$80 Million Dollar Lie…continued.

$80 Million Dollar Lie…continued.

Activate Worcester 90 

Activate Worcester is a show hosted by Ron Motta on WCCA (Worcester’s Public Access Station)

In this episode, the host is interviewing the sisters, Joyce and Gracemarie Tomaselli. Part of their story was a post entitled – The 80 Million Dollar Lie. This horrifying story impacts everyone in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Background information – Joyce and Gracemarie opened a small 28 seat restaurant in the Town of Salisbury MA on September 12, 1992 after spending a year and half bringing the building up to code. The restaurant opened and they began receiving large bills for sewer ($4,000/year), but they had never operated a business in Salisbury before so they didn’t think much about it…Until they went to pick up their license renewals for 1995. They had to close their restaurant on December 30, 1994 due to a posting error. They were told to pay $14,000 in sewer user fees as well as a $13,000 betterment accruing 14% interest.

Salisbury never recorded the sewer betterments after the vote at town meeting on May 17, 1982 to improve the wastewater treatment plant. Why? Probably because the 18 million dollar project was 100% paid for with federal and USDA grants.

When the Tomaselli’s purchased the property, there were no liens or betterments recorded on the property.

The Toamselli’s proceeded to the Apellate Tax Board; asked the DOR for help; asked the Attorney General, and the Inspector General for help (Is this starting to sound familiar Templeton?) The Tomaselli’s have even filed a Writ of Certiorari with U.S. Supreme Court. The Tomaselli’s discovered from EPA and DEP documents that the project cost for the sewer treatment plant was 18 million dollars paid for by GRANTS. In court, the town of Salisbury and its’ attorneys Kopelman and Paige came up with a figure of an 80 million dollar cost to justify the unrecorded betterments charged to about 1,000 residents and businesses in Salisbury. The town of Salisbury and its attorneys provided NO documentation for the 80 million dollar figure.

A few highlights from the interview-

Kopelman & Paige was town counsel for Salisbury as well as its "financial advisor" for the sewer treatment plant. Hmmm is that a Conflict of Interest?

When the Tomaselli’s sued K&P, they discovered that in Massachusetts attorneys, lawyers can LIE to the court with NO repercussions. There are only 11 states where a person can sue for fraud on the court. Massachusetts is not one of those 11 states.

An attorney in Massachusetts can lie to a judge and there are no consequences.

Salisbury Town Officials change their Story

“That’s what we have been claiming all along,” said Joyce Tomaselli who fought the sewer charges saying the town lied in court. 

In other words, town officials first claimed in Federal Court and at the Appellate Tax Board that the cost of the project was $80M while they were trying to take the Tomaselli sister’s property, but now that their actions have been exposed, they are trying to confuse rate payers by saying the project did NOT cost $80M … which is what the Tomaselli sisters have been saying all along. . 

The Tomasellis say the rate payers were swindled out of “fake betterment charge” when the town officials lied in court about the cost of the project …. statements by Knowles, Condon and Harrington now seem to back the sister’s claim. 

Town Officials Told Federal Court Judge Saris, Cost of Sewer Project was $80 MIL

The Valley Patriot researched the Federal District Court Transcripts to compare the story being told now by Manager Harrington, and Selectmen Knowles and Condon … with what they said in 2009 about the actual cost of the sewer project. Did it cost $18M or did it cost $80M? 

The following is an excerpt of a conversation in Federal Court between Judge Saris and Salisbury Town Council Attorney Mcenaney. 

2/4/09 Transcript, United States District Court

TOWN COUNCIL – ATTY. MCENANEY: “I represented the town at the proceeding before the Appellate Tax Board on the appeal from the denial of their abatement application by the assessor and the DPW director. That case, a full hearing on the merits was held before the Appellate Tax Board. The Appellate Tax Board ruled in favor of the town. They have taken an Appeal.

JUDGE SARIS: Well, let me ask you this: How does one explain the difference between the $80 million and the $18 million? Are they just wrong?

ATTY. MCENANEY: I think they’re just wrong.

Judge Saris: Or was there a mistake made?

ATTY. MCENANEY: I believe that they’re wrong, yes. Furthermore the documents –

Judge Saris: Well, how do I know that? I mean, in other words, did the Appellate Tax Board rule that, that they made a mistake?

ATTY. MCENANEY: I don’t believe they addressed that specifically, but they found — they have a specific finding in their opinion that the testimony that was offered by the DPW director was credible in support of the decision. ….

JUDGE SARIS: But let me just ask you this. Maybe they should have discovered it, whatever, but are they right that it was $18 million and not $80 million?

ATTY. MCENANEY: My understanding based on the testimony of the DPW director, is the total project cost was $80 million. The local share was $7.8 million.”

Below is a transcript of Condon’s speech last month at a Board of Selectmen Meeting.

FREEMAN CONDON: I wish Tom [Saab] had stayed around because I wanted to ask him one thing and that was whether he had read the article before he forwarded it or forwarded the link. Because I believe that the manager’s response was measured and moderate, and I am in complete agreement with the way he handled it. The charges in the article were absurd, and if Tom had read it, he would have known it was absurd. So, he said that his fingerprints are not on it, he had nothing to do with it, but simply, sending the link to 400 people infers that there was some support for that.

When the manager, Mr. Harrington, said that some of the things were inaccurate and false, they were absurdly false. The project number was given at $80M, it is not even realistic.”

“The people were told in the article that the federal government paid for the whole project. You know that kind of thing had to be dealt with and it had to be repudiated, because they were totally false, and you can’t have people try to buy into things like that, that don’t have a single shred of basis in fact, so, I agree completely with Mr. Harrington’s response. And again, I thought it was most appropriate.

