Good morning, Wilmington.
I was informed on Friday that there was quite an article written in the Town Crier regarding Monday evening’s Select Board meeting, in which I was specifically named. I am not a regular subscriber to the Crier, but it is the news outlet of record for the town, so it is a very important facet of Wilmington.
After reading it, I am almost embarrassed by the content, and I want to address how my participation in this meeting was characterized.
For the record, I stood at the meeting to call attention to the fact that the Attorney General’s Office not only has not made a determination approving Article 30, but also took the unusual step of reaching an agreement with Town Counsel to delay its ruling until October 15. According to M.G.L. Ch. 40, Sec. 32:
“before a by-law takes effect it shall be approved by the attorney general or ninety days shall have elapsed without action by the attorney general after the clerk of the town in which a by-law has been adopted has submitted to the attorney general a certified copy of such by-law with a request for its approval”
Further, my argument was that the Select Board did not yet have the authority to issue the Special Permit. Prior to Article 30, that Special Permit authority did not exist under the authority of the Wilmington Select Board; therefore, my position was that the Board could not exercise that authority until the bylaw went into effect.
To be clear, they had the right to hold the meeting. My issue was one of authority. I have not seen case law that allows the Board to exercise permitting authority granted by a bylaw before that bylaw takes effect. The Town Manager’s only response to that concern was, “Yes, they can.” I understand that in today’s world it may be acceptable to hedge bets on “because I said so,” but I believe that when a legitimate question of legal authority is raised, the answer should be accompanied by the legal basis supporting it. That is what Paul Chalifour and I were asking for.
The author of the story claimed I “returned to the microphone to chide West and Gearwar for not knowing about the need for the AG’s approval.” At best, this is a completely inaccurate characterization of what I said. The video record from WCTV is clear.
As was pointed out many times during this meeting, the Select Board is a volunteer board. Even I don’t expect that, in their free time, its members will follow every legal aspect of everything that goes on in town. I stated very clearly—in fact, the first statement out of my mouth when I stood up was: “I was surprised that these letters were not included in the packet with the application.”
The burden to inform the Select Board members of this major piece of information falls on Town Counsel, who made the agreement with the Attorney General’s Office, or the Town Manager. In fact, not only was the paperwork not included in the Select Board packet, but during the “public hearing,” the fact that Article 30 had not yet been approved was not even mentioned.
The author of the article then editorialized about how I viewed the Board members as a result of their not knowing this information. If any of them did, in fact, know about it and chose not to mention the status of the Attorney General’s review, I would consider that a deceitful act, and I would hope the public would request answers as to why that Select Board member—or members—chose not to disclose that information during the hearing.
However, I did not leave the meeting believing that was the case. Based on the looks of bewilderment from the Board, my impression was that they had not been informed. West and Gearwar openly stated that they were not informed, and Caira made a comment that sounded as though he may not have been informed either.
Chide Gearwar and West? No way. In fact, I’ll go on record here and say that it took courage for them to openly state that they had not been informed. The fact that they acknowledged during a public discussion that they didn’t know is part of the healthy and transparent discussion the public is looking for.
To end, I am asking the editor to correct the record in an article in which I am specifically named. The video is publicly available and speaks for itself, and I am including a link to it here.
Thank you,
Rob Fasulo
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