Laws and Regulations Governing Moorings Must be Followed

To the Editor,

Fifteen years ago, the Harbor Advisory Committee realized that three years had gone by without anyone on the mooring waiting list getting a mooring.  The number of boats in the harbor had not gone down.  The Harbor Committee requested access to the harbor records.  The harbormaster, backed by the Board of Selectmen, refused to provide those records.  The Harbor Advisory Committee appealed to the state Supervisor of Public Records, which ordered the harbormaster to provide the records or face prosecution. Rather than giving access to the records, the harbormaster said the records were “a mess” and manufactured new, clearly fraudulent, records.  The Harbor Committee forwarded a request to the Board of Selectmen for a forensic audit of the harbor department.  The Board of Selectmen refused to hear that request.

Just about everyone associated with the harbor knew that something was rotten.   When a bylaw was proposed to the town meeting requiring, among other things, that the harbormaster document all mooring assignments, more than 200 citizens stayed until 11:45 p.m. at night to pass the bylaw by over 2:1 against the unanimous objection of the Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee.  Personally, I have never been so proud of our town.

Now, 15 years later, the harbormaster refuses to document mooring assignments.  He has flagrantly violated our own Harbor Waterway Regulations, DEP regulations, and state law to give unauthorized moorings to a boatyard without even a semblance of a proper paper trail.

Again, the Select Board, with one exception, wants nothing to do with this.  One difference between the current situation and the one 15 years ago is that the current Harbor Advisory Committee adopted a formal policy of banning discussion of mooring permits. Town meeting has done what it could by requiring a written log of mooring transactions.  The harbormaster refuses to provide that, backed by our town administrator and Select Board.  The harbormaster says, again, that he will provide new records, soon.

Personally, I believe that the harbormaster is wrong by the letter of the law.  I will not accept unlawful behavior, without regard to the popularity of our current (or past) harbormaster. We are a nation of laws, not men.  Laws and regulations must be followed until amended.