The Replacements….

In 1987 the NFL Player’s Union and NFL Commissioner, Pete Rozelle, couldn’t agree on a contract, and the players refused to play.

In 2008 Janet Joakim's order to the Barnstable Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) was answered with a mass resignation.

In 1987 the NFL staged games with hastily assembled replacement teams that were made up of players cut during training camp, non-drafted and semi-professional players, as well as a few veterans who crossed the picket lines.

The television networks showcased these games as if these teams were the same quality as the veterans who were out on strike, but the public didn’t buy into the scheme.

The ill-fated course of action lasted only three weeks when the real players returned.

Tonight in an ill-conceived attempt at leadership, the Barnstable Town Council, under its President, Janet Joakim, will unveil its version of replacement damage control when it appoints seven new members to the two neophytes who attended their first meeting the same night of the mass resignations.

Unlike the replacement football teams that employed experienced, but talent-challenged players with years of experience in lesser leagues, none of the players on Barnstable’s new ZBA team ever donned a ZBA jock strap, shoulder pads, or helmet.

Barnstable’s eight men, and a girl ZBA, are all like raw recruits simultaneously entering boot camp and a war zone without benefit of a drill instructor.

The skin heads will be shipped to the front to face seasoned veteran attorneys with hundreds of skirmishes, while they barely know how to strip a rifle.

Lawyers like Pat Butler, Michael Ford, Jonathan Fitch, etc., are already licking their chops confident they’ll either get their special permits, or win on appeal.

Unlike other committees, commissions, and town council that make routine unchallengeable subjective decisions, the same can't be said for the replacements who could find themselves defendants in legal actions.

I'm not saying the replacements won’t try to perform their jobs, but their lack of skills, experience, and training assures lots of disservices to the community for years to come.

The replacement ZBA is like hiring a new police force with none of its members having an iota of experience or training.

Even when the rookie police force manages to apprehend bad guys, there's a strong probability the bandits will get off on technicalities arising from improperly obtained evidence, warrants, etc.

Town Councilor Frederick Chirigotis, a member of both the ad hoc committee and the appointments subcommittee said,

"We wanted people who have an understanding of the regulations and the rules, and who have some common sense. ... That's exactly what we got."

Chirigotis echoed Billy Sullivan twenty years ago when he said;

“We are looking for guys who played some football in the past.”

“We want guys who have an understanding of the rules and a degree of athleticism,”

and that’s exactly what he and the rest of the NFL got; total failure.

Fortunately in the NFL the rules are uncomplicated; when the team on offense hasn’t increased its position on the field by ten yards within four downs, the ball is turned over to the opposing team,

leaving lawyers powerless to argue the fact,

unlike replacement decisions that can and will be argued by lawyers ad nauseam.

If the Barnstable Council had a single leader on board, he or she would have asked Janet Joakim to step aside as president after July 9th when the entire ZBA resigned, to attempt a resolution.

Even if just one ZBA veteran could have been talked into returning, the new Board would be light years ahead of the current board.

Instead the council circled the wagons, vowing a fight to protet Joakim to the death.

The victims in the ZBA massacre are the citizens of Barnstable.

Once again Janet Joakim has affixed her legacy, just she did with her deed at the Barnstable Registry of Deeds with the multiple IRS leins, on her delinquint property tax bills at the Barnstable Tax Collector’s office in the late nineties, and the bad checks she wrote to local businessmen.

BEWARE OF JANET JOAKIM AND THE REST OF THE TOWN COUNCIL; EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH INEVITABLY TURNS TO CRAP....

After tonight town council marionettes can pull the strings and the moves of their replacement puppets to render decisions that conform to their agenda.

The Holy Trinity in Barnstable is complete; the Council, Growth Management, and the Zoning Board of Appeal.

God, please bless Barnstable until the new town charter is placed before us.

Comments

Why even bother to have a ZBA? The council could schedule ZBA hearings after Thursday night council hearings..