Power houses

In Boston and in Massachusetts, authority isn't always in obvious hands

by Ben Geman

illustrations by Ans Purins

When Boston TV reporter Andy Hiller burned GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush this past fall with a surprise quiz asking the names of world leaders, the message was obvious. It wasn't that Bush should know who governs places like Chechnya in order to be competitive in new editions of Trivial Pursuit. He should know the names because they're important.

Anyone aiming to pull a Hiller locally and catch Massachusetts politicians without their homework done should bone up on questions such as these: what does the Energy Facilities Siting Board do? What's being discussed at the Governor's Advisory Council on Radiation Protection? And who's calling the shots for the South Boston Betterment Trust?

They're good questions because in Massachusetts these boards wield power -- and it's usually far from the public chambers of the legislature or City Hall. There are hundreds of such obscure local trusts and commissions. Some are trivial; some are influential. Here's a small sampling of some that matter.

Governor's Advisory Council on Radiation Protection

Near the FleetCenter, on the sixth floor of the small Portland Street office building that houses the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Radiation Control Program, is one of the less traveled of the state's sometimes public spaces: a bare-bones conference room adjacent to a mailroom and a food-preparation space.

The low-ceilinged room was recently home to a discussion about an important decision to be made by an obscure governmental body about a scary topic: the state response to nuclear accidents. On December 10, the Governor's Advisory Council on Radiation Protection debated whether the state should beef up its planned response by stockpiling pills that help block absorption of radioactive iodine into the thyroid gland.

Advocates say the practice, adopted by states including Maine and Tennessee, is crucial. Taking potassium iodide (KI) either before or just after exposure to radioactive iodine is particularly important for children, who are at greater risk of thyroid damage. KI advocates strongly recommend stockpiling the pills in schools.

But those in the nuclear industry say that stockpiling the little pills would be a big mistake. Attempts to dole out the pills, they say, could slow and confuse evacuation plans or create a false sense of security if people thought they'd immunized themselves, when KI fights just one radioactive element.

The board -- an unpaid body appointed by the governor -- is supposed to make a recommendation to state DPH commissioner Howard Koh in February. It's advice that he'll probably take. "If we are going to trouble this group with an evaluation and ask for a recommendation, in all likelihood we would follow it," says a DPH spokesperson.

The board's advice has been carried out before, according to DPH radiation-control head Robert Hallisey. It recommended that physicians ask patients with symptoms that could be linked to brain cancer whether they'd ever received radium treatments for sinus problems, a now-defunct practice that may have exposed patients to dangerous doses of radiation; and it advised Massachusetts on seeking the authority from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to oversee its own industrial and medical radioactivity users. (The NRC still oversees power plants.)

It's serious stuff. But the people making these decisions aren't household names, unless your household is obsessed with radiation. The volunteer group's chair is Duxbury resident and former DuPont employee Charles Killian; other members include David Seldin of the nuclear-medicine department at Burlington's Lahey Clinic Medical Center and Dan Burnstein, head of the Center for Atomic Radiation Studies in Brookline.

The board has no phone number, no office, and no Web site -- so it's hard to keep tabs on what it's doing. But, says Burnstein, interested parties -- like industry officials -- know where to find them on issues such as KI. "The industry has not spoken in public, and I assume they are speaking in private [with other board members], and my guess, and this is only a guess, is that they are saying, 'Let's not rock the boat, let's not worry anyone, let's not introduce KI into the mix,' " says Burnstein.

Anti-nuclear advocates call the board too friendly to the nuclear-power industry. "Their loyalty is with industry," says Matt Wilson, executive director of the Toxics Action Center (TAC). "The perspective of residents and a pure public-health perspective is not well represented."

Anti-nuclear activist Mary Lampert of Massachusetts Citizens for Safe Energy says the board isn't taking advantage of its independence, even though in theory it can make decisions "not based solely on politics." Lampert, who lives near the Pilgrim power plant, says the board has been "silent" on proposals to monitor the air around Pilgrim more thoroughly. "They are silent," she charges, "on anything that the utilities, who are best friends of the governor's office, do not want."

Like many obscure bodies, the Governor's Advisory Council on Radiation Protection meets in public -- the public just needs to know when and where to show up for the quarterly meetings. If you want to attend, contact the Department of Public Health at (617) 624-5200.

Energy Facilities Siting Board

Power is booming business in Massachusetts. In 1997, the legislature opened up the electricity market with a sweeping deregulation bill, creating a freer market for suppliers. Competition, the theory goes, will mean lower costs. It's not clear how much consumers will save in the long run, but other effects are obvious already -- energy firms are lining up to build a slew of new, cleaner power plants.

Before they build, however, they must pass muster with the Energy Facilities Siting Board. The board, a low-profile tribunal of high-level state officials including Division of Energy Resources head David O'Connor and state environmental-affairs secretary Robert Durand, controls the Department of Telecommunication and Energy's roughly $700,000 annual siting budget. It is empowered to approve new plant proposals, place environmental and other restrictions on the applications, or deny them outright.

