Legal Craftiness and One Man Rule
Pits Bourne Against Knowlton’s Auto

            BOURNE, MA - A remarkable example of one man rule and its shortcomings was provided to the people of Bourne on December 17^th, 2002, when the Board of Selectmen denied a longtime local company the permit now needed to stay in business.

            The company, Knowlton’s Auto Salvage, located on Main Street in the Bourne village of Sagamore, has operated for nearly a century, and has been an auto salvage yard as well as a repair garage since about WWII. It has been a legally run company from the beginning, meeting all the Town of Bourne requirements and receiving whatever permits were appropriate, up until a year ago when James Grady, the current chairman of the Board of Selectmen, apparently decided that he did not want the salvage yard to exist any longer.

As a member of the board of selectmen, he suggested to members of the 2001 board – Hayden Coggeshall, Leo Locke, Wayne Covell and Mark Tirrell – that it would make sense to draft a by-law that would allow the town to regulate its one salvage yard. The board members thought it was a reasonable idea and authorized Sel. Grady to draft the new local legislation.

            Mr. Grady, who retired to Bourne several years ago, revealed the skill and expertise developed during a long career as counsel and then chief counsel for the national Teamster’s Union when he drafted a bylaw that was specifically intended to kill one specific business. He illustrated his legal skills and his scruples by being able to present this new law to the selectman, various town boards, and the community – and have it accepted – all under the guise that it would simply put teeth into the town’s ability to regulate how its one salvage yard conducted business.

            Yet Mr. Grady’s bylaw was not that at all. It was a cold-handed maneuver patiently developed with the sole intent of destroying a local family business. And Mr. Grady’s open satisfaction, joy in fact, over his implementation of the law at the selectman’s meeting just before Christmas made a spectacle of the town’s executive process. The board of selectmen was patently manipulated, to the town’s great embarrassment, and the entire process was revealed to everyone via cable television.

The calculation and patience involved in Sel. Grady’s maneuvering is impressive to consider, though it seems antithetical to good government. Mr. Grady masked his satisfaction when the annual town meeting in May, 2002, passed Article 20.

 Marilyn Morris, speaking for the Bourne Finance Committee, which is the town board that normally presents town meeting voters with the motions on the articles, moved “that the town vote to amend the Town Bylaws by adding a new Section 3.1.36 as printed in the warrant.”

“The purpose of this article is to allow the selectmen to license any requested Class III Motor Vehicle Junk Yard and to determine that the licenses proposed in each location is allowed as far as zoning, protection of wetlands and water resource areas are concerned,” Ms. Morris read to the voters, adding that, “the bylaw will allow the selectmen to impose any restriction on each license that will protect the town against any hazardous material being stored on site. The bylaw will also impose all restrictions and requirements that exist under the state statute concerning but not limited to fencing, street setbacks, numbering vehicles which can be stored on sites and to allow inspection of the premises for compliance with the state and town environmental regulations.”

Minutes of the town meeting indicate there was no discussion, despite Mr. Grady’s assertion to the contrary during the December meeting that rejected the only salvage yard in Bourne when its owners applied for the new license.

When Moderator Robert Parady asked the town meeting if there was further discussion and asked if everyone had an opportunity to read through the text of the proposed bylaw change, no one indicated otherwise or asked to speak and he put the matter to a voice vote. The new bylaw was carried by one of those legally unanimous votes that occur at town meeting; that is, those in favor of the bylaw said ‘yes,’ and those opposed or who had questions remained silent. There are a variety of reasons for the phenomenon, ranging from feeling outnumbered and therefore it doesn’t matter, to not wanting to be the first to speak or to be the one ‘delaying’ the process by asking questions when it is late at night, and so forth.

But in this instance there was also another reason. It was implied and tacitly understood that the bylaw would simply give regulatory teeth to the selectmen where there had been none before, and it was expected that the selectmen would use that authority to assure that the town’s one salvage yard would operate safely and, additionally, would be made more attractive to its neighbors by screening, either with fencing or trees or both. Virtually everyone, with the obvious exception of Sel. Grady, believed that Knowlton’s Auto Salvage was a ‘grandfathered’ local institution that would now be regulated.

