Dear Marion, You ask: > How had Kimberly Saillant behaved toward you > on previous occasions? The first meeting was cordial; she reported about her cat's illness. She's a divorcee, and I think very lonely. I like her and I feel sorry for her and would like to make her feel better. Unfortunately in our situation, my task is just the opposite. When we talk, I'm not concerned about my divulging any ideas damaging to myself, but I feel devious and deceitful, like a spy or an agent provocateur, when I chat with her, because I pick up tidbits that are of great value to me. For example, discussing with her the forged video DVD after the Barnstable hearing 4 years ago, she mentioned the opprobium attached to lawyers' concealing evidence. I immediately understood that she had disclosed a point on which she was very vulnerable; and I consider it evil of me that I've exploited that vulnerability to the hilt, - I feel like a villain. Her attacks on me, by contrast, as a bumbling would-be plumber threatening to precipitate a cholera epidemic, are as consequential as water on a duck's back. At yesterday's hearing, Justice Kafker, who admitted he didn't know anything about plumbing, asked me: Well what about if I connected the toilet drain to the water supply? Wouldn't that be dangerous? I addressed the presiding judge of the appeals court in a teacherlike manner: No sir, that can't be done. You couldn't. It isn't possible to connect the toilet drain to the water supply. The courtroom erupted in subdued laughter. At another point I explained that I tried to make my plumbing of such quality as my other work. They understood what I was referring to and smiled. Unfortunately, the truth is that my plumbing leaves much to be desired, but it's Mr. Ciamataro's job to find that out. > It sounds as though she might now have felt > that her client was vulnerable, > that they could get smacked down, > that she wanted to defuse the impression > the judges could have gotten from your briefs > that the Nantucket authorities are uncouth yahoos. I don't know what was going on in her mind or soul. She was very demurely dressed; had she worn a scarf she could have passed for an Amish old maid. As Klemens and I left, she shook my hand as if she were parting from an old friend. At the hearing last autumn before Judge Macdonald, on the other hand, she was huffy and dressed like a prostitute, and her hair done up to match. You ask: > From a broad sociological / political / psychological / > philosophical perspective, why do you think the Nantucket > authorities had it in for you in the first place? > Was it just because you were unwilling to pay their plumbing fees, > or unwilling to quietly fulfill all their bureaucratic demands, > or were they hoping for a nice bribe, > or was it something much earlier > (about your property purchase or your house design > or your determination not to hire a local contractor > or something) that put their noses out of joint? I'm glad you asked. To begin with some statistics: Nantucket cost of living index: 145.2% of national average Nantucket median household income (2008) $67921 Massachusetts median household income (2008) $65401 Nantucket median house value (2008) $1070805 Massachusetts median house value (2008) $353600 Nantucket house value/income (2008) 15.77 Massachusetts house value/income (2008) 5.41 Nantucket's suicide rate is 4 times Massachusetts average. Nantucket's municipal expense for lawyers is 3 times the Massachusetts average. Nantucket is an unhappy community, perhaps to the point of being dysfunctional. A large proportion of real estate is owned by extremely wealthy persons who live off-island and do not participate in local politics. Compared to the wealthy neighbors much of Nantucket's population lives in poverty. Feelings of inadequacy and failure find expression in "Hate Parties" in "Hate Month" which is February, when the rest of the country celebrates Valentine's Day. While hostility among island neighbors has reached an equilibrium, the hostility to "off-islanders" is dynamic and unbalanced, because "off-islanders" have no natural defense, are systematically harassed by town officials, and pay large penalties in the form of unnecessary charges to lawyers, architects, and contractors of all kinds. In my situation this hostility expressed itself at the very beginning, when I presented a computer generated construction drawing to the Nantucket Historic District Commission for approval of the design. Instead of specifying the changes they required, the HDC told me to redraw the elevations showing corner boards and window casings. They directed me to redraw a design which they had already decided to reject. When I understood that this was an initiation rite, that they were ineffect "hazing" me, I decided to do nothing. By law they had 60 days to reject the design or it would be deemed approved. To circumvent this limitation of their power, the HDC (Historic Distric Commission) had devised a trick which I understood to be illegal but which no one had challenged. The HDC modified the statutory application to require all applicants to sign a contract that each submission of an alteration to the plans should toll the beginning of a new 60 day period. By this technique they would drag out the original 60 days' period for months or for years. I understood what they were up to and did not take the bait. When they told me to submit a new plan, I did nothing, - and the HDC administrators were so accustomed to servile compliance from the architects, designers, contractors whom they bullied, that they did not notice when the sixty day period expired. They then refused to issue the certificate with the explanation that Margaret "had given them a verbal 60 days' o.k." on the telephone. That was the fabricated evidence about which I appealed first to the Board of Selectmen, then to the Superior Court. If you want to read all about it, you can look at items 3 and 4 in thus URL http://home.earthlink.net/~jochenmeyer/litigation/litig_index.html which I've sent you before. After this confrontation, which they lost, my name was mud. The conflict isn't over, because their malice will never fade. The conflict will end, not when the house is finished, but when I die or lapse into total senility. I'm well on the way. Jochen