By Patrick Brodrick

            It took more than a year and a half and threats of legal action, but members of the Clinton Polish American Veterans Club (PAV) now feel that they finally had a fair hearing on the issue of whether or not the charitable organization should be forced to install a fire sprinkler system.

            “We feel that a lot of things were done before, like changing our classification, that never should have happened, and now they are finally getting straightened out,” PAV Commander Rick Kinzer said on Wednesday with a trace of frustration in his voice. “We finally feel like we had a fair hearing.”

            On Wednesday night, just days before the PAV would have lost its liquor license, selectmen granted the veterans club a 60-day temporary license. The decision should give the PAV enough time to appeal Fire Chief Richard Hart’s ruling that the club is required to install a fire sprinkler system under a new state law.

            The law, stemming from the tragic Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island, requires that any establishment with a liquor license and an occupancy permit for 100 people or more install fire sprinklers. A number of businesses that feel they don’t qualify as a nightclub, however, argue that the price of installing a sprinkler system would force them to close their doors.

Back to the wall

            Last month, selectmen ordered former Building Inspector Bentley Herget to write a letter that was supposed to end a stalemate between the town and the club; however, according to PAV Attorney William O’Neil, the letter was “useless” and it failed to meet the state’s requirements for an appeal. During that same meeting, the board learned that Herget acted inappropriately when he suddenly changed the PAV’s classification, which only drew out the club’s appeal process.

            “My client feels that their back has been pushed to the wall,” O’Neil told the board on Wednesday night. “I have filed a preliminary injunction hearing that is scheduled for Friday morning, and there is an official here from the Sheriff’s Department to serve everyone this evening. This process has gone way beyond any reasonable period of time and I feel 100 percent confident in saying it is because of a direct result of certain officials in this town.”

            Interim Building Inspector Tom Dillon explained he would be willing to sign off on a 30-day extension to allow the PAV to appeal Hart’s decision, however, it would be a moot point without the chief’s signature as well. O’Neil said a 30-day extension would not give the club enough time to meet with the Sprinkler Appeals Board, and asked for at least a 60-day extension.

            “I’d be fine with that because I always felt that 30 days wasn’t enough time to take care of these issues,” Selectman Anthony Fiorentino said.

The art of political cowardice

            In a breathtaking display of political cowardice, Chairman of the Board of Selectman Robert Pasquale Jr. tried to pawn the blame for the club potentially losing its license on the building inspector and fire chief, and not the board’s inability to reign in at least one town official — Herget — that was operating outside the scope of his power, or working to facilitate a compromise between the two parties.

            “Well, this is their call; it’s out of our hands,” Pasquale said.

            Pasquale’s comments were a departure from his stance a week ago when he said he was prepared to vote against granting the club a license.

            “I have to support the building inspector and the fire chief,” Pasquale said last week.

End to a year-long standoff

            Hart, who almost single-handedly forced this issue to be drawn out for as long as it has, sauntered into the meeting 20 minutes late only to announce that he had no plans on signing off on a 60-day extension. He would not sign off on an extension, he said, because there were numerous violations at the club that he felt put people’s lives in “imminent peril;” however, he refused to list the infractions.

            To try and come to some amicable solution between the two parties, Selectwoman Mary Rose Dickhaut asked if the PAV’s Board of Directors and Hart would be willing to meet in a short caucus. Both parties agreed.

            During the caucus, selectmen were served with summonses to appear at the Friday morning injunction if an agreement could not be reached.

            After the caucus, Hart and Dillon agreed to sign off on the extension as long as the PAV worked to rectify its code infractions.

            So what were some of the violations that led to the year-long standoff that were placing people in imminent peril?

            Well, the PAV didn’t have any identifying street numbers that were visible, the carpet in the hallway may or may not be fire retardant, there was some scrap aluminum in the basement, some of the fire extinguishers in the building were not hanging properly and there was a lawnmower in the cellar.

            “Overall it was nothing major,” PAV Member Chris Dzicek said on Thursday, pointing out the club was never made aware of the infractions until Wednesday night. “I would say we got about a third of them [code violations] taken care of today.”

            Now that it will finally be moving forward with their appeal to the state Sprinkler Appeals Board, Dzicek said he is optimistic about the PAV’s chances.

            “I think it looks good for us,” Dzicek said. “All of our records are in order.”

