Berkshire Eagle Online - Editorials--Coup and counter-coup in Becket, Mass.
Fred Pilot once again reaches down into the boiling soup of HOA living and retrieves this amazing nugget:

There's always been something of the Wild West about Becket, and this latest donnybrook involving the Sherwood Forest Neighborhood Association is true to form. The SFNA was a sleepy little voluntary homeowners' association in the 600-acre subdivision created in one of the worst land-use decisions in the history of Berkshire County. But that was before a Dover attorney, Carl N. Edwards, got himself elected vice president last year in a stacked meeting and began working to create a sort of shadow town government. He changed the bylaws to preclude any challenges to his power, and began issuing tax bills to finance the expanded activities of the Neighborhood Association, which included the removal of unregistered pleasure boats. It's supposed to take an act of the Legislature to establish a government with the power to tax, but Mr. Edwards told anyone who questioned him that it was all legal under common law. Last Sunday afternoon, the neighbors mobilized to take back the Neighborhood Association. They decided to hire an attorney to represent them against the titular leadership of their organization, and to re-enfranchise themselves to participate in its deliberations. It's quite a to-do, even by Becket standards. Stay tuned.
------------------
I will. Stay tuned, that is.
------------------
Update: On December 15, 2007, I received a letter from the aforementioned attorney Carl N. Edwards of Dover, MA, along with a press release from the United Auto Workers announcing the end of the litigation and a CD full of supporting documentation. Mr. Edwards says that Harry Sykes "was a licensed contractor who had bought multiple lots in Sherwood Forest and had been issued a premit to build over a retention basin on a tiny portion of wetlands in violation of at least a dozen state and local laws, and contrary to the requirements of the Federal Rivers Act. Since the land was in running water, the local political road district attempted to help Sykes and the official who issued him the permit by digging a drainage trench. The trench, however, ran up hill; flooding the neighborhood and washing out a road. Bob Madore lived in the flooded neighborhood and joined abuttern in what became the high profile case known as Madore v. Sykes. Madore had led the unionization of the Berkshire Eagle in 1997, and would subsequently play key roles in union victories at other newspapers owned by the Eagle's parent corporation." Edwards' press release goes on to say that Syke's complaint about Madore was dismissed as lacking in credibility. He says that despite the Berkshire Eagle's support for Sykes in its coverage, Sykes did not prevail in court (I presume in the litigation over the flooding), and the building permit expired. Madore has been elected head of the Northeast District of the UAW, and for additional information (so says the press release), you can contact:
Joelyn Leon, United Auto Workers Region 9A, at jleon@uaw.net.

For my part, I have no opinion regarding what happened or who is right, other than there are two conflicting accounts and I am making them available.