In the weeks leading up to the July 28 town meeting, I requested several documents from Middleboro Town Hall: The Whittlesey Agreement, Departmental impact analysis documents, and an accounting of the monies paid to Whittlesey.

After not receiving them and not even getting a phone call returned, I put in a "request for public documents" - which is the state equivalent of a Freedom Of Information Act request.

I received these documents on Tuesday, July 31st - too late to affect the Town Meeting vote. Too bad. We got ripped off folks.

Documents

1. Letter To Larry Deitch - this letter apparently accompanyied the Whittlesey agreement. Notable is an apology for a leak of the document to the Globe. Also this telling statement: "The second issue is that the Town is legally obligated to serve as first responder for police and fire/EMS calls, and that obligation cannot be passed on to the Tribe. And police service is particularly critical since the tribal police cannot arrest non-Indians, which means that the Town police have to take custody of non-Indian detainees within a reasonable time period." I seem to recall describing the Tribal police/fire/ems section of the first agreement as a "ruse designed to make us think that there won't be any increase in police fire or emergency services". I'll take this letter as validation of that analysis. This is also the document that refers to the "political realities of a strong anti-casino sentiment".
2. The Whittlesey agreement - this is the one that would have gotten us all the money we need to address the impacts and is tied to a percentage of the net gambling revenue.
3. Departmental Impact Analysis