August 7, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Patel resigns from CHCA board three months after election
by JOEL HOFFMANN

Chestnut Hill Community Association board member Tapan J. Patel resigned last week after holding office for only three months.

In a July 31 letter to CHCA president Tolis Vardakis, Patel said he hoped his resignation would put an end to the “unnecessary controversy” surrounding the association and allow the board to move on with its mission.

“It is unfortunate that my friends, family and other community members that have supported me have had to witness this negativity,” Patel said. “All of them are glad to be members of the Chestnut Hill Community Association but are weary of our innuendo-filled newspaper.”

While Patel did not spell out the innuendo he was referring to in his resignation letter, his June 26 letter to the Local sheds some light on the issue.

At that time, he wrote to address allegations that he had improperly stacked votes for himself by paying cash for an unspecified number of CHCA memberships shortly before the April 23 election. (Sixty-five new members joined the association and voted that day.)

“I asked my father and family and friends who live here and elsewhere to become members of the Association so they could vote for me,” he said. “I gave some memberships as gifts. Neither I, my family nor my friends broke any CHCA regulations and the ballots were filled out and signed according to the rules.”

Furthermore, Patel accused Local Editor Pete Mazzaccaro of publishing “a fabricated tale” of intrigue and wrongdoing in an editorial following the election. He said that Mazzaccaro had made no attempt to seek the truth.

In an editor’s note printed with the letter, Mazzaccaro said that he was not trying to attack Patel, but he wanted answers to some outstanding questions. In particular, he wanted to know how 32 out-of-state residents who became CHCA members the night of the election were able to sign their ballots and have them delivered before the polls closed. He also wanted to know exactly how many memberships Patel had bought.

Mazzaccaro sent Patel a follow-up e-mail on July 17 asking for a response to the questions above and for others that still had not been answered, such as why 10 of the addresses linked to the 14 new CHCA members from Chestnut Hill were for properties owned by Chestnut Hill Real Estate, which is managed by Patel’s employer, Sanjiv Jain.

Patel still has not answered Mazzaccaro’s questions.