HomeMy WebLinkAboutPublic Comment No. 3 from Salas in Opposition1
Ziino, Genevey
Subject:FW: Staff Report Response
From: Anne Salas [mailto:annesalas@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2023 7:28 AM
To: Brigham, Anna; Nikolas Atsalis; David Bogan; Kristine Clark; Gordon Starr; Town Council Mailbox; Matthew Levesque;
Jeffrey Mendes; Paul Neary; Jessica Rapp Grassetti; Paula Schnepp; Tracy Shaughnessy; Eric Steinhilber; Ells, Mark;
McLaughlin, Charles; Nober, Karen; Connolly, Kathleen
Subject: Staff Report Response
Please forward to the members of the ZBA. Thank you.
Re: TJA Clean Energy Appeal 2023-005
Dear Members of the ZBA,
We have suffered the crimes of C. Keyes for 28 years. We want peace and safety.
Abutter James McDonough's denied ZBA appeal in 2021:
Defrauding DEP:
Brian Florence’s letters to abutters, Denial for Zoning Ordinance Request for Enforcement caused Jim
McDonough to appeal. The ZBA found against Mr. McDonough on a technical difficulty. The technical
difficulty was that no one ever filed a formal Request for Zoning Enforcement. There was nothing to appeal.
We only emailed Florence to alert him of the illegal activity. He said the owner had a right to improve his
property and that it was not a commercial activity.
Atty Paul Revere’s letter to COMM in part:
Keyes Scheme to Avoid Testing and
Dispose in a Zone II
Keyes’ scheme takes advantage of the
DEPs’ failure to apply the conductivity test
requirement to amendments to existing
water quality certifications. Specifically,
persons who propose dredging first obtain
their permits for a non-Zone
II disposal site. The applicant then
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proposes to amend the application to
have 810 Wakeby Road as the new
disposal site. The project’s proponent
(typically through their surveyor or
engineer) is required to discern and
disclose whether or not the proposed site
is in a Zone I or II area, but in this matter
apparently did not.
The DEP sends that amended application
to the Barnstable Conservation
Commission which reviews the project but
only ensures that the disposal site is not
located in a wetland. When the
Conservation Commission reports that
Keyes’ 810 Wakeby Road property is
not in or adjacent to a wetland, the DEP
approves it because they are not made
aware that the property is within a Zone I
or Zone II water protection district.
By way of example, Henry Blair obtained
approval to dredge around his
office building and related marina slips in
Barnstable Inner Harbor in Barnstable
Village. On January 5, 2021, Mr. Blair
asked to amend his permit to allow the
dredge spoils to be loaded onto barge,
shipped by barge to New Bedford,
unloaded in New Bedford, and trucked
back to 810 Wakeby Road for disposal. A
copy of the amendment approval from
DEP issued seven days later on January
12, 2021, is attached.
The DEP contacted Darcy Karle and
learned that 810 Wakeby Road does not
contain wetlands. The DEP
understandably assumed that the
licensed surveyor or engineer would have
disclosed the fact that the Keyes Pit was
in a Zone II wellhead protect area which
is why the DEP conductivity test was not
required or performed for the Blair
amendment. The DEP issued a permit
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based on an email from Darcy Karle who
in her capacity would have only looked at
a wetland map, not a water protection
district map. The DEP error was a result
of being deceived by the applicants and
their representatives who figured out how
to manipulate the system at the expense
of public water supplies.
I also am aware that the Mashpee Neck
Marina[2] project disposed well over
fifteen thousand yards of saltwater dredge
material between late 2018 through early
2021 at Mr. Keyes’ property and also
apparently failed to disclose that the
property is located in a Zone II.
The town map provided me when I purchased my home in 1995 does indeed show a wetland on 810. Keyes
destroyed it. Punishable by $25,000 fine and or 2 years imprisonment, he suffered neither.
Mashpee Town meeting minutes of July 13, 2004 cite dumping fees at that time of $40-$65 per ton. Considered
high, it was the major reason holding up dredging of Mashpee River.
1 cubic yard soil =1.5 tons soil
15,000 yards = 10,000 tons
10,000 x $40 = $400,000
10,000 x $65 = $650,000
If Keyes was compensated at 2004 rates he would have received between $400,000 and $650,000. Interesting
that Mr. Florence said at the ZBA hearing, I paraphrase, …I don’t care if it was $300,000…it was not
commercial activity, in his testimony before the ZBA. Keyes has a history of underbidding.
The Supreme Court ruling of 2002 prohibits all commercial activity except auto salvage. Clearly, gravel yard
activity continues unabated.
It's certain Keyes didn't allow this dumping at no cost to “improve” his property as BC Florence claimed.
Every tree was cut down on the property to facilitate that activity.
We have photographs of commercial dump trucks unloading dredging spoils at 810. We followed those trucks
from the loading site at Mashpee Neck Marina, sea water running freely, to 810 and dumping thereon. The
town’s legal dept. relied on our documented observations, affidavits during the litigation of 1998-2002. Those
affidavits reveal how we risked our wellbeing to get the information the town needed.
The salt content of ocean dredging spoils is greater than snow removal spoils which are prohibited in Zone II.
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Should Brian Florence have anything to do with signing off or approving this project? I don’t think so. He
should be replaced and have no position in the town government.
