EXTRA...

Sandwich discovers School Choice economics; Orleans advertises

TODAY's quote: “We already have a teacher in place, so there’s no additional cost."
- Sandwich School Superintendent Richard Canfield.

Sandwich schools realize public education is a competitive business

Orleans advertises for School Choice business.This ad soliciting parents to consider using School Choice to send their children to the Orleans Elementary School appeared on page A5 of yesterday's Cape Cod Times.Superintendent urges using
School Choice funds for ads

By Walter Brooks

Sandwich School Superintendent Richard Canfield told the town school committee that if a child switches districts the state aid dollars follow that child to the new district, and it is some of that money that the other superintendents are using to promote their schools.

Apparently Dr. Canfield noticed that in the last fiscal year 154 kids used School Choice to leave his district while only 24 used School Choice to come to Sandwich from elsewhere.

The loss of 154 pupils creates a financial loss for the district, and this only adds to the problem that since 2001 Sandwich has lost 15.61% of their students to declining population, school choice and charter schools.

After months of PR disasters, Sandwich Public Schools is just now pondering why parents of 154 kids have lost confidence in their district, and apparently its answer is to advertise according to this week's Sandwich Enterprise.

The school committee could begin the budget process as much as $250,000 in the hole.The newspaper reports that Dr. Canfield said the goal is to address the situation the board is faced with, having to dip into Fiscal Year 2013 School Choice funds that are typically held in reserve for FY2014, in order to balance the budget.

He explained that with School Choice funds being tapped to balance this year’s budget, the school committee could begin the budget process as much as $250,000 in the hole.

Read the Enterprise story here.

Read the latest in our School Choice series:

• Data in on the Cape Cod Class of 2011--lower graduation rates for minorities
• Nauset vs. Sturgis as school get competitive
• Cape's charter schools can teach the "big boys" about thrift
• Wampanoags, Mashpee Schools, at an educational crossroads
• Wampanoags, Mashpee Schools, at an educational crossroads
• Orleans vs. Brewster Elementary School cost vs. results
• Nauset Regional Middle School makes changes in 6th grade teaching
• School Choice Marketing Failure
• School Choice Update: Some schools win, some soon lose
• Sandwich Schools search for an excuse or a scapegoat
• Observor's 6-Part series on School Choice and Economics.

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Another Staake winner; RFK Jr. "disappointed" by wife's suicide

TODAY's quote: RFK, Jr. is “disappointed” by his wife Mary's suicide. - Monsignor George Thompson.
"Yeah, those Kennedys sure are ladykillers." - George Carlin, Melody Tent, 1987.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s wife almost missed her own funeral today in Hyannisport

Bob Staake knocks another out of the park
The current cover of the New Yorker magazine is by Bob Staake of Chatham who is the creator of the best-ever selling cover art from America's premier literary weekly. This week it's the White House where the Ionic columns have turned into the gay pride colors by President Obama's recent statement about the fairness of same-sex marriage. See the New Yorker here.Rancor flares as funeral for Mary Richardson Kennedy approaches

By Walter Brooks

Catholic priests have no reason to lie about something as tragic as a tormented 52-year-old mother of four's death by her own hand, but it was still shocking to read today's New York Daily News quote by Monsignor George Thompson, who will officiate at the funeral service for Mary Richardson Kennedy, say the her husband said he was "disappointed" by her suicide.

The Westchester County, NY medical examiner said Mary Kennedy died of asphyxiation due to hanging. She was found dead Wednesday in her Bedford, NY home.

The News and all the rest of the New York media report that Mary Richardson Kennedy nearly missed her own wake last night after a legal battle broke out over her body as her siblings fought with her husband over her remains.

Mary's family just didn't want her buried with the Kennedys.

The Kennedy PR machine

Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was disappointed by his estranged wife's death, it was not unexpected to see the usual Kennedy public relations machine go to work describing a neurotic, distraught, possibly alcoholic woman rather than the successful architect and environmentalist Mary Richardson Kennedy was in life. Her family has strongly criticized media accounts of her death for what they called "inaccuracies and misrepresentations" of her life.

