Elsewhere at Cape Cod Today, the indefatigable Peter Kenney tells the exceedingly weird story of Desiré Hendricks Moreno, secretary of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council and sister of Shawn Hendricks, who took over as chairman of the council following the resignation of disgraced tribal leader Glenn Marshall. According to Kenney:
Reliable sources say that Desire Hendricks Moreno provided sanctuary for her cousin, Sharon Fitzpatrick, after Fitzpatrick's husband was stabbed to death in Boston. Fitzpatrick has been charged with the murder and is free on $250,000 cash bail. According to one source in Mashpee, “Everyone in town knew she was at her cousin's house over the weekend. And she was bragging about it afterwards.”
Kenney appears to be out there on the edge here, but his previous reporting on this story has not been successfully challenged. As Kenney also notes, the tribal council's financial affairs are already being investigated by various government agencies, although it appears that Marshall, rather than Hendricks and Moreno, is the target of those investigations.
Meanwhile, the man who has most publicly associated himself with the mess that Middleborough stumbled into, Selectman Adam Bond, is trying to get himself hired as the $130,000-a-year town manager, even though he doesn't meet even the minimal requirements that have been posted for the position.
The Boston Globe's Christine Wallgren reports that Bond, who lacks a master's degree in public administration, one of the prerequisites, thinks his law degree ought to suffice. How badly does Bond want the job? He tells Wallgren: “Why don't they just offer me less money for the job, and tell me I have to go back to school to get a master's in public administration?” I guess practicing law isn't as lucrative as it used to be. Maybe that explains why he's never bothered to do anything with his Web site.
By the way, one of Bond's main backers, Tony Lawrence, is associated with Casino-friend.com, whose editor and publisher, Hal Brown, has compared casino opponents to the Ku Klux Klan.
In the Brockton Enterprise, Alice Elwell writes that Middleborough officials were silenced at a recent meeting of representatives from nearby communities. The reason given was the lack of consideration Middleborough reportedly showed those communities in approving a casino deal with the tribe last summer.
And, finally, the Cape Cod Times fronts a long report by Stephanie Vosk and George Brennan on Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman, the South African investors behind the Mashpee Wampanoags.
Vosk and Brennan write: “Most members of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe can only wonder how much of their sovereignty has been signed away to help Kerzner and Wolman continue their dominance of New England's gambling industry.”
*Update: I have revised this item to reflect changes in Cape Cod Today's presentation of the New York Times story.
Disclosure #1: Cape Cod Today has begun serializing my book, “Little People,” today. I am not getting paid.
Disclosure #2: Just click here.
I was wondering if you could clarify something? The town meeting vote was a non-binding(?) vote to approve the Selectmens agreement with the Wampanoag tribe, si? If the Patrick Plan becomes a Bill someday and the many distortions that are likely to happen to the Bill include a Binding local and/or regional vote to accept a casino, do we anticipate that Middleborough will need to vote afresh?
If the Patrick plan becomes law, and the Mashpee Wampanoags want to apply for one of the three licenses the state would issue, then yes, there would have to be a referendum in Middleborough. Perhaps the town-meeting vote to approve the casino deal with the tribe would be binding, but a referendum would be needed to actually go ahead and build the casino.
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However, if the Mashpee Wampanoags decide not to apply for a state license and instead attempt to build a casino in Middleborough via the federal process, then no, no referendum would be necessary. The town-meeting vote to approve the deal would be sufficient. But if the tribe decides to pursue this route, it could find itself competing against two state-licensed casinos, in Southeastern Massachusetts and Greater Boston, before it can even open the Middleborough venue.
violate the terms of the contract, which obligates the town to support the tribe’s casino application to the state?
I was trying to post that as a comment/question to Dan Kennedy’s post above.
Here's what I think we've got so far – If the state develops a plan with a binding vote and If the tribe pursues one of the proposed auctioned licenses and If the tribe “wins”, the town of Middleborough would have had to have a binding vote and approved siting a class III casino in the town before the tribe could participate in the auction. Those Ifs are only in play If the Governor doesn't further flip his stance on his original proposal and If the Legislature doesn't completely morph or trash (please) the process. So who bloody knows? At least the lobbiest are having fun.