The matter of attempting to foreclose on the Greenwoods Theatre for an unheard, unadjudicated, unproven tax bill raises a host of civil rights and constitutional issues, including equal protection of the law and the right to livelihood and economic enterprise.

Judicial decisions at the state level are null and void if they violate the US Constitution, and it should not be necessary for Greenwoods Associates LLC to go to federal court for a declaratory judgment or injunction, for something that can fortunately be straightened out within the public administrative bureaus of the state. The current celebrated statewide case of Chief Justice Sullivan and the Judicial Review Council is especially timely, since the Greenwoods Theatre case has come to focus on issues of federal and criminal law, corruption, judicial improprieties and conflict of interest.

The issues of public safety in the renovation were documented to Norfolk’s attorneys and officials in 2000, and supplemented subsequently when some of these attorneys undertook to work for the LLC without disclosing the conflict of interest. Let them all explain then to the citizens why these realities have been repeatedly ignored by the assessors and municipality, resulting in a state of affairs in which it seems the taxpayers will have to pay Levy & Droney’s legal bill, which insurance can hardly be expected to cover under the circumstances. Just why the municipality has been pursuing at great cost the collection of a resolutely unproven and known-to-be-false tax bill against the principal benefactor of the town’s commercial tax base, who rescued “downtown” from its status as an ignominious slum, remains to be explained.

The citizens of Norfolk should not have to pay more than they already may have to, for the actions of their elected representatives.

Maura Cavanagh Smithies

Greenwoods Associates LLC