Saturday, May 5, 2012

Shutesbury Shenanigans

 Shutesbury Town Hall

The reverberations over the contentious Shutesbury Library override issue, recently settled by Superior Court Judge Mary-Lou Rup who upheld the defeat, continued to be felt today...like a seismic aftershock.

Amazingly--with the ink barely dry on a Superior Court decision--the rights of long time residents Richard and Joan Paczkowski were again challenged by disgruntled library supporters Michael DeChiara and Joanne Sunshower.

Library proponents filed suit to have Richard and Joan Paczkowski's "no" votes thrown out.   Judge Rup not only sustained those two votes but she went even further by throwing out two "yes" votes from the grown children of local attorney Michael Pill--making the final vote 522-520.

In her decision Judge Rup wrote: "Like many retired persons, the Paczkowskis maintain two residences and divide their time between the two locations. While they may have focused their lives in Florida for over 20 years, it is reasonable to accept that they have now decided to re-focus their lives on the community where Richard was raised and they began their married life."

DeChiara and Sunshower should be reprimanded for "contempt of court" over their heavy handed tactics to bully and intimidate voters with whom they disagree.

Election Results

Shutesbury Town Meeting Warrant (all articles passed)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Larry
Any more info on this matter would be greatly appreciated.This is getting crazy!

Anonymous said...

This is indeed getting a bit out of control. Grown people acting in ways befitting~well I can't seem to come up with just what this behavior compares to since I have never seen it displayed in such outrageous measures before. Rudeness, mean spirited, sneaky, slanderous, intimidating, bullying. And this is a fine example for them to set forward for their children to follow. :-(

Anonymous said...

Larry, I'm sure that you can recite the history of Mr. DeChiara in area politics.

He likes to shut others down.

Larry Kelley said...

Yeah, Mr. DeChiara banded together four other School Committee Chairs to sign a letter he wrote to the local District Attorney trying to shut down Catherine Sanderson's exceedingly public blog for violation of the Open Meeting Law.

Bill Newman from the ACLU jumped all over that, defending the First Amendment rights of Ms. Sanderson, and the District Attorney wisely decided to ignore the draconian request.

Jessica said...

They should get reprimanded for their unethical outrageous behavior. These fools represent everything Shutesbury is not. They make our town look like its filled with a bunch of assholes. These two are taking it upon themselves to contact peoples employers asking them to verify the voters address. Who are these people to dig into other peoples life falsely representing the town.

Larry Kelley said...

Yes, I wonder if that is illegal.

I know a bill collector cannot contact an employer, so why should the self-appointed voter police?

Anonymous said...

Gail Fleischaker is also a member of Mr. DeChiara's and Ms. Sunshower's Shutesbury voter intimidation gang.

Anonymous said...

why can't we all get along?

Jessica said...

Get along? If it was only that easy. People youve known for years wont speak to you because of where you stand on the library issues. It will take many years for the citzens in Shutesbury to reunited. With the harassment the yeser's are giving the noer's, getting along will be impossible! Ive livedin Shutesbury most of my life, its broken and may not ever be repairable!