Wellspring Farm’s biggest foe, next door neighbor to 42 Hiller Road Cathy Mendoza, had her appeal to the Rochester Zoning Board of Appeals to overturn the Planning Board’s Site Plan Review denied on February 8.

When the continued public hearing was opened, Mendoza suggested the ZBA table the discussion for now, claiming that the Board of Selectmen was now “involved” after she sent them a letter pertaining to her dissatisfaction with the town’s handling of her complaints against Wellspring Farm, the therapeutic horseback riding center located within a residential zone.

In that letter dated January 27, of which she sent a copy to the Planning Board but not to the ZBA, she wrote to the selectmen saying that she was unsatisfied with the board’s past recommendation that “two other boards are handling this matter,” asserting that back in January 2017 the board denied other Hiller Road neighbors “access” to the Board of Selectmen, writing, “Had you not refused to intervene, you would have had the opportunity to instruct the ZBA to have your Zoning Enforcement Officer do his job.”

Mendoza told the ZBA that the Board of Selectmen was now “involved” after Selectmen Chairman Brad Morse confirmed during the February 5 meeting of the Board of Selectmen that Town Counsel Blair Bailey had reviewed Mendoza’s letter and suggested, “I’d like to ask him to respond to it.” At that meeting, Selectman Naida Parker motioned to take the matter under advisement until Bailey responds to the letter.

Mendoza alleges that, because Wellspring Farm owners Holly and James Vogel did not file an application for Site Plan Review with the Planning Board within the 90 days stated in the ZBA’s standard conditions in its Special Permit for commercial use within a residential zone, taking instead 151 days for the formal filing, it rendered the ZBA’s Special Permit null and void.

On February 9, attorney for the Vogels, George Boerger, said the Vogels did meet for a preliminary pre-submission hearing during that 90-day period, which required preparation before a formal application submission.

But it was the actual filing of the application that Mendoza was concerned with, saying the formal Site Plan Review application was supposed to have been filed within 90 days.

“[Bailey] is going to decide whether a permit actually exists,” Mendoza said. She said Bailey, in a prior discuss with him, acknowledged that the formal filing with the Planning Board was not filed within the 90 days.

“I’m still not sure what the Board of Selectmen has to do with this,” ZBA Chairman Richard Cutler said.

“Because it is still not being addressed,” replied Mendoza.

ZBA member Kirby Gilmore said that since the ZBA had not received any correspondence from the selectmen from Bailey then the ZBA could not be concerned with Mendoza’s assertion that the selectmen were involved.

Back to Mendoza’s 90-day filing concern, Cutler said, “Yes, we did say that they needed to apply with the Planning Board. The Planning Board process requires some preliminary meetings before the actual filing of the paperwork.”

Yes, but the application has to be before 90 days, not 151 days, Mendoza replied.

“[The Town] can enforce laws at the local level, or we can go to Superior Court and be told to enforce the laws,” said Mendoza. “That’s where we’re at at this point and [Bailey] understands that’s where we’re at.”

Perhaps the Vogels did not file before the 90 days, but they did proceed with the Planning Board within the 90 days, Cutler said.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Cutler.

“It does to me,” said Mendoza.

“They did proceed with the process,” Cutler said.

“That’s not [Bailey’s] opinion,” said Mendoza.

“He’s not here,” Cutler said. “This is my opinion.”

Cutler suggested the board proceed with the matter and vote on it that night.

Boerger told the board, “It’s our opinion that the Planning Board really did a very good job in putting together the Site Plan [Review].” He continued, “There’s absolutely no basis for the Zoning Board to reverse the decision of the Site Plan.”

Boerger added that there is a mandatory 20-day appeal period once the Planning Board approves a Site Plan, but Mendoza chose not to appeal the approval at that time.

“Essentially, what Ms. Mendoza’s trying to do is to circumvent the twenty-day appeal period and come back in,” said Boerger.

Menodoza said that’s what Boerger said the last time they met. “Oh, my God,” said a visibly annoyed Mendoza. “Nauseating…”

In her appeal to the ZBA, Mendoza also requested additional safeguards be implemented, such as the full enforcement of a 20-foot buffer from the property line, which was waived by the Planning Board due to the placement of structures and the driveway that pre-existed the Site Plan Review. She also suggested additional vegetation within the buffer zone to mitigate noise such as clients and therapists having “loud” conversations that Mendoza claims is still a problem for her.