"They are influential," says Steven Rothstein, managing director of National Energy Choice, a firm helping towns and businesses maneuver the new, deregulated energy-supply world. "We have a society built around energy use, and as the economy continues to grow and we need more power to support that, issues of where plants will be, whether they will be renewable energy, the cost requirements, the financial requirements -- all those impact everyone's life."

Lately, the siting board's been on a tear. Since the beginning of 1997, the group has approved seven plants; nine others are in the pipeline. Though other layers of state and local government also oversee the plans, the board has the broadest powers, says Joseph Fitzpatrick, senior vice-president of American National Power: "It's the one place where all the issues get vetted."

The nine-member board is controversial among environmentalists despite its push to approve the cleaner, gas-fired plants it hopes will one day replace the state's older, dirtier oil- and coal-fired monsters. The three plants approved for the Blackstone Valley -- set to join two existing plants -- have brought charges that the board is concentrating the Commonwealth's environmental burdens too densely.

That tension played out during a meeting of the Energy Facilities Siting Board December on 17, when the board approved a plant planned for Bellingham -- but not before taking lumps from people such as Donald Keller, a Mendon resident who thinks there are too many plants in the Blackstone Valley already. Keller, after condemning the plan, presented board members with a plaque from the Toxics Action Center, which recently named the board one of its "dirty dozen" environmental bad guys for siting so many plants too close together.

Cindy Luppi, organizing director with Clean Water Action, says the board isn't considering the "cumulative impact" of plants clustered near each other and adjacent to other hazards such as the Merrimack Valley's incinerators. "It's carrying a big stick these days," she says. "They see their role as getting the cleaner, gas-fired plants sited with the orientation that they are not going to question, 'Is that the best site?' "

But to board members, TAC's criticism is misguided. "This organization . . . protects the environment of the Commonwealth and sets many severe restrictions on power-plant developers to ensure that health and safety are protected," David O'Connor told the Phoenix. To keep tabs on what the energy siting board is up to, call (617) 305-3500.

South Boston Betterment Trust

It's a reliable city truism: political clout flows from South Boston. Voter turnout there is consistently high. Southie's Jimmy Kelly has been president of the Boston City Council for six years and a councilor since 1983. At-large councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen and at-large councilor-elect Michael Flaherty also hail from South Boston, giving the neighborhood two of the four citywide councilors (Davis-Mullen, it should be noted, is moving to West Roxbury).

Another Southie pol is US Representative Joe Moakley, the dean of the state's congressional delegation, who throws his weight around on local development issues.

So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the political might has spawned a development deal for South Boston that's making some city officials and others jittery. In a deal cut between South Boston pols and the city, the ordinance approving the $700 million convention center last year comes with a side deal giving South Boston at least half the "linkage" payments from future development on the city's waterfront, an area eyed by Mayor Tom Menino for substantial new development. (Linkage requires developers to pay, based on a project's size, into city trust funds for affordable housing and job training.)

The process spawned a new arm of the neighborhood's political leadership called the South Boston Betterment Trust, a 15-member body appointed in equal numbers (three apiece) by Kelly, State Senator Stephen Lynch, State Representative Jack Hart, Moakley, and Menino. Its charge? Steering the money that the waterfront development reaps for South Boston.

Much of this is theory -- most waterfront projects are on the drawing boards at best. But as the plan is implemented, the South Boston community will see a significant infusion of cash. Estimates vary on how much linkage money will flow from waterfront development. The most accepted estimate? A lot. The Boston Municipal Research Bureau believes that total linkage payments from Seaport development could be more than $60 million as the area is built up in coming years -- which means South Boston could see up to $30 million. For comparison's sake, that's bigger than the city's fiscal year 2000 housing-creation budget of $25 million, a figure expected to shrink next year because the current number includes revenue from the city's planned sale of the former police-department headquarters on Berkeley Street.

With so much at stake, questions about how much power the trust will or should wield are emerging. The "memorandum of understanding" outlining the linkage deal is dry stuff, but to insiders, it's like a Bob Dylan song -- people hear what they choose.

To Kelly, the wording creating the betterment trust and clauses funneling at least half the linkage money to South Boston means that all linkage dollars for Southie will go through the trust. And that's fine with Kelly, who says the trust will fight the area's gentrification.

"That's what this is all about, trying to prevent neighborhood people from being driven out," he says. (In an ironic twist, the Globe and others note that trust president Maryann McLeod Crush is an influential South Boston realtor, i.e., a gentrification catalyst.) Stephen Lynch similarly calls the trust a "blueprint" to allow South Boston to control its destiny. And he and Kelly say that meetings are open to the public -- to take them up on it, call either of their offices and ask when the group will meet.

But the trust makes people nervous. Marty Nee, former executive director of the South Boston Neighborhood Development Corporation, fears that the body is weighted too heavily toward the needs of home buyers and away from those of low-income renters.

If some of this sounds like a brewing food fight, it is. The Boston Redevelopment Authority -- which brokered the linkage deal under now-ousted BRA head Tom O'Brien -- does not sound as sure as Kelly that South Boston and the betterment trust will get more than half of the linkage money. BRA spokeswoman Susan Elsbree calls the 50 percent mark a "goal" and says the city will work with "all of South Boston" where linkage is concerned. Meanwhile, Sam Tyler, executive director of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, says the deal outlined in the memorandum of understanding is trumped by the state law that formalized linkage in the late 1980s, and by city zoning rules.