That fact was underscored in bold face type in the Bourne Town Meeting Warrant. Following the seven paragraphs of legal verbiage came the finance committee recommendation, which stated: “This article will allow the Board of Selectmen to license any business, which would be a Motor Vehicle Junk Yard. These are designated Class III licenses and strictly enforced. A town may adopt certain regulations in order to do such enforcement. The purpose of this article is to give the Selectmen or their designee the ability to inspect each licensed premise for compliance with the environmental regulations of the Town and the Commonwealth; as well as limiting the number of such vehicles allowed on any licensed property, and to review for compliance with applicable Zoning Bylaws.”

When they left Bourne High School that night, the town meeting voters, whether they favored the law or not, all believed that for the first time Knowlton’s Auto Salvage would have to negotiate with the selectmen to meet new criteria for the operation of the salvage yard. But Jim Grady knew better. He knew that once the state approved the bylaw amendment, he could close Knowlton’s Auto Salvage and put the Anderson family, whose members have lived and worked in Bourne for generations, out of business for good.

The key was the grandfathering.

Mr. Grady’s legal craft was demonstrated most emphatically in this arena. He created a ‘general bylaw’ to be added as a new amendment to the Bourne Bylaws, and as he has quite proudly recently announced, he firmly believes such a bylaw does not bear any provision for grandfathering. In other words, it doesn’t matter how long the business legally operated prior to the given bylaw, it must now meet every criteria of the new law. And it has also become apparent that Sel. Grady, who is now the chairman of the board, carefully took into account any and all potential weaknesses that Knowlton’s Auto Salvage might have and incorporated them into the bylaw as requirements that must be met in order to win approval for the new license.

Knowlton’s Auto Salvage, for example, preceded the creation of a residential zone covering most of its property, and it preceded the creation of water resource districts that now encompass parts of its property, but without the protection of a grandfather clause exempting the business and its prior use from subsequent laws, Mr. Grady knew as he drafted the law that the Anderson family would not be able to meet the criteria he was creating. All he had to do was wait patiently for John Anderson to file an application, on a new, comprehensive form that Mr. Grady also created, and then go into action again.

            And Mr. Grady certainly did. He assumed the role of chief prosecutor and developed a thick, legalistic dossier against Knowlton’s Auto Salvage. Then, when the application came before the board, Mr. Grady showed exquisite deftness in wearing several hats at once; he turned his position as chairman of selectmen into that of a chief magistrate while simultaneously acting as a prosecutor.

Mr. Grady badgered anyone who dared to support Mr. Anderson and the Knowlton’s Auto Salvage application, while giving free rein to anyone speaking in any fashion against the granting of the license – the latter resulted in some of the most long-winded and convoluted comments by people who had no evidence but much to gain from the closing of the salvage yard – and he browbeat the other selectmen with his legal tactics. As the only attorney on the board, he assumed yet another role, that of judge and declared both the validity of the law he drafted and his interpretation of it, and he stipulated in strong and uncertain terms how the law must be applied.

It’s possible, of course, that Mr. Grady’s bylaw doesn’t have the all encompassing authority he asserts, which would certainly explain why he tried so hard to find other ways of proving Knowlton’s wasn’t grandfathered, principally by demanding specific proof that it was conducting an auto salvage business prior to a change from general to residential zoning in 1959. Ultimately, of course, Knowlton’s can prove its prior existence, so while Grady pursued a two-track attack his main line remained the bylaw.

And in the end, he garnered a four to one vote to reject the application. Sel. Linda Zuern, who replaced Hayden Coggeshall, was the only member who stood firm against Mr. Grady’s forceful show. But two other selectmen made it clear they felt boxed-in; Mark Tirrell and Leo Locke made it known they were not comfortable with the outcome. Sel. Locke actually recommended to Mr. Anderson that he seek legal counsel and fight the board’s decision.

The issue may well end up in court, and in any event it is certain Mr. Grady’s bylaw will be appropriately tested and questioned.

Mr. Grady’s one-man rule of Bourne may in the end cost the town more than just its reputation, but that is yet to be determined. What has been determined is that Mr. Grady has so far succeeded in his well-planned attack against a local business and the family that owns it, and before the cable TV camera he literally reveled in his victory.

The immediate result has been the Christmas present Bourne gave the Anderson family by having John Ford, the chief of police, together with Lt. Jake Gould, deliver a letter from Town Administrator William Griffin informing them that Knowlton’s Auto Salvage cannot operate after January 1, 2003.