“To the extent that they’re trying to add additional restrictions,” said Boerger, “We had a noise engineer…” Mendoza interrupted him, saying, “What was his name? Such a liar…”

Boerger said he, too, has spoken to Bailey. “He certainly agrees with the position I advanced, and the statement that was made by Ms. Mendoza is not accurate, is completely opposite to what I was told.”

“That’s fine,” said Mendoza. “Let’s go forward with the appeal as written, but I am very concerned with the noise situation. I want what is written in the law. I want a full twenty-foot vegetated buffer on their side of the fence. I think that’s reasonable.”

Mendoza continued with a diatribe over noise and cars beeping their horns, and said the Vogels have been lying.

Gilmore said Mendoza was out of order.

“I’ve already met with an attorney,” said Mendoza. She added that she would also file a civil lawsuit against the Vogels for the noise.

Public discussion was closed, and the board continued deliberating on whether or not to vote that night, “talking it out” as ZBA member David Arancio called it as the board vacillated between the options of waiting for Bailey’s reply or moving forward that night with a vote.

“I don’t see the issues that are raised in this appeal,” said Cutler. “In my opinion, all those issues have been adequately addressed by the Planning Board. The things that are part of this appeal are mainly enforcement issues … with the zoning enforcement officer.” He added, “There isn’t anything we as the [ZBA] can add to this.”

The vote was unanimous to deny Mendoza’s appeal. Mendoza had already left the meeting by that time.

In other matters, after Arancio recused himself and left the meeting because his in-laws designed the plans for the project up for discussion, the board approved the Special Permit and Variance to construct a two-family single-level house on Neck Road filed by Jeanne and Erline Sciuto. Special conditions include no commercial use, no accessory structures other than allowable sheds unless an application is filed, and one unit must be owner occupied at all times.

Some abutters lamented that a house was being built in the open field across from them, but Cutler later commented, “Obviously, I think we would all love to see that field stay a field but that is not our option, that is not our property.”

The next meeting of the Rochester Zoning Board of Appeals will be March 8 at 7:00 pm at the Rochester Town Hall.

Rochester Zoning Board of Appeals

By Jean Perry

Town officials from Marion, Wareham, and Carver have a sour taste in their mouths over the pickle in which the three towns now find themselves pertaining to the current state of its private collective trash entity and the uncertain future of trash collection.

Ray Pickles, a man ubiquitously well known in Marion for his current municipal positions as town clerk and member of the Board of Assessors and prior positions as town administrator of 28 plus years, building commissioner, and zoning enforcement officer, was also the executive director of the Carver, Marion, and Wareham Regional Refuse Disposal District for years – that is until January 29 when the CMWRRDD Committee terminated its contract with Moss Hollow Management Corporation and extended it to include Pickles “doing business as Moss Hollow,” as stated in the minutes of that meeting.

Moss Hollow Management Corporation is listed on the Secretary of State website as under the ownership of Pickles’ wife Diane Bondi-Pickles. The company’s status as a corporation was involuntarily dissolved by the Secretary of State’s Office on June 30, 2017, unbeknownst to the committee, said Marion Selectman and CMWRRDD member Norm Hills during a follow-up on February 9.

During the January 29 meeting, according to the minutes, the committee could not locate any past contracts with Moss Hollow, and the last reference to any contract with Moss Hollow was in 2010 – beyond its statutory life and basically null and void, the committee determined, and should be terminated.

On February 6, the small CMWRRDD headquarters office on Island Wharf in Marion was packed with committee members representing all three towns, all three town administrators, Marion Finance Director Judith Mooney, other CMWRRDD Committee members like retired DPW Superintendent Rob Zora, Wareham Harbormaster Gary Buckminster, and the press. The conference table was elbow to elbow as the meeting became standing room only, except for Mooney who found a seat on the rock salt bucket by the front door.

According to Hills, since the last meeting and since Pickles was fired, chairs inside the office have gone missing.

The issue at hand now for the committee is to piece together the financial transactions of the last five years overseen by Pickles to determine where the money is, where it went, and if any of it was ever mishandled.

