gerrynutter'slowell

Remember in November er I mean JC asked the question : How was this a personal matter?

Glad you asked Jim, I mean JC… It might help you to know that personnel working in school districts are protected by Chapter 150 E of Mass General laws governing school districts. So again my lawyer friend was able to provide us some insight on how that may effect this secretary.

1. M.G.L. c. 150E is the collective bargaining statute that provides public employees the right of self-organization and the right to form, join, or assist any employee organization. As a result, it wouldn’t seem to relate directly to the issue at hand.

2. Wakefield Teachers Association v. School Committee of Wakefield, 431 Mass. 792, 731 N.E.2d 63 (2000), does provide some guidance on what documents are exempt from the definition of “public documents” for the purposes of requests under the Freedom of Information Act and are therefore protected from disclosure. In Wakefield, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) considered whether a disciplinary decision and report (“the Report”) of the superintendent of the Wakefield public schools regarding the performance of a Wakefield public school teacher was exempt from disclosure under the public records law, M.G.L. c. 66, § 10, pursuant to another statute, M.G.L. c. 4, § 7, Twenty-sixth (c ), which defines what is considered a public record.

In the Wakefield case, the superintendent had learned that a male teacher at Wakefield Junior High School had written potentially inappropriate notes on the homework assignments of two female students in his class. The superintendent conducted an investigation into the allegations, including an interview with the teacher and two union representatives, and wrote the Report. As he later described in a public letter (which was not the subject of the lawsuit), the superintendent concluded that the teacher’s conduct “crossed over the line of responsibility a teacher has to a student.” The superintendent’s Report described his decision to impose on the teacher a suspension without pay for four weeks. The teacher served the four-week suspension before returning to work.

A resident of Wakefield wrote to the superintendent requesting “any information… regarding the suspension of a teacher at the Junior High School.” The resident noted that he was “not interested in either the teacher’s or the student’s name, but rather the nature of the offense for which he was suspended.” The superintendent responded in writing denying the request, and stating he would ask the supervisor of public records (acting supervisor) for further direction regarding the issue. The superintendent added:

“I am further willing to share with you that a male teacher was investigated and disciplined because of notes he wrote on the homework papers of two seventh grade female students. The teacher claimed that the notes were only a joke and intended to provide positive reinforcement. I judged that the notes were more serious and clearly crossed over the line of responsibility a teacher has to a student. I have every confidence that this teacher is no danger to these children or any other children and should, upon completion of his suspension, return to his teaching position in the district without further sanction.”

The superintendent also received requests from several news reporters. The Wakefield Teachers Association filed a complaint on behalf of the teacher for declaratory and injunctive relief, seeking to prevent the superintendent from publicly disclosing the Report, and the issue was ultimately taken up on appeal to the SJC.

The SJC held that the Report, which resulted in the teacher’s four-week suspension, constituted part of the teacher’s “personnel … file[ ] or information,” and was exempt from disclosure. The SJC reasoned that the Report constituted “personnel” information as it is defined in the exemption to the definition of public record found at M.G.L. c. 4, § 7, Twenty-sixth (c). M.G.L. c. 4, § 7, Twenty-sixth provides, in pertinent part:

“‘Public Records’ shall mean all books, papers… made or received by any officer or employee of any agency, executive office, department, board, commission, bureau, division or authority of the commonwealth, or of any political subdivision thereof, or of any authority established by the general court to serve a public purpose, unless such materials or data fall within the following exceptions in that they are:… (c ) personnel and medical files or information; also any other materials or data relating to a specifically named individual, the disclosure of which may constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy….”

Doubts persist on work at LHA
Ex-official: Tests for lead paint, asbestos may have been lax

That’s a front page story in the Lowell Sun by cub reporter Lyle Moran. It is based on the words of the former Building Commissioner who we know was incompetent and allowed an Inspector to sleep on the job and file inspection reports that were never done.

However missing from the story is facts that lay these concerns to rest and facts that Dr. Gary Wallace provided early in the day to me and I’m told also to the Sun who certainly had them before the story was written.

Yet Moran and Campanini chose to ignore them and NOT PRINT FACTS THAT REFUTE THE STORY MAKING THE STORY MISLEADING AND KNOWINGLY SLANTED TO CAST LHA IN A NEGATIVE LIGHT.

Example: Story says: Because the LHA started the rehab work in 2008 with­out notifying city officials and pulling building permits, the city was unable to con­firm if the agency conducted the proper asbestos or lead testing before the demolition of walls, former City Build­ing Commissioner Robert Camacho has told The Sun.

