City sues a CPC member

Oh good grief ... why does the Daily News insist on putting such interesting news stories in its Saturday edition?

Saturday is the lowest readership day ...

Now there's this whole thing about Norbert Carey and rail trail land and wow.

The piece does not say it, but Carey sits on the Community Preservation Committee - you know, the committee that decides who gets funding through the Community Preservation Act.

I looked on the city's website and it says his term expires in 2008 (I'm assuming that it has not been updated) so perhaps his new term is up in 2010, or sometime soon, I would imagine ... here's what Mary Baker Eaton had to say in April 2006, when Carey was re-appointed to the CPC:

First of all I couldn’t believe that Norbert Carey was on the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) in the first place. Mr. Carey is a developer, is developing a very controversial piece of land–the Russell Terrace project, and has had some not so good looking run-ins concerning land for the Rail Trail Project (whole other post.) All of this would, in my mind, create a conflict of interest. Seems to be a no-brainer to me.

It might be worth looking up who exactly was on the City Council and voted "yes" to approve this appointment.

And here is the original 2003 easement document, which I also found on the city's website after typing "Norbert Carey" into the little search box.

I'm not that up on easement documents but this situation is sort of reminiscent of the Host Community Agreement with New Ventures, for the landfill. Former Mayor Al Lavender also was in charge of that.

I have heard Carey's name several times in connection to the CPC and the land he owns over by the old access road for I-95 (another contentious parcel). It's a name that kind of sticks in one's mind.