Ok, by now most of us know the story. When the town bought the property the community center sits on, with the building itself, it was sold to the town for a song, but with "conservation deed restrictions". These restrictions prohibit, any building, or sign erection for any commercial purposes WHATSOEVER!
These restrictions are owned by the Forestry Society. And organization whose SOLE PURPOSE is the preservation of land in its natural state. This is an organization of over 10,000 members, with a multi-million dollar budget.
The Forestry Society warned the selectmen in two letters earlier in the year, about the deed restrictions. The selectmen, under the guidance of our Town Administrator, Russ McAllister, and Chairman, Jack Sapia, decided to ignore these restrictions to give Mr. Pappalardo permission to put a sign for his business on town property, violating these restrictions. But it gets better, They not only gave Mr. Pappalardo permission to put his sign there, when he went to the ZBA for his variance, the selectmen WENT TO THE ZBA, AS THE PROPERTY OWNERS, TO LOBBY ON BEHALF OF MR. PAPPALARDO!!! That's right, the selectmen you elected to represent YOU, the taxpayer, went before a town board to represent a resident against the town!!!
But wait, you haven't heard the best part....
When confronted, on camera, by Ms. Komornick, in a selectmen's meeting, Sapia claimed that Mr. Pappalardo, had had a pre-existing sign on that site for 25 years.
This was untrue! Call it a lie, call it what you want, but the DOT plot during the land taking from Mr. Pappalardo show that prior sign WAS IN PLAISTOW!!! Both Russ and Jack claimed that the prior sign was there, and they were just allowing him to put it back, this was untrue! The prior sign was in Plaistow!!! There never was a sign in Atkinson!
And better yet, when Mr. Sapia was asked by the Forestry Society when the board of selectmen gave Mr. Pappalardo permission to put his sign up, Jack told Mrs. Callahan that it was done in a posted meeting. This too was untrue! A review of all selectmen's meeting minutes for the year, show no discussion, or vote to give that permission.
Now the Forestry Society, if they so choose, have the right to take back the Community Center, and either place further restrictions on the property, or do what they wish, and why?????
BECAUSE OUR SELECTMEN, NAMELY, MR. SAPIA, CHOSE TO DO SOMETHING HE HAD NO RIGHT TO DO, ONCE AGAIN!
So it looks like at the least, we will be back in court again, more legal fees, and for what, to violate deed restrictions after being warned about thier existence.
A Note to Mr. Sapia;
YOU ARE NOT KING JACK!
YOU MUST FOLLOW THE LAW, AND ACT IN OUR BEST INTERESTS! Even if, ESPECIALLY IF, our interests diverge from your own.
It is time for a change!
Ever since Jack was elected, it has been one court case after another, when will it stop?
ReplyDeleteCan this board do ANYTHING without ending up in court?
Just 3 short years ago we had this activist resident who sat in the audience of every BOS meeting. He decided to run for a seat on the board. He promised all the residents of Atkinson he would return the power to the people. He won and even started his term by moving his seat to the other side of the table to be "one of us" and prove the people have the power. I guess we better use the power we have because he sure has changed.
ReplyDeleteAs my friend Johnny T. once quipped,
"You can't change people,
but you can change their address."
Time to change.....
after driving by, and noticing that the sign has already been put up, guess there will be little chance of it ever coming down.
ReplyDeleteAgain with the consistancy.......
ReplyDeleteI wish I could shit with the kind of consistancy that the BoS show in their dicission making. How can any group do the absolute wrong thing every single time. What is it going to take to get rid of the BoS and I mean Ronald McDonald McAllister as well.
WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE!!
Ohh yeah. I am really fired up after reading the last 2 submissions. It's like the town is being run by the three stoges and they even have the unknown fourth one in the act (McAllister)
All I can say if you are new to this blog is
WELCOME TO THE SHOW...............
Also any update on the shafting that Linda Jette is taking from the three stoges?
ReplyDeleteI hope you are skeptical enough to go read the actual public documents which are clear and irrefutable evidence showing how our ZBA and Selectmen have put the Atkinson Community Center at risk. They are all online at the Atkinson Taxpayer Association website:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atkinsontaxpayers.org/atkinson/category/issues/
Read copies of the deeds showing the deed restrictions. They are part of the document named "Conservation Letter to Board of Selectmen".
Also available are the ZBA meeting minutes. Our ZBA, led by none other than Frank Polito, who demonstrated, in my opinion, a complete lack of judgement in pushing the variance forward despite objections at the meeting by a member of the Society for the Protection of NH Forests (SPNHF).
We are in deep doodoo my friends. I fully expect the SPNHF to file litigation to protect their future interest in this property. And it is no joke. The deed has a clearly stated provision for a "right of re-entry upon condition broken". And guess what, our ZBA and Selectmen just handed a variance that would allow a COMMERCIAL sign to be put on TOWN CONSERVATION LAND with deed restrictions no less. This is oxymoronic.