Pickles has been removed from all known CMWRRDD accounts, and his CMWRRDD cell phone account was canceled. The locks on the office doors were subsequently changed.

According to Carver Town Administrator Michael Milanoski, the town administrators have only been attending CMWRRDD Committee meetings since January 11 when the committee authorized all three town administrators to begin jointly serving as district administrator – Marion Town Administrator Paul Dawson servicing matters pertaining to finance and compliance, Wareham Town Administrator Derek Sullivan in matters of facility operations, and Milanoski in administration and legal matters.

On January 11, Mooney was also appointed the authority to oversee all the audit and financial information on behalf of CMWRRDD.

Dominating the discussion that night was a possible forensic audit of every fiscal year since the last documented audit Pickles was able to provide to the committee from 2012. Review of documentation has been slow, with documents missing, and financial concerns were raised, as it was discovered on January 29 that records pertaining to fiscal years 2016 and 2017 indicate more was spent than was budgeted, and it appears as though Pickles was still paying off the FY2017 bills with FY2018 money.

Milanoski said the committee is still waiting on various documents and past audit information “…That may or may not exist,” he said, just before recommending a five-year audit.

“We’re going to have a lot of trouble trying to find all the records,” said Milanoski.

But as Dawson asked, “Are we going to be able to provide [auditors] with the information they’re going to need? And that’s questionable at this time.”

“We may be looking at a forensic audit,” said Milanoski. “But does the data exist? Can we complete the audit?”

The consequences of not being able to fully comply with the audit, said Mooney, would be a “black mark” on the CMWRRDD’s bond rating and even the bond ratings of the three individual towns.

Mooney said a forensic audit would investigate every aspect of the money that came in and was spent during the last five years of relatively undocumented transactions and, although more expensive than a standard audit, would provide the committee with an overview of the entire last five years.

The committee will review quotes at the next meeting and then order the audit.

There were other questions that popped up that night like, where did the stabilization fund go?

“It may have already been spent,” said Milanoski, “We don’t know – and that’s the thing. We don’t know.”

Hills said he found bank statements for two accounts, but two new checking accounts were discovered that the committee was not aware existed.

Mooney added that she changed those two accounts Hills found, and also another, after she discovered the CMWRRDD was incurring extra charges for not keeping a minimum balance.

As the audit unfolds, former Marion selectman and CMWRRDD Chairman Stephen Cushing wondered if the committee members and town officials would suffer any liability should any inappropriate or illegal activity be documented, but an insurance policy in place should protect the committee members and the towns as long as all parties acted in good faith.

As the meeting went on, Mooney retreated at times to Pickles’ old office to comb through file cabinets and assess what was there.

According to Hills, who was appointed to the CMWRRDD when he was elected to the Board of Selectmen, the red flags started popping up in March last year when Marion (and the other two towns) received a bill for $59,000 from CMWRRDD after years of either no charges or minimal charges for trash tonnage. More red flags started waving back in December when the committee met with Pickles to review Pickles’ proposed FY19 budget for the district.

“It wasn’t even added up right,” Hills said during the follow-up. “We told [Pickles] to go fix it and we’ll have another meeting. Then somewhere along the line, the town administrators got involved in what was going on with the budget so they showed up and it’s been a sleigh ride ever since.”

There are many questions and a number of things Hills said do not add up, like unpaid bills and no back up to expenditures and financial transactions. And the absence of an audit five years in a row, said Hills, “That’s not a good sign.”

And as far as Moss Hollow goes, said Hills, “We’d been paying a company that doesn’t exist [anymore].”

“Nobody knows enough to know which way to jump, other than we know we need to protect ourselves,” said Hills.

The CMWRRDD faces an uncertain future as its agreement with SEMASS expires at the end of 2020. Hills said on February 9 that he learned SEMASS had approached Pickles in the past with an offer to extend the contract with CMWRRDD, “And Ray said ‘no’ and no one ever told anyone.” Hills said he is hopeful, however, that SEMASS may be willing to revisit contract negotiations with the district.

The next meeting of the Carver, Marion, and Wareham Regional Refuse Disposal District is scheduled for February 28 at a time and location to be determined.

Carver, Marion, and Wareham Regional Refuse Disposal District Committee

By Jean Perry