Public comment is an ordinary part of Select Board meetings, but on April 29 it was anything but. The speaker standing at the podium was the board’s chair, Dick Quintal, who had left his seat at the table to comment, he said, “as a citizen.”
“I just feel that when it’s my own personal view, I should do that, because I’m not representing the board,” Quintal told the Independent Wednesday.
His voice rising at times during the April 29 meeting, Quintal accused the nonprofit Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance of suing Plymouth despite receiving a “sweetheart” lease deal on a piece of town-owned property.
There was just one problem. Quintal was railing against the wrong group. The lawsuit he referred to was filed by the Community Land and Water Coalition to stop construction of a controversial business park at 71 Hedges Pond Road in Cedarville, not by the Pine Barrens Alliance.
To help make his point Quintal held a lease for 158 Center Hill Road, which the town owns and leases to the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance. The nonprofit uses a building there as its headquarters. But he wrongly said that the property is leased to the Community Land and Water Coalition.
Quintal then cited a filing with the state Secretary of State’s corporations website showing that on Feb. 25, the Coalition changed its name from Save the Pine Barrens to Community Land and Water Coalition. But he had confused Save the Pine Barrens with the separate Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance, which holds the lease at 158 Center Hill Road. He said the board had given the Pine Barrens Alliance “a sweetheart deal” of a lease at $300 a month for 10 years with two five-year extensions.
Now, he claimed, the group that had benefited from that low-cost lease was taking the town to court over the Cedarville business park.
“The residents of this town bought the preserve, then they leased it to the same people that are suing them,” Quintal said. “I have a problem with that as a taxpayer in this town.”
When he finished, none of the other four Select Board members corrected Quintal’s mistake.
That upset Sharl Heller, president of the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance, which Quintal had called out during the April 29 meeting. (Heller is a plaintiff in the suit filed by the Community Land and Water Coalition, as private citizen.)
On Tuesday evening, Heller stood at the same podium to say Quintal had made “several false and troubling statements” the week prior that needed to be corrected.
“We have not changed our name, and we have not filed a lawsuit against the Town of Plymouth,” she told the board. “It is difficult to understand how such basic facts about our lease, our name, and our work could be so completely misrepresented by members of this board.”
Heller pointed out that four of the five members of the Select Board signed the renewal of the group’s lease in 2023 and requested that the board acknowledge the “factual inaccuracies” presented at last week’s meeting.
When she finished speaking, the board members – including Quintal – were silent.
Heller was followed by Meg Sheehan, co-founder of the Community Land and Water Coalition, who demanded an apology from Quintal. Sheehan said that her group never had a lease at 158 Center Hill Road, nor does it occupy or use the building, not even as a mailing address.
Again, the board remained silent.
On Wednesday, Quintal admitted to the Independent that he confused Save the Pine Barrens with the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance.
But he declined to apologize.
“Any resident in the town ever get up and apologize [for something said during public comments]? Quintal said. “Could I have been a little confused? Yes.”
Heller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Select Board Vice Chair Kevin Canty declined to comment.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.