While we understand, appreciate and agree with the premise of looking out for our planet, there should also be an understanding of how that should be accomplished here in Kingston.

Senior Center: First, it is important to realize that there are other colors out there that need the same focus as Green; that would be Silver. For years now we have kicked around the dream of a Senior Center to serve the needs of the fasting growing age group in our community. Locations both publicly and privately owned have been bantered about for decades. Scores of seniors hoping to see such a Center have long since departed without seeing the dream emerge.

The most viable location is adjacent and behind the Town Hall and the time to see it happen is now. While it appears that the Conservation Commission is working cooperatively with the Senior Center Building Committee, we continue to hear grumbling from other environmental quarters about the unsuitability of the land. We believe that people must come first and that all things are possible once hands are joined in a common goal. With the collective talents of those who believe they guard the portals of “Green”, there is surely a responsible way to achieve the goals of “Silver” as well.

Green Committee: Few can complain that the current and future environmental needs of our world are in need of help. It is also important to understand that much of that good work may not be accomplished in the next half hour or even the day after tomorrow.

Process must be adhered to, first because it is the law, and secondly because it is important that the public see and understand the goals in a clearly defined path. If you look at the activities of the Green Committee you will only find two sets of minutes from 2007 to the present.

While we realize that there are circumstances that could have delayed on-line postings, which is no excuse for two sets (September 18 and October 16) within the entirety of a 12 month period.

The minutes of September say very little. There is no discussion of the new Idling Policy and nary a word about windmills. With no funding, we are unsure how the Committee expend funds for sign purchases or accounts for membership dues; no “gifts” have been accepted by the Selectmen.The October minutes say even less. The public record for going green totals 71 words -- with 18 of them consumed on a motion to adjourn. No time was given so you don’t know how long they met in order to generate less than 100 words, none of which mentions windmills.

“Idling – Potential Proclamation” was all that was said on that issue which now graces the Town Website, the result of a Press Release issued on February 20. This leads to another point, the release was submitted to the following newspapers in order to get the word out: Kingston Reporter, Patriot Ledger, Brockton Enterprise and the Boston Globe. There seems to be a publication that was passed over.

We don’t bring this up because we are hurt or insulted, however, if your goal is to disseminate the information to the widest range of the general public, then you include all media, whether or not they have been critical of your process. The Observer is widely distributed and read in Kingston, by friend and foe. Between the hard copy edition, available free, and an active website, they should have truly been thinking Green instead of crimson.

The Green Committee will be attempting to zone three parcels for Wind Turbine Overlay Districts. What began as a single project as part of the 1021 Kingston Place project to be sited on Town property at the sewer plant site, has now escalated into a potential $10 million project. In the case of the 34 acre Virginia Davis property adjacent to the 40-R O’Donnell site, The Green Team wants the entire 34 acres in the District.

Property owner Virginia Davis appeared before the Planning Board last week chiding the GC for never informing her of the proposed overlay. She reminded them that she is still the owner of the property. This is precisely the kind of shortcuts that cannot be taken. What has the public really heard about the facts regarding windmills? The 42 page on-line Draft Feasibility Study Report is now nine months old and has been replaced with a 75 page Report dated February 12.

Although suggested in the Report, the GreenCom has yet to begin the process of public outreach, especially important when considering the cautions referenced in the Study. An example would be found in Section 5.6 that reads “…the wind project will indeed have perceptible noise and visual impacts on the surrounding community.”
While there is some sense of low level awareness of the project, no information has been forthcoming from the Davis property or the third site adjacent to Plymouth near Exit 5.

Open Space Committee: Elsewhere you will read of the appalling record by this Committee to provide minutes of their sessions. Like the GreenCom, Open Space is one of those groups running well below radar with no paper trail to follow. With both Committees, there are huge sums of money in play.

While grant money may be initially available, the ancillary costs will remain in perpetuity. With tax increases an absolute given, citizens must weigh carefully that which they wish to embrace; this is not possible when the information is not made readily available. There too, is often a blur between private and public interests. With Pine DuBois serving on the Open Space Committee, the Green Committee, the Community Preservation Committee and the Conservation Land Review Committee, she can move freely between wish lists for her private operations with the Watershed Association/Heritage Center.

Whether it be purchasing land through Grants and business/private donations for the old boatyard property for private use by DuBois’s ventures, or embracing a piece of Marshall Joyce wetlands for the community at Town Meeting, much of it smacks of crossover interests. Clearly the team of Mark Beaton and Pine DuBois are taking the Town to new vistas that cannot be judged at this time, but is well worth paying more attention to. It is also evident the agenda is now creeping well into the electoral process.

The Next Several Years: Change is inevitable, no question, but how wrenching are we to expect it to be and will ‘change’ plunge the Town into an abyss that will have profound negative effects? The 10-21 Kingston Place 40-R was to be the panacea that would rid us of financial woes; a dangerous mindset to embrace. The Home Rule Petition has yet to be assigned a number or a hearing.

The housing market is depressed and we are anticipating a new southbound lane that will get people out of Kingston quicker which means more traffic coming in. Nothing is going to happen any too soon, it is to Lloyd Geisinger’s advantage to lay low for a while. He is not even slated for a Sewer Commission meeting, thus, the issue of whether the 730 unit project will be sewered or go with an on-site system need not be answered and the Sewer Commissioners can do an even slower burn. 200 apartments is what will be built making them easier to rent but making it more difficult to attract market price homeowners. Services will increase as will the numbers of school age children.

The project is currently and will remain off schedule thus affecting the financial forecasts that were claimed two years ago. We may well emerge as the greenest whistle-stop along the Old Colony Rail Line. New construction in America’s Home Town will derive great benefit for Plymouth at Kingston’s expense. Exit 5 will flourish; William C. Gould Way will be a boost for Plymouth with a large hotel and more car dealerships for Marty’s and Sullivan Brothers (If they weren’t a part of the action on the Plymouth side they’d be squawking). There are plans for Exit 8 that hasn’t been felt at this juncture... but we’ll be the Greenest town on the South Shore with money being the biggest component.

The Bottom Line: There is no question that our planet is in peril and that the only way to avert or minimize the consequences of generations of neglect and environmental degradation is through radical changes in private attitudes and public policies. But the change we seek can not happen in a vacuum. The process must be open, transparent and publicly accountable. We must not engage our common problems with an elitist mindset that only a ‘select’ few among us are wise enough to know what is best for the rest of us. We must all become the protectors and the guardians of the environment and environmental action can’t be the special preserve of a chosen few – it is the mutual responsibility of every citizen and committee in and out of government.

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