Bedford Minuteman
Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Letter: Liberty Mutual showed disrespect

Liberty Mutual was scheduled to make a presentation concerning its new
Hanscom hangar at last Tuesday's meeting of the Hanscom Field Advisory
Commission. Around 50 citizens attended to hold protest signs, voice their
opposition, and ask questions of Liberty Mutual's representative. It soon
became apparent that the presenter was not, in fact, an employee of Liberty
Mutual -- he was a manager for the construction company that Liberty Mutual
hired to build the hangar. Consequently, he was unable to answer most of the
citizens' questions, nor was he an appropriate person to receive our
comments.

As it turned out, the Liberty Mutual representative who was supposed to
appear at this meeting had called the chairman of HFAC a few days earlier to
say that he could not attend but would send another representative. He
didn't have the courtesy to tell the chairman that the substitute presenter
would not be a Liberty Mutual employee, even though (as we found out at the
meeting) he did tell Massport.

This action by Liberty Mutual shows astonishing disrespect for both HFAC and
our communities. HFAC is, among other things, a public forum where expansion
plans for Hanscom are legally required to be presented. HFAC member Margaret
Coppe stated that, in all her years on the commission, this is the first
time a proponent failed to show up to present its own project.

It is not acceptable for Liberty Mutual to create new jet infrastructure at
Hanscom, thus worsening the problem of noisy corporate jets over Minute Man
Park and Walden, without hearing and responding to community concerns.

HFAC will be requesting Liberty Mutual's representative to attend the July
meeting. In the meantime, a more direct approach to communicating with
Liberty Mutual is clearly called for. We urge citizens to send a short note
immediately to Liberty Mutual's president, Edmund Kelly, 175 Berkeley St.,
Boston, MA 02116. Tell him that Liberty Mutual should not be creating space
for still more corporate jets to crowd the skies over our historic towns. In
addition, if you are interested in participating in other protest actions
against Liberty Mutual, please call Save Our Heritage at 978-369-6662.

Marty Pepper Aisenberg
Projects Manager
Save Our Heritage

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