Her family's statement read in part, Mary Richardson Kennedy in a 2005 photo provided to the media by Peter Michaelis.
Yesterday's New York Daily News cover."While we would naturally prefer to remain private at this very upsetting time, we feel compelled to make this statement because the description of Mary carried by certain news organizations since her passing yesterday is wholly inconsistent with the sister we knew and the life she, in fact, lived."

Robert Kennedy Jr. reportedly ordered Mary Kennedy's sisters from the Bedford, NY home when they arrived there following their sister's suicide. Mary's sisters were forced to use a police escort in order to return to collect some of Mary Kennedy's personal papers, the Daily News reported.

The AP reported that one of Mary's brothers, Thomas Richardson, filed legal papers in White Plains NY on Thursday listing Robert F. Kennedy as the defendant. The document wasn't made public and was then subsequently sealed, along with all other papers related to the case, by Judge Joan Lefkowitz.

As political pundit and NewsBuster's columnist Jack Coleman reminded us this morning, George Carlin quipped at the Melody Tent in Hyannis around 1987, "Yeah, those Kennedys sure are ladykillers."

Burial in Hyannisport

Mary's funeral is planned for this morning at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Bedford, and a private memorial service is planned in Manhattan a Kennedy's family member said in a statement.

Mary will be buried in Hyannisport, Massachusetts near the Kennedy compound, and this was what her brothers fought to prevent.

They simply felt their sister had had her fill of Kennedys already.

The Kennedy Curse

The media loves to imagine a "Kennedy Curse" like its equally imagined "Curse of the Bambino" which prevented the Boston Red Sox from winning a World Series for fifty years.

That "curse" was solved when the team brought in Tony Francona and some better ballplayers, and the Kennedy version is just as silly.

People tend to die sooner if they lead dangerous lives, and the Kennedys did that in spades. If the latest generation stays away from planes and drugs, it will probably live a lot longer lives. Here's the "curse" list.

• August 12, 1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.
• May 13 1948 - Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish.
• November 22, 1963 - President John F Kennedy.
• June 6, 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy.
• July 18, 1969 -  Mary Jo Kopechne.
• April 25, 1984 - David Kennedy.
• December 31, 1997 - Michael Kennedy.
• July 16, 1999 - John F Kennedy Jr.
• May 16, 2012 - Mary Richardson Kennedy.

Read the Telegraph list here. 

Read the NY Daily News story here.

Read today's CNN reports here.

Read the LA Times on Mary's family feelings here.

Read the Ap story in YahooNews here.

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"Slots" of money for Taunton in Mashpee casino agreement

TODAY's quote: “I think it’s a win-win. The city gets an economic boost from this. We can put people to work... It’s a huge opportunity. With that, I realize it’s not a panacea, but I think once people see, read and understand the agreement, I think the majority of the people of Taunton will be supportive of it.”
- Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr.

Mashpee Tribe, Taunton agree on casino deal, city to get 2 percent of slots

Tribe guarantees Taunton $33 million up front, $13 million a year

By Walter Brooks

In a statement yesterday announcing an agreement with the the city of Taunton,  Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said, "I think we have a very good working relationship with the City Council and the mayor. The stars are lining up."

The proposed casino, if accepted by the state gaming commission, would be at the Liberty and Union Industrial Park at Routes 24 and 140. The tribe previously said that as many as 1,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs would be created in the first phase of construction.

Stars may be aligning but votes are still uncertain

While Cromwell cited a figure of $120 million annually as the probable benefit to the economy of the area near the proposed casino site, Taunton's registered voters must approve the plan in a nonbinding referendum on June 9,and Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr. has been quoted as saying, "If it (the referendum) fails, that’s the end of the deal."

The agreement also calls for Taunton to receive 2.05 percent of net slot machine revenue each year, with a floor of $8 million per year. Under the agreement, the tribe would also pay $370,000 annually to the Taunton School Department as well as provide yearly funds for the city to hire additional police and fire personnel.

Read the Taunton Gazette story here.

