This Does Matter

The COGers have been nice enough to further illustrate their desire to recall more Town Councilors than just Janet Joakim.

One well-known COG commenter has now threatened further recalls of the "maggots who call themselves 'councilors'"... He also went on to expand their headhunting list to include Councilor Tobey. The list now tentatively is Rugo (Precinct 2), Munafo (Precinct 3) and Tobey (Precinct 8)... with Crocker (Precinct 5) and Barry (Precinct 7) as strong possibilities, too... Add the those possible recalls to Joakim's recall (Precinct 6), and you have current or potential recalls in Precincts 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. YIKES!

(By the way, the targeting of Councilor Tobey is nothing new. Eric Schwaab started threatening Tobey's seat the very same night that Schwaab lost to Munafo, almost one year ago. Check out this post for more info - Congratulations to James F. Munafo, Jr..

That post is yet another example of info that I have had to rescue before that infamous "Post Deleter" struck again and tried to hide his true intentions...)


Recalling Joakim was NEVER about the issues... It was NEVER about Joakim... It was about the COGers trying to force their personal and political views on the rest of the town... It was payback for standing against COG... It's really all about COG... That's why it shouldn't be supported...

Having these COGers around may start getting real expensive, real soon... Let's send them the message that we don't want them around. Go to the polls tomorrow (THURSDAY OCTOBER 30) in Precinct 6 and VOTE NO ON THE RECALL...

Intimidation Doesn't Work and Neither Will "Cleaning Up" Your Image

Now, there is no question that recall of Council President Janet Joakim is much larger than a single recall.

For anyone who does not believe that the Joakim recall does not have a much wider, larger goal behind it, they should check out Gary Lopez's blog today. Lopez spends an entire post advocating for the recall of Councilor James Crocker.

They should also check out Eric Schwaab's Cape COG Living blog where the hate speech, pure lies, personal attacks and other vicious propaganda are being thrown against the wall at an incredible pace.

Schwaab's attacks against Councilor Munafo have picked up at a frenzied pace in the last week or two. Lopez has been insinuating possible recall attempts against other councilors for weeks.

The COG plans are starting to come into action.

In addition to ramping up attacks against selected Town Councilors (Barry, Crocker, and Munafo especially), COG sent its point man out on the attack. A certain unnamed blogger has been going around threatening lawsuits against bloggers like myself and TJ (from Barnstable Beat). He is making wild guesses on who to send the threats to, and innocents are seeing their names tarnished on the internet. He doesn't care that his any of his threats & accusations have no factual basis.

The attempt to intimidate bloggers, restrict free speech, and remove the one element in cyberspace fighting to show the REAL picture in Barnstable will not succeed.

While this one unnamed blogger has been hard at work trying to intimidate bloggers behind the scenes and all the COGers have been trying to bring down the next "wave" of councilors, COG is also trying to clean up its image.

On the COG site, frequent poster and vocal Council critic, John Julius, berated someone for accusing the COG site of being vulgar. Julius went on to defend Lopez, saying that Lopez quickly censors out such language and doesn't tolerate it. Of course, Julius then went on to name a list of terms (that he uses frequently online) that most people would consider swears. He insisted that these inappropriate terms were just fine and not examples of bad language.


Hillary Clinton tried to intimidate Barack Obama, but he kept his cool and pulled out the upset victory. Her intimidation did not work, just like Obama's attempts to "clean up" his image will fail... His image is always going to be what it is... The question is whether or not people will accept him for what he really is?... Or will they accept him simply because they don't like the other guy?... I don't think they will do either...

COGers are trying to intimidate the common man, but we're not going to fold. They're trying to rehabilitate their image, but we all know what it really is... The question for Barnstable is whether or not the plurality is going to side with them or not... Do not accept them for who they are, and don't side with them because you don't like the same people... Take a stand... Support Councilor Joakim against COG now, or it may be YOUR councilor wasting time fighting COG next.

Visit www.sevenvillagesblog.com to support Council President Janet Joakim.

Keeping My Comments Brief

I am too much of a perfectionist. If I don't have the time to do it right, I probably won't do it. That's probably why I have stayed away from this blog. It's enough to have to read about these stories over and over again, but having to write about them can be overwhelming.

So, I'm going to hit on four of the "hot button" topics going on right now.

The Open Meeting of the Voters
"The town council may call meetings of the voters of the town. Upon the request in writing of three hundred voters setting forth the purpose (the specific purposes) thereof, the town council shall call a meeting of the voters. The president of the town council or other designee of the town council, shall preside and regulate the proceedings of such meetings. The president of the council shall cause the attendance of town officials and employees necessary to respond to the issues and concerns raised by petitioners." - Barnstable Town Charter

Nowhere in that paragraph of the town charter, the ONLY one mentioning the Open Meeting of the Voters, does it mention a "Moderator" position. Yet, the petition circulated by COGers, said "By signing this petition you will 1) Elect John Julius as the Moderator for the Petitioners".

