AN INSIDE LOOK
By Bill Gouveia
If
you can, try and imagine this admittedly farfetched scenario:
Your
next-door neighbor needs a zoning variance to build an addition to his
house. He asks you to support his
efforts, in exchange offering to pay for a fence built along your property
line. The agreement is put in writing
with a provision clearly stating if you do not build the fence by a certain
date, your neighbor will no longer foot the bill. The addition is constructed, and it increases
property values in the neighborhood.
But
you and your family can’t agree on the fence and choose not to build it. Instead you decide to sell the house and move
across town. You then go to your original
neighbor and tell them they have a moral obligation to pay for a fence on your
new property.
Sound
silly? Well, it’s pretty much what some
Foxboro town officials are doing in their long-running dispute with the Kraft
organization over a 2007 agreement. It
involves the development of Patriot Place and a promised $7.5 million payment
towards building a new sewage treatment plant.
Kraft
wanted support for additional liquor licenses and other things from the town
for Patriot Place, which was provided.
The town wanted the increased revenue from the project and the promised
money to build a treatment plant, which had to be approved by Town Meeting.
But
the people at Town Meeting voted down the project in 2007. Five years later, they have never accepted
it. Most officials agree the Kraft
organization has no legal obligation to now pay the $7.5 million, and the amount
of revenue promised from the development has been met or exceeded. But some Foxboro selectmen are crying foul, insisting
the town’s largest taxpayer is defaulting on its obligation.
Selectmen
Lorraine Brue, Virginia Coppola, Mark Sullivan and James DeVellis have been particularly
vocal on the matter. They insist the
Kraft group owes the town based upon the 2007 agreement. They were supported in that view last week by
the recently replaced and now former town attorney Paul DeRensis, who claims
the Kraft folks have a “moral obligation” and a “social contract” with the town
to pay the $7.5 million.
When the
Kraft organization wanted to merely present the case for a casino to be built
in Foxboro this past year, these same community leaders refused to allow him to
do so. Selectmen and the town manager
prevented Kraft officials from speaking at a public meeting, forcing a judge to
issue an injunction allowing it. They
also sponsored a town meeting warrant article to take Kraft land by eminent
domain over a dispute about billboards, before eventually rescinding it under
pressure.
Now the
same people who refused to listen to Kraft’s plans for his own property are
insisting he honor an agreement their own Town Meeting turned down. They slammed the door of town hall shut in
Bob Kraft’s face, but now are lecturing him on his “moral obligation” to that
same community. That smacks of hypocrisy
and politics.
The Kraft
group and the town have been engaged in new talks over future development. Kraft wants more from Foxboro in the form of
support for additional liquor licenses and zoning relief. The town has severe sewer problems and needs
money to fix them. There would seem to
be a natural alliance here waiting to be forged.
But a
majority of Foxboro selectmen are saying they may not negotiate until the Kraft
group lives up to their alleged “moral obligation”. Selectman Coppola recently said, “I’m not interested
in looking to the future and making negotiations for the future until the past
negotiations have been dealt with. That’s where I stand.”
This is
exactly the kind of shortsighted attitude that got Foxboro into this
predicament in the first place. Coppola
and most of her fellow board members are trying to rewrite history.
Town
officials need to get over the past and start working on creating a better
future for all involved. Their alleged
“social contract” isn’t worth the paper it’s not written on. If they want a different result, they should
negotiate a different deal. They can’t
do that by cutting off the town’s nose to spite its face.
Bill Gouveia is a local columnist and
area town official, and can be emailed at aninsidelook@aol.com and followed on
Twitter at @Billinsidelook.
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