On Brookline Reprise.
By Jim Conley • Jul 1st, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Throughout the week, I’ll be pulling material out of the On Brookline archives for the benefit of new readers and those of us who are work-bound during the Independence Day holiday. Our first installment is the two part series concerning the “demotion” of Brookline Preservation Commission Vice Chair Dennis DeWitt.
Click here to read the series.
The demotion was the product of then-Selectmen’s Chair Robert Allen’s specious argument that his board had received several complaints concerning DeWitt. Turns out, there were only two complaints. And if this is DeWitt at his worst, I’d like to see his best behavior.
(Incidentally, Allen has been quite mute on the behavior of Zoning Board of Appeals member, and Allen crony, Lawrence Kaplan who verbally assaulted town meeting Member Ruthann Sneider. And that’s not the first time Kaplan’s popped off.)
Why was Allen hell bent to demote DeWitt? Well, it turns out that Allen is corporate attorney to a group of developers with a project at Spooner Road. DeWitt was a stickler on a plan to subdivide the land and was likely to be a problem should the abutters to the development prevail in a lawsuit against the project.
What’s the basis of the lawsuit? Well, the developers say that the Town’s zoning by-law that put a waiting period on attic conversions over to habitable space is illegal. Selectman Allen chaired his board’s hearing on the by-law change and voted against it. Anyone see an ethical problem with that? Not Allen. Nor do his fellow board members.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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As part of this Reprise, a revisit to “The World of Brookline Zoning” and in particular “Part III: Zoning Amendments ‘R’ Us” might provide some relevant background.