To the Editor:

On April 20 you printed the letter of Robert Casper, who described himself as the "unnamed plaintiff" in the case seeking to have my family's home at 99 Melville removed.

Mr. Casper describes our family as the victims of our own decisions, but what Mr. Casper fails to tell you is that, if it were not for his insistence and that of Yvonne Ruggles and John Young, our home could be spared demolition. Therefore, to be more accurate, my family and I are the victims not solely of our own decisions but also those of Mr. Casper and his friends as well.

I know first hand what having this home means to my life and the life of my family and we yearn for a reasonable resolution. We have worked hard to build a home that we feel is beautiful and fits well into the streetscape and the neighborhood. If the plaintiffs, named and unnamed, dropped their litigation, we could put this all behind us.

Mr. Casper, what is the greater good that you claim to be protecting? You live far down the street from my home. You are so far away that you have no legal right to complain, and therefore remain an "unnamed" plaintiff. What good will it do in your life if my home is removed?

I'm curious as to why you have taken such a strong stance against my family for trying to build a single family home on our 7,400+ square foot lot. Isn't it true that you are a developer who has made hundreds of thousands of dollars flipping properties on this very street? I also don't understand your claim of being "disrespected" by my family when we have followed all of the procedures specified by the City. All of our actions were always within the confines of the law.

Please tell us Mr. Casper, will your Codman Square House Tour make a stop at the hole that once was our home? And will you tell them that this is how "disrespectful" neighbors are dealt with in the Melville-Park neighborhood? It is sad that you treat the grand Victorians in this neighborhood better than you treat your actual neighbors.

Did I make the right decisions? I don't know. But I made those decisions to build a better future for my family and I in Dorchester. However wrong you think my decisions were, Mr. Casper, unnamed plaintiff, I can assure you that I never hurt anyone the way you and the named plaintiffs seek to hurt me and my family.

If you and the named plaintiffs want so badly to expose the "truth" as you have claimed with your professionally designed web site (whose URL has already received generous exposure in this newspaper), why not tell Dorchester residents the entire list of demands you and the others put forth in the closed mediation? Why not let everyone know what your inner circle wanted in return for dropping the litigation?

You pretend to be protecting the public good, but what you really want is enough money to break my family and drive us out of the neighborhood, leaving you and your friends as the reigning powers-that-be, and creating a hole in the ground where my home once stood so that you can let people know what happens if you cross Bob Casper, unnamed plaintiff, and his friends in the inner circle.

Jackie O'Flahery
Melville Ave.