87 year old kicked out of home mid-winter

[Kat Kanning]

This man contacted me.  Think there's something we can do to help?  This is most of the story, I believe:

http://www.hwforums.com/2174/messages/124.html

Posted by Dennis Herrick on November 01, 2005 at 21:41:34:

Folks have it all wrong. I heard a rumor last week that we moved my mother, Claire Herrick, to an "Assisted Living" community. We wanted to start a counter rumor that we cashed out all her investments and put her on a cruise ship, while it was in Boston. Last we heard she was living it up in Belize and wasn't ever coming back to Plaistow. This week we heard that she died, believe me, if she had died, we kids would be celebrating her long life and we'd be long gone from this evil town.

Here's how that vile monopoly Unitil knocked my mother down, but it was the town of Plaistow that kicked her under the bus.

About 7 years ago we hired a surveyor to walk our boundaries and check on our property lines at 44 Sweet Hill Road. The DiPalma's had recently gotten approval from the Planning Board to proceed with their development, Partridge Lane. It wasn't long before the surveyor came back with bad news. There had been an incursion on our property, measuring approximately 150 feet long by 50 feet deep. We asked if there was any chance of mistake and he said none. He said, "Your property was an original Kings Grant, lot lines were easy to find and all other property lines were calculated according to yours." The whole family went down to check it out and sure enough, there were large pine trees missing and a particularly attractive section of waist high field stone wall was gone without a trace. It's probably someone's fireplace now. My sister went to the Building Inspectors Office to get a map of the project and the woman there was especially unhelpful. My sister ended up making the copies herself. She told the woman what the problem was and her only comment was, I can't believe you're having trouble with that developer, they've got the finest team the town has ever dealt with. We told that to our lawyer and his comment was, "How do you spell payoff?" We sent a letter of complaint to the DiPalma's and they basically gave us the brush-off. Luckily Steven Lewis stepped in and talked to Building Inspector Dorman and we finally got some action. The DiPalma's foreman promised to plant some trees and put together something that resembled a stone wall so that the new home owners wouldn't get the idea that their lawns stretched onto our property. The surveyor told us we needed to take care of this immediately, because of squatters rights. After a certain period the new home owner could actually claim our property as their own. There are buffers all around the project except along our lower lot line. If the DiPalma's were forced to put in buffers along our lower boundary there wouldn't be enough land to build houses on 5 or 6 lots. Very interesting. That was our first contact with Dorman.

A couple of years later our barn starts to take a turn for the worst and who's on our door step, none other than Mike Dorman and Fire Chief Donald Petzold and they wanted access to the barn. My mother refused. They leave and nothing comes of it. No one watched to see if they actually respected my mother's wishes or whether they actually went into the barn. It was about 2 years later that half of the barn's roof blew in one January night and then we got our first order from Mike Dorman to tear the barn down. It was about a year later that we relented and paid to have it torn down.

A year ago this past October, Unitil drops by and asks if they can put a radio transmitter in our cellar to broadcast the electric meter reading to a truck parked outside. My mother didn't have a problem with this. Two weeks later they returned with a meter installation crew and a new electric meter instead. My mother didn't have a problem with this and showed them to the cellar door. After a short time they came upstairs, one guy runs out to check the transformer out in front of our house and the other mentions something to my mother about seeing some electrical arcing, they probably caused it, and ended up reinstalling the old meter. They went out to their truck and called their base office. Within a short time my mother gets a phone call from the Unitil Office stating that there was a serious issue with the electrical service in our home and the Plaistow Code Enforcement Office needed to be notified. My mother pleaded with the woman not to do this to no avail. One odd thing, the transformer out in front of our house doesn't serve us. The one down the street does. When that transformer blew one time everyone up the street from us lost power, we still had electricity. On another occasion when a tree fell on the wires down the street from us, we lost power, but the folks above us were fine. Guess they don't even know their own system. Anyway, over comes Mike Dorman. I had just gotten home from work. I went in the house and Mike Dorman abruptly leaves without even coming to the door. He must have thought there was a miss-communication, because the Unitil van had gone and in its place was our Furnace Repair Service's truck. They stopped in to clean the furnace. The peace only lasted two weeks. It wasn't long before Unitil returned to read the meter for November and they turned us in to the Building Safety Office again. We ignored Dorman's rather condescending letter. Something to the effect that "we wouldn't want to pursue this further, would we?" He wanted to send the electric inspector over, but we refused. By December, when the meter reader returned, they were getting a little frustrated with Mrs. Herrick. I'll probably scan in the Building Safety Office Letters and post them soon. We arranged to have our own electrician come in and do the inspection. That Building Safety Office is just dying to get into your house and they bring all of their friends with them, like the plumbing inspector and the health inspector. God, it's a regular police state in Plaistow right down to the mosquito inspector and the real estate sign inspector.

