Town Seeks Cleanup Of McGrath Property; Proposals Sought From Contractors To Remove Junk, Waste

CHATHAM – After years of debate and legal wrangling, there are signs that tangible progress might be made soon in the long-sought cleanup of what town officials describe as an illegal junkyard at the McGrath property at 32 Mill Hill Rd.

 Town officials have been trying to compel owner John McGrath to clean up the property for years and are now moving ahead with plans to have the work done, placing a lien on the property to cover the cleanup cost when the land is eventually sold. The town is seeking bids from companies willing to carry out the cleanup of scrap metal, vehicles and other waste from the parcel. 

 On Feb. 4, Barnstable Superior Court Justice Thomas Perrino issued a final judgment in the case, ordering McGrath to rectify all violations of the state building code, the town’s zoning bylaw, the state fire code, the state sanitary code and the town and state wetlands regulations.

 Speaking to the health board shortly thereafter, Health Agent Judith Giorgio noted that the ruling “clearly states [McGrath] has to either comply with our orders — all of them, not just the health department’s — or the town can do one of two things. We can decide that we want to go for a contempt charge, which would cause him to be arrested, but it wouldn't help us clean the property up. So the second choice is to clean it ourselves,” she said. 

 Perrino’s order authorizes the town to access the property to bring it into compliance if McGrath does not, and to offset the cost of the cleanup with a lien against the property.

 The health board, working with various town departments, forwarded its recommendation to the select board, which debated the matter in closed-door sessions. Following the most recent executive session on March 25, the town developed a 42-page request for proposals (RFP) for potential clean-up contractors, which was issued on July 9. The RFP caps the budget for the project at $100,000, with bids due Aug. 8. The document calls for the cleanup to be completed by Sept. 30.

 “I think the town would be very grateful if we could do this faster [rather] than later,” health board member Ronald Weishaar said on Feb. 24. 

 “And the abutters who are trying to rent properties on that street who have prospective renters run away when they see that property,” board member Richard Edwards added.

 Neighbors have been complaining about the state of the property since 2016, and the town ordered McGrath to clean up his land several times, to no avail. In spring 2022, town officials hired a contractor to clean debris that lined the edge of Mill Hill Road within the town-owned road layout. The town then installed a guardrail to try and contain the refuse, but Giorgio said that various items of junk again encroached on the town-owned land.

Speaking by telephone this week, McGrath was defiant, saying he has the right to manage his own property. He said he is unaware of the planned clean-up effort, saying people have been stealing his mail.

 “Nobody’s told me jack squat. They’ve run me into the ground,” he said. McGrath said he is 70 years old and partially disabled and is the target of persecution by his neighbors and town board members. “What have I ever done in this town to deserve this abuse?” he said. McGrath denied that his property is filled with junk.

 “I’ve got some bottles and cans and stuff. That’s money,” he said. Without any financial savings, McGrath said he relies on the value of the possessions on his property. He blamed the town for installing the guard rail along the roadside, which he said only encourages illegal dumping by others on his land, and said others in his neighborhood have trash out to the street, “yet they’re only coming after me.”

 The RFP issued this month indicates that there is a non-mandatory “but highly recommended site visit” for potential clean-up companies on July 30. That’s because it remains unclear just how much junk needs to be removed from the site.

 “I think once we start taking stuff off the top, we’re going to find stuff underneath. There’s layers,” Giorgio told the health board in February. 

 The RFP included a series of drone photographs of the property taken in May, illustrating the number of kayaks, trailers, wood piles and other clusters of debris around the wooded site, which slopes down to Mill Pond. A portion of the cleanup area is within a wetland protection area, so permissions will be sought from the conservation department to ensure that the cleanup doesn’t further endanger the wetland. The two-acre property includes a two-bedroom home, built largely underground and into the hillside.

 The superior court order not only requires McGrath to clean up the land, but requires him to keep the property in compliance, “such maintenance of compliance being to the reasonable satisfaction of the town,” Justice Perrino wrote. Health board members said that essentially allows the town the right to revisit the land to keep it clean.

 When asked to clean up the land previously, McGrath shifted some of the items to another property he owns off of Barn Hill Lane, on the shore of the Oyster River. 

 “We’ve got to be very careful that however this works, we don’t end up having a ton of debris that’s currently on the Mill Hill property ending up down on the property at the river,” health board member John Beckley said in February. He asked whether the scope of the required cleanup might be expanded to include that land.

 “It’s not in the judge’s decision,” Giorgio replied.

 Town Manager Jill Goldsmith will ultimately choose the winning bidder from among those responding to the RFP. Sealed bids will be opened at 2 p.m. on Aug. 8.