Read the Boston Globe  story here.

Read the NECN report on the proposed casino plans here.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ex-wife Mary hangs herself

TODAY's quote: “She always seems lost these days, whenever she came into the village...
Lost and alone and sort of out of it.” - Mary Kennedy neighbor.

Suicide of Mary Kennedy comes almost exactly two years after split from RFK Jr.

"Don't blame the Kennedy curse because curses don't kill." 

Mary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, with actress Cheryl Hines at Waterkeeper Alliance in December 2010.
The palatial home in Bedford, NY.

The New York Times reported today that sources said Mary Richardson Kennedy's body was found hanging in a barn behind her palatial home in Bedford, NY and that she had left a note.

The divorce filing last year by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to split from his wife of 18 years and mother of his four children, was followed by Mary Kennedy's arrest for drunk driving three days later.

Her friends now say that started her on a downward spiral that ended with her suicide by hanging yesterday.

She was 52.

Some television reports today claim she was arrested a second time without a license recently, and she was depressed over the mounting debts to operate her very large home.

The NY Daily News says, "Don't blame the Kennedy curse because curses don't kill." 

Read the NY Times story here.

Read the Boston Globe story here.

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"Mother's Day morass" hurts Route 6A business; Fulcher out, Tuttle in, McAuliffe out, Holcomb, Tolley in

TODAY's quote: “Whoever conceived of this (Sagamore Bridge repair) plan should be fired.
If I were a tourist and I was caught up in that thing on Sunday, I would never go to the Cape again.’’
- Anne Kilguss,  Orleans second home owner.

"Mother's Day morass" at Sagamore Bridge angers visitors, hurts tourism here

Orleans: Fulcher out, Hodgson in

When the Orleans votes were tallied last night, longtime Orleans Selectman Margie Fulcher walked over to John Hodgson and gave him a hug and wished him good luck.
     The 41-year-old banker had knocked on 1,300 doors over the course of the campaign and racked up an almost 2-1 victory in his third run for the office.
   For what he'll do different, see his replies to our questions here.

Tuttle wins in Dennis

After his reelection last night in Dennis, Selectman Alan Tuttle said, “Wastewater is the biggest issue we face. The towns and county are now realizing that there are new ways that are more cost effective to deal with this.”

McAuliffe out, Holcomb, Tolley in

She's been an elected official in Yarmouth for a quarter century but like Margie Fulcher in Orleans, Suzanne McAuliffe may have stayed too long at the party and came in third in the town's two-man Selectman race last night losing to incumbent Erik R. Tolley and challenger Norman C. Holcomb.Route 6A businesses down 50 percent, 
Sandwich in gridlock all of Sunday

By Walter Brooks

The Boston Globe reports that with irate motorists trickling past idle equipment in the closed lanes on the Sagamore Bridge a few weeks ago, the Army Corps of Engineers which controls the bridges over the canal had its contractor double the number of shifts halfway through the project to meet the late-May deadline for reopening all lanes by May 24.

"Those who do not learn from history..."

The complete George Santayana quote is “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” but it's clear neither the US Army Corps or the Department of Highways have learned from theirs.

The Army Corps faced a backlash in 2009 after a resurfacing project on the Sagamore deck caused severe backups, prompting the convening of a federal, state, and local task force to work with business and civic groups and coordinate project timing and traffic management.

Former State Rep. Thomas Cahir and Cape Cod Transportation Authority chief said one part remedy would be to relocate Exit 1 which is literally at the foot of the Sagamore Bridge, to enter Route 6 some distance to the east.

Cahir says drivers who have tried to skirt Route 6 until the last possible moment, clogging Route 6A, have worsened delays while trying to merge onto Route 6 just as that highway shrinks to one lane outbound.  “I really think that’s the reason for the most frustration,’’ said Cahir.

Many drivers now leave Route 6 and try taking the alternative Route 6A which has resulted in a massive gridlock through the entire town of Sandwich bringing local travel and business to a standstill.