Facts Supplied by Dr. Wallace and the LHA: The LHA had all led abated by a professional licensed company as per a contract in the years between 1990-1992 and received a certificate of Full Compliance.

Also, there was an extensive asbestos abatement project performed at NCV in the late 1980′s, again, in full compliance

Try finding those facts anywhere in the story..the SUN and reporter chose NOT to share them. The story talks about the age of the building and again shows how incompetent Camacho was. In 2008 he NEVER ASK and yet in 2012 he goes on a local radio show and talks to the SUN and NOW HAS CONCERNS.

IT took me 20 minutes tops to get an answer and the SUN had the same answer and FACTS AND CHOSE PURPOSELY NOT TO PRINT THEM AND CAMPY HAS THE NERVE TO ACCUSE BLOGGERS OF BEING IRRESPONSIBLE?

Also the SUN or WCAP apparently didn’t ask Camacho if he EVER ASKED THE LHA QUESTIONS ABOUT ASBESTOS in 2008! I’m told Email records indicate he did not but he did send other emails concerned about FEES ! Again facts the SUN ignored.

Instead MIDWAY THROUGH THE STORY they quote Dr. Wallace CHERRY PICKING CERTAIN PARTS OF HIS EMAILED RESPONSE

The article quotes him has saying ” LHA Executive Director Gary Wallace said yesterday in an emailed statement that the concerns Camacho and others have expressed are moot because there was no asbestos present or removed during the renovations of the 132 units.

There was a rumor about asbestos in the units last fall, Wallace said, so the LHA hired a firm to test one of the units with its walls opened.

The firm, EMSL Analytical Inc., of Woburn, did not find any asbestos in the unit, Wallace said.”

The story has this item EVEN BEFORE THEY HAVE THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT – City Councilor Rodney Elliott said he filed two motions yesterday seeking to have the proper government agencies examine how the LHAhandled possible asbestos and lead paint in the units.

Now if Rodney doesn’t read my blog someone should read it to him because it appears he AGAIN IS IGNORING FACTS FOR HIS OWN PERSONAL AGENDA AND MISSION or is BLINDING FILING MOTIONS THAT HE DOESN’T HAVE THE FACTS TO MAKE A COMPOTENT MOTION ON.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SAFETY AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE COUNCILOR AND SUN GOING AFTER WALLACE AND LYNCH.

No wonder why the SUN’s revenue dropped over 30% and the finance moved to Denver. Campy and O’Neill are waging a personal war and NOT REPORTING FACTS.

IF you listened to former building Commissioner Robert Camacho on WCAP he stated
that the Manager broke no laws, did NOT force him to do anything and that the LHA renovations was something he could not handle because of the sheer volume of it.

However he also left me with more questions than he did answers and I would have asked a few more things.

Like why a plumbing/gas Inspector who he was supposed to be supervising was found not to have conducted many inspections and had in fact signed for inspections not done or How many total inspections he performed while serving as the building commissioner.

One thing that did catch my attention was a question asked and answered. Mr. Camacho was asked if any cease and desist orders were issued to stop work at the LHA project?

He stated that he in fact issued some verbal and then two written Cease and Desist Orders to LHA during the disputed renovations project.

He also stated it was up to the Administration and Manager to pursue this in court if LHA wasn’t cooperating and he would only serve as the expert witness.

However he wasn’t asked the natural follow up (at least one I would have asked) Did you at any time request the City Administration / Manager to pursue an injunction?

Those statements bothered me for a number of reasons. One is I asked that question to the Manager point blank December 21st about a Cease and Desist Order and was told NONE was issued.

Why wasn’t a cease and desist order ever issued by Mr. Camacho?

It is unclear why a cease and desist was not issued. My letter of January 2009 to the LHA warned of this possibility and Mr. Camacho at various points indicated that he would head down this road but it never came to pass. It certainly isn’t a desired outcome and we prefer to find other options. I assume Mr. Camacho, on his own or through discussion with others, determined that there were other options to gain compliance. Unfortunately, it is also apparent that such options were not exercised.

Secondly why is he stating he issued cease and desist orders now and why did he not ask the Manager to seek a court injunction then? Also if he was so concerned about safety why did he not notify the State or the Sun or a Councilor back in 2008?

He also seemed to say one thing on a subject but then say another.

