For about 20 minutes we reviewed the history of the development and the attempts to include Kollmorgen into the project. Eventually we came to the question of why, if marketing efforts to find a developer to save the historically significant buildings had failed, hadn’t the city questioned the marketing techniques before demolishing the buildings?
Mayor: We had people come in from different kinds of technical industries to assess those buildings, and we had uniform assessments that they were going to be very difficult to market as is. Nevertheless, this office and Teri were pretty clear with MassDevelopment that we wanted them to market at least three of those buildings. You say here, doesn’t that mean that the marketing was flawed? (Higgins laughs.) I don’t necessarily agree with that; I think it could be that the buildings were flawed. Or that because the amount of money you’d have to put in to them to retrofit doesn’t meet the amount you could get per square foot to rent them in our region.
Advocate: I understand that, but I do wonder what marketing was done. It seems to me that you can say a place is available and anyone can come, or you can sell the place. You’re looking for the one developer who will take the place, but if you throw the gates wide open and just say “come and get it,” you’re not likely to get that person.
Mayor: I think they were more targeted than that. They did a lot of outreach in specific national publications…
[Pause]
Anderson: I’m not sure about national publications…
Mayor: Sorry: regional.
Anderson: They were doing regional publications. Mostly through the Northeast.
Mayor: Yes. Northeast. I guess that’s what I meant.
Anderson: I have also been marketing the site through Western Mass Economic Development Council. And they’re the first portal for prospects coming into the region that are not already located here. And also for businesses that are expanding in the region that are not located here. And no one inquired about those buildings.
Long term, it’s possible you could market it to a big bio-tech firm that was interested in taking over the entire campus that might reuse one of the buildings. I had one bio-tech consultant say, you know, that maybe you could use it for animal labs. … So maybe in 10 or 20 years, we could have gotten something like that happening up there…
Instead of animal labs later, the city went for a defense contractor now.
Abandoned buildings are not responsible for what happened inside them. The Northeast is full of preserved mill buildings where workers were horribly exploited, were exposed to toxic chemicals, and had their unions crushed by rich employers. Still, developers understand that it’s impossible to build the same quality structures today, and people like to live and work in buildings rich with history.
Historic preservation was not an optional part of the CAC’s mission, but its core.
I’ve never meant to suggest no one in city hall “really knows what they’re doing” regarding Hospital Hill. My argument has been that the city, the state, the developers and the CAC were supposed to have saved the buildings, but instead deliberately and methodically, they worked to demolish them. If it had been ineptitude that brought the buildings down, you might expect some heads to roll or an investigation to be conducted, but as the above transcripts and interviews reveal, the mayor and the CAC are not apologetic. And they’re not making themselves available to be persuaded otherwise.
