(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

By Chris Dwan

On October 7, 2017, Newport Construction and their subcontractor Northern Tree Service removed 38 street trees along Beacon Street in Somerville, MA. They did this with none of the notice or public process required under either city ordinance or state law.

After sustained public outcry, and extensive discussion in city council, our Public Works Division finally issued a citation against Newport in January of 2019. We demanded $38,000 — a thousand bucks per tree. This was an absolute pittance in the context of a multi-year roadway project. It also wildly underestimated the value of the trees, making no distinction between a sapling (which the city can install for around $1k) and a mature tree with 20 to 30 years of growth.

Newport’s CEO responded brassily to the citation, writing that he had “no intention of paying” and “considered the matter closed.” This led to more public conversation, and the city eventually filed a lawsuit against Newport and their subcontractor Northern Tree Service in Superior Court in November of 2019.

In May of this year, more than three years after that filing and five and a half years after the removals, the city appears to have quietly allowed the lawsuit to expire by failing to respond to an “Order for Status Review” from the court.

I wrote a piece on Medium in January of 2020 describing the cozy deal that seems to exist between MassDoT and Newport Construction. In that post, I shared how the project’s woes and negative reviews were determinedly swept under the rug in a series of private meetings between the state and the company. The final project evaluation, signed off in early 2021, makes no mention of the fact that the city literally sued Newport over the way we were treated.

In that post, I noted that Mr. DeFelice had donated a total of $1,000 to Joe Curtatone’s campaigns just as the Beacon Street project was getting started. I made a half-hearted swipe about how if this was the corruption that I’ve heard so much about in this city, then we’re damn cheap. We abandoned our lawsuit more than a year into Katjana Ballantyne’s first term. Mr. DeFelice did not donate to her campaign, so in that same half-hearted spirit, we’ve gone from cheap to free.

More seriously though, I don’t posit corruption or malice as a motive. I suspect it’s more along the lines of a line from a Taylor Swift song: “It isn’t love it isn’t hate / It’s just indifference.” I suspect that this lawsuit, the citation, and all the time spent in public and private conversations is perceived by many in the administration as an inconvenient waste of time. I suspect that it was a surprise to the Mayor to learn that the lawsuit had been abandoned. I don’t know for sure. Neither she nor the law department has responded to my messages.

This situation is a shame on a couple of fronts.

First and foremost, it sends an unambiguous signal to contractors, developers, and others that we lack the discipline to hold people accountable. Folks who live in the lower numbered wards, near Union Square and Brickbottom in particular, are painfully familiar with developers and contractors running roughshod over residents, confident that the city will continue to look the other way.

Second, as I said in my public comment on Somerville’s charter reform process: This “makes a mockery of advocacy, wastes community engagement, and threatens to dissipate the civic activism that is so foundational to Somerville’s culture.” Seeing time and engagement thrown away discourages people at a time when we desperately need more voices, perspectives, and engaged citizens to address our multitude of crises.

In closing though, I will admit that things are not all terrible: We got plenty of good energy from that bad situation. The council passed an ordinance regulating the removal of trees on private property. We have an active and engaged tree committee to connect residents, landscape professionals, and city staff. The city has staffed and funded programs for tree planting, pruning, and removal. I even flatter myself to think that all this work has activated a few additional civic-minded people who are now putting in hours to make our city a better place for all of us.

Still, it’s still frustrating to see accountability slip away when the law department and the mayor fail to respond to a status request from the court about our very own lawsuit.