For our Selectmen, ZBA Chairman, and Town Administrator Mr. McAllister to ignore TWO letters from SPNHF, deed restrictions and the open objections from a person from the SPNHF, TO PUT THE ATKINSON COMMUNITY CENTER AT RISK, is by far the single dumbest thing I have ever seen.
These govt officials think they can do whatever they want.
I hope you are skeptical enough to read:
- ZBA minutes
- Letters from SPNHF to the town
- Letter from Leigh Komornick warning the town not to do this
- A document right off of the SPNHF website "Society for NH Forests Fact Sheet".
- Copies of deeds
As the ZBA minutes state, when Sarah Callahan of SPNHF spoke at the ZBA meeting to advise of the deed restrictions, here is how the minutes read:
"She stated there was a conservation restriction on this town owned 5 acre
property and when the property was conveyed, it extinguished the Towns right to place a
commercial sign on the property. Mr. Polito stopped her and said it this was not material
to the Zoning Board and their decision for this hearing. He said that as far as the Board is
concerned, the Town owns that land and if the town grants permission to Mr. Pappalardo
to place a sign on the property, the ZBA is satisfied that Mr. Pappalardo has standing to
apply for zoning relief to erect a sign."
Brilliant. Just brilliant Mr. Moderator. I just hope we don't lose the Community Center.
But people, please don't take my word for it. Go read the documents for yourselves.
We get what we deserve. Until a majority of the residents of Atkinson decide that they will NO LONGER tolerate this type of corrupt governance, we will be reading stories like this for a long, long time.
ReplyDeleteAtkinson residents may be waking up, however. They supported the water bill that prevents (hopefully)Hampstead water from sucking our land dry. That's a step in the right direction.
Maybe losing the community center as a result of out of control power mongers will be good for the residents of Atkinson. It could spark CHANGE!
To Anon @ 8:09 pm,
ReplyDeleteActually Frank was right on this one, the ZBA's only authority in this matter was the variance for the size of the sign, that was before them. The issue of placement of the sign was a selectmen issue, and not one for the ZBA to be concerned with, so Frank acted correctly.
The person whose conduct was deplorable was Jack! A selectmen who is sworn to represent the people of atkinson, can not represent one before another town board, especially to the dtriment of the many.
And he told Mrs. Callahan of the Forestry Society that the board made the decision to give Mr. Pappalardo permission in a "posted"(public) meeting. This was just another untruth. It hapenned in a meeting on the site, with Mr. Pappalardo.
Jack also said that there was a pre-existing sign there for 25 years. If you look at the DOT Land tkaing documents the original sign was in Plaistow!, It was NEVER an Atkinson issue, and even if it were, the selectmen did not own the right to construct a sign on that property, to give that permission away. This is just another outrage from the most corrupt board of selectmen in my memory, and I have lived here for 40 years.
Mark, I respectfully disagree that Mr. Polito did the right thing.
ReplyDeleteI think the right thing to do would have been to defer the ZBA meeting for 30 days to get written opinion from town counsel on the matter.
If such written opinion exists, then we need to see it. I simply doubt a real estate attorney such as Sumner Kalman - had he been asked the correct questions - would not have said it puts the Community Center at risk. DUH.
Unfortunately for us, we have town counsel that only gives answers to specific questions and does not provide GUIDANCE on such matters. This way, when our Selectmen screw up like this situation, he gets more legal work - BUT, he can "honestly" say, he answered the questions he was given.
If we cannot get good guidance from our town legal counsel, he needs to be replaced. I am fed up with this game the Selectmen play where they hide behind "answers from Town Counsel to questions" and not "what is the right thing to do for the town".
We need an attorney that will help us do the right thing for the town and not just enrich himself. His retainer has been tripled!! It is costing us $42K a year! And for incomplete legal advice, in my opinion. There are plenty of good lawyers who will do better for the taxpayers for less money.
As for the ZBA, in my opinion, Frank knew better but played the loopholes to get this sign variance approved - for some reason unknown to us. I think once the facts come out, other ZBA board members will not be pleased.
And the taxpayers will be quite upset.
By the way, the link to those documents was cutoff in the above posting.
http://www.atkinsontaxpayers.org/
atkinson/category/issues/
I hope people will see and read the evidence for themselves. I found it quite shocking.
Is there anything we can do legally, besides voting these people out of office? Can we bring all of these abuses of power up with the Attorney General's Ethics Committee??
ReplyDeleteI can see it now - Sapia and crew will be voted out of office and they will again refuse to abide by laws of the state and the will of the people - they will refuse to leave office! Hey, it's just the law, it don't mean a thang!
Sorry folks, the URL to these documents about the risk to losing the Atkinson Community Center just moved to:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atkinsontaxpayers.org/
atkinson/category/zba/
We are still under construction.
plus, there is a whole bunch of new documents under "Lawsuits". Read 'em and weep. What a fortune in legal fees and increased liabilty insurance rates the taxpayers have to pay because of Consentino. These are your hard earned dollars being burnt up.
http://www.atkinsontaxpayers.org/
atkinson/category/lawsuits/
Perhaps the blog author might consider posting at least part of this article from today's Union Leader.
