When I co-founded RAGE, Residents Advocating Government Equity, my intent was to challenge the order imposed by the SJC in the McDuffy v Board of Education lawsuit adjudicated in 1993.
The order was simple and straightforward;
The legislature promised the SJC that its education aid formula would satisfy the court ruling.
Four years later Cape schools received less than 10% of their education costs from Chapter 70, while most urban districts received from 85% - 100%.
As a result Cape schools had larger class sizes, and program cuts and unequal educational opportunities.
As the contributions came rolling in to fund the lawsuit, I was asked to use a “local” attorney.
Myself and John Ladner went to Rick Barry with all of the data, including a transcript of the McDuffy case and explained our strategy.
Barry rejected the case
We went on to hire a Boston attorney, and won the case in Suffolk Superior Court before Judge Botsford,
The effort was a victory because our annual Chapter 70 allotments tripled in three years.
Rick Barry is both a lawyer, and a town councilor today.
On more than one public occasion Councilor Barry said that if we didn’t adopt a plan to sewer the entire Cape that we would be sued by the Conservation Law Foundation.
Barry also claimed that a marine biologist from UMass Dartmouth has been sampling waters from various bodies of waters, including bays, estuaries, ponds, lakes, etc., and is compiling the results as evidence to support a lawsuit against “the town” for wanton discharge of nutrient laden effluent from Title V septic systems into Barnstable bays.
Without going into the dynamics of the decomposition of nutrients process in Title V systems, Barry should ask the Conservation Law Foundation where plans to get its standing to sue Cape Cod residents.
Cape residents have bent over backwards and are the real victims here.
If there's going to be a law suit over nutrient levels in the various embayments,
Barnstable residents will be the plaintiffs
If the Conservation Law foundation wants to get involved, it can join Barnstable citizens as a plaintiff.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection ordered the voodoo Title V technology that suddenly doesn't work.
The $10 billion cost to sewer the entire Cape is a drop in the bucket to Obama's trillion economic recovery plan that seems to have missed Cape Cod.
Barnstable has more than complied with the 1972 Clean Water Act, a law that prohibits
municipal governments, and
some agricultural facilities, such as animal feedlots from dumping pollutants into bodies of waters without first obtaining a groundwater discharge permit from National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.
Since 1995 Barnstable homeowners have installed operated and maintained the Title V septic systems mandated by the DEP.
Barnstable adopted two-acre zoning limits for home construction in the five villages not on sewers to dilute nutrient loading to twice that of the state (5ppm).
Barnstable residents have more than complied with wastewater laws and regulations, yet now Barry, Counsell, Crocker, the the DEP are telling us that Title V septic systems are totally ineffective in dissolving nutrients.
The state enacted MGL Section 21, and 310 CMR 15000’s and we bought into the programs to the tunes of $5,000 - $50.000 each, and that they've screwed up, they want us to dig them up and connect to sewers at a cost of $50,000 per home.
Barnstable citizens should be the ones doing the suing.
I'll revisit this later, but in the meantime think about filing class action lawsuits against the DEP and the EPA to have them clean up our bays, and replace the Title V septic systems they forced us to buy.
Good points Gary, and don't forget what the speaker at the meeting said last week, once sued, the state and feds are on the hook as well. She made it sound like being sued was a necessary step to working out the funding issues.
Also, please remember the city of Swansea Ma who installed a sewer system and all their wells dried up. Now they are facing a 100 million dollar bill for a desalination plant. I don't know if anyone has ever tasted desalinized water but I am told it is horrible. Talk about degrading property values if all the potable water tastes bad.
I am confident the best answer lies with upgrading current Title V systems to process waste better and reduce nutrient loading. Most of the cost is covered by state tax credits and we can do this on our own.
There will be a meeting of the board of health on the 14th to discuss these alternative systems, I hope people will be there to get informed. I am on the agenda as well.
Again, great post!
