Barnstable Town Council

On March 6, 2008, Janet Joakim freaked out at a town council meeting when a regular speaker at public comment mentioned Mountain Ash Road in Marstons Mills, a virtual neighborhood war zone that Joakim promoted for months on her hate blog. The speaker, Mary Clements, was called out of order and removed from the podium by the Barnstable Police for mentioning Mountain Ash Road. Mary’s First Amendment rights were trampled upon, and she suffered unreasonable intimidation and public humiliation all because Janet Joakim said she was ”uncomfortable” with the very mention of a major topic on Joakim’s hate blog for several months.

For reasons no rational person will ever understand, Joakim posted a twisted account of a very real problem that existed between two families in Marstons Mills involving highly sensitive information about the neglect and sexual abuse of very young children. Mountain Ash Road is not in Joakim’s precinct, but a certain former pro mayoral candidate running for the Charter Commission lives on the road.

The candidate and her family were the moving parties in criminal and civil actions against their neighbors for an assortment of harassing behaviors as a result of complaints to the Barnstable Police and Department of Social Services, and the neighbors countered with charges and a countersuit of their own.

After months of negotiation with the Barnstable Police Department and the Cape & and Islands District Attorney’s office, the moving party made an offer to drop actions against their neighbors for the sake of the many children involved. While the neighbors did not renew a friendship, hostilities had been reduced and peace was achieved for a period of three months. No complaints to the police or the courts were made during this time.

In an effort to harass and intimidate the charter candidate, who was highly critical of Joakim politically, an entire section of the council president’s website was dedicated to tearing the scabs off of the healing neighbor wounds. A full blown war on Mountain Ash Road resulted from the endless libelous and scurrilous posts by Janet Joakim and the neighbors, who had held resentment for having been sued and forced to spend over ten thousand dollars in their defense.

Joakim offered her public blog to the resentful neighbors to post hideously cruel and libelous rantings about the charter candidate, her husband, and even her son, who is only six years old. While this story has circulated widely around the Barnstable blogosphere, the entire story has yet to be told. The former charter candidate now has no choice but to seek legal action against the council president, and any and all co-conspirators who encouraged or were negligent in allowing the escalation of the violence on Mountain Ash Road. Click on the video of the neighbors, Ronald Howell and Christine Howell, who freely posted page after page of hateful and easily impeachable allegations, rumors and innuendo at the pleasure of Barnstable Town Council President, Janet Joakim.

Barnstable Town Council President Janet Joakim often brags about retaining a 4.0 GPA while attending various community colleges over a period of TWENTY YEARS, but never managed to earn a Bachelor’s degree, and never learned to spell forty-five. Voters in her precinct now cringe at the mention of her name, and the idea that this nitwit is overseeing a 150 million dollar budget in the All America City is just plain depressing!

Everyone knows what he’s all about…..

  Councilor Tom Rugo, who often looks bored, tired, and laments that he only became a councilor for the health insurance thinks that the 80% of his constituents who voted for the split tax are just a couple of gadflies who could be heard in a few minutes during a council meeting.  It seems this guy has never even read the town charter.  It is a meeting of the VOTERS, Tommy boy - You know, those people you apparently feel are so timid and stupid that they would sign a petition, any old petition,  just to get away from you?  Poor Tom must also think that those 1800 voters who decided that Greg Milne should serve on the charter commission would be too afraid to come to the meeting.  How much is his health insurance, anyway?  Maybe if we all chipped in, we could pay it and get a councilor with a clue to serve in his precinct!         

 Town Council President Janet Joakim has run a blog for the past few years claiming that she will post nothing libelous and that her blog only represents her own views.  However she uses her position as a town councilor to invite people to view her hateful and libelous blog both in the free space alloted to her in the Barnstable Patriot, and, as you see in this video, from the council bench.  The speaker at public comment, Mary Clements of Hyannis,  was expressing her disgust with the hateful content of the Janet Joakim blog, and after about one minute was called out of order and escorted from the dais by the police.  Joakim later reasoned that the speaker should not be giving specific addresses, but Joakim herself targeted a family with relentless and brutal postings, including their home address on several occasions.  Joakim’s husband recently assaulted members of this family in a local grocery store while buying Easter Eggs, telling one woman to “watch”  her back.  Police have expressed serious concern over the escalating hostilities in the Barnstable Blogosphere, all perpetuated by our own town council president, the ever hateful, ever predictable, Janet Swain Joakim of Precinct 6.