BOURNE, MA - After dominating the entire process leading up to the recent vote on a Class III Auto Salvage license for Knowlton’s Auto Salvage in Bourne's village of Sagamore, Chairman of Selectmen James Grady told the other selectmen, "I consider this a defining moment for the board; are we gonna’ perform our sworn duty under the law to deny them these licenses, or are we going to look the other way and return to the good ol’ boy days of taking care of your friends without regard to the laws of the town or the public good."

Mr. Grady got his ‘defining moment.’ He effectively used his legal training and his status as the only attorney on the board of selectmen to browbeat three of the other members into believing the only option available to them was the rejection of the Knowlton’s application. Only one member of the board, Sel. Linda Zuern, stood against Grady’s action, which by a 4 to 1 vote seems to have denied the Anderson family of Sagamore the right to continue to do business in 2003.

Ms. Zuern correctly understood there were other options available to the selectmen, including issuing a temporary license or deferring the time frame for issuance of the new license until the arbitrary nature of the new bylaw could be further discussed, now that the true intent of it was revealed. By so doing, the applicant would also have been given a chance to react to the new law correctly, knowing that its intent is the destruction of his business, not the regulation of it.

But that would have undermined Mr. Grady’s carefully developed strategy, and so he pressed vigorously for an immediate vote by informing other board members that they simply had no choice under the new law.

To Bourne’s shame, the action was much more of a ‘degrading moment’ for the town than it was any ‘defining moment’ when ‘good ol’ boy’ favoritism was left behind.

Unlike Mr. Grady and most if not all of the board members, the applicant, John Anderson, could of course lay claim to a long heritage in the town, as could those who spoke in his support, but no one was asking the selectmen for a special favor. No one was asking the town to ‘look the other way’ about anything!

Mr. Anderson was there to apply for a license that before this year never existed, and he made it very clear that he was prepared and willing to work with the town to meet whatever criteria it wanted to set in regulating his business. The one thing he did not expect, nor did anyone else save perhaps Mr. Grady, was that the entire proceeding was a carefully planned and orchestrated sham. There was no chance that Knowlton’s Auto Salvage could receive a license under the new town bylaw.

Mr. Grady’s suggestion that the board members "perform our sworn duty under the law to deny them these licenses" achieved a remarkable height in the annals of hypocrisy. The "law" with which Mr. Grady was browbeating the other members was created by him and shepherded by him through the requisite town boards all the way to town meeting, where unsuspecting voters were allowed to perceive it as a means of simply giving the selectmen some regulatory control over the one auto salvage business in the town, Knowlton’s.

It was also clear that right up to the December meeting night some if not all of the other selectmen believed they would simply begin to regulate Knowlton’s Auto Salvage more stringently, not that they would put it out of business.

But that was not what Mr. Grady thought. He knew what he had created, and it all hinged on whether the nearly century old Knowlton’s auto business was in fact able to be "grandfathered" under local laws and therefore exempt from more recent zoning changes.

Mr. Grady’s bylaw is a town ‘general’ bylaw, not a zoning bylaw, and he loudly claims that because it was passed by an unsuspecting town meeting as a general bylaw, it has no provision for grandfathering; in fact, he claims it obviates any grandfather clause.

The creation of this bylaw was carefully, even craftily done, and at the moment it seems to have been successful; that is, if a general bylaw is in fact able to wipe out any ‘grandfather clause protection,’ then the bylaw was in effect a death trap, a box to put one business in and leave it without any means of escape.

By eliminating the prior existing use protection – the grandfather clause common under zoning bylaws – the Anderson’s business suddenly has no way to meet the zoning requirements, and therefore it cannot meet the criteria of the new bylaw. Ipso facto, the business can’t be licensed.

Of course this assumes Mr. Grady’s view of a general bylaw’s power over existing zoning law is correct.

Clearly up until the creation of Mr. Grady’s bylaw, the Town of Bourne saw nothing wrong with the fact Knowlton’s Auto Salvage was continuing its business as usual on land that had subsequently – in 1959 - been zoned residential, or that the land had become part of a ‘water resource district,’ which it did around 1980. Town officials during all of those years recognized that Knowlton’s was a grandfathered use; that is, it was there and in operation before the zoning changes. And Bourne consistently issued a Class III Auto Salvage license to Knowlton's Garage, under state law, year after year.

Mr. Grady on one hand tries to assert that there is no proof in town records that the auto salvage yard existed before 1959, and therefore no grandfather protection exists, and on the other hand he declares that his general bylaw obviates any such protection anyway. In the first place, anyone who lived in Bourne long enough to recall the 1940’s and ‘50’s knows Knowlton’s Auto Salvage was there, and that includes all the town officials and employees of the past fifty or more years, and many other long-time or lifelong  residents. In the second place, if a general bylaw automatically casts aside any grandfather protection, why be concerned over when the business started?

If it is correct that a general bylaw eliminates any grandfather clause, the best that can be hoped for is that the selectmen and other town officials who approved Grady’s bylaw didn’t understand or remember that point, and therefore didn’t comprehend the true intent and import of the bylaw.

And since the local legislature – the town meeting – clearly didn’t understand what the bylaw could do, relying as it was upon the guidance of the town executives, then even though Grady’s bylaw was passed by town meeting and later approved by the state legislature it is a false law.

The state legislature would not have challenged it because it would assume that was what the town wanted; the state doesn’t match a transcript of the town meeting to the actual bylaw, nor do state officials seek to determine local intent, they are only reading the by-law to make certain it does not contain technical flaws and that it is not in conflict with state law.

But the fact that other town officials, some of whom are lawyers, and of course Town Counsel Robert Troy, also remained silent during town meeting regarding the ramifications of this bylaw can only indicate one of several things: 1) Either they themselves did not realize or remember that this would be a bylaw that would allow no provision for grandfathering, or 2) Mr. Grady’s oft asserted claim regarding the power of his creation is not correct and there was no reason for them to have said anything, or 3) they recognized what Mr. Grady was attempting and stood aside in silence.

If the latter is the case, Bourne has a bigger problem since this would mean that there was at least a de facto conspiracy to eliminate Knowlton’s Auto Salvage.

Yet assuming Mr. Grady’s assertion is correct, even if town counsel and Moderator Robert Parady, himself a lawyer, didn’t themselves realize that the bylaw was a trap for one business, their ingenuousness was a failure; that is, they failed in their obligation to serve the town meeting voters – the Bourne legislative body – because they did not provide the information that is needed and expected to assure that townspeople are in fact voting upon what they think they are voting upon. After all, most town meeting voters are seeing the issues for the first time the night they are asked to vote on them; they are relying upon the professionalism, honesty and integrity of their town officials to guide them regarding potential ramifications resulting from local legislation.

Again, assuming Mr. Grady’s bylaw is so all encompassing, Mr. Anderson and his family might well want their legal counsel to look into all of these issues, and in fact they might want their attorney to depose town counsel and members of the selectmen, the planning board and the finance committee to see if any of those members knew the hidden intent of Mr. Grady’s bylaw.

One would hope that no one did know the intent, and that Mr. Grady simply accomplished a malicious coup and bamboozled all the town officials as well as the town meeting voters. But if it turns out that others understood what was being planned and were either coached in their roles by Mr. Grady or simply went along quietly, then it is all the more serious since it would be an evident conspiracy, and a bigger and deeper black mark on the town.

This is an issue that should in any case be returned to town meeting and this obnoxious bylaw created by Mr. Grady should be amended or overturned outright.