The Globe reported that Kerry Barrett of Twin Acres Ice Cream Shoppe said business has fallen by more than 50 percent on Sundays, normally the busiest day, and Mother's Day was by far the worst.

Read the Globe story here.

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Cape daily newspaper owner's top UK editor charged

TODAY's quote: "I have concluded ... there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction, All these matters relate to the ongoing police investigation into allegations of phone hacking and corruption of public officials in relation to the News of the World and The Sun newspapers."
- Alison Levitt QC, Principal Legal Adviser to Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions.

Rupert Murdoch's top British newspaper executive charged with conspiracy

News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks charged with perverting the course of justice.

By Walter Brooks

Rebekah Brooks headed the Murdoch newspapers in Great Britain including the tabloid News of the World which was closed after 168 years. That's Murdoch in the inset.The New York Times along with literally hundreds of other newspapers around the world report that Rebekah Brooks, the one-time  head of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire and a close friend of British Prime Minister David Cameron, was charged on Tuesday that she, her husband and four others conspired to pervert the course of justice in the hacking scandal that has burrowed into public life here.

The Times said the decision to prosecute Ms. Brooks and her husband was seen as a blow to Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Cameron, who has been depicted as maintaining a cozy friendship with her both when he was in the opposition and, since 2010, as prime minister. 

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is the owner of the daily Cape Cod Times newspaper, the Barnstable Patriot and Nantucket Inquirer-Mirror weeklies, and the Standard-Times in New Bedford.

Today's charges are among the most dramatic developments of a controversy that has sent shockwaves through the British political establishment and rocked Rupert Murdoch's media empire to its core.

Ms. Brooks, no relation to the owners of Cape Cod Today, faces one charge of conspiring with her personal assistant Cheryl Carter to "remove seven boxes of material from the archives of News International". The maximum sentence for perverting the course of justice is life imprisonment.

In a separate charge she is accused of conspiring with her husband, her chauffeur and a security consultant to conceal "documents and computers" from the investigating detectives. All the offenses are alleged to have taken place in July of 2011.

The other suspects were identified as Cheryl Carter, Ms. Brooks’s personal assistant; Mark Hanna, the head of security at News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of the Murdoch family’s News Corporation; a chauffeur, Paul Edwards; and two security consultants, Daryl Jorsling and a second suspect who was not named.

Read the Times story here.

See the hundreds of other stories about this scandal here.

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The killers William Delahunt failed to prosecute

TODAY's quote: “Every election cycle, I take my time, I think it through, and I think, not about whether I can win or lose, but: ‘am I in a position to make a difference?’
Can I achieve what I want to achieve outside of public life?’’ - William Delahunt, 2010.

The many killers former Congressman William Delahunt ignored while DA

Gregory Cormier's murder reminds many of the Amy Bishop case and others

By Walter Brooks

Did Delahunt allow the "second"
       Amy Bishop murders?

It now appears as if Delahunt may have used his influence in Quincy to allow the files on the Amy Bishop killing of her brother in 1989 to be closed while he was Norfolk County District Attorney and in a position to prevent three later murders.
        Amy Bishop’s February 2010 arrest in the fatal shootings of three biology department colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville put her teenage brother’s death back in the spotlight.
        Amy's brother Seth Bishop’s shotgun death was ruled accidental at the time by a state medical examiner, but according to The Patriot Ledger,Braintree’s then-police chief squelched charges the day of the shooting, but then-District Attorney William Delahunt’s office said Amy Bishop could have been charged anyway.
        Braintree officers who remember the 1986 shooting said that former Police Chief John Polio dismissed detectives from the case and ordered the department to release Amy Bishop after a telephone conversation with former District Attorney William Delahunt.
        WCVB reported in 2010 that Bishop was never booked, however, and all local police records of the case have gone missing, with the exception of an entry in the police log noting an accidental shooting.
        State Police also filed a six-page report about the shooting, dated March 30, 1987.Looking back at the overly long political career of our former Congressman William Delahunt, it is difficult to understand how the "old media" ignored the countless red flags which popped up at every step in this tarnished pol's more than a quarter-century on the public payroll.

