By BOB TUROSZ
NORTH READING – A seemingly routine Selectmen’s meeting ended in raised voices, accusations and a walk out by one member over two-week old actions at the Oct. 6 Town Meeting when voters approved a $50,000 settlement over the Smith property.
The Tuesday, Oct. 21 meeting of the board ended with Selectman Mike Prisco getting up and leaving town hall, Chairman Robert Mauceri repeatedly pounding the gavel in an attempt to restore order and Jeff Yull refusing to stop speaking, claiming Prisco should be removed as vice chairman.
Yull started the chain of events under Old and New Business by harkening back to the events at Town Meeting, when voters approved the settlement with the Smith family, approving the $50,000 payment and returning ownership of the two bridges providing access from Elm Street to the property to the Smiths. The settlement was recommended by the Selectmen at the time and approved easily by the voters.
Yull, who rejoined the board in May after a hiatus of two years, said he researched the history of the agreement and concluded the town violated a previous cross-easement agreement with the Smiths in January of 2012 when the town, concerned about the safety of the bridges, blocked access and turned one bridge into pedestrian-only.
“So we signed an agreement and then we violated it,” Yull said. He repeated a statement he’s made before that “I’ve always found the weakest link in town government are the head boards, the Selectmen, School Committee and so on, because we can’t know everything.”
Yull then went on to criticize the board’s vice chairman, Prisco, for “attacking” other Selectmen at Town Meeting when Prisco made remarks critical of the original cross-easement agreement. Selectmen shouldn’t be saying, “Well, I didn’t do it, it was because of them, that’s not appropriate, that’s out of order. It comes in the role of chairman or vice chairman representing the leadership of the committee, that’s very important that the vice chairman not get up and criticize members of the board, even if it’s to prove a point.”
Yull repeated the original cross-easement agreement was a good one and the Selectmen violated it and that it’s up to “anyone in a responsible position such as vice chairman to respect the members of the board.”
Prisco took offense to Yull’s remarks and began by noting, “You continue to attack me like this by saying at the town meeting I attacked the board, but you come to this open session and do the same thing. Two wrongs don’t make a right but in the future if you have an issue like this, I don’t see what you’re trying to achieve by bringing it here when you could have picked up the phone and talked to me. I understand what you’re trying to do. I know what your agenda is. I feel I bring a lot of value to this board and I know you disagree with that. I know you don’t respect me. …”
At this point, Mauceri tried to intervene and stop the recriminations but Prisco replied that Yull had been granted a lengthy opportunity to express himself and that Mauceri should have cut things off much earlier.
“I work very hard on this board,” continued Prisco. “I put a lot of time and effort in and to come here and to continue to be criticized by him and to be treated like a child, telling me how I should act, is unacceptable.
“I’m not trying to hurt this board or put it in a bad light. It isn’t about me and it isn’t about you and you need to just stop it today,” Prisco said to Yull.
Yull then started to respond to Prisco’s rebuttal, which incensed Prisco because it looked like Yull was being given “the last word.”
Mauceri tried valiantly to bring things back under control, banging his gavel repeatedly and shouting “It’s over,” at least eight times but Yull refused to stop, saying “it’s not over.”
When Prisco rose from the table and walked out of the meeting, Yull heckled, “He’s walking out like a child.”
As Prisco walked past the tables in the front of the room, he replied, “You’re going to be the reason I’m leaving this board.”
Prisco’s parting comment as the exited the room was to Mauceri: “You let it go, Bob.”
Mauceri agreed during and after the meeting he should have stopped the whole thing much earlier.
After Prisco exited, Yull continued, “That man should be removed as vice chairman.” Again, Mauceri ordered Yull to “stop it,” but he refused.
When Yull was summing up his critique of how the town violated the cross-easement agreement, member Stephen O’Leary pointed out that point was never adjudicated because both parties agreed to the settlement. “People can come to whatever conclusions they like as to whether or not we were in violation,” he said. In addition to returning ownership of the bridges, the $50,000 was in partial recompense to the Smiths for their legal costs.
