Yes, it's true, Frank Polito has resigned from town politics.

Mr. Polito turned in his resignation letter the end of last week, citing the fact that his homeowners insurance has dropped him due to his personal legal fees. Mr. Polito reportedly said that he couldn't take the chance of moderating town meeting this year and being sued again. That is the official spin, and it is the truth as far as it goes. But as is usual in Atkinson there is a back story, and it goes something like this;

In early 2007, when the original Atkinson Reporter first started, the blog received a number of very nasty personal attacks, against a number of residents. These posts were unprintable, and the blog did not print them but printed them out and mailed them anonymously to the people being discussed. In one of the posts the perpetrator went so far as to accuse one of these people of contributing to the death of Ruth McPherson. Another told of a secret meeting between Fred Childs, Jack Sapia, and town counsel, Sumner Kalman, that then selectman, Paul Sullivan was purposely excluded from, and reported the contents of that meeting.

At this same time the selectmen and Frank Polito were the subject of a lawsuit in town. In the course of this lawsuit all the evidence of the posts was obtained, and laboriously traced IP's and proxies back to the original poster. All these posts came from a single hub in Lucent Technologies. A preservation letter to Lucent with all the details, including the IP's and evidence. The letter notified Lucent that legal action was being contemplated against Lucent and that this information must be preserved. Lucent went about tracing the information, and apparently descended upon Frank Polito's dept. Lucent seized his company laptop, and the relevant Internet server. Frank reportedly received some type of "dressing down" over this incident, putting, as he told the town "his job in jeopardy".

Frank responded to the preservation letter to Lucent, even though he was never mentioned in it, fighting the Grant's in court to try to block the production of this information. He got himself a private attorney to intervene in this matter paid for by his homeowners insurance. When it became clear that the plaintiffs were not backing down, and wanted this information, the insurance companies quickly settled, leaving Frank's homeowners insurance company with not only a lawyers bill, but the settlement check as well. And before anyone asks; NO, it was never proven in Court, due to the early settlement that Frank made those odious posts, But Lucent evidently thought so, they seized his computers, and the insurance company was apparently nervous, they settled awfully quickly after this incident.

Then we have Frank's frivolous lawsuit against the Town of Atkinson. When Brian Boyle started building Winslow Dr., on the original plot plan there was a paved path through the woods connecting Winslow with Woodlawn ave. The path ran off a driveway, and made a 90 degree bend in the woods to come out at the top of Woodlawn. Boyle offered the fire chief two live hydrants that he could put behind the Academy(an area of town that had always been a concern because of it's lack of water) if he would fore go the path. Chief Murphy agreed because the path was useless, he said, due to it's 90 degree bend, and the fact that the first 100' of it was someones driveway. Enter Phil and Jack, Jack was overheard to say in the town hall that they would sue, and the town would end up with BOTH the hydrants and the path as the path was "a life safety issue". Sumner reportedly informed them that as selectman, they could not sue the town, they would be on both sides of the case. Within a week, Frank had filed suit against the Town for alleged public safety violations. It appeared that they were attempting to manipulate the legal system to force Boyle to pay for both. The case was dismissed for lack of standing, the Judge telling Frank that he lived 3 miles away from this path, and therefore was not affected in any way.

Flash Forward to the ZBA meeting where Frank ordered the cameras shut off so that he could berate his board, swearing at Ellen McGrath. She resigned the following week.

And how could we forget last years deliberative session, where Frank told a guy sitting in his seat taking pictures of the proceeding that he was forbidden by law from doing that. Frank has been in town politics long enough to fully understand 91-A, and know that he was misinforming the town about it's provisions. He also had no problem with the other three people in that room taking pictures, only Brownfield. Curious. Brownfield sued, and once again Frank got a private attorney on his insurance, to work along side the town's insurance company attorneys.

In every one of these cases, the town's insurance company had attorneys working these cases, Frank wanted his own attorney to work with them, and his insurance paid for it, right up until they got sick of footing these repetitive and unnecessary bills.

So while Mrs. Childs can decry the "bottom feeders" that drove Frank to this resignation, maybe an objective view of the heretofore unknown details will demonstrate that Frank largely brought this upon himself.