Today the Patriot Ledger reports yet another example of highly questionable prosecutorial conduct by the former 10th District Congressman.

There was the trial of two men who Bill Delahunt failed to prosecute over twenty-years ago while he was the Norfolk County District Attorney.  Jameel Williams and Kenyatte Murrell were convicted in 2002 for the murder of Milton High School graduate Gregory Cormier in his car in 1994 by Delahunt's successor William Keating.

Cormier was 20 when he was murdered in June 1994. He had played basketball for Milton High School where he graduated in 1992.

The gunmen fired 14 rounds at the car, hitting Gregory Cormier three times.  His car rolled to a stop in some bushes with Cormier dead behind the wheel.

The two Boston gang members were 27 and 30 when a Norfolk County jury convicted them of Cormier’s murder, in a 2002 cold case prosecution.

A thirty-year wait for justice

When he was Norfolk County District Attorney, William Delahunt did not pursue indictments. Delahunt's chosen successor, Jeffrey Locke did nothing as well.

In 2002, then-District Attorney Bill Keating did, and Williams and Murrell were convicted in late 2003, partly from testimony by Shawn Castle who testified that he drove the two men to the murder site and then gave them a ride back to another gang member’s house.

For some it was reminiscent of Amy Bishop shooting of her brother while Delahunt was Norfolk DA, a failure which led to her killing three others last year in Alabama.

Did the Amy Bishop case missteps speed Delahunt's retirement?

A grimacing William Delahunt as Vice President Joe Biden campaigns for Bill Keating in 2010. File photo.

CapeCodToday.com blogger and Duxbury Clipper Senior Editor D. A. Mittell reported here two years ago that on February 12, 2010,  Massachusetts native Amy Bishop is alleged to have gone on a homicidal rampage leaving three dead and three wounded at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she was a non-tenured biology professor. The academic allegedly gone wild led to the belated discovery that on December 6, 1986, the same Amy Bishop had shot her brother Seth Bishop to death in their home in Braintree, Massachusetts where William Delahunt was the DA.

In the 1986 case, Bishop was immediately released. Despite her allegedly having fled her brother's death scene and having pointed a gun at a car dealership worker during a rampage through Braintree, the shooting of her brother was declared an accident after a short and obviously incompetent or corrupt investigation.

The fix was in, and who let Amy Bishop off the hook?

Mittell added that to those who covered law enforcement in 1986 it was retrospectively plain that the fix may have been in for the daughter of a prominent Braintree family. Just as arbitrary prosecutions from those days have led to successful innocence projects, arbitrary exculpations of the well-connected were common. At the time, he was a columnist for the Braintree Forum and other Mariner newspapers, and I completely missed the Bishop story!

William Delahunt is the man who convinced Samuel Sutter, the Bristol County District Attorney, to run against Bill Keating in the Democratic Party Primary this September.

Read the Patriot Ledger story here.

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Chatham turns down $9.5M fire station, OKs $25.9M budget; Harwich approves regional school budget

TODAY's quote: "We need to stop spending more money than we are taking in." - Steve West, Chatham.

Chatham voters reject $9.5 fire station

Voters at last night's Chatham Town Meeting rejected spending $9.5 million on a new fire station.

Speakers said the proposed building was too large for the town which recently built a new police station across from the Chatham Airport leaving the old police building adjacent to the fire station for the latter's use.

The meeting did OK a $25,900,000 operating budget despite concerns about a 12 percent increase in the tax rate, and completed the session by rejecting two zoning bylaw amendments.

Regional school budget gets Harwich Town Meeting approval

Harwich voters debated the town's share of the Monomoy Regional School District budget which is $19,679,681 for nearly an hour and a half in the opening night of Town Meeting last week, but in the end offered solid support for the historic first regional school district budget heading into a Proposition 2 ½ override vote in Tuesday's election.

Read these stories in the Cape Cod Chronicle here.

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Home prices stabilizing, sales up, inventory down

TODAY's quote: “Housing supply and demand are roughly balanced with overall housing supply at the lowest level in six years, putting sellers on an even footing with buyers in most markets.” - Moe Veissi, NAR.

