Wow.

Plymouth spent $4.97 million on the Simes House between 2011 and 2018.

In June 2018 — eleven months after the building's public ribbon-cutting — the Town drew a $642,523 Bond Anticipation Note against the same Simes article codes. The Town has not publicly accounted for what that drawdown paid for.

In calendar year 2024 alone, the Town spent approximately $64,000 on utilities, insurance, and maintenance for the empty building, per Finance Director Lynne Barrett.

On May 12, 2026, the Plymouth Select Board sold the building for forty thousand dollars. One bid. No floor. No public memo. The vote was 3-1, buried in the consent block on a Tuesday night.

The records that would explain the gap have been public records since the day they were created. None of them have been released. Not one of the named officials in this story has answered the money questions on the record.

Our prior piece set out the procedural side of the May 12 vote — the closed-door executive session, the consent-agenda burial, the Attorney General's thirteen-month-old warning that this Board had already done this once before. This piece sets out the money. Where it came from. What the public ledger shows. Which officials were in the room. And what questions they have not answered.

The question is not new. It has been asked before — from the dais, in open session, by the Chair of the Select Board.

On June 20, 2023, Betty Cavacco — then Chair of the Plymouth Select Board — asked, in open session, where, exactly, the money had gone. That meeting was later cited by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office for an impermissible use of executive session under the Open Meeting Law. The AG ruled on the violation in April 2024.

Thirty-five months later, on May 15, 2026 — the day after the sale was reported in the Plymouth Independent — Robert A. Zupperoli asked the same question in print. Zupperoli is a Town Meeting member for Precinct 1 and a 2022 appointee to the Town's Simes House task force. Writing in defense of the sale, he asked it this way: "Mr. Koehan [sic] was asked to produce construction records and receipts justifying the approximate four million dollars spent on this structure; he never produced the requested documentation."

Both voices come from inside the room. Both pin the answer on someone else.

The records that would settle the question have been public records since they were created. They have not been produced.

In 2009, the Town of Plymouth bought the Simes House — an 1863 Greek Revival estate on Manomet Point Road — from a private developer for one dollar.

The money then flowed in publicly approved tranches. In April 2011, Town Meeting approved Article 16A, a $1,500,000 Community Preservation Act appropriation for exterior preservation. In October 2015, Town Meeting approved a second tranche of $3,420,477 in CPA funds for the building's interior conversion to affordable-housing units, office suites, and an event space — and that October 2015 article carried a carve-out from M.G.L. c.149, the state's prevailing-wage law for public construction. The carve-out has not been publicly explained. A separate $50,000 Massachusetts Historical Commission matching grant brought the total approved public input to $4,970,477.

Town Meeting did its part in the open. The accounting after that is where the gap opens.

In June 2018, against those same article codes and eleven months after the public ribbon-cutting on the building, the Town drew a $642,523 Bond Anticipation Note. A BAN is short-term debt the Town uses to bridge cash before permanent bond issuance or revenue arrival. Whether the June 2018 drawdown was within the $4,970,477 already authorized or above it — and what specific construction or close-out costs it paid for, a year after the building was publicly declared complete — has not been publicly explained.

In calendar year 2024, the Town carried approximately $64,000 in utilities, insurance, and maintenance on the empty building, per Finance Director Lynne Barrett.

The check the Town received back on May 12, 2026 was $40,000.

The Town of Plymouth received exactly one bid in response to RFP 22515. The Town's published assessed value on the building was $1,670,100. The winning bid was $40,000. The gap is $1,630,100 — a discount of 97.6 percent. There was no second bidder to weigh it against.

The RFP names one person, and only one person, as the awarding authority. Not the Select Board. Not Town Meeting. The Town Manager. The Town Manager of Plymouth, since March 2022, is Derek Brindisi. Under §A of RFP 22515, he had the statutory authority to reject the $40,000 bid as not in the Town's interest.

He recommended ratification.