At the beginning of the interview when Teddy ask about a specific date he states he doesn’t have papers in front of him. Later he says he has no copies of papers / reports dealing with the LHA Issues and then later says he does have some emails he sent to the LHA and Manager that he also sent to his home email.

Teddy never asked him why he sent them there or did he send these to Councilor Elliot and were these the emails the Councilor was waving around at a council meeting a few weeks ago.

If you read the 19 page report the Manager issued to the council, you could assume that Mr. Camacho or Mr. St. Hilaire may have been responsible for taking documents or, misfiling documents. Because on several occasions the report contains statements like:

The City’s documentation was limited as the former Building Commissioner held files regarding LHA separately in his office. A search for the stored files has not resulted in location of the documentation. Further a search of the former Acting Building Commissioner David St. Hilaire’s files has also not produced additional documentation. And

Camacho’s last day of work with the City was mid- January. At the time Camacho left employment with the City. Inspectional Services was the subject of state and federal investigations which revealed in part that certain City inspectors were routinely not performing inspections. No record ha s been found indicating communication to the LHA regarding some permits being issue ‘and some being voided.

So I sent Dr. Gary Wallace a question regarding the existence of these Cease and Desist Orders and was told the following

The LHA did receive 2 orders. They were both immediately forwarded to our General Counsel Atty. Nyman.

I sent the City Manager an email to ask about theses orders and his first response was:

Our files haven’t shown a Cease and Desist…so I just contacted the LHA and got copies. Reviewing now….will get back to you

Followed by:

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for contacting me (and tracking down the Criminal Violation Notices from the LHA) regarding the issue of Cease and Desist orders at the LHA. As you noted, we have indicated that there weren’t any Cease and Desist orders issued by the City at the LHA properties. This statement had been based upon a review of the Inspectional Service files.

However, today on the radio former Building Commissioner Camacho did state that there were two Orders issued. We again reviewed our files and again found nothing. However, you took a different approach and went to the property owner and found that they had copies of the violation notices.

As you can imagine we generally limit our searches to our own documents as opposed to seeking materials from owners that we are enforcing against.

In any event, there was a Stop Work Notice for 642 Salem Street, Unit 289 issued on (date unknown) which was seemingly followed by Violation Notice letter dated June 3, 2009 from Mr. Camacho to the LHA for Parcel 10, Building 642 Market Street, Unit 289. These documents were never forwarded to me or the City Solicitor for any handling through the courts.

The other Stop Work Notice occurred on September 8, 2009 for 316 Adams Street followed by Criminal Violation Notice letter of the same date for 316 Adams St. unit 187 and 380 Adams St. unit 158 top floor. We have no records of this order at all and no records of communications with the Solicitor or me regarding the issuance of this order. Though I do note that my office was listed as CC’d.

Mr. Camacho represented on the radio today that he needed the solicitor’s office to go to court and enforce his order. First, no such request was ever made for enforcement action through the solicitor’s office or mine for that matter.

Second, as has been the case in the past, Mr. Camacho could have filed criminal complaints in court. I don’t believe that it had been the past practice to utilize the law department for such complaints, but rather individual inspectors would seek the issuance of a criminal complaint on their own. That was never done in this case.

Lastly, what is important to not lose sight of is that the only thing holding up the issuance of the building permits was that, for the first time, the City was charging LHA for the permits and making the LHA get permits and have inspections. That was a decision that I made and enforced.

Ironically, had I simply taken the position that the LHA advocated (that they didn’t need building permits for in-house work and they didn’t pay fees) a position that had been previously been followed by the City, this would not be the issue it is today.

In other words, had I followed the past practice regarding LHA work, no money would have been collected by the City to help defray the costs of work we perform, and the residents of the LHA would not have had the benefit of a control construction project.

While this project was far from being properly handled by the ISD, the LHA work was, nevertheless, performed with a greater level of oversight that had ever been previously attempted.

I did note some discussion this morning regarding asbestos and lead paint, and I note that you have already learned from the LHA that these matters were resolved in the 80’s and 90’s.

Bernard F. Lynch | City Manager

I guess I don’t understand why WCAP and the SUN are taking the words of a disgruntled former employee who it has been shown did not properly supervise at least one Inspector, did not have control of files and copies of documents and one who admits he could not deal with a project this size?

When the Sun dumped MK – Mr.C indiacted is was a personal matter and he wasn’t going to say anything else. When Clark Smidth invaded WCAP a few weeks ago with a couple of
“associates” I don’t recall Teddy putting him on air or having him call in to discuss his issues.