You can still buy a home here for less than $200,000

One Hyannis home even listed at $180,000

By Walter Brooks

The Wall Street Journal reports that the median price for an existing, or previously-owned, home rose in three-quarters of the 146 markets tracked by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) during the January-to-March period.

But the Boston Globe reports that it's still easy to find a home for well under $200,000 in many of the state's smaller towns.

According to the NAR, the national median existing single-family home price was $158,100 in the first quarter, which is 0.4 percent below $158,700 in the first quarter of 2011.  The median is where half sold for more and half sold for less.

The newspaper says that if you are looking for small town living under $200,000, your best bet is to start driving around some of the little-known hamlets scattered across Central and Southeastern Massachusetts.

The Globe gives examples in Southeastern Massachusetts which include:

• Seekonk: $192,450
• Acushnet: $191,500
• Somerset: $195,000
• Halifax: $193,375
• New Bedford: $130,000
• Hyannis: $180,000

The best bargain: Southbridge

Many of Cape Cod's "washashores" come from towns near Worcester, and if you are willing to move back, you can buy a home in Southbridge for as little as $129,250.

Read the National Association of Realtors story here.
Read the Wall Street Journal story here.
Read the Boston Globe story here.

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Historian weighs Mashpee claims vs. reality

TODAY's quote: "The only Indian groups that historically and legitimately could be called “Wampanoag” were those of the so-called "Wampanoag Confederacy" (Pokanoket, Narragansett, and Nipmuc tribes) which sided with King Philip (c. 1675) the Pokanoket tribal sachem, in their war against the colonists. Mashpee sided with the colony in that conflict and were therefore not historically 'Wampanoag.'" - James Lynch.

Historian questions Wampanoag claim, gambling commission predictions

James Lynch cites several legal obstacles to tribe and Taunton's goals

The Taunton Gazette today has a guest column by a noted Native American historian who cites half a dozen reasons why the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe may not be able to come to a deal with either the state or the Bureau of Indian Affairs for one of the three casino licenses to be granted.

Malaysian Genting Syndicate, the financial backers of the Mashpee tribe’s efforts to establish a gambling facility within Taunton, remarked in regard to the proposed casino “that the first of four phases can be built within 15 months.” That same day in an article appearing in “Massachusetts Live,” Stephen P. Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission remarked, “it will be three to five years before a casino is up and running”.In it he claims that the historical record clearly demonstrates that the Mashpee Tribe never occupied or utilized lands off of Cape Cod, especially in Taunton, nor did any lands within Taunton hold any culturally significant meaning to the Mashpee such as burial grounds or mythlogically significant locations.

Mr. Lynch is owner and principal of Waterbury CT based, Historical Consulting & Research Services, LLC. He has been a practicing Ethno-historian for more than 25 years. He is also the author of four books addressing Colonial tribe land issues, tribal history, and the development of Federal Indian Policy.

In an article he wrote for Cape Cod Today in October 2007, he wrote, "Did any "Wampanoag" greet the first arrivals at Plymouth? No. No Indians did. What William Bradford and those other first arrivals found were deserted Indian villages, the victims of smallpox epidemic that had spread south from Newfoundland. Were there "Wampanoag" in the region? Yes. The boundary between the Pokanoket and Massachusetts tribal lands was in this area. Were these "Wampanoag" members of the Mashpee tribe? No."

Lynch adds that another federal regulation that must be met by the Mashpee, is that the tribe must have a present day presence in the area in which the land being sought is located. The regulation requires, “The land is within a 25 mile radius of the tribe’s headquarters or other tribal governmental facilities that have existed at that location for at least two years at the time of the application for land into trust.”

The Mashpee recently opened a administrative office in New Bedford. That location is well outside the mandated twenty-five mile maximum radius. So the Mashpee would have to open a tribal administrative office within twenty-five miles of Taunton and wait two years before any action to take the land into trust could be taken.

Read the Gazette story here.

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