ReplyDeleteIt is about honors given out last night to NH recipients at the First Admendment Awards Dinner in Manchester.
One award was about stopping secret town meetings another about money hidden in a town's budget.
Perhaps next year Atkinson should nominate someone from our town.
--------------------------------
First Amendment Awards: Fighting for freedoms
By SCOTT BROOKS
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
4 hours, 32 minutes ago
MANCHESTER – The 2002 McCain-Feingold Act that put restrictions on campaign contributions and expenses is the most dangerous threat to the First Amendment in U.S. history, columnist George Will said last night in Manchester.
"I've been in Washington 37 years and I believe the worst law passed in my time in Washington is the McCain-Feingold Act," the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer said.
Will directed a host of gripes at both Congress and the media last night in a keynote address at the First Amendment awards banquet sponsored by the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications. In a half-hour speech, he lamented what he described as an "entitlement culture" in the U.S. and said the public has been ill served by journalists who write to entertain, but not always to inform.
"By detaching public discourse from facts, we are encouraging an entitlement mentality that produces a nation with an absurdly low 'think' threshold and an absurdly high amount of whininess in the public discourse," he said.
The annual dinner at the Center of New Hampshire in downtown Manchester put a spotlight on two Granite Staters who have fought against government secrecy. The night's top honor, the 2007 Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment Award, went to Dover City Councilor and former state Rep. David Scott, who took his city to court in an effort to unseal employee financial records.
Scott sued the city of Dover in 2004. A judge ruled in his favor, which led to the revelation, he said, that seven city employees were earning more than $100,000.
Columnist George Will speaks as New Hampshire Union Leader President and Publisher Joseph W. McQuaid looks on last night at the Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment Award dinner in Manchester. (DAVID LANE)
"I've heard people say you can't fight City Hall. I disagree," Scott, 78, said. "You can fight city hall and win."
Also last night, Littleton resident Sharon Craigie was named an honoree for challenging town selectmen who held a meeting they later conceded had not been properly posted.
"I believe you need to be open and up front with everybody," said Craigie, 62. "If you're open with the people and tell them what's going on, they won't think you're trying to hide something."
Craigie has taken an active role in Littleton politics since the selectmen's meeting in August. Her husband, former Littleton selectman Donald Craigie, proudly calls her a "pushy broad."
"Instead of yelling at me, she's doing something that accomplishes something," he said. His wife laughed at the joke.
Attorney Gregory Sullivan received a special First Amendment award in recognition for his work at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications.
In an interview before the dinner, Will said he believes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will make history by becoming the first Republican to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Romney has been leading the polls in both states, though former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is far ahead in most national polls.
Will said Giuliani is spending enough money in New Hampshire to be taken seriously here, but he suspects the former mayor could "very easily" go 0-4 in nominating contests before voters in Florida have their say.
"That's what Mr. Giuliani is counting on, is a cascade effect that will simply overwhelm the earlier primaries," Will said.
In an odd twist, he said, Romney could still get a boost if Democratic Sen. Barack Obama pulls out a win in Iowa. Media coverage of an Obama victory would likely eclipse the Republican race, he said, and would prompt the lion's share of New Hampshire independents to cast their ballots in the Democratic primary.
That, Will said, would injure both Giuliani and Sen. John McCain.
The race for New Hampshire's Democratic delegates is not sewn up, Will said, despite polls that show Sen. Hillary Clinton, of New York, with a wide lead over both Obama and former Sen. John Edwards. He said many voters in New Hampshire are suspicious of Clinton's cautiousness as a candidate and her hesitation to take a firm stance on whether driver's licenses should be offered to illegal immigrants.
"She's incautiously cautious," he said. "It's costing her."
I disagree with the criticism on our lawyer. Case in point. The Selectmen wrote to ask if there was a problem with the two "conflicting" warrant articles on the Nam Memorial. Sumner say there was no ambiguity; there seemed to be adequate space to accommodate both articles. If that didn't clear it up, Sumner suggested they seek a Declaratory Judgment from the Courts. Guidance in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteSelectmen didn't want to hear that, and they did't request Sumner to proceed. Result = no Declaratory Judgment.
How many other times has Sumner advised the Board and they chose to go their own way?
to Anon 10:38
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good question. "How many times has Sumner advised the Board and they chose to go their own way?"
We will never know without documentation to the contrary. So I suggest that from this day forward, in all matters where legal questions are involved, we DEMAND from our Selectman a copy of the written advice from legal counsel and see how it compares to the decision the Selectmen are making.
As far as I am concerned, I will never trust a statement of alleged fact by our Selectmen, Town Administrator, Town Moderator or Police Chief unless they have a document to support what they are saying.
The documented truth is coming out now that taxpayers have been incredibly misled and in many cases, directly lied to. If town officials do not have a document to back up their statement, as far as I am concerned, their position holds no merit. They have no credibility.