Dear Ms. Balakrishna,

Our e-mail letters crossed in the mail. This complex case has many unresolved issues. 
I should be pleased to try to negotiate any or all of them with yourself and 
Mr. Pucci, if you wished.

Most immediate is the matter of the transcript. When the CD from the Board Office
arrives, I will have four electronic audio records of the August 6th hearing.
The first is a 16 Gigabyte USB Flash Drive with a 1.2 Gigabyte MP3 audio file
of the hearing. This audio file was transcribed by Ms. Pamela V. Griswold, an 
approved court transcriber. I filed the certified transcription with the Board,
I served a copy of the transcription on Mr. Pucci, and I filed yet another copy
in SUCV2015-00337 as Exhibit 2 of my Complaint, which was served both on the Board
and on Mr. Stephen Butler of the Nantucket Plumbing Department. In the Griswold 
transcription, the frequencies with which speakers are inaudible are as follows:
		GORDON	 37    
		MEYER	 27    
		ESPOSITO 10    
		RAMOS	 17    
		PUCCI	  8    
		KILB	  2    
		KENNEDY	  1 time. 
The second electronic record of the audio file of the Hearing I received from
the Board is a blank 800 Megabyte CD. The third electronic record of the audio
file of the Hearing which I received from the Board is an 800 Megabyte CD containing
an MP3 file, much shorter than the 1.2 Gigabyte file on the USB Flash Drive.
From your letter, I infer that I must expect a fourth electronic audio recording
of the August 6th Hearing. Please advise me whether I am required to have this
fourth CD transcribed if its contents appear identical with those of the 16 GB
flash drive.

Permit  me respectfully to note that I read G.L. 30A §11(6), Superior Court Standing 
Order 1-96, and Tracking Order - X Track, to place on the Board an affirmative 
obligation to provide on request and upon payment of a suitable fee, not an audio
recording but a transcript of the proceedings before the Board. Nowhere in the statutes
or in the regulations do I find a provision for the distribution by the Board of
an audio recording in lieu of a written transcript. Perhaps this facet of our
disagreement could be resolved if you were willing to forward to me a printed copy
of the transcript which the Board will send you, or even a .pdf file of that
printed transcript possibly as an e-mail attachment. Of course I would pay the
applicable fee to the Office of the Attorney General or to the Board as you directed.

In addition to the transcript which the Board is providing to you, and in addition
to the Griswold transcript which I filed with the Board and with the Court,
there is yet a third written transcript which was prepared for Mr. Pucci's lawfirm
by Sheri LoConte Harris, a transcript of which Mr. Pucci graciously sent me a copy. 
I assume, but do not know that the Harris transcript has also been filed with 
the Board.

The Harris transcript bears on its first page the following caveat:

      "This transcript was prepared from a flash drive in
       the above captioned matter. We cannot guarantee a 
       verbatim transcript from a flash drive. There may be
       parts of this transcript that may reflect problems with
       audibility due to poor recording." 

Please advise me which of the three Transcripts in the Board's possession, if any,
will be made part of the Administrative Record.

Most modern courtroom recording devices have inputs of four channels connected
to four concealed microphones, the output volumes from which can be adjusted 
individually. These channels are separately recorded, usually on a memory card.
When the contents of the memory card are transfered to a CD or DVD, the volumes
of the channels are adjusted separately for maximum clarity. Simultaneous
speech is a common cause of inaudibility, and if, for example, as was the
case during the Hearing, members of the Board had a discussion during Mr.
Gordon's testimony, Mr. Gordon's testimony could be made audible by attenuating
the channel with the voices of the Board members. Similarly Mr. Gordon's testimony 
could be muted by reducing the output volume from his microphone. If the original 
memory card has not been erased or destroyed, adjusting the volumes of the different
outputs might restore Mr. Gordon's testimony.

Of course, I have no way of knowing what happened. To the best of my understanding
the preparation of the CD for distribution is not customarily done in-house by
Ms. Aricela Avila Ging, but is outsourced to some commercial laboratory.
In the instant case the distribition of the audio file on a USB Flash drive
which costs about $9.50 rather than on a CD which costs about 35 cents, suggests
that it is the work of an amateur entrepreneur intent on accomplishing electronically
the attempted suppression of evidence which is so dramatic a characteristic
of the rulings of the Chairman as they appear in the Griswold transcript 
that I have filed.

Below are the relevant citations from statute, regulation and correspondence
on which I rely when I assert that the Board is obligated to furnish me 
not with an audio recording but with a printed transcript of the Hearing:

G.L.30A § 11

(6) Agencies shall make available an official record, which shall include 
testimony and exhibits, and which may be in narrative form, but the agency 
need not arrange to transcribe shorthand notes or sound recordings unless 
requested by a party. If so requested, the agency may, unless otherwise 
provided by any law, require the party to pay the reasonable costs of the 
transcript before the agency makes the transcript available to the party. 

Superior Court Standing Order 1-96
Upon service of a Complaint, the agency shall notify all parties of procedures 
for acquiring a transcript of the hearing testimony. The agency shall also inform 
the parties of their obligation to provide a transcript, or portions thereof, 
to the court if alleging that an agency's decision is not supported by substantial 
evidence or is arbitrary or capricious, or is an abuse of discretion. A request 
for a copy of the transcript must be made by a party within thirty (30) days 
after service of the Complaint,

Tracking Order - X Track
"In particular, note that a request for a copy of the transcript of the agency 
hearing testimony must be made by a party within thirty (30) days after service 
of the Complaint."
 
Letter from Office of the Attorney General (February 20, 2015)
"Should you desire that the administrative record in this case include a transcript,
please direct your request to the Board. You will then be contacted regarding 
the costs and procedures for acquiring the transcript, which upon completion 
will be made part of the administrative record."

Please instruct me how I am to proceed, and thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Ernst Meyer