Who will know if those solar panels contain nitrogen trifluoride, 17,000 times worse for the atmosphere than
carbon dioxide? Who will know whether they contain lead, cadmium telluride, arsenic, etc.?
The budget for TJA litigation isn't available - to defend human lives. It is available,
$Millions, for golf courses throughout the town. The town will gain about
$90,000 in annual tax revenue from the project- Atlantic Design estimates, so
perhaps not that much.
Atty. Paul Revere’s entire email to COMM:
CAUTION:This email originated from outside of the Town of Barnstable! Do not click links, open
attachments or reply, unless you recognize the sender's email address and know the content is safe!
The 1997 appeal of Bldg. Insp's Cease and Desist order upheld in a Superior Court ruling:
CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, plaintiff is left with the right to mine that portion of the site appropriated to gravel
mining as of 1956. That area is best described as the southernmost five acres of the site shown as cleared land
on Exhibit no. 25. To the extent this decree leaves plaintiff mining air, see Wayland Il, such a result is a
reflection of the realities of gravel mining. coupled with the passage of two score years, and does not indicate
hollow justice.
After nearly nine years of litigation between Keyes and the Town, the Supreme Court Ruling was affirmed by
the Superior Court on Oct. 2002:
(Cite as : 56 Mass.App.Ct.1105, 777 N.E.2d 202, 2002 WL 31415395 (Mass. App.Ct.)
The only permitted uses on the property are single family residential use and automobile salvage, consistent
with the terms of the previously issued use variance and special permits. Having so found, we need not address
the remaining issues brought on appeal.
The town had to issue the threat of incarceration before Keyes would stop, even after the Superior Court
Judgement.
These rulings and judgments were ignored by Bldg. Inspector Florence, although these were the last legal
definitions of the use of this land.
Note that both of the above court findings state that no trees shall be cut.
Proposed Modification Permit Findings
My Responses:
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1. Tja had a major zoning modification already with the solar overlay district Over a residential zone. Planning
and Legal Depts. diligently wrote specific bylaws for this project that are intended to protect the public and
water resources! Please don’t undermine their hard work!
2. Site Plan Review Committee. Our Town Councilor did not advise our community that SPR meetings were in
progress. Being a part of the committee advising the project should go ahead for the 'greater good', we are not
surprised she did not.
3. The proposal will cover most of the 21 acre site. Originally 16.6 acres Mr. Keyes' rape of the site in the late
1990s included 6 acres of abutters’ properties, now town owned Wetland Watershed Protection Area. The
majority of site will be covered in concrete to support 15,000 solar panels. (The rape was to provide soil to cap
the landfill on Flint St. The town contracted with Keyes for this.) It will present drainage issues that will be
laughable to contain. Read, investigate, see what’s happened all over the country!
4. “…it would not represent a substantial detriment to the public good or the neighborhood affected.” Unless,
you want to raise children whom you’d rather not get cancer from massive radiation exposure, or killed in an
uncontrollable fire that can’t be extinguished by any means. Look at the single, very narrow egress. Just one
egress. How would fire fighting personnel control a fire with just 16’ to work within? Or that advanced towards
our homes? Atty Ford also said our community should be sacrificed “for the greater good”. How would you
feel about that after 40 years investment in your home? Who on God’s earth would buy a home next to this
project? We have been sacrificed for the greater good since 1994 when Keyes’ acquired the property by
extortion. Old widow Gifford, forced to sell for $40,000 because Keyes prevented her from making a living
from the property as her husband did. (Keyes was arrested in 1978 for kidnapping and extortion according to
Barnstable Patriot archives.)
Atlantic Design Engineers presented aerial images from 20 years ago at TC, PB and ConCom meetings in 2019
giving the idea that the land was clear cut. The land was at that time covered in trees. They had grown back
after twenty five years. Atlantic Design knowingly lied to the town, repeatedly. Since then, all trees have been
cut down for ocean dredging spoils. Can Atlantic Design be relied upon to tell the truth? Of course not. You can
be sure the trees planted for screening will be planted after the project is finished and will die because they
aren’t watered twice a week to keep them alive. The site will be always visible from upper floors of our
dwellings.
TJA’s attorneys Mike Ford and Mike Pill both knowingly lied to the town, the public and in the suit filed
against the town in Mass Land Court. They both said the land at 810 is toxic- after the date of the following
DEP letter. They had to have known it wasn’t true. The timing of the DEP letter must have been due to the need
to close down the site with DEP as its former use to prepare for a solar installation:
DEP document stating the land is clear of toxins, September 2019:
If someone said ten years ago "fire fighting chemical foam contains PFAS and will contaminate wells” Ha!
You’d have laughed. ALL my information is from the most reliable sources, from actual events. Solar is
mistaken for “clean” , we need clean energy so badly, we need to believe it’s clean. We will rue the days when
we unthinkingly slapped these chemical time bombs all over residential zones and water sources. We will have
very sick people without enough water in superheated temps if we are not careful.
No chance of insurance coverage for our homes, health. The water supply? Increase the bond for
decommissioning for water clean up at least. It will be needed.
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Zoning began in 1904 to keep toxic heavy industry out of residential zones. We must look ahead and anticipate
the consequences of our actions today.
Please, Vote No to 16’ setbacks.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Anne Salas