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BPDA manager released on personal recognizance to await sentencing on zoning bribery charge
By adamg on Thu, 09/12/2019 - 10:22pm
John Lynch formally pleaded guilty today to a bribery charge related to $50,000 he acknowledges he received from a developer in 2017 to secure a Zoning Board of Appeal vote the developer needed so he could then sell his proposed H Street project to another builder.
Lynch also pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to record the payments - and an additional $10,000 payment - from the developer on his federal taxes.
Lynch will be sentenced on Jan. 24. Federal prosecutors have said they will recommend prison time of between roughly 4 and 5 years.
Officials have not identified the developer, but the Globe has IDed him as Steven Turner. In May, 2017, the zoning board took two votes on whether to grant him an extension on the time he had to start construction of his 11-unit H Street proposal.
In the first hearing, the board rejected Turner's request after he failed to show up at the hearing. Only member Craig Galvin voted against denial. Two weeks later, though, the project showed up before the board again, this time with Turner present. Galving moved to grant an extension and the board voted to approve it unanimously.
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Comments
These are bad people we elected
It’s sad to see the depths that those sworn and elected to protect our best interests have stooped to. Quick dollars and their own inflated egos are their only priorities. Ensuring the well-being of the neighborhoods doesn’t appear anywhere on their “things to do” lists.
Who are you talking about?
Who in this particular dirtfest was elected?
Sworn AND Elected
Not just the elected, but the people who might not have been elected were sworn to act in our best interests when they were appointed.
I'm fairly certain
That facilities managers at the BPDA are not sworn in.
Don't blame me
Don't blame me, I voted for Tito.
Appointed by the Elected
Aren’t some of these dirt bags appointed by the elected? How do you change the type of people who are appointed if you don’t change the type of people who are elected?
this is inevitable
It is fine to have zoning rules but the situation we have now is that there effectively are no rules: the rules as written forbid everything, and so no one can do anything unless several layers of reviewers with essentially unbounded discretion bless it. That is an invitation to bribery and extortion.
True, but many of these
True, but many of these variance request are beyond reason. They don’t show hardship. They’re just variances that will make more money for the developer and the ZBA approves them almost every time.