Kelly, however, says the deal is cut-and-dried. "I don't think it's rocket science," he says. No less basic is the importance of the Southie political base to Menino, who could get tangled in further conflicts over waterfront development and has been slow to criticize Kelly even when their goals collide. In other words, stay tuned.

Public Health Council

Surely one of the biggest consumer issues in the state is public health. Everyone, after all, gets sick. The Public Health Council, a governor-appointed volunteer board of doctors, consumers, and other professionals, keeps a low profile, but industry and consumer advocates know it wields a big stick at crucial times. The council is authorized to place conditions on the sales and mergers of hospitals, and to make a "determination of need" when a hospital wants to expand or add equipment.

"They are almost an anomalous organization within state government," says Andrew Dreyfus, executive vice-president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, who also served as undersecretary for consumer affairs and in other roles under former governor Michael Dukakis. "In essence, they act almost as a board of trustees over the Department of Public Health. I can't think of another state agency that has such a powerful body that oversees key decisions."

And their influence extends beyond mergers and sales. Minutes of recent meetings show the council deciding on proposed state-regulation changes on issues ranging from health and sanitation in prisons to lead-poisoning prevention.

But it's all done largely outside the public eye. "The Public Health Council is not well known, and in some cases it has been critical," says Marcia Hams, organizing director for Health Care for All, a consumer-advocacy group, who points out that as hospitals merge and restructure, the council plays a key role in protecting access to care for affected cities and towns when consumers air their concerns to members.

"Over the past several years, as merger activity has intensified, state government has become more activist in trying to place conditions on these mergers," adds Dreyfus.

Just ask the council members, who meet at least once per month. "This is not a rubber-stamp agency," Clifford Askinazi told the Boston Business Journal in 1997, when it questioned a merger between Lynn's AtlantiCare Medical Center and Partners Health Care System, Inc. Askinazi, chief of psychiatry at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, hasn't changed his tune since then. "You need some kind of fairly independent or significant group to be able to analyze the materials and the needs of the communities involved," he says. In other words, it's important to keep an eye on the hospitals.

In the past two years alone, Massachusetts has seen three hospital mergers, two sales, and several other new affiliations, closings, and changes, according to the Massachusetts Hospital Association. For consumers, it can be scary. And the market, says Hams, won't cure all ills, which makes the council crucial for consumers worried about changes in their local hospital systems. "The reality," she says, "is that consumers have no organized voice within that private market unless they have the support of bodies like these."

To reach the Public Health Council, call (617) 753-8139.

East Boston Foundation

For many kids (and adults), watching jet planes roar overhead during trips to the airport is cool. In East Boston, home to Logan International Airport, the thrill wore off a long, long time ago.

Relations between the neighborhood and the Massachusetts Port Authority, the quasi-public agency that runs Logan, are hardly rosy. Many say Massport has done too little to mitigate pollution from Logan. In East Boston and elsewhere, the agency's push to add another runway to Logan hasn't helped.

A deal struck last year between local politicians, Massport, and East Boston community leaders tried at least to soften the blow, securing about $10 million in funding for community programs and projects to be distributed over the course of eight years through a new entity called the East Boston Foundation. "Historically, East Boston has been at a disadvantage because of the presence of Logan, and this [funding] helps put East Boston on an even keel with surrounding communities," says Richard Lynds, the foundation's executive director.

It also makes the group -- whose members were appointed by Massport, Menino, the neighborhood's elected officials, and community groups like Air Inc., which fights for environmental mitigation from airport pollution -- one of the city's most important conduits of public dollars for education, green space, and other programs. It may be less cash than could flow into South Boston from linkage, but it's cash that's crucial to the relationship between Eastie and its loud neighbor. So far, the foundation has doled out more than $600,000 for a variety of projects, from technology programs to youth hockey.

If the foundation is an important part of East Boston, it has also been controversial. Lynds is a former aide to former East Boston state representative Gus Serra, who left office to work for . . . Massport. Serra helped establish the foundation, raising concerns that the neighborhood pol would wield too much power over the new group and tilt the body in favor of Eastie's more established, more conservative interests.

Also, though money coming into the group is funneled through the city, the group does not meet in public, which bothers some observers, such as East Boston community activist and Air Inc. member Mary Ellen Welch. "It would be helpful if they were open," she says. "It would be good for community people and others to see how much money is being dispensed, what kinds of groups are getting the money, and what's involved with putting a proposal together."

That said, the anti-Logan-expansion activist credits the group with donating to a "wide spectrum" of interests in East Boston. Even among the neighborhood's more left-leaning residents, there's a sense of opportunity to do good. "The amount of money is a powerful tool for the good of the neighborhood," says Phil Giffee, executive director of Neighborhood of Affordable Housing, a community-development corporation that received $30,000 for rebuilding a courtyard at a neighborhood housing development. "Spent wisely and fairly, it will have a healthy influence on the growth and development of the neighborhood."

Ben Geman can be reached at bgeman[a]phx.com.