Conclusions from the June 1st Pump Station Briefing

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 . . Below is the Email message sent by David Giacalone to the Historic Stockade Yahoo Listserv on June 23, 2020. It continues the tale told in our prior posting “was the Pump Station another Rendering Ruse” (May 7, 2020). .

GrandOldTree-img_3835
. . view of Grand Old Tree and Old Pump Station (June 2017)
Dear Stockade Community:
You may recall that there was a “Briefing” about the new North Ferry Street Pump Station for the members of our City Council, at their June 1, 2020 Committees meeting, which was held by teleconference. CHA chief engineer Mike Miller and City Director of General Services Paul Lafond made the presentation, and Council Member Marion Porterfield led the questioning. 
The Gazette and Time Union have not reported on the event, nor has it been summarized by the Stockade Association.You can see the Meeting for yourselves at the Open Stage Media Video On Demand page, at https://tinyurl.com/NFSPSbriefing. The Briefing lasts about 50 minutes and is the first matter taken up at the Meeting.
CONCLUSIONS and COMMENTS. After watching the Briefing live on June 1st and listening again at a better pace for note-taking last week, I wrote up a set of Conclusions with Comments, which I sent by email Sunday to City Council members and the press. For those who are interested in the full treatment, I am attaching an 11-page pdf file of that email, which includes many relevant quotes and images, along with additional points and comments. Below is an Outline of the Conclusions
.
The Briefing was requested and is best viewed with the following key points in mind: 
  • The Council’s June 2017 Clarifying Resolution (Res. 2017-179; attached below) clearly states: “any overflow into Riverside Park will be minimized to no wider than 30 feet, including needed landscaping and buffering for a new pump station.” And that no construction will be approved “it the design requires taking a portion of parkland extending more than 30 ft. to the west of the current pumping station fence into Riverside Park.”
  • All prior renderings of the Project shown to the public and Council: (1) Depicted the New Station situated so as to allow the façade of the Old Pump House to be seen from the West Lawn of the Park and other locations west of the New Station, and (2) Show the preservation of the healthy century-old silver maple tree after the construction process. For example:
 
The Conclusions, in my opinion, call for further action by City Council, to assert its primacy in setting policy and budgets. The Council and members of the Stockade community (with or without Stockade Association support) should continue to press this matter. For example, by insisting
 
(1) CHA provide a new full rendering depicting the current proposed location of the new station, new fence, and nearby trees
(2) Any Construction be paused that would prevent “bumping” back the New Pump Station, farther from the River, so that we and future generations will be able to view the picturesque historic façade of the Old Pump House from west of the new pump station.
(3) A new site plan be presented to the Council and Stockade community that allows the Old Pump House, as in the October 2017 Plan, to be seen from west of the New Pump Station
 
Another issue that needs consideration is whether 25 years of working with the City has made CHA’s relationship too cozy with City officials. Ignoring Council resolutions and offering less-than-useful-and-frank “briefings” should not be tolerated in a contractor making millions of dollars.
 
OUTLINE of CONCLUSIONS (with comments)
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1] MILLER & LAFOND CLEARLY SHOW THAT EVEN THE ABOVE GROUND PORTION of the MAY 2019 PLAN VIOLATES COUNCIL Res. 2017-179 and continues to be inconsistent with it —viz., in words and images, it is clear that part of the New Pump Station Lot encroaches 34 feet into the Park.
  • ABOVE GROUND. At 30:30 to 31:40] Miller admits the encroachment of the design made after consulting with the contractors is “roughly 34 feet on the north side, 21 ft on the back side”.
    • Miller explains [at about 38:00] that “The only specific guidance we had was not moving the fence line more than 30 ft. into the park”. That raises the question as to why he, Lafond and Mayor McCarthy (and later the Stockade Association Board) nonetheless endorsed a plan with a section of the fencing 34 ft to the west of the old fencing.
  • Also, BELOW GROUND: [31:50] there is encroachment of “roughly 50 feet” past the original fence.
    • Although Miller told Karen Z-W that the dimensions of the underground portion have not changed, he did not clarify that the underground portion is at least 15’ farther into the Park than with the October 2017 Plan, in which the underground portion already butted right up to the 30’ mark.
2] NO NOTICE OF THE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WAS GIVEN TO THE COUNCIL OR NEIGHBORHOOD, although the changes in the October 2017 plan were made as early as 2018, and despite constant communication with City Hall and with Stockade Association leaders. Mr. Miller notes that he spoke with the Mayor and Mr. Lafond about the changes. (The City officials apparently did not insist thereafter on Notice to the Council under the June 2017 Clarifying Resolution.)
 