Posted by: Rob Anderson | July 06, 2009 at 10:49 AM
The home owners on and around lake wequaquet, want all the citizens in barnstable to pay for their
sewer hook-up. These home owners homes values will increase $50,000.00 if not more with sewering. I hope everyone votes no for an over-ride to pay for those who will gain, on the backs of the working tax payer. Remember when these same people had the town council pass a vote to ban all jet ski's from using the taxpayers ramps to put their jet ski's into lake wequaquet.
Posted by: ANONYMOUS | July 06, 2009 at 05:33 AM
This means Chief Paul MacDonald's "fat" house on Shootflying appreciates close to $50 thou? Sounds like payback for another Joakim/Atsalis political favor. MacDonald was hardly qualified to assume the role of Chief of Police. Paul Niezwiecki left the Assistant Town Manager's post based on information given to him on the inside that Chief Finnegan's actions were worthy of indictment, and MacDonald was fully aware of impropriety.
I realize that Paul has a young pretty wife that is impressed with her husbands professional stature. The MacDonald's hardly care who they have to use to get what they want. Sound familiar? It's time for MacDonald to go!
Posted by: ! | July 06, 2009 at 11:59 AM
Chief Paul MacDonald worked very hard to get where he is today. He started as a patrolman and worked his way up to the rank he is today.
It is not fair to bring Paul's wife and family into this mess.
Posted by: ANONYMOUS | July 06, 2009 at 02:47 PM
Did anyone read that story about the state cutting the Quinn Bill in the CCTimes the other day?
The article mentioned reactions from various police departments, but did not get a statement from the Cape's largest police force in Barnstable.
Believe it or not, the chief is not the highest paid cop on the force.
The whole idea behind the Quinn bill was to encourage police departments to gradually require officers to be college educated in order to deal with a more educated public. Naturally in Barnstable this never happened, and we have a bunch of arrogant ignorant cops terrorizing the public.
Klimm chose MacDonald because he can control the new chief (unlike his predecessor).
Posted by: disappointed | July 06, 2009 at 03:13 PM
I saw the chief directing traffic on South Street an hour before the fireworks on Saturday. He's the hardest working police chief I have ever meet.
Posted by: from the horse's arse | July 06, 2009 at 03:13 PM
I don't know about you, but I don't want to see my chief of police directing traffic. I want to see him controlling the idiot cowboy cops with fat mouths and even fatter asses!
Posted by: disappointed | July 06, 2009 at 03:21 PM
I don't know about you, but I don't want to see my chief of police directing traffic. I want to see him controlling the idiot cowboy cops with fat mouths and even fatter asses!
Posted by: figure 8 | July 06, 2009 at 03:25 PM
BULLSHIT! Paul MacDonald is a corrupt as the rest of them, in fact, considering what he has been able to get away with, he may be just a little bit worse.
Posted by: Not fit to orotect and defend. | July 06, 2009 at 04:16 PM
Oh, you guys are picking up a whole lot of website traffic, now! You've got every major federal governmental agency tracking your every move!
Hilarious!
Posted by: CIA Field Operations | July 06, 2009 at 05:14 PM
MacDonald is a horse's ass alright. Clearly, there was a dirty, behind the scenes deal struck between Joakim, O'Keefe, Klimm, and MacDonald. The corruption is out of control on the Cape, and something needs to be done.
It's a case of the "fox guarding the hen house"!
Posted by: Henny Penny, the Sky Really IS Falling! | July 06, 2009 at 05:45 PM
You really ought to get a look at her website. It's pretty funny and she's got Paul MacDonald's house posted up front and center.
What's she going for next? Joakim's? Chirigotis?
Hilarious!
Posted by: Town Hall Insider | July 06, 2009 at 06:11 PM
Is Councilor Barry the dude who just got caught smoking crack? Is this the former mayor? I thought Barnstable didn't have a mayor?
Posted by: ? | July 06, 2009 at 06:15 PM
Lopez, I hate your guts, but God Damn it, stay blogging. Barnstable needs you now more than ever!
Posted by: welcometobarnstable.com | July 06, 2009 at 11:03 PM
Doesn't the new teacher contract get voted on by the school committee in next weeks meeting? Bend over Barnstable.
Posted by: Blazer | July 07, 2009 at 07:46 AM