Document Trail Reveals Patterns of Quiet Collusion
During Year of Controversy Around Island Boat Line


By JULIA WELLS

Collusion: the word has surfaced more than once in recent
months during a storm of politics around Steamship Authority affairs.

When Vineyard boat line governor J.B. Riggs Parker was not
reappointed by the Dukes County Commission in a 4-3 vote late last
year, a group of Vineyard selectmen and city officials in New Bedford
cried foul, among other things accusing four members of the county
commission of collusion.

A series of public documents obtained by the Gazette in
recent weeks reveal that there was, in fact, collusion - and plenty
of it - but ironically it involved the same cast of characters who
were accusing others of foul play, chief among them Mr. Parker and
New Bedford city solicitor George Leontire.

The documents reveal that Mr. Parker and Mr. Leontire plotted
for months to achieve the whaling city's goal to get a foothold in
the public boat line that has been the lifeline to the two Islands
for 40 years. The documents show that Mr. Parker and Mr. Leontire
also pushed hard behind the scenes to get a piece of legislation
passed that would expand the boat line board, give voting seats to
New Bedford and Barnstable and dilute control by the two Islands.

Obtained by the Gazette following a request under the
Massachusetts Public Records Law, the documents include e-mail,
postal mail and and faxed correspondence from Mr. Parker's files
during his 13-month tenure as Vineyard SSA governor, and also from
the city of New Bedford during the same period.

The documents offer a new window into what many observers say
is one of the most peculiar periods in politics in recent memory on
the Vineyard, a period marked by a noticeable gap between the elected
leaders and the populace on boat line issues. The documents show that
Mr. Leontire and Mr. Parker formed a unique alliance and ultimately
played a strong role in shaping this odd political climate that later
turned divisive.

Other key behind-the-scenes players whose names turn up in
the public records obtained by the Gazette include West Tisbury
selectman Cynthia Mitchell, county commissioner and ferry task force
member Daniel Flynn, Woods Hole resident Frank Shephard and the
Martha's Vineyard Times.

Among other things, documents reveal the following:

* An eleventh-hour legislative amendment proposed by a group
of Vineyard selectmen late last year to change the way the Vineyard
SSA governor is appointed was, in fact, written by Mr. Leontire. The
Hon. Rudolph Kass, a retired state appeals court judge who headed a
task force to study ferry issues last year, helped Mr. Leontire with
language and spelling in the amendment. The amendment was aimed at
overturning the county commission vote to replace Mr. Parker with
Kathryn A. Roessel.

* In August, seven days before a public hearing on the
Vineyard to discuss high-speed ferry service between New Bedford and
the Vineyard, Mr. Leontire sent an urgent e-mail to Bill Burns, chief
of staff for New Bedford Sen. Mark Montigny. "Riggs is in trouble,"
Mr. Leontire wrote to Mr. Burns, calling his attention to a news
story and an editorial published in the Gazette that day. "We are
losing the momentum. . . . The delay is killing us. . . . Riggs is
pleading for help in the form of the legislation," Mr. Leontire wrote.

* In late November, one day after Ms. Roessel threw her hat
in the ring as a candidate for Vineyard Steamship Authority governor,
the city of New Bedford commissioned its Boston attorneys at Goodwin,
Procter & Hoar to conduct an exhaustive background check on her. The
search extended to her relatives as well as her business background.
Attorneys also compiled a list of names and telephone numbers of her
Vineyard Haven neighbors.

* In early December, one day after Ms. Roessel was appointed
by the county commission as the new boat line governor, the Martha's
Vineyard Times faxed to Mr. Parker copies of all the letters to the
editor that Ms. Roessel had written. Mr. Parker immediately faxed the
letters to Mr. Leontire in New Bedford.

* In early January, Woods Hole resident Frank Shephard asked
Mr. Leontire to follow the activities of Falmouth boat line governor
Galen Robbins for a week. Mr. Leontire complied, and mailed Mr.
Shephard a letter with a report on Mr. Robbins' activities.

* The New Bedford city solicitor kept a "ferry" phone list
with the following names on it: Mr. Parker, Mrs. Mitchell, Mr.
Shephard, Falmouth selectmen Troy Clarkson and Pat Flynn and Martha's
Vineyard Times reporter Nelson Sigelman.

The public records request by the Gazette followed a request
by the town of Nantucket, served on both Mr. Parker and the city of
New Bedford in late December. The Gazette also asked to see documents
collected in connection with the pending litigation between the boat
line and New Bedford.

The documents show that the combative New Bedford city
solicitor was involved to the point of obsession with nearly every
issue that surfaced around the boat line in the last year. And while
Mr. Parker said publicly that he was only interested in running the
Steamship Authority like a business, behind the scenes he was up to
his chin in politics, alongside Mr. Leontire.

When the governor's ferry task force convened a series of
public hearings in February 2001, Mr. Parker adopted a publicly
neutral stance. But behind the scenes Mr. Parker was actively engaged
in the work of the task force, corresponding with Judge Kass both by
e-mail and by fax and corresponding regularly with Dan Flynn, the
Vineyard representative to the task force. Mr. Flynn kept Mr. Parker
informed at every turn, and Mr. Parker was sent early drafts of the
task force report. Boat line board members Robert O'Brien and Ed
DeWitt also corresponded with Judge Kass; in fact it appears that
Nantucket governor Grace Grossman was the only member of the boat
line board who did not make contact with the purportedly independent
task force.

In the end, the task force report contained only one real
recommendation: to expand the boat line board by adding voting seats
for Barnstable and New Bedford.

Mr. Parker said repeatedly in public that he had no position
on the pending legislation. At a meeting of the Dukes County
Commission in July, county treasurer Noreen Mavro Flanders pressed
him for his views. "We are servants of the legislature; we are
servants of the state," Mr. Parker said. "The legislature is
responsible for creating the framework of the authority and they are
entitled to change that framework, and I don't believe that the
authority member needs to take a particular position."

One month later Mr. Leontire sent his urgent e-mail to
Senator Montigny's chief of staff with Mr. Parker's plea for the
legislation and outlining the enemies to the cause. "I, quite
frankly, am disgusted. . . . Riggs is pleading for help. . . . He
does not believe he can hold things together as is," Mr. Leontire
wrote.

The e-mails to Mr. Burns paint a clear picture of Mr.
Leontire's view of Joseph Sullivan, the Braintree Democrat who is
co-chairman of the transportation committee. In late August Mr.
Leontire singled out Mr. Sullivan as an obstacle. "Spoke to Strauss
[New Bedford Rep. William Strauss] re: transportation committee," Mr.
Leontire wrote. "He wants needless to say to work with you on getting
the bill out past Sullivan," he added.

Even Sept. 11 did not deter Mr. Leontire. On Sept. 13 he sent
an e-mail to Mr. Burns. "Any answer re: Steamship Authority," he
wrote. The reply carried a slight tone of exasperation: "Nothing yet
George. We were closed on Tuesday because of the attack and we have a
fairly controversial formal session today that has been all too
distracting. . . . I'll do my best to get our issue done ASAP."

The Kass legislation remains stalled in the state
transportation committee today.

Meanwhile, the city is pressing ahead with its lawsuit in
federal court against the boat line. Among other things, the
complaint claims that the SSA freight reservation system violates
restraint of trade laws.

New Bedford has tried to use the discovery process as a political
club at times. In October, when Falmouth boat line governor Galen
Robbins led a move to kill the high-speed ferry project because of
its shaky financial footing, Mr. Leontire moved immediately to
subpoena Mr. Robbins for deposition under the guise of the federal
lawsuit. The deposition was later made public in a deliberate smear
campaign against Mr. Robbins. Documents obtained by the Gazette show
that Mr. Leontire e-mailed a transcript of the deposition to Mr.
Burns.

Mr. Parker's correspondence is also revealing. One peculiar
period occurred in mid-summer when a small citizens group formed on
the Vineyard to question some of the positions taken by Mr. Parker -
both on the issue of high-speed ferry service from New Bedford, and
also on the growing split between the Vineyard and Nantucket.

Nora Nevin, one of the organizers of the group, sent an
e-mail to a Nantucket resident that contained some disparaging
remarks about Mr. Parker. Records obtained by the Gazette show that
Mrs. Nevin apparently forwarded her e-mail to Mr. Parker by accident
while she was trying to figure out how to use the mass mail function
on her computer.

One week later, Mrs. Nevin's e-mails were published in the
Martha's Vineyard Times.

The embarrassment of a local citizen in a local newspaper
delighted West Tisbury selectman Cynthia Mitchell. "I thought
Nelson's exposure of Nora Nevin's e-mail was highly entertaining,"
wrote Mrs. Mitchell in an e-mail to Mr. Parker in August. "Let me
know what I can do to help," she added.

Mrs. Mitchell later played a key role in the campaign by
public officials to overturn the appointment of Ms. Roessel.

In late December Mrs. Mitchell announced that Vineyard
selectmen had adopted a resolution to support a legislative amendment
to change the way the boat line governor is appointed. Adopted in the
absence of any public discussion, the resolution represented a clear
shift from a position voted by Vineyard selectmen last summer.

The documents obtained by the Gazette show that the draft
amendment was in fact written by Mr. Leontire, with some help from
Judge Kass.

"George, as odd as it sounds, it is the county of Dukes
County and there is no apostrophe in Dukes," Judge Kass wrote to Mr.
Leontire on Dec. 28 in a series of comments attached to a marked-up
version of the legislation that Mr. Leontire had faxed to him.

When the legislative amendment first became public, the
Gazette spoke with Arthur Smadbeck, an Edgartown selectman who chairs
the All-Island Selectmen's Association, and he denied being its
author. "I only wish that I was that intelligent, but it would be
disingenuous of me to claim that I wrote this," he said.

Mr. Smadbeck would not identify the author at first.

"The person asked me to remain anonymous, they asked me to
distribute this and I agreed to do it," he said.

Mr. Smadbeck later called to say that the author was in fact
county commissioner Leonard Jason Jr., who had voted for Mr. Parker
the week before.

Contacted by the Gazette, Mr. Jason said he wrote part of the
resolution. "Most of it. I had help from a friend of mine," he said.
"They agreed to help if they could remain anonymous."

And going back to the county commission vote to appoint
Kathryn Roessel, Mr. Jason said, "Yeah, of course I think there was
collusion. Can I prove it? Of course not. I just find it all very odd.

"So I came up with this," he said, adding, "Hey, that's what
happens when we play hardball."