Section B.6 of the same RFP gave him sixty business days from the bid opening to make the award. Bids opened October 20, 2025. Sixty business days from that date is approximately January 14, 2026. The Select Board ratified the sale on May 12, 2026 — four months past the published award window. The Town has not publicly explained the delay.

Brindisi is also, in a second and separate capacity, a Director of the Plymouth Regional Economic Development Foundation. The Foundation's December 2024 Form 990-PF, filed with the IRS and indexed by ProPublica, lists him as a Director alongside William Hallisey Jr. (President), Mathew Muratore, Rick Vayo, and Dick Quintal. Quintal is the Select Board Vice Chair who was absent from the May 12 vote.

Brindisi has personally donated to State Representative Mathew Muratore's political committee twice: $100 on May 31, 2022, and $500 on January 23, 2024. Both donations are recorded with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance under occupation "Town Manager" and employer "Town of Plymouth." Muratore sits on the Plymouth Foundation board.

William Hallisey Jr. — President of the Plymouth Foundation since FY2018 — has personally donated to Muratore's state political committee every year from 2014 through 2025. The total of those personal checks, per OCPF records, exceeds $10,600.

The Plymouth Foundation changed its federal tax status between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2017 — from a public charity (Form 990) to a private foundation (Form 990-PF). A private foundation is subject to Internal Revenue Code §4941, which imposes federal excise taxes on self-dealing transactions between the foundation and any officer, director, substantial contributor, or family member. Public charities do not carry that liability. Plymouth coverage has not explained the reclassification.

Several questions about Town Manager Derek Brindisi remain open on the public record:

When did he join the Plymouth Foundation board? Meeting minutes and posted notices reviewed for this piece do not show a disclosure of his Foundation directorship before he recommended ratification of the $40,000 sale. The Town has not posted any §19(b)(1) written disclosure — the form state ethics law calls for when a municipal employee has a financial interest in a matter the Town is acting on — in connection with the May 12 vote; a Town Clerk records request would confirm whether one was filed but not published. Why was the award made four months past the published 60-business-day window? On what specific basis did he conclude the $40,000 bid was in the Town's interest, on the only bid received, against a $1,670,100 assessed value?

The May 12 vote was 3-1. Kevin Canty, David Golden, and Deb Iaquinto voted yes. Bill Keohan voted no.

Keohan, for twenty-two years the Chair of Plymouth's Community Preservation Committee, told the Plymouth Independent: "This is not how you treat taxpayers' money. I am completely opposed to giving the building away for pennies on the dollar." He also said: "Sixty percent of the land is going with this organization, and they can do whatever they want with that land. I beg to differ that this is allowable."

The following appears in publicly filed federal records.

William J. Keohan is listed as a Director of the Simes House Foundation Inc. — EIN 27-3543531 — in fiscal years 2014 and 2015. He appears on no Simes House Foundation 990 before FY2014 and on no Simes House Foundation 990 after FY2015. The two years he sat on the board were the two years the Foundation went through a near-total balance-sheet event.

Between June 30, 2014 and June 30, 2015, the Foundation's reported net assets dropped from $1,924,357 to $95,637 — a decrease of $1,828,720. Reported expenses for FY2015 were $1,833,264, against $20,210 the prior year. The FY2015 IRS filing includes Schedule N, filed when a charity disposes of more than twenty-five percent of its net assets in a single year, and Schedule L, filed when the organization has transactions with interested persons — officers, directors, their relatives, or entities they control. The board shrank from eleven directors to seven across the same window.

Keohan has not, in any phase of his public Plymouth career — twenty-two years on the CPC, a 2024 Select Board write-in attempt, a 2025 election in which he swept all eighteen precincts, or his current term — publicly addressed the directorship.

Selectman William J. Keohan has not addressed any of the following questions on the public record:

When did he join the Simes House Foundation board, and when did he leave? Did he disclose his Foundation directorship to the Plymouth Community Preservation Committee while chairing that body and authorizing CPA appropriations to the same building? Did he disclose it before voting against the May 12 sale? Who were the interested persons named in the Schedule L he and his