SELECTMAN FRED KNOWLES: I just will concur with Mr. Condon.

 Conclusion: If the Town charged rate payers $7.8M for a sewer betterment charge to pay 10% of a $80M sewer project that town manager Harrington and the Board of Selectmen NOW say was only $18M, 

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Salisbury Town Manager Neil Harrington’s Rant

Memo to Manager Harrington

2 sisters prepare another course in fight for restaurant

By Kevin CullenGLOBE COLUMNIST  OCTOBER 22, 2011

SALISBURY - Whoever said revenge is a dish best served cold never had Joycie and Cookie Tomaselli’s eggplant parmigiana.

They are sisters, Joyce and Gracemarie Tomaselli, aka Joycie and Cookie, and they grew up in Lawrence and spent their summers on Salisbury Beach, where the waves invigorated them, the sun tanned their skin, and the salt water taffy pulled at their teeth.

They became social workers, because they had big hearts, but somewhere buried deep in those big hearts was a dream: to own their own restaurant, to create the smells and the sounds and the tastes and the sensations that filled their house, where their mother, Mary “Mama’’ Tomaselli, cooked and sang in equal measure.

In 1991, they took the plunge, quit their jobs, and bought a restaurant just off the beach. They called it Mangia, and they moved into the apartment above the restaurant. They hoped to open for Memorial Day, but every time they were about to open town inspectors said they needed one improvement or another.

They missed two summer seasons before they finally satisfied all the town demands and opened in September 1992. Mangia had only 28 seats, but it had Joycie and Cookie in the kitchen, and it had Mama in the dining room, doing magic tricks for the kids, playing standards on the piano for the adults.

When Mama Tomaselli sang “As Time Goes By,’’ old couples held hands and looked at each other the way they did before they had rings on their fingers.

The food was terrific. The atmosphere was better. It was like walking into some old Sicilian lady’s house at dinner time.

The restaurant got great reviews and was building a loyal following and then the Tomaselli girls started getting bills for sewer usage that made no sense. They got a bill for $2,593 for 1991, when they owned the restaurant but it wasn’t opened. They couldn’t possibly have used that much water.

‘I never wanted to serve papers. I only wanted to serve linguine.’

Joyce Tomaselli 

On New Year’s Eve, 1994, Cookie called the town and said she was wondering why she hadn’t gotten the paperwork to renew their licenses, and the tax collector told them they wouldn’t get their licenses until they paid all their sewer and tax bills and that was $19,000 and Cookie Tomaselli almost fell over.

“Where am I going to get $19,000 in four hours?’’ she asked. There was no answer, and they closed Mangia down.

The Tomasellis couldn’t understand why the town made them jump through so many hoops just to open and then created a situation that ensured not only that they had to close but that they had no income to pay their bills. It nagged at them.

In 1999, Mama started the long, excruciating descent into Alzheimer’s, but even as they took care of Mama, Joycie and Cookie couldn’t let go of Mangia.

They started combing through records. They said they accidentally were given records at the town hall which showed there were two sets of books on the sewer project.

They were escorted out of selectmen’s meetings by police officers when they wouldn’t stop asking questions.

Joycie practically became an engineer, figuring out how sewer systems work. And lo and behold, the Tomaselli girls, Joycie and Cookie, figured out they were way overcharged for sewer use. They calculated that they were charged $13,900 between 1991 and 1994 when their actual water use should have made the bill $1,643.

But that wasn’t the half of it. Joycie and Cookie Tomaselli claimed that they and other town residents were billed almost $8 million to pay for the local portion of the town’s sewer project that was already entirely reimbursed by the state and federal governments. They claimed the town was engaged in a huge fraud.

It was a sensational allegation, practically sedition. The town fought back, denying any and all assertions that the amateur sleuths made. The town disputed the Tomasellis’ methodology, denied it was pulling a fast one on sewer users, and initiated action to seize the Tomasellis’ property for nonpayment of back taxes and sewer fees.

It is an epic legal battle. Cookie and Joycie found themselves serving legal papers on people. Sometimes it was overwhelming.

“I never wanted to serve papers,’’ Joycie lamented one day. “I only wanted to serve linguine.’’

At a court hearing years ago, one of the lawyers for the town smirked at the Tomaselli sisters and made some remark about them being out of their depth.

“We’re a town,’’ he told them during a break. “We can do anything we want.’’

After the town prevailed at one court proceeding, the same lawyer leaned down toward them as he left the courtroom and said, “See?’’

That court hearing led to another and to another. It is a legal battle royal, the end of which is nowhere in sight.

But something happened last month that suggested a tide may be turning on Salisbury Beach. Something that makes it harder for the town to dismiss Joycie and Cookie Tomaselli as a pair of deadbeats tilting at windmills.

The Justice Department sent letters to Attorney General Martha Coakley, Revenue Commissioner Navjeet Bal, and Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, recommending that they conduct their own investigations into what the Tomaselli sisters have uncovered.

Mama continued to fade into the fog of Alzheimer’s. As the years passed, she could only sing a few words from “That’s Amore.’’ Joycie and Cookie took care of her until she died last May. Mama was 99.

Joycie and Cookie fight on. They say reopening Mangia would be a fitting memorial to their mother.

“Mama always said, ‘When you believe in the truth, you never give up,’ ’’ Cookie Tomaselli said. “We’re not giving up.’’

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. Contact him at cullen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen.

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Any of this sound familiar Templeton?