By Patrick Brodrick

            “I believe, if the PAV [Polish American Veterans Club] appeals the former building inspector’s decision to the Board of Building Regulations, that the applicant will win their appeal,” Interim Building Inspector Tom Dillon told the Clinton Board of Selectmen on Dec. 12. “A building inspector can’t change the classification of a building unless the owner asks for it to be changed.  A building official has no authority to change a building’s classification.”

             And just like that, the tumultuous and oftentimes troubled tenure of former Building Inspector Bentley Herget ended in a stunning display of ineptitude and left Selectmen Robert Pasquale Jr., Joseph Notaro Jr. and Anthony Fiorentino looking like a group of rabid foxes raiding a henhouse – egg smeared all over their faces.

            In November, selectmen ordered Herget to write a letter that was supposed to bring an end to the stalemate between the town – specifically Fire Chief Richard Hart and Herget – and the veterans club, stemming from an ongoing dispute over fire sprinklers, and whether or not the private club has to install the costly system. The letter was suuposed to allow the PAV to move forward with its appeal of Hart’s controversial ruling that the club must install the fire prevention system to the state Sprinkler Appeals Board, albeit after appealing Herget’s unauthorized changing of the PAV’s classification to the state Board of Building Regulations. 

            Herget’s letter, which the PAV had been seeking for months, however, failed to meet the Board of Building Regulations requirements, according to William O’Neil, attorney for the PAV – just another sideshow exhibition of the incompetence that appears to have plagued the Building Inspector’s Office under Herget’s reign.

            “I attached it [Herget’s letter explaining his decision to change the PAV’s classification] to a cover letter and sent it to the Board of Building Regulations (BBRS),” reads a letter to selectmen from O’Neil. “Last week I spoke with Patty at the BBRS, who informed me that the inspectors throughout the Commonwealth know what needs to be included in such a letter, and that the letter issued by the Clinton inspector was deficient, and there was nothing to appeal… In short, the PAV is in the same position it was when we appeared before [selectmen] on Nov. 7.”

            Since the tragic Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed more than 100 concertgoers after a pyrotechnics display ignited soundproofing on the stage, clubs and bars that have a liquor license and an occupancy permit for 100 or more people are required to install sprinkler systems. Many bars, restaurants and clubs, however, have argued the cost to install a new sprinkler system would force them to close their doors.

            Like some primitive human sacrifice, Fiorentino, Notaro and Pasquale continue to fall on any sword to protect Herget, who all three foolhardily supported, and continue to support, even when it was clear his actions were wrong.

            “I don’t think we can just rely on hearsay that the building inspector’s letter was deficient,” Fiorentino offered as a response to O’Neil’s letter. “We’re not in the way of them filing an appeal. I called the BBRS and they have not received anything from the town of Clinton.”

            Selectman Kevin Haley disagreed.

            “Somehow we did get in the way,” Haley said, and he is 100 percent correct.

            Notaro, Pasquale and Fiorentino and their petulant-child inability to admit when they are wrong is the exact reason why selectmen have found themselves trapped in the middle of this bureaucratic quagmire.

            And now it looks like the stamp-their-feet mentality of certain members of this board will cost the town one of the few bastions it has for local veterans.

             Tainting the situation with a Monty-Pythonesque absurdity is the fact that certain town officials insist that the PAV should be classified as a nightclub. Come on, a nightclub?

            Can’t you just see the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians kicking off their frank-and-bean supper with several phosphorous and gunpowder explosions, or the Boy Scouts shooting off a pyrotechnic display straight from a Metallica concert during its badge ceremony?

            At last week’s meeting, the board agreed to grant exceptions to establishments looking to reduce their floor space/square footage, which allows them to reduce their occupancy permit and skirt being forced to install sprinklers. But for some reason the PAV seems to be immune to those same luxuries. Hopefully there is a solution to the problem that will allow Notaro, Pasquale and Fiorentino to save face – something that seems to be more important to them than doing “what is in the best interest of the town” – while at the same time allowing the PAV to hold onto its liquor license until it finally has its chance to appeal Hart’s findings.

            When asked about the new law requiring drinking establishments to install fire sprinkler systems former Building Inspector Peter Pender once said, “Would it be safer if every bar in Clinton had fire sprinklers? Absolutely! It’d be safer if we all walked around with helmets on, but at some point you have to use a little commonsense.”

            I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, commonsense doesn’t seem to play a prominent role in the decision-making process of certain members of the selectboard.

