To the Editor:

Five years ago my husband and I decided to pursue our dream of building a single family home for our family on the lot my great grandmother purchased many years ago.

We made that fateful decision because my husband, who had worked for UPS for ten years, became ill and was told he needed to have kidney surgery, shortly after our second child, our son Neil, was born. The surgery to fix his kidney problems had serious complications and resulted in a permanent and painful disability for my husband, which left him unable to return to work.

When that happened, our lives and financial future changed overnight. The things that we had counted on to secure our home, pay our bills and feed our family were gone. We had to make the best of a bad situation. We decided to invest our life's savings in building a new home, and we would have to rely on the income from our two-family home next door to make ends meet.

We did some research and learned from the Boston Inspectional Services Department that we were four-feet short of the frontage required along Melville Avenue and that a variance would be necessary for our new home. We were told that this was a very minor infraction, and that most variances are granted even when the lots have numerous deficiencies. We filled out the required paperwork and felt that we should let our neighbors know about our plans.

In June of 2000, we held a meeting on our 7,400 square foot lot and invited people from all around the neighborhood. According to the City, we officially had twenty-two abutters. They we all notified and invited to the meeting. We passed out pictures of what we hoped our home would look like and roped off the area with orange tape depicting where our home would go. Since I was nervous and not a good public speaker, I asked my aunt, Susan Tracy, to help me with the presentation. Things were heated from the get go. A group of neighbors arrived fashionably late and peppered me with questions. Some questions were reasonable; others were offensive ( e.g. "How much money do you have in your bank account for this project?" and comments that my husband was sick, so how were we ever going to afford this?)

When the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals held a hearing on our variance request, the two people who would become the plaintiffs in the case challenging the variance&emdash;Yvonne Ruggles and John Young&emdash;spoke at length about their concerns. They complained that we would increase traffic and interfere with parking. The Zoning Board unanimously approved the variance, with three provisos. The Zoning Board wanted me (i) to have another meeting with the neighbors; (ii) to resubmit a new parking plan providing four off street spots; and (iii) meet with the BRA for its stamp of design approval.

I met with the BRA twice. I was told I had to add a window and a historically acceptable front door along with a landscaping plan. I complied and the BRA stamped my drawings as "approved." I returned home and barely got in the front door when my phone was ringing. It was Mr. Thomas Servelis, the BRA official who approved the plans. He asked if I would return for further review. I asked why after he had just stamped my plans. He told me Yvonne Ruggles was there and she was demanding that she have input on the changes.

We had another community meeting at the Salvation Army building at the end of my street. We handed out invitations to all of my abutters inviting them to come and meet with my Builder and Engineer. Ms. Ruggles argued with me for twenty minutes that this was not a meeting about 99 Melville Avenue; it was a Melville Park Association Meeting. I said if they had questions about my proposed new house I was there with my Builder and Engineer to help answer those questions. It was evident that Ms. Ruggles did not want this meeting to take place. She and others present treated me as if I were a developer, not a neighbor living in their community.

The two plaintiffs&emdash;Ms. Ruggles and Mr. Young&emdash;mention that they never intended for my home to be torn down. That is because they were confident all along that they had the power to squash my dreams from the beginning. As part of their political disinformation campaign, they have continued to describe me as someone with political pull. If that were actually true, perhaps we would not be in this situation right now and perhaps I would have a cushy job with the City of Boston. It is not true, and, ironically, it is Ms. Ruggles' husband who is the Spokesperson for Boston's Neighborhood Development Department, not any member of my family.

The two plaintiffs say we were never willing to mediate. This is not true. The plaintiffs repeatedly refused my attempts to mediate. Only after we agreed to a "confidentiality clause" at the plaintiffs' insistence were they willing to mediate and disclose what they wanted from us. In Mr. Young's words&emdash;as reported by the Boston Globe on March 7, 2006&emdash;"If you want to keep your house, pay." His figure: $145,000.

The only problem with the "pay to stay" solution is that we have been financially broken by this litigation. Our financial security as a family depends on our keeping this house. If we sell it to pay the plaintiffs off we are selling off any possible future for our family in Dorchester.

We have offered to liquidate my husband's retirement account &endash; which does not amount to $145,000 but is all we had to offer &endash; and turn the balance over to the plaintiffs if they will let us keep our home. Apparently this was not good enough.

I want people to know that we had no malicious intent. We had thought that building our home was the best decision for our family but it has turned our lives upside down and caused a lot of pain and heartache especially for our children. Our family has lived in Dorchester for generations. We were proud to call Dorchester our home. Now, I just don't know what to think. Our family shared a dream of living here in a new home constructed on the land that my great grandmother bought long ago. We wanted to raise our kids and build our future here.

God only knows if that is still possible.

Jackie, Anthony, Janie, and Neil O'Flaherty

Melville Avenue