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Political Insiders Benefit from Hospital Hill Development
Mike Kirby
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In the last weeks before the election there were a blitz of ads in the Daily Hampshire Gazette against the referendum, some bought by the developers, the rest paid for the Committee for Jobs and Housing (CJ&H) at Hospital Hill. Its president is John W. Hornor and its treasurer is Northampton City Councilor James Dostal. There was no warning label on the CJ&H signature ads saying they were paid for by the development group, but 65% of their money, (four checks totaling $1400), came from the Northampton Development Corporation (NDC) their board members and their families. 1
The Daily Hampshire Gazette in an article by staff writer Kristi Ceccarossi (Groups spend big at Campaign’s End, Jan. 3, 2004) erroneously and, I think deliberately, attributed ownership of NDC to John W. Hornor. They want to put some distance between the NDC and the paper 2. The owner of the Gazette and his family members are members of the NDC 3. The clerk of the NDC is paid by MassDevelopment to be their local counsel 4. The NDC is a very quiet influential group that has been pushing the Hospital Hill development from year one. They were originally meant to get the land when it was surplused. The group has strong links to one developer, O’Connell Companies.
Redevelopment of the State Hospital was first tackled systematically by former Mayor Mary Ford, who created an ad-hoc committee of business people to formulate strategy. 5 Many of the people belonged to the NDC, which had been inactive since its l981-82 attempt to rebuild the Hotel Northampton ended in bankruptcy and huge losses to the bondholders 6. At their meeting of March 12, l993, the late Attorney Bart Gordon reported that “Representative William Nagle had asked him to draft a bill which would call for the State to clean up the property and turn it over to the Northampton Development Corporation (NDC).” In the 1993/l994 period it was headed by Robert Mahar, chairman of the board of O’Connell Companies. At its annual meeting on April 28,1993, Attorney Edward Etheredge quotes Penny Kim, planner for Mayor Ford, as saying that “there should be a partnership between City Government and the NDC. “ It’s mailing address, as late as August 2000 was c/o Robert Mahar. Former Hampshire County ADA Edward Etheredge 7 is the clerk. Other members are Alfred Griggs of Coca-Cola, Ruth Constantine of Smith College, and Fred Grinnell of Woodward and Grinnell. Both Peter DeRose and Charles DeRose belong; 8 the Gazette has been a consistent supporter of the project; Charles DeRose is on the Citizens Advisory Committee.
House 5696, filed in December of l993 set aside conflict of interest laws; developers could belong to the advisory committee. It rendered null and void the Massachusetts Historical Commission’s designation of the site as having historical significance. 9 Nine of the fifteen members of the first Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) were slated to be members of the NDC. In l993, the commissioner of the State agency that was managing the property, the Department of Capital Planning and Operations (DCPO), Lark Jurev Palermo, raised a red flag in her letter to Representative William Nagle.
“Our primary concern is the specified composition of the Citizens Advisory Committee and its authority, both of which create a circumvention of Ward Commission restrictions and conflict of interest laws.” 10
In August l994, a much-amended law authorizing the redevelopment was signed into law by then Governor William Weld. It broadened the CAC, keeping membership at fifteen people, but cut back NDC’s delegation and added representatives from mental health organizations, the Valley CDC, DMH, and other groups. In 1995 a number of the members of the new CAC were told by the Ethics Commission of the State of Massachusetts to take themselves out of the project to avoid charges of conflict of interest. The committee then was loaded with people eager to pick up parcels of State land for their own particular purposes. The Mayor and city representatives wanted land for playing fields and a possible new school. Ruth Constantine of Smith College wanted Smith to get the land under their playing fields and the hillside overlooking the playing fields to give the College some environmental protection to the west. Three developers were on the projected CAC: Patrick Goggins of Goggins Real Estate, Andrew Crystal of the O’Connell Companies, and John Dunne of the Valley Community Development Corporation. Edward Etheredge, head of the NDC, was anxious not to get bounced off the committee, and assured DCAM in March of 1995 that “he was not a member of any organization that seeks to privately develop or otherwise control programming on the State Hospital site.” 11 However, Robert Mahar subsequently made it clear in his April l995 letter that the city wanted NDC to be involved as an “interim holder of the land,” and he did not want to preclude NDC from playing that role. 12 Edward Etheredge stayed on the new CAC. Four people stepped down, Patrick Goggins, Ruth Constantine, Andrew Crystal, and John Dunne.
The people that ran Northampton were not happy with this turn of events. It was an affront to small town nationalism, where public-spiritedness is closely linked to personal interest. A rising tide lifts all the boats. When I was talking with the Mayor earlier this year, I sensed that the Ethics Commission removal of Patrick Goggins still rankled her seven years later. There is a great deal of evidence that suggests that most of the people who stepped off the CAC in l995 stayed involved in the project. Andrew Crystal spearheaded zoning approval through the Planning Board. Patrick Goggins has been steadily involved over the years with the winning bidder, Community Builders. 13 The NDC, now headquartered at Charles DeRose’s home at 677 North Farms Road, Florence, bankrolled the 2003 referendum fight to go ahead with the development and the eventual demolishing of Old Main. Edward Etheredge is paid as local counsel for MassDevelopment; he is also special counsel for the City of Northampton. Patrick Goggins has a exclusive on Hospital Hill land as the broker for Community Builders. Etheredge, Goggins and Matthew Pitoniak (President of the Northampton Development Corporation) benefited substantially from an earlier project that Goggins and Etheredge handled for the city of Northampton, the Carlon Drive subdivision. 14
The concerns that the Ethics Commission and the Inspector General had that the project might benefit private interests and political insiders is being borne out by how the parcels of the “Ice Pond”, the first Hospital Hill Project are being marketed.
Mandated by the Ethics Commission to leave the CAC, NDC members pull the strings from the shadows. They and their clients benefit directly from the Hospital Hill project, and are big contributors and major supporters of the Mayor. 15 Edward Etheredge works for MassDevelopment as local counsel, he is also counsel for the Ice Pond Association 16 and TCB Hospital Hill LLC, the developer of the Ice Pond parcel. The President of the NDC now is Matthew Pitoniak, its clerk is Edward Etheredge. The commercial potential of this project will always remain ephemeral, but the value of the land slated for market-rate housing probably tops $12 million and will head for the stratosphere if the developers end up being able to get state financing for the demolition of the existing buildings. The Ice Pond lots were all sold with a matter of days after they went on the market, and many builders never knew the signs were up until it was all over. The lots went on the market on a Friday and were all sold by Sunday. 17