3] THEIR ARGUMENT that the MAY 2019 PLAN IS CONSISTENT with the RESOLUTION DOES NOT HOLD WATER: They Say:
 
  • We did not move the new building farther than the 30 ft agreement
    • But: The Clarifying Resolution does not contain the word “building” and explicitly states that the overflow “shall be minimized to no wider than 30 feet, including needed landscaping and buffering for a new pump station.” 
  • The overflow was ”roughly 28 foot average on that structure.”
    • But: Average Encroachment is not a concept found in or suggested by Res. 2017-179, and adopting that standard suggests Miller & Lafond knew they could not meet the “no wider than 30 feet” requirement.
  • The Agreement and Guidance only concerned above-ground, green space
    • But: There is no distinction in the Resolution between above and below ground encroachment, nor mention of green space, or use by the public. 
 
NOTE BENE: There may be valid reasons why the facility needed to be moved to the west and north. But, the failure of the Pump Station managers to notify the Council and public of the changes prior to implementing the May 2019 Plan, deprived us all of the chance to test those reasons and seek alternatives that would preserve the elements of the October 2017 Plan that protected Park aesthetics, while fulfilling the CIty’s engineering goals. There was plenty of time to achieve that balance before our current spring construction season.
 
4] NO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IS GIVEN THAT THE VIEW OF THE OLD PUMP STATION IS BLOCKED FROM THE WEST UNDER THE NEW PLAN, a significant change from the 2017 Plan. 
 
  • An Obstructed View of an Historic Resource is considered an adverse impact which must be removed or mitigated under our Environmental Review law.
  • Miller makes the (flippant) observation that you can see more of the Old Pump House than when the two Stations were closer together (yes, if you stand, or float by, directly in front of the increased space between the Old and New Stations).
  • The New Rendering is Irrelevant to the issues raised. 
    • Miller was asked for a new rendering analogous to the set of Oct. 2017 renderings (example above), which showed the positioning of the two pump stations, and location of the new fence, along with preservation of the Grand Old Maple Tree. 
The unhelpful New Rendering, seen below, only shows the New Pump Station in its latest form, giving us the presumed answer to the unasked question of whether the outer design (appearance) had changed. No one said it had changed in any significant way.

5] THE FATE of the CENTURY-OLD SILVER MAPLE TREE WAS KNOWN in EARLY 2018 and NEVER REVEALED to the public in the two years before it was chopped down.

 
6] THE STOCKADE ASSOCIATION BOARD’s EXONERATION of CHA & CITY SHOULD BE GIVEN LITTLE WEIGHT. As we expected, Mr. Miller points to the Board’s May 8th Letter as supporting his claim of consistency with the Clarifying Resolution. [34:56] The Letter, which was sent without consulting the Members or the wider community, repeats Miller’s argument that the Clarifying Resolution only refers to overflow into the Park by a building. But, the Board’s claim that the Resolution contains the phrase “building overflow” is simply wrong (and Ms. Unger has never responded to my May 8th email giving many additional reasons why the new plan is inconsistent).
 
7] OUR “VERY ENGAGED COMMUNITY” & COUNCIL APPEAR TO BE THE REASON FOR SILENCE ABOUT THE SECRET MAY 2019 PLAN, which was proposed by subcontractors two years ago. 
 
  • It surely was very important to the project managers that the Clarifying Resolution states:
RESOLVED, without a full public hearing on such design, the City Council shall approve no contract for the construction of a new pump station, and no construction shall be approved if the design requires taking a portion of parkland extending more than 30 ft. to the west of the current pumping station fence into Riverside Park.”

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Thank you, Stockade Community and Riverside Park Protectors, for taking the time to consider the facts and factors surrounding the New Pump Station, especially the changes made after the October 2017 plan was approved. For a full account of the issues raised by the Secret May 2019 Plan, including images and links to materials, see  https://tinyurl.com/RenderingRuse
David Giacalone
P.S. If you would like more information or have a comment, please let some or all of the following folks know:
 

. . share this posting with this short URL: https://tinyurl.com/PSBriefing

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Summary of Pump Station Briefing. (pdf file; email to City Council from David Giacalone, June 21, 2020)

 
 
 
 

 

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