Our electrician told us that we had some problems, that the service was out of code, some wires were exposed, the box was open and there were 30 AMP fuses in circuits rated for 20 Amps at most. He said we must be very familiar with balancing power usage in our house to get by for so long without a major incident. He said he could easily upgrade our service, but the town's electrical inspector would probably demand that all the wiring in the house be replaced. I can count the number of times we've had electrical problems on one hand. My cousin used to do body work on his cars in the barn and he'd be blowing fuses left and right. I tried us use a 1 horse air compressor and it blew a fuse. And about every 2 or 3 years a small transformer associated with the furnace would blow. That's it. I don't think our electric bill was every over $35 a month. We're not big users. Not much had been done with the electrical system in the house. In the early 60s a circuit was put in for a new refrigerator and another circuit was added to service a new furnace. That's it.

One time a meter reader saw my solar panels and 1500 Watt storage battery and asked if we were having problems with power. I use the solar set up to run a laptop, video monitor and Meade Telescope in remote locations. There are some decent dark-sky areas up north. I had just used the setup to run a fan one night and I left the unit in the kitchen. It was hot and humid, a tree limb fell on the power lines that evening and took out our power. I needed some comfortable sleep so I used my solar equipment to power a fan. I didn't tell the guy that it was his company's power issues not mine. You can't let anyone in your house. Everyone is just dying to find out what makes you tick. I'm now suspicious about the assessor. What do those property cards say?

We looked at the options. Why would we tear up the walls to rewire without removing that horse hair plaster and replacing it with sheet rock? Why would we put in sheet rock without replacing the windows and doors? Why would we replace windows and doors without removing the asbestos shingles and having wood siding put on? The roof is 20 years old and is just starting to leak. We would need a new roof. The plumbing inspector would probably have issues with the water and septic systems, demanding a new kitchen and bathroom. We would probably need a new well as the current one has become marginal due to all the development in the neighborhood and finally the septic system. All of this would be under the supervision of that demon at the Building Safety Office, Mike Dorman. So Unitil knocks over the first domino and the rest fall right in succession. The electrician advised us to tear the place down and start over. We decided to start over in another town.

During this whole time, the town is broadcasting this PAC17 TV show called, Town Hall Tour, showing all the electrical code violations at Town Hall. Then come a flurry of press releases in local newspapers, showing the methane problems at the Town's Highway Garage. This is why I call Plaistow the "Holier than Thou" town. Do I have to remind you, that we have a Pastor in the Town Manager slot

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone

According to the Gospel of John, the Pharisees, in an attempt to discredit Jesus, brought a woman charged with adultery before him. Then they reminded Jesus that adultery was punishable by stoning under Mosaic law and challenged him to judge the woman so that they might then accuse him of disobeying the law. Jesus thought for a moment and then replied, ?He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.? The people crowded around him were so touched by their own consciences that they departed. When Jesus found himself alone with the woman, he asked her who were her accusers. She replied, ?No man, lord.? Jesus then said, ?Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more.?

This is one time when the Town of Plaistow should have examined its "conscience" and "departed". Mrs. Herrick merely wanted to be left alone, to live out her remaining years in peace, instead they created an hysteria and let the stones fly.

