Resident Stephen Granlund discusses seeking legal action to further delay the Mary Lane Hospital building demolitions.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
WARE — Resident Stephen Granlund, an outspoken critic of Baystate Health and its plans for the Mary Lane campus, met with the Select Board on Aug. 22 to seek approval from the board to send his findings, reports and research to KP Law to start the process for an injunction or cease and desist to halt demolition of Mary Lane Hospital buildings.
The Select Board allowed Granlund to speak and relay information to be reviewed by associates from KP Law with a maximum limit of $5,000.
At the Aug. 7 Select Board meeting, the board asked Town Manager Stuart Beckley to contact KP Law to explore the possibility and steps of getting an injunction or cease and desist for the property.
At that meeting, many residents, including Granlund, discussed the Mary Lane Hospital demolition delay and that the bylaw was being neglected and violated. Granlund provided videos and pictures of inadequate protection from the elements.
Granlund added that evidence showed that the buildings were gutted in around late March after Building Commissioner Anna Marques investigated the buildings.
Granlund added, “It was passed off as searching for asbestos. So, you had to destroy the building during a demolition delay? The demolition delay is a delay of demolition. In order to get the asbestos, they had to pull down the ceilings, the grid work, the duct work, the electrical, the plumbing, all the unsupported partitions. They gutted the building in the name of abatement. It comes down to the basics, if there is a demolition delay and the Historical Commission delay bylaw says demolition does not allow pulling stuff down, dismantling it, removing it and trucking it off the property. That to me in itself is the crux this case.”
In January, the Historical Commission enacted the town’s Demolition Delay Bylaw for Mary Lane Hospital. With this enactment, the property cannot be demolished for nine months or until the commission grants permission to Marques. Granlund said he felt this bylaw was neglected.
Since the Aug. 7 meeting, Granlund said he had a conversation with Beckley for “quite a while” and found out that no information has been sent to KP Law and that Beckley simply only called KP Law to ask about the steps for a cease and desist.
Granlund added that Beckley told him that he didn’t have any information together and was concerned with how slow the process was going so decided to take matters into his own hands.
He added, “This is the deal, if [Beckley] isn’t going to provide anything, I went ahead and called KP Law, Nicole Costanzo, she indicated she would be ok with doing this with me however she could not confirm or deny that anything was happening yet until I got authorization from the board, standard legal speak I understand it.
Granlund wanted permission to send his reports to KP Law so that the process and next steps can be presented.
“If the board would vote to approve my sending, my reports, my files, everything, to [KP Law], they can almost immediately start because as part of a filing for an injunction or cease and desist, you have to show documentation, you allege that there is harm being done to the public, you have to show all these factors. You don’t just call to see the steps,” Granlund explained further.
Granlund said he has been working on retrieving data for 42 months, as of the meeting, about the Baystate Health and the former Mary Lane Hospital property.
“I’ve got 7,000 pages from the Department of Public Health; I’ve got hundreds of pages of reports and correspondents from Baystate Health and everyone else. I don’t keep track of my time, but I know roughly 2,800, 2,900 hours since February of 2021 have gone into this,” he said.
Granlund presented the Hospital Review Committee with a research report during a public forum in September 2023 about the current leadership at Baystate Health and what needs to be done to fix it. The 84-page document has some opinions, email conversations and evidence to support his claims.
Granlund has sent his report titled “Baystate Health Leadership Ending Care — Endangering Lives” to state and federal investigative and regulatory agencies since April 8, 2021.
The report is also listed as available for access within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services classification.
Granlund laid out the information that he will be providing to KP Law.
He added, “I will do a synopsis, I’ll put them in order of importance. Again, an injunction or cease a desist is not a final thing, it’s to buy time. The process is this, everything is there for documentation. They can pick and choose what they want. All they have to do is show that there’s enough questionable activity on the part of Baystate Health and Westmass Development, to submit for an injunction or cease and desist to give us time to prove a case to stop further destruction because this has not gone well.”
The Select Board allowed Granlund to work with Town Counsel and Select Board member Joshua Kusnierz added, “In all actuality I think we can get information faster, I do. I do 100% agree that time is of the essence, I think this process has taken too long. I do not think any of this was done in a timely fashion and I think that by [Granlund] being involved and providing as much homework as [Granlund] already has done, I believe he has earned this request.”
