BEVERLY, Mass. — June 23, 2014 — The city’s push to change the zoning of its working waterfront has drawn mostly silence from one key constituency.
Commercial fishermen did not respond to a state agency’s request for written comments on the prospect of lifting the waterfront’s classification as one of the state’s designated port areas.
Estelle Rand, the Ward 2 city councilor who represents the waterfront, said she has not been contacted by any commercial fishermen, and several lobstermen contacted for this story declined to comment.
Rich Malewicki, who lobstered out of Beverly for 14 years until last year, said commercial fishermen tend to work as individuals and are not organized as a group.