Yet both the Sun and WCAP want to drag out a person who was less than stellar at their job and have us beleive that we should take his statements of being concerned about safety seriusly almost 2 years after the fact?

Acording to Shawn at Dracut Forum and confirmed by Warren Shaw himself, Warren is going forward with a lawsuit, being filed tomorrow, against Frank Zabierek of Nashua. Zabierek is the moderator of the Voyager Infosystems Forum “Dracut after Dark”

From Dracut Forum:

After being served a number of demand notices over the last few weeks, Zabierek failed to remove all the postings referring to Shaw and his family.

Shaw’s lawyer referred to Mass General Laws regarding Privacy, and other lawyers I have conferred with point to new harassment statutes that are being broken as well

Ted Panos had former Building Commissioner Robert Camacho on WCAP this morning to talk about the LHA controversy and I thought Mr. Camacho was articulate and pretty fair in his assessments.

He admitted the entire issue was one that he did not have a handle on and one he had never seen before and made it pretty clear that there was communication issue between himself and the City Manager and that they both may have wanted the same thing –Public Safety and the issue resolved – but they apparently didn’t agree on the direction to resolve it.

One of most interesting items was a “concern” that up until today he apparently never expressed to anyone and one of the few I haven’t seen the Sun or Councilor Elliot run with (yet ).

He stated that he had concerns that because of the age of the building when the work was being done in 2008, that there could be lead paint and asbestos in these buildings and was the removal and disposal of these items done in the proper way or are were they covered over etc?

Now I am NOT a Building Inspector or as I am sure the Editor of the Sun would say a “professional journalist” but if I was concerned about this issue at all in 2008, shouldn’t I have asked about it or looked into it? Not wait until 2012 when the local newspaper and a city councilor are trying to use this episode in a negative way against the City Manager?

Anyway it took me about 20 minutes in total to send an email and get a response from Dr. Gary Wallace and the LHA. You would think a gentleman being paid a salary to perform the duty of a Building Inspector should have asked the same questions say 1-2 years ago when the events were taking place? A lowly blogger got them answered in a short time. Wonder if the Editor would call this “responsible blogging”?

I asked if these units contained lead paint or asbestos and if so were they disposed of in the proper way.

Here is the response from Dr. Wallace and the LHA Board.

Gerry,
Good stuff. We appreciate the fairness.

If the local media (Lowell Sun/ WCAP) are questioning whether or not the units at NCV contain lead or asbestos here is my response to your questions.

The LHA had all led abated by a professional licensed company as per a contract in the years between 1990-1992 and received a certificate of Full Compliance.

Also, there was an extensive asbestos abatement project performed at NCV in the late 1980′s, again, in full compliance.

We are pulling together backup documentation from the archives now.

You may remember that these asbestos rumors were swirling around the permit process issue during the recent council campaign. As verification I requested a vacant gutted rehab unit be tested for asbestos and the result was negative.

I will keep you posted.

Sincerely,
Gary

Now that was pretty clear and easy information that even a “rookie” reporter could have gotten and printed.

I will have more later today about another thing mentioned by Mr. Camacho this morning that surprised me, so check back after 6:00 pm for another post.

If you have not yet subscribed to the SUN Column BLOG , what are you waiting for?

Today Chris Scott has an OUTSTANDING Post with more on the Noun VS. Lowell Police Issue. Again a brief snippet to get you to click the link and read the column:

Lavallee also wants to make several things clear, including:

• He didn’t apologize to Nuon.

• He was surprised Nuon and his legal team issued a press release because they never indicated they were doing so.

• Better training methods were already on the horizon, prompted by the Cambridge Police Department’s controversial arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates in July 2009.

“There was never any apology, either by myself or Officer Kinney,” Lavallee said.

Referring to Kinney’s email, Lavallee said: “Officer Kinney felt it was important to alert his fellow officers to his side of the story.”

(careful Chris, Lowell Resident will accuse you of working with me as part of the
The Character Assassination of Vesna Nuon)

Dracut Housing Authority Board Member Brian Bond was nice enough to check in to let me know that he has not been asked to resign from the Dracut Housing Authority and gave no indication he was contemplating doing that.

Brian sent me a message stating that ” The Gov. has NOT asked me” (to resign.)

I appreciate Brian responding to the rumor and even more appreciate this promise from him:

“If he calls you’ll be the first blogger / Media person I tell”