WOW, great BOS meeting, huh? Yep. Told you so. Dover amendment applies. Nope, even though the town ordered the covenants as a condition for the cluster plan approval, Wareham is NOT a beneficiary. Really? Then why insist on them in the first place unless there existed some need to have them or some, yep, benefit for the town. While the Town may not have enforcement rights, perhaps the argument could be made successfully that it is, regardless, responsible for them and also perhaps liable for their enforcement.

The benefit for the Town was to insure an already clustered subdivision, with undersized lots, did not become a hodgepodge of non-conforming structures by the willy-nilly issuance of building permits with homes being in such close proximity to each other. Unbridled additions, or further development would have affected the values of the homes and therefore affected the town financially. (consideration)

What you saw last night was a very bright man, and Jay is one of the brightest, trying not to spank his bad dog in front of the children and public, but at the same time letting them all know that they have no one to blame but Burke and Andrews for this mess should it get to the litigation phase. 

(Note: no matter how good your attorney, he cannot rise above a client who lies to him or hides the facts. I would keep that in mind as this progresses.)

And consider also; every time two parties go to court both have an opinion from their attorneys that the law is on their side. Just because Jay says its so is not indicative of how the law suit will proceed and I’m not referring to White suing Wareham. The town has not heard the end of this from the residents is my guess.

What Jay really said was, had either Burke or Andrews informed the BOS early enough on or denied the permit which would have put the matter before the Zoning Board of Appeals, we would have had many more options to affect this outcome. No you say, well if it were not true then Jay would not also have recommended that we write a new policy as an early warning system. You see, due to the arrogance or incompetence exhibited by Burke and Andrews, we have bound the town to a course which should it deviate from now, it would suffer potentially enormous financial loss or so they tell us.

OK, but even all of that is spilled milk. It’s done. The BOS will not fight the fight because they have allowed themselves to be unwittingly maneuvered into a well-orchestrated and planned outcome. They have their directed opinion covering about every offense committed and they have also put the emotional and financial burden of protecting the Town on the backs of a few homeowners. “Good day’s work BOS. We’ll have two more beers over here!”

There are two questions; Will the BOS take action to insure that this does not happen again and then hold those responsible to account? I’ll give you 5/2 against.

Lynne Road, as I have stated numerous times, is a sad matter, but the more important item to our welfare is that we need to deal with a systemic propensity to be told and accept half truths and complete lies when speaking to certain town officials. We need to impress upon our BOS that truth does matter and the mere fact that we get past one issue or another here and there does not mitigate the fact that people we employ feel perfectly safe lying to the voters in the surety that the BOS will protect them. We have a systemic cancer, which needs correcting, and then all the Lynne Roads will miraculously stop.

The BOS needs to accept that their job is to enforce all the rules and laws, not just the ones which are convenient or with which they agree.

Wareham is about to hear from a higher authority. The next few weeks should be interesting. The only question really is will there be 2 or 7 public spankings.

Let’s recap:

The permit for Lynn Road was issued on April 14, 2011. According to Jay, the Town may have acted to revoke or challenge that issuance if it had done so within 30 days.


The citizens of Lynne Road asked both Myles Burke and Mark Andrews what could be done to stop the facility beginning shortly after the permit issued.

As late as may 25th people were still asking Andrews for an explanation of Lynne Road and he’s still ignoring people.

On may 27th, Town gets letter from State regarding Burke. State has notified Town that Burke may not issue permits or do inspections.

When asked why he issued permit for group home in a residential neighborhood, Myles first claims that he did not know it was to be a group home and that he was not aware of the covenants.

When confronted with the fact that the town did know of the covenants, Myles jumps to a new horse, then states that CMR 780 covering group homes applied and he had no choice but to issue the permit. OK, so now he’s issuing a permit for a group home he’s already claimed he was unaware of. Good and you?

Lynne Road residents unable to get a straight answer from Burke or Andrews ask and get on the BOS agenda.

30-day appeal period on permit expires.

Senator Pacheco says, “TOO BAD WAREHAM”.

Andrews holds a meeting in his office with two Fellowships execs, a rep from the Sate DMH, Burke and two citizens, but does not invite any Selectman,

Andrews tells resident that Town Counsel looking into Lynne Road.

Andrews tells Cruz residents are A-OK with the sex offenders helping their kids off the bus.

Andrews/Cruz remove Lynne Road from BOS agenda because residents are “satisfied”

Pesky residents won’t go away and Andrews schedules workshop meeting which he does not attend.

Cruz refuses to put Lynne Road on BOS agenda.

Residents show up for citizen’s participation.

Andrews has a medical emergency and misses meeting.

At 21st meeting, Town Counsel states that he had heard about Lynne Road for the first time only the week before, nine weeks after the fact, but the information packet he needed to address it had been delayed in reaching him for some reason and he’d only received that on Monday June 20th. Jay confirmed those dates last night.

Apparently, Andrews held the information from Town Counsel until the night before the next BOS meeting, which caused a delay until this week for Town Counsel to render an opinion. Another week lost.

Facility scheduled to open July 1st.

At 21st meeting Cruz assures citizens that nothing more will be done with Lynne Road until Town has legal opinion from Town Counsel on 28th. Refuses to take an actual vote to clarify what he promised, so I’m sure it’s my misunderstanding but:

on Friday the 24th, Town issues another building permit to Group Home facility despite Cruz’s promise. WTF!

I understood Jay to say last night that the check box on the building card indicating HOA covenants did not apply because applying the HOA covenants was a local rule or zoning issue, which would be waived by the Dover amendment. Therefore, I assume Jay was now admitting that the HOA information was on cards, or known to the Building Department, yet Myles Burke and BOS members had previously stated that the Town was not aware of those restrictions or they would have honored them. Honoring and enforcing are two entirely different legal issues.

Past practice has proven that the building department did insist on HOA approval for permits on Lynne Road.

The town could have protected itself by hiding behind the HOA covenants.

Burke would have been entirely within his rights to deny the permit based on use, zoning and the HOA covenants and sent the applicant to the ZBA for a ruling. 

A properly credentialed Inspector with the requisite years in the building trade who possessed the mandatory college degree with all the necessary years in municipal enforcement who had also passed the certification test and had taken all the current continuing educational courses would certainly know all the legalities related to CMR 780 this or CMR007 that and cluster zoning and HOA rules. Right. Oh yes, Myles Burke does not meet the minimum standards to be a Director of Inspectional Services, or have any of those other resume entries which would allow him to issue occupancy permits or to hold the job he has, but lucky for us he knows all the rules inside and out. Really?

At every juncture, Andrews could reasonably be accused of blocking Town/BOS involvement in this issue. Now we have missed the 30-day deadline for action and coincidently, the Attorney General is rattling her saber and intimating a civil rights action. Am I the only one who recognizes the convenient timing and the coincidental nature of this threat coming as Town Counsel is delivering a legal opinion? Smell like a favor by a senator called in by a Wareham official for a friend in the construction business to you?

Jay is correct when he states that Town’s are allowed to make certain kinds of errors and that they may act differently in the same circumstances without penalty. Really? Well maybe with this caveat: as long as that action is not malicious, conspiratorial or intended to advantage one person or group at the expense of another.

I hear that perhaps that other folks are about to weigh in on this and maybe other matters as well. Andrews may not be the only one with friends in high places. This is not over quite yet.

Someone said tonight that Andrews would be gone in 2 years. Perhaps we can do better than that if we refuse to accept this madness and do what he is hoping we do, forget and move on. Let’s not!