Brockton businessman Ed Byers remains steadfast in fight against power plant

The Enterprise of Brockton, Mass., www.enterprisenews.com
By Kyle Alspach
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
BROCKTON — On a city radio program, a former mayor of Brockton touted plans for a new power plant when the other guest on the show, Ed Byers, interrupted.
Again.
You have some totally wrong information, Byers said sternly to John T. Yunits Jr.
Compared to Yunits — a seasoned politician who had spent a decade at the helm of the city — Byers was an unknown, a Brockton businessman with no public experience.
Yet Yunits had a tough time getting a word in.
That was in mid-2007, in the early days of Byers campaign against a proposed 350-megawatt plant. Since then, Byers hasnt let up.
During the past two years, Byers has pursued politicians both locally and in Boston, hounded city leaders who hinted at supporting the project, traveled to similar plants in New England to record video, spent hundreds of hours at meetings and launched an unrelenting campaign in local media and on his Web site to stop the project.
Perhaps no single person has had as much impact on the citys next election, just nine days away.
He has done it for the city, he says, not just for Cindys Kitchen, his natural salad dressing and dips manufacturing business which would be next door to the plant.
We owe him a debt of gratitude for what he did, said Brockton Mayor James E. Harrington, who once clashed with Byers over the project but has since joined forces.
Now Byers, who said he has personally spent a six-figure sum on the campaign, thinks victory is close in the wake of a unanimous vote by the state Energy Facilities Siting Board to let the city decide if the plant should be built.

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