Responding to an informal request by MassDevelopment (MassDev), the organization that governs the Devens community, the attorney general’s office said this week it would advise MassDev on whether it has the authority to join a regional mosquito control program without the approval of towns that abut its boundaries.
Jill Butterworth, a spokesperson for the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, confirmed in a phone call with the Press that MassDev’s lawyer, Lee Smith, had “reached out” to the attorney general by e-mail on Tuesday for advice on how to proceed. She said that the attorney general’s “municipal law guru” would review Devens enabling legislation, bylaws, and other documents and offer “guidance” on whether MassDev can join the Central Massachusetts Mosquito Control Program (CMMCP) in the absence of affirmative votes by the town meetings of Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard. But another spokesman cautioned Wednesday that the attorney general had not yet received a formal request for an opinion. “If we were to offer an opinion,” he said, “it would be advisory only.”
An opinion of any kind from the attorney general’s office could finally end a debate between the Devens Committee, the Joint Boards of Selectmen of Shirley, Ayer, and Harvard (JBOS), MassDev, and the town of Harvard that has frustrated Devens residents and sparked behind-the-scenes debates among Harvard’s selectmen for nearly three years. Tom Kinch, a former chairman of the Devens Committee, can’t understand why the stalemate among the various bodies that share responsibility for Devens hasn’t been resolved by now. He has his own name for it: “mosquitogate.”
The Devens Committee is a five-member board elected by the roughly 100 homeowners and renters who are permanent residents of Devens. “We’re a virtual Board of Selectmen,” said Kinch in a recent interview with the Press, though its function is more like that of a homeowner’s association than a governing body. While the committee has no formal powers, as the official representative of Devens residents it meets regularly with MassDev to keep the organization informed of the concerns of the people who live in the community. Devens Committee members are also members of the JBOS, another advisory board to MassDev.
In 2007, at the urging of one or two residents who were concerned about the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, the Devens Committee asked MassDev to apply for membership in the Central Massachusetts mosquito control program. Kinch does not recall whether the committee voted on the matter or whether Devens residents were polled. The Press was unable to locate a committee agenda or minutes to settle the question in time for this edition. However, the matter has appeared regularly on committee agendas and in minutes since then and been discussed repeatedly by the JBOS, as well as the selectmen of surrounding towns.
Still, the request apparently had enough support for MassDev to petition the state’s Reclamation and Mosquito Control Board (SRMCB) to join the program in 2007. Membership normally requires the approval of a town meeting, but Devens is not a town. According to its minutes, the SRMCB conditionally approved the MassDev application at its March 28, 2007, meeting, but also asked MassDev to first “seek clarification with the three communities or with the attorney general” that it had the authority to do so. And there the matter has remained ever since. MassDev, prior to this week, apparently never sought an opinion from the attorney general, though the Press has been unable to confirm this conclusion. Harvard opted out of the mosquito control program—albeit by a narrow majority vote—more than 20 years ago and until this May, the Harvard BOS had not discussed the Devens request in a public meeting. Harvard Town Counsel Mark Lanza, however, has said that approval by an annual or special town meeting is needed, an opinion that has been challenged but never refuted.
This spring, with the Boston Globe reporting that mosquitoes were hatching two to three weeks earlier than normal and with bug populations likely to be greater due to heavy spring rains and higher-than-normal temperatures, the Devens Committee tried to “move the question” once again. This time the committee went to the JBOS and asked that the selectmen of the three neighboring towns be polled to say whether or not they would object to spraying at Devens within the boundaries of the Devens Enterprise Zone. Ayer is already part of the control program. Shirley is not a member, but its selectmen voted “no objection” in April. As for Harvard, on May 5, the morning after town elections, the Harvard BOS—ironically echoing the three-year-old decision of the SRMCB—finally debated and voted unanimously that it “had no objection,” but only “subject to the approval of the attorney general” and the “approval [by the town] of mitigation strategies to address the concerns of abutters [in Harvard].”
Though they voted in favor of “no objection,” Harvard selectmen Tim Clark and Marie Sobalvarro worry that the BOS may have exceeded its own authority in giving a green light to Devens without a public hearing. Sobalvarro has pressed BOS Chairman Peter Warren to put the issue on the agenda for a future meeting and Clark would like CMMCP and MassDev spokesmen to come to Harvard to answer questions from Harvard residents about the control program, its techniques, its chemicals, and its potential impact on abutting Harvard land.
Warren, however, said this week in a phone call with the Press, that as far as he’s concerned the issue “is dead” until MassDevelopment gets an opinion from the attorney general’s office. “I don’t see the point of going through this without a ruling,” he said, adding that, if state legal experts say MassDev has the authority to act, “then we’ll hold a public meeting with plenty of public notice where we can hear all sides.”
Meanwhile, Devens residents face yet another mosquito season without a definitive decision. “It was horrible last year,” said Kinch, who lives on Harvard land. “It’s frustrating. We’re not in control of our own destiny. We’re like an oasis.”