The first lawyer we spoke to told us that the town had an open and shut case against us and that the town had deep pockets. I think he was in bed with the town. We found another lawyer in Haverhill and he told us that the judge was pragmatic and may not do what Dorman and Plaistow want. My mother had gone through enough. I think the last straw was when the Plaistow Police woman tried to serve papers on a Sunday in late January at 9:30 in the morning. In February, we looked for a Condo in Plaistow and decided that East Hampstead was a much nicer area. Plaistow seemed bound and determined to take my mother to court. My sister told them to put a stop to the court action, that we were moving out of town. The only problem was the Condo close was way out in late April. Plaistow had us scheduled for a court appearance at the end of March. Our lawyer negotiated an agreement with the town that Mrs. Herrick would sign a waiver, absolving the town of any liability that might be incurred if a fire broke out in her home before April 28th 2005. We rode it out and left. Mrs. Herrick did not want to leave, she was looking for a permanent waiver. Something that Town Manager Scruton says is illegal. It's interesting that waivers were were being signed left and right in Alabama and Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina and suddenly when it suits the Town of Plaistow they came up with a waiver that got everyone off the hook. But, they're illegal, says Scruton.

Anyway, what concerns me now is Mike Dorman's inability to supervise these developers. DiPalma's incursion on our properety is just one example. Without buffers our property was at risk. Quoted sections below were taken directly from the minutes of a May 18th 2005 Planning Board meeting:

Shirley was good enough to grant the developer and easement and the developer damages her property. Sounds like Mrs Herrick and Developer DiPalma all over again.

"Shirley Sayewich, 66 Sweet Hill Road, offered that Mr. Brown had given her an intent to restore her property. She noted she would be impacted on two sides of her property, once as part of the new Gunstock Road and again when Sweet Hill Road was changed. Ms. Sayewich spoke of what restoration efforts were being made to her property. She said that she would be left hanging if the project were not to go through."

"Dennis Donovan, 39 Greenfield Drive, expressed concern over what he saw as a lack of oversight in much of the process, from the bond to the inspection of the site. He questioned why a Cease and Desist (C&D) order was not issued."

"P. MacDonald offered that this project requires more oversight. He assured that he didn?t have the time to just go and hang around the site, but suggested that more inspections were needed. P. MacDonald reminded there had not been activity on the site since last fall, therefore no inspections were needed. He said that there was the need for more inspections now as work has begun again and there were open trenches on the site."

"A. Cantone noted the perception was clear that there were problems with oversight of this project, noting there has had to be reactive measure. He asked who would be making assurance of oversight from here forward."

"M. Dorman said that it would be his responsibility."

Unfortunately it was Mike Dorman responsibility for oversight from day one. Where was he, up to Concord at one of those Building Official's meetings? I feel sorry for Shirley and the others. Don't cross Dorman though, he has ways of getting even. Just ask Claire Herrick.

[Kat Kanning]

And this was interesting, from CNHT:

http://www.hwforums.com/2174/messages/90.html

Posted by Joe Beach on October 31, 2005 at 04:23:01:

I got the following item from the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers, CNHT,
cnht.org. Rather than linking to the document, links sometimes expire, I include it
below after convertion from pdf format to text.

Definition of Ethnic Cleansing

Introduction

Let's discuss what is happening in NH, as happens in many municipalities across
America, in regards to the use of property taxes by one group of people, who
often with full intent, but sometimes without, use spending and the subsequent
rise in taxes as a tool to limit the ability of some members of their community to
continue to afford to live there.

Why would good citizens vote to knowingly drive neighbors off their property?
The answer is simple: to enhance the value of their own property by limiting the
type and quality of homes that can be built or afforded by a certain group of
people with limited or fixed incomes.

Why does CNHT call this Ethnic Cleansing? Read the definition of the phrase as
offered by Wikipedia or almost any other source.

Ethnic Cleansing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The term ethnic cleansing refers to various policies of forcibly removing people of
another ethnic group. At one end of the spectrum, it is virtually indistinguishable
from forced emigration and population transfer, while at the other it merges with
deportation and genocide.