What EXACTLY is a "Moderator for the Petitioners"? Who gave the writers of the petition the right to circumvent Massachusetts Election Law and deny me my right to vote or run for this position? Did anyone else run?

The fact is that no one knows what the position is. A petition does NOT have the legal authority to ELECT anyone to a position. This petition can not possibly be legal.

The Charter is clear that the Town Council "calls" the meeting - which means that they get to set the date. The Charter is also clear that the Town Council President runs the meeting - Sorry COGers, but Janet will be leading your meeting, how ironic.

Another Lawsuit / Greg Milne's Eligibility
What I want to know is which COGer is a lawyer? Because they just LOVE suing the town for no reason. Enough with the silly lawsuits and the ACLU and the Attorney General's Office. When they haven't gotten back to you in 8 months, they're not going to get back to you. Please stop wasting time & money with frivolous lawsuits.

Can't we get over the Milne Charter Commissioner thing? It seems pretty clear that the charter says a person cannot hold more than one elected office. Greg tried for two on the same ballot. He only gets one.

For the people complaining about the late Town Attorney Smith's "Home Rule", there is similar legal precedent. Federal environmental regulations are set by the EPA. However, the states have the right to set their own standards, as long as, their regulations are MORE strict than the federal ones. The same idea applies here. The state said they would not regulate the number of elected positions a person could hold. Our town came in and wrote into our charter (which was approved by the State Legislature) a stricter regulation on holding elected offices. They have merely strengthened State law.

Shellfishers vs. Landowners
Fishermen and shellfishers hold an iconic place in Cape Cod history and Cape Codder hearts. I want to see them succeed. I am tired of government regulations hurting these industries. That's EXACTLY why we shouldn't create another overreaching government regulation banning construction. The government can tell me whether or not I can build on MY land, how high I can build it, and whether I should build it again because they don't think it met their "building code". Enough with government intrusion into peoples' lives. It should stop now. NO to the proposed dock ban.

New Building
This leads me to my final point. Why is it that Circuit City has to jump through more hoops than a circus animal to get their building approved when a mega-Nursing Home gets approved without much of a fight? Why had no one heard about this huge home before it was approved? Enough with the town building cap and two acre zoning and all these crazy building regulations. They have driven property "values" through the roof, raising the residential property tax burden, misrepresenting our fiscal status to the State Legislature and leaving homeowners with "$600,000" homes that are barely worth half that on the market.

Final Beef
Actually, I need to correct myself. I have one more issue. Lately, I have been noticing more issues with street flooding when we get any decent amount of rainfall. Has anyone else been having or seeing the same issue?

Who Should Go Away?

Over the past few years, a pattern has emerged for people who try to have discussions with COGites.

There will be a conversation, at some level, that goes back and forth for a little while. Eventually, the COGites will no longer be able to defend their opinion. At this point, they will resort to the only two things they have left - calling more names (personal attacks) and telling the other person to "go away".

They claim to be "open", but when confronted, all they can do is try to get rid of you.

When they're not busy telling people to go away, they're promising to go away.

*Only a few short weeks ago, John Julius told us all how he was going to stay away from Council meetings.

*Gary Lopez has promised numerous times to shut down COG, the last time being a promise to shut it down on Election Day.

*Eric Schwaab has told us that he has "closed" his blog at LEAST twice since the Election.

What do these three men have in common? They all went back on their word, and came back to bother us. Not one of these men have followed through on their promises. Julius was back ranting and raving at the Council meeting tonight. Lopez has been REAL busy. His blog was closed down after Election Day for less than TWO days. Schwaab has been "opening" and "closing" his blog at a frenzied pace.

These COGites are the people who tell opponents that they have "no credibility". COGites should take a look in the mirror, because they aren't going to see any "credibility" in it.

These are the same people who criticize town leaders as fake, phony, and liars. Yet, they can't even keep simple promises. They criticize local officials for making up excuses and stories. Yet, that's EXACTLY what THEY do to explain away their actions. I think that they could use a dose of their own medicine.

I think that the people who spend their time telling other people to "go away", should do what they have PROMISED to do - GO AWAY.

Do I really think that they'll do it? No, but normal people do what they say they will. Or, they don't make crazy public promises that they'll never keep.

Next Day (11/16/2007) Update: Eric Schwaab has once again "closed" his blog today. Let's see long it lasts this time...

Update of Update: Well, that lasted less than 8 hours... Schwaab just reopened his site to post some of the most ridiculous claims I have ever seen... Apparently, he just can't get over the fact that he lost this election.

Third Update: His blog is back fully open right now so his friends can back him up. He is spouting crazy stuff right now... More to come in a post on Sunday. Check out two good analyses of these allegations @ http://barnstablebeat.blogspot.com/ and http://sevenvillagesblog.com/.