Ouch. That’s about the only way to summarize action taken by state Attorney General Maura Healey’s office in response to three Special Town Meeting articles aimed at Wheelabrator Saugus’ ash landfill.
Healey, the state’s tough top law enforcer, in a letter sent by her office to town officials, drew this conclusion concerning the landfill bylaws: “Even if the town had followed proper procedures, the bylaws nevertheless would be invalid on the merits under state law.”
Ouch. There is no way anyone in town with the title of manager, town attorney or Board of Selectmen member gets a warm and fuzzy feeling reading that sentence.
When Healey’s office first turned its attention to the landfill bylaws, the AG’s detailed letter to the town read like a bureaucratic bark up a tree signifying no real threat. That all changed when the AG’s office fired off its second letter condemning the bylaws as “…invalid on the merits…”
Cities and towns frequently gripe about state government imposing “unfunded mandates” with the state Legislature passing laws saddling local government with costs without providing money to meet those expenses.
But an unfunded mandate is much different than a bylaw passed on the local level that, in the final analysis, runs afoul of state law. Saugus town officials are educated, well-trained and talented people committed to their community’s welfare. Those qualities make it even harder to understand how a succession of town officials and boards all the way through the Special Town Meeting approved the landfill bylaws without someone presumably raising a red flag about the concerns the AG’s office focused on.
The flimsiest excuse the town could have offered in defense of the bylaws is that local officials never imagined a town matter could come under significant scrutiny from the AG. State Rep. RoseLee Vincent offered this argument in a roundabout way when she was quoted by The Item as saying, “I find it deeply troubling and disturbing that the people of the town cannot choose to restrict zoning of the height of landfills.”
It is important to note that Vincent chairs the Alliance for Health & the Environment, the organization that proposed the bylaws that went before Special Town Meeting. It is also important to note that as a state legislator, Vincent should know exactly where and when local ordinances overlap state law.
The biggest problem for Saugus when it comes to the AG’s ruling on the landfill bylaws is that the town has already run into trouble when it comes to local attempts to regulate landfills. Healey made a point of noting in her letter that a town attempt in 2003 to push through a landfill bylaw got struck down by state Land Court.
Board of Selectmen Chairwoman Debra Panetta argues that the bylaws deep-sixed by Healey’s office were written to protect Saugus citizens. That is the job of local officials but the AG clearly sent town officials a message about working with the town’s biggest corporate neighbor to ensure that health and safety are addressed in a manner that falls within the town’s scope of responsibility and does not butt heads with state law.
It’s back to the drawing board time in Saugus.
