News

Opponent: Bias taints stable-law talks

By Mike Stucka
Staff Writer
Published: February 26, 2009

BOXFORD — A horse owner says e-mails sent in violation of the Open Meeting Law are evidence that the Board of Health is using a biased process to force new horse regulations.

The board chairman says the old documents are just a new smear effort.

On Nov. 13, Thomas Donovan, special counsel for the district attorney's office, ruled that Board of Health members illegally used e-mail to share their opinions. In one instance, board member Barbara Stanley e-mailed that earlier efforts to restrict the number of horses per acre were vehemently opposed.

"One of the strongest opposer's (sic) has moved from town so it may be a very good time to make this change," she wrote.

Denise Brogna, a Boxford resident and land use attorney, filed the open meeting complaint with the district attorney's office. She said she tried to get the sheaf of documents back into the public debate because new horse regulations could lead to a costly but doomed legal fight. Brogna owns two horses.

The documents show that in May 2008, just after Board of Health members' close election and a Town Meeting vote against some horse regulations, board Chairman Dick Taylor described a "last-ditch effort" that was needed to save incumbents, when low turnout favored "a special interest group like the horse people."

Mark Mitsch replied: "Maybe we should make the selectmen responsible for stable inspections. They seem to be experts in horse (expletive)." (Mitsch substituted two punctuation marks for some letters.)

Taylor said yesterday that the worst of the allegations — that board members had major violations in two meetings — were thrown out. He sees the e-mail portion as more of a gentle reminder to be careful. Donovan ruled that the board tried to comply with the laws.

"Essentially, we came out of this clean, and they still want to smear us with the implication that we may have done anything in error," Taylor said.

Bringing up the open meeting violation is the latest move by horse owners in a bitter fight over regulating stables.

The Board of Health's core argument is that horses generate a lot of manure and urine, which can host diseases and contaminate wells. The board hopes to update rules that haven't changed in two decades.

A question-and-answer document the board posted recently on the town Web site was removed because of its inflammatory tone, and Taylor apologized for it Monday in a letter to the editor of The Salem News.

Brogna said she's not worried about new regulations affecting her horses, but she's afraid the town could be headed for an indefensible lawsuit. She said yesterday she'd shared the district attorney's decision and other documents with horse people in November. As a fight over the regulations increased, she recently raised the issue again because she sees bias in the process.

"The record pretty much shows bias and arbitrariness. If I had to defend (such) a lawsuit, I'd say 'settle,'" she said yesterday.

Brogna said perhaps half of the town's horse owners would have supported a review of the horse regulations if everyone had been upfront. She said a flawed process weakens the town's defenses.

"I do not want to have to defend a poorly drafted regulation that supports somebody's vendetta," she said. "That is a losing lawsuit. I don't want my tax dollars spent that way."

Taylor said he anticipates the stable committee, which is writing the new regulations, will finalize them next week and send them to the Board of Health, which would then solicit input from town boards and departments. The Board of Health would have public discussion on stable regulations at the end of two meetings in March, he said.