Well I have sat on my hands for more than a week about this. I have now heard some very disturbing information from more than 5 different sources. While I usually do not broadcast rumors, this one has too many verifiable facts to be very far from the truth.
According to people who really should know, Peabody Zoning Board Vice Chairman Paul Ruocco has been asked to resign from the Peabody Zoning Board after a rather disturbing series of events.
He purchased a property, had it subdivided based on incorrect information and ended up getting a FREE HOUSE and $23,000 - all because he was granted favors as a standing Peabody Board member.
It has also been suggested to me that other board members might be involved as well but I have not been able to verify any of these accusations.
This is what I have been able to find out:
Paul Ruocco is (was) the Vice Chairperson of the Peabody Zoning Board.
Paul and Eleftheria Ruocco purchased 98 Bartholomew St. from the estate of William Farwell on March 18, 2010 for $127,000
Now here I am relying on 2nd hand information as the records are not available online (as far as I can find out.) Mr. Ruocco went to the Peabody Planning Board to request a variance to build a "pork-chop" subdivision. It is important to note here that the Planning Board has been rather reluctant to approve these types of lot-splitting schemes as it adds congestion and traffic into already crowded areas and is against the rule for required frontage for a new residence.
A pork chop subdivision is where you divide up a single property into a front and back (in a pork chop looking manner) so you can get two properties out of one lot. Here is an image of one possible layout for these two new lots as I have no access to the actual plan and the current City of Peabody GIS does not show it split yet.
It has been reported that Mr. Ruocco made a rather impassioned and moving case for himself stating (again this is 2nd hand) that he was planning on building a second home for aged relatives and additional family members to care for these relatives. I was told that while the board was reluctant to approve such an obvious violation of the code, there was a certain sympathy for the plight of the elderly relatives as well as a feeling of obligation to approve a fellow Peabody Board Members request.
A pork chop subdivision is where you divide up a single property into a front and back (in a pork chop looking manner) so you can get two properties out of one lot. Here is an image of one possible layout for these two new lots as I have no access to the actual plan and the current City of Peabody GIS does not show it split yet.
It has been reported that Mr. Ruocco made a rather impassioned and moving case for himself stating (again this is 2nd hand) that he was planning on building a second home for aged relatives and additional family members to care for these relatives. I was told that while the board was reluctant to approve such an obvious violation of the code, there was a certain sympathy for the plight of the elderly relatives as well as a feeling of obligation to approve a fellow Peabody Board Members request.
The subdivision was approved and the single lot officially became two lots.
Then on June 25, 2010 the new extra lot (now called 98 Bartholomew Lot 2a) was sold to Dimitra Mihalakakis, which is the former last name of Mrs. Ruocco (and perhaps the elderly relative referred to in the Planning Board meeting.) The price of this new lot was $90,000 to Mr. & Mrs. Ruocco.
HOWEVER... in the exact same transaction the property was then sold to Roger Barile, a trustee of the Roger and Avery Realty Trust. Mr. Barile appears to be a developer and he paid Ms. Mihalakakis $150,000 for this new property.
So Mr. Ruocco was able to purchase a property for $127,000 in March and then ask for special permission, based on questionable statements and his position as a City Board member, to subdivide his new property. Then 3 months later he DOES sell the property to his relative, only to then have it pass onto a developer who was never mentioned in his special requests for breaking the rules.
In all Mr Ruocco and family were able to buy low and sell high, getting a "free" house and property AND netting a $23,000 profit!
No wonder Mr. Ruocco is a Certified Financial Planner... he seems to have a special knack for making money. Even if it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sadly, I am told that this gets worse. That this may involve other people on the Zoning Board as well - however I have not yet corroborated that information and I have heard conflicting accounts.
It has been told to me that this is being HUSH-HUSHED all through City Hall. Mayor Bonfanti supposedly asked for Mr. Ruocco's resignation and received it. But this also has been shielded in secrecy. Government should act in the open and be held accountable for its errors. Hiding information is no way to run a City. This is really yet another failure on the part of this administration.
So, while Mr. Ruocco is still listed on the City of Peabody website as being a member of the Zoning Board, I have heard he has indeed resigned.
We need a higher level of integrity in our government. This City can not move forward if forces within are working this hard to pull us back down.
I can only hope that more formal news organisations will get wind of this and look into this matter thoroughly. The citizens of Peabody deserve a full airing of our dirty laundry yet again.
7 comments:
PI,
Nice investigative work and if accurate, the law abiding citizens of Peabody take one on the chin from a city official.
The past few years I have chided you on being "inside too long" as we agree to disagree on a few matters. However, this one is a gem of a story.
GP
Great work by PI in fleshing out the details!
I heard this rumor about Ruocco's deal from a couple of different people WEEKS if not MONTHS ago, and kept wondering why the crack journalists at the Salem News weren't on the case. I finally assumed that Ruocco was getting special treatment from the paper and that the story was getting buried on someone's say-so.
Well you know what they say about assuming - and so I was totally wrong. It wasn't a matter of cover-up by the paper, but just a matter of lack of competent reportage.
The sports journalism reporter Guy Talese has bewailed the state of current journalism, and I am with him on this: since when is sitting on your fat ass in your cube at the Salem News, reading local blogs, a valid substitute for on-the-street investigative reporting?!?
Notice too that the Salem News story basically just recaps PI's story, and doesn't even do him/her the courtesy of an attribution. "Hi, I'm a reporter for the SN, and I'm not only lazy but also intellectually dishonest." Is that what they are teaching in J-school these days? Or maybe the SN can only afford hacks with zero journalistic integrity?
If I had a subscription to that rag, I'd be cancelling it right about now. What does it say about the Fourth Estate when we get better stories from volunteer bloggers than from the so-called "journalism professionals"? Sad, very sad.
Great investigative work!
I have a few questions:
1. How much does an acre of land in Peabody cost? Using Mr. Ruocco's math, a third of an acre sold for $150,000 so a acre would sell for $450,000 for the land alone. Can this be true?
2. Who owns the new house that has been built on the property? Does it belong to Paul Ruocco or Roger Barile? It was built very quickly. City Hall does not usually work so smoothly.
The City Solicitor said he didn't think any laws had been broken. I disagree. Mr. Ruocco made a substantial profit on this deal, enriching himself by virtue of his government office. Surely this is against State Ethics law, if not criminal law.
I hope this matter has not been dropped now that Mr. Ruocco has resigned.
Arthur Goldberg, the attorney for the former member of the city zoning board of appeals says his client simply got caught up in financial stresses that forced him to sell part of the property to a developer who made an unsolicited offer to buy one of the two lots created by the zoning board decision.
Goldberg said after trying to put the financial pieces together, Paul Ruocco, soon realized he had to sell the property because he was caught in a squeeze created by the declining value of his existing home and rising construction costs for a new home.
“It was a double-edged sword,” Goldberg said. The attorney added that the property was first conveyed to Ruocco’s mother-in-law and then sold to the developer for tax planning reasons.
Paul Ruocco did not participate in any of the zoning board decisions on the night his variance was granted to avoid the appearance of impropriety, Goldberg said, but by being a member of the zoning board did not give up his right to apply for a variance like any other property owner.
“You don’t lose your citizenship because you’re a member of a board,” said Goldberg
Goldberg said his client offered his resignation because he knew that in the current political climate, a controversy made his position difficult.
Goldberg says Ruocco, who has a young family, still hopes to construct another house on the rear lot which will be bigger than his current house and into which his in-laws can move to provide day care for his young child.
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