At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the
expulsion of an "undesirable" population from a given territory due to
religious or ethnic discrimination, political, strategic or ideological
considerations, or a combination of these.

The second paragraph sums up exactly what is going on in communities that
have enough voters to shove fixed and limited income people outside their town
boundaries and to prevent any of the same type people or families from gaining a
toe-hold in the future.

The Coalition of NH Taxpayers collects "pledges" not to raise taxes from
candidates for just this reason. We try to balance the needs of a school or
municipalities against the wishes of those in charge of spending tax dollars. We
also recognize there exists in every town and school district voters, who for their
own personal gain, are interested in making their community an exclusive
enclave for people of their own socio-economic status.

Sometimes ethnic cleansers will come right out and say they want to spend
whatever it takes to have a "quality school" so they can "protect" their property
values. This would mean they want an economic edge over people who live in the
community and intend to stay there and not sell their home for a profit after their
children are educated.

It is in direct conflict with the residents of every community who have a home in
which they intend to live permanently, such as young couples with children,
people on fixed or limited incomes or the elderly living alone or as couples, to
expect them to keep up with annual tax increases for items not necessarily
needed for the upkeep of the municipality or school but for expenditures directed
at a small group of people in that town interested in resale values of their current
investment home.

Extravagant expenses for items such as hundreds of acres of land for a new
school instead of a parcel appropriate for the project, community centers, safety
complexes, new libraries and other such expenditures proposed in some
communities year after year show the pattern of spending associated with ethnic
cleansing through property taxes.

One of the worst ethnic cleansing expenses, usually accomplished through
bonding, is purchasing land for "conservation". This spending, like snob zoning,
limits the amount of land available for new construction making all buildable
parcels more valuable and out of the reach of starter homes, mobile or modular
homes.

By bonding large amounts of money for large projects ethnic cleansers can
accomplish much more because the bonds are often for 20 years or more. Once
voted in there will not be a reprieve for moderate or fixed income residents and
they will "see the light".

Bonding large extravagant projects every year to enhance financial portfolios and
property values of a select economic class means you can use the tax rate to do
several things.

1. Move "undesirable" - as in lower economic scale, residents out of town
and keep them out.
2. Have what you believe will increase resale value to people of your
financial class immediately through borrowing at a town meeting at which
a very small percentage of voters turn out to approve such spending.
3. Avoid having to pay future taxes yourself for what you voted to approve
once you have sold your investment home and left town to retire in a more
affordable community or to do the same elsewhere.
4. Telegraph to other like-minded investment home buyers that your
community is an "elite", desirable community that has little resistance to
unending tax increases left from the lower economic class residents.


Anyone familiar with town and school district annual meetings has seen people
who do this to their neighbors. They move into town, become politically active,
sell large bonded spending projects, and move.

Ethic cleansers are also fond of shamelessly professing their special bond or
love for the community, education, or conservation while depriving others of a
place to live or the place they have always lived.

Recently, CNHT had the Massachusetts equivalent of our organization, Citizens
for Limited Taxation's Barbara Anderson on NH Taxpayer radio as a guest. She
mentioned a woman who stood up at a town meeting in that state and said
anyone who couldn?t afford the taxes in that town had not managed their portfolio
properly. This is exactly the attitude of ethnic cleansers.

Ethnic Cleansing Exposed

In the Town of Hollis in 2005 voters will see a $5,000.00 warrant article to do a
study of how people who can not afford their property taxes cope with that
problem. This warrant article is shameless and a sign of the utter contempt the
elites who run that town have for their neighbors on fixed incomes.
To spend even more money - take more money from taxpayers to alleviate
your guilt for bonding $8 million dollars to buy "open space", and adopting snob
zoning the likes of which Martha's Vineyard would be proud, shows either a level
of reckless stupidity in the elected officials there who do not know the answer
already or an attempt to purchase a plan to help eliminate the last hangers on.
And to pretend that you have no idea what is happening to fixed income
residents should prevent Hollis officials from ever holding office again. It's a good
bet Hollis officials know where every Volvo dealership is but not a clue as to
where to buy Raman Soup or day-old baked goods.