Is Maura Healey’s Big Green Plan a Big Green Quid-Pro-Quo?
Years ago I began reaching out to Massachusetts AG Maura Healey on an issue I fought tooth and nail for. Something I began elevating in 2017 thinking I’d have in my possession for about two weeks and then once the union knew about it I could return to my life. That didn’t happen till January 2021.
But this article is about how I perceive Beacon Hill works. You see, I thought AG Healey’s office would take on the fight for me. I bombarded her office with emails and calls. I was strung along for a few years with responses like: ‘thank you Diane, or ‘we see this as an environmental issue’…
But that changed when, after one particularly revealing email, exposing union corruption, and that I feared for my life, the response would be, “call 911”. I kid you not. 😒
Why would AG Healey not take this issue on? I began emailing her and her staff in 2018. Over the years I’ve had maybe 3 calls with her staff. No communication from AG Healey in addition to 193 emails to her and her officers.
I chalk that up to the fact that she may have been advised not to have any contact with me — during a particularly difficult period of the IAFF Schaitberger Administration, the Mass Firefighter Union saw me as a problem.
She had no interest in hearing my findings. NONE. NO effort was made on the MASS AG’S office to investigate my claims. The reason I know this is because I wanted to relay evidence of corruption I had been trusted with. I gave slang examples that should have sounded 9 alarms. No one in the AG’s office wanted to hear about the corruption. There would be no call from Healey’s office to interview me.
In the end the firefighters did what she never did. Massachusetts firefighters are suing the gear manufacturers and the AFFF makers for their cancers.
Being confused why she would not communicate with me, the wife of a firefighter — as she seemed to be quite a favorite of PFFM leadership, I thought why would she not take this on… the staggering amounts of PFOA and PFAS in their turnout gear? Then, in 2022 I saw this article on ‘old money’.
Healey has not been shy about hitting up ML/Mintz for cash, raking in a total of $85,629 from Mintz lawyers and lobbyists over the last decade, according to campaign finance reports.
I thought I’d look at ML Strategies. They sound like they do good things for the environment. After all, they help push the green legislation Maura Healey wants. I started by looking at the website:
… then the areas of ‘services’…
… then I became alarmed when I saw how they boast their long reaching arms into …. BEACON HILL.
But my gig is firefighters and PFAS.. and I've battled long enough and had no interest in another fight.. till I saw this: 😒😒😒
As an activist we see this all the time. We call it ‘spin’.. aka as creating doubt. this is the ‘slight of hand’ and the ‘not enough science’ and ‘we don’t yet know the health effects of PFAS’, and the ‘only a few PFAS have been studied’.
So why then, when Maura Healey announced her lawsuit against PFAS manufacturers for AFFF and touted the MA PFAS Task Force firefighter testimonies, why did she not mention the GEAR? The Task Force gave a magnificent report on the firefighter segment. Much of it centered around the gear. It was nothing new to her. She’s been on my receiving end since 2018.
IMO — Maura Healey waits to be told what to do and when to do it. That’s dangerous. Very. Very. Dangerous.
Her campaign manager is Jason Burrell:
Jason Burrell.. from ML Strategies.
Who will be the real benefactor of the Big-Green Healey Plan? The people of Massachusetts? Or the Fortune 100 companies ML Strategies represents?
Choose wisely Massachusetts.
dc