To all the readers of The Local Independent, have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Check back this week to read a report on the Clinton Board of Selectmen — well, at least Selectmen Bob Pasquale, Joe Notaro Jr. and Anthony Fiorentino – winding up with egg on their face over the PAV Sprinkler issue.

 Happy Festivus!

By Patrick Brodrick

            In 1975 Clinton resident Greg Wayland, reporter for New England Cable News (NECN), was working as a beat reporter at The Daily Transcript in Norwood when a press release streamed in over the wire. The press release was announcing the candidacy of a Georgia peanut farmer named Jimmy.

            “I remember thinking this can’t be a real press release; a serious candidate for the presidency isn’t going to refer to himself as ‘Jimmy,’” Wayland told the gathered audience at the Holder Memorial Christmas Party on Saturday night. “I went to this press conference and it was just myself and this other reporter, Jimmy and his press secretary. I was asking him these questions like, ‘Do you really think you can win this thing?’

            After the press conference, Wayland went out and walked through downtown Norwood where every person on the street — including an elderly woman — repeatedly dismissed the candidate.

            The following week Sergeant Shriver arrived in Norwood with a cavalcade of the national press and brought the city to a standstill.

            “After Jimmy left I remember thinking, ‘Well, that’s the last I’ll see of that guy,’” Wayland said. “Within a month Shriver’s campaign was over, and as for Jimmy Carter, well, we all know how that turned out. If there is one thing you can say about the press it’s that we are not very good about calling the dark horse.”

            After more than 25 years as a news hound, Wayland has seen both the good and the bad side of the news business, and on Saturday night he brought his tales from pressrooms and newsrooms all up and down the east coast to the Holder Memorial for its annual Christmas Party.

            Before Wayland addressed the gathered crowd, The Independent sat down with the seasoned reporter to get his opinions on the current state of both the national and local media.

            “There is a lot of junk in the news right now – Paris Hilton, Britney Spears,” Wayland said. “When you have 60 million people going onto youtube.com, people are making their own news. A lot of the younger people are hooked on guys like John Stewart and Steven Colbert and things like that. On the other hand there is just so many more places to get your news today, it’s just that the prime places like the 6 o’clock news are really hurting for viewers, so the way they save themselves is to do the stories like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, but somebody has to be watching them.”

            Wayland, whose began his career in the news business as an Editorial Assistant for The Boston Globe before working in newsrooms, both print and TV, in Providence, Florida and now New Hampshire, said there are still venues for the true news hounds and political junkies. Sources for true news, he said, are just more “dispersed” than they have ever been before in the country’s history.

             “Obviously, when a major story like 9/11 or Katrina happens there is an enormous amount of interest in those stories, plus you have all these outlets that are all revved up to do live TV and they are ready for any story to turn it loose,” Wayland said. “I think the viewership has been dispersed, I keep using that adjective, but it’s the only word I can come up with at the moment, because of the great number of resources and everyone is looking for that younger audience and they are trying to get more people to watch so they start going with fluff. In what they call ‘institutional news,’ people that are real news junkies can go to C-SPAN or read the blogs, so you have to ask yourself, ‘Who the heck is watching the 6 o’clock news?’”

            So what does a former newspaper reporter think of the future of print media at the local level?

            While Wayland isn’t ready to call the coroner just yet, he admits newspapers are an endangered species facing extinction. The two biggest threats to the printed word when it comes to news are the Internet and corporations, he said.

            Wayland recalled the corporate takeover of The Daily Transcript in Norwood and the homogenization of that local paper. Wayland said craigslist, an online source of classified advertisements, has decimated a crucial revenue stream for local papers.

            “They came in and took away the local paper for four towns and turned it into this faceless homogenous paper,” Wayland said. “Four towns lost their local paper… newspapers are endangered at this point. The economics are different now. No one is getting rich as a local reporter anymore.”

            While working at Channel 7, Wayland said, it wasn’t uncommon to devote a week’s worth of stories to a space launch, whereas now the same story gets mentioned in passing, or at most with a short story. One reason for the switch in reporting is the all-powerful ratings, Wayland said.

            So what does Wayland see for the future of news? He’s not sure, but he’s glad he’s along for the ride.  

“It’ll keep rolling along,” Wayland said. “It’s been very challenging to work in the industry, but it’s been interesting to see how it has transformed and where it is heading. It’s very noisy out there and there are a lot of voices, but I think that is a good thing.”