David Berkeley has spent nearly a year focused on one thing: Receiving permission from the town to install public benches in memory of his two late sons.
On Tuesday, without discussion or fanfare, the Select Board voted 4-0 to approve memorial applications for benches in remembrance of Matthew Scott Berkeley and Brent Fitzgerald Berkeley for their service to the community. The vote was the culmination of a frustrating struggle by their father to persuade the town to allow the benches.
Berkeley lost both of his sons through tragic circumstances.
Brent Berkeley, 41, was shot eight times in the Middle Street parking lot on Oct. 25, 2024, after getting into a minor auto accident with David Jerome, the man charged with his murder. (Jerome is awaiting trial.)
Fifteen years earlier, Matthew Berkeley, 31, took his life at Siever Field in North Plymouth.
The grieving father said he was met with a series of maddening responses from officials after he asked to install two park benches in their names downtown or on the waterfront. He was told that it would be possible, then notified by the town that his request had been denied.
The town’s memorials policy states that “honorees must have a record of service to the community. No application for a memorial will be reviewed unless the honoree has been deceased for a minimum of one year.” Honorees must have “served” the greater good in a way “marked by valor, dedication to the development of the town, or self-sacrifice for the betterment of Plymouth.”
Berkeley – who did not respond to a request for comment on the vote – told the Independent last month that no one told him about those requirements until long after he first made his request. He collected some 20 letters of support for his application, and credits Select Board Chair David Golden with helping him gather those letters. Golden was a member of the Memorials Advisory Committee before being elected to the Select Board in 2024.
But the committee, which is tasked with recommending memorials to the Select Board, is in limbo. Three of its five seats are vacant, which means the committee cannot make recommendations because it lacks a quorum.
Before the committee lost three members, Berkeley said, committee member Tim Lawlor – who has since stepped down – told him approval of the benches would “go right through, no process.”
Lawlor has denied that he said the process could be skirted, but told the Independent that given the horrific circumstances of Brent Berkeley’s death, an exception to the one-year waiting period should have been made.
David Berkeley said Select Board member Dick Quintal also initially told him the memorials would be “no problem,” and that he was disappointed when Select Board member Kevin Canty told him in June that it was unlikely that his request would meet the requirements for a public memorial.
So board members were surprised when Golden scheduled a vote for the benches in the “administrative notes” section of Tuesday’s agenda along with six other items. Administrative notes are usually approved as a package, with no discussion, and that is what happened on Tuesday. Canty had stepped out of the room, so he did not vote, but the rest of the members voted to approve the notes, including the memorial benches.
“That was an interesting vote that we took,” board member Deb Iaquinto said in an interview. “I don’t think that any of us were really aware that it was in the administrative notes until we got our packets last week.”
Iaquinto said she had been under the impression that the Memorials Advisory Committee would make a recommendation.
“And then it just showed up, so I voted for it,” she said. “I voted for it because we really didn’t have an opportunity to discuss it and it was just such a heartbreaking story.”
But Iaquinto said she worries that the vote could set a precedent.
“Everyone wants to memorialize their loved one in some way, shape, or form, and I think the town should help to do that to the best of its ability,” she said, “but we do have a process that we should follow.”
Iaquinto said that because Berkeley got conflicting information from town officials, “that’s on us, that he sort of felt like he was misled in certain ways.”
Golden said when the one-year anniversary of Brent Berkeley’s death required by the policy passed, he asked that David Berkeley’s proposal move forward without a recommendation from the Memorials Advisory Committee “because, frankly, that group has fallen apart.”
“I decided to put it on the agenda so that my colleagues can consider it,” he added.
Select Board member Bill Keohan said “it’s always been the desire of the Select Board to work with residents to recognize and memorialize community members.”
The board is scheduled to interview and vote on applicants to the Memorials Advisory Committee Dec. 2 with the aim of filling the three vacant slots so that the committee can function again.
It is not clear where the benches honoring David Berkeley’s sons will be placed. Golden said Berkeley will have to work with town officials to determine the location.
Quintal did not respond to a voice mail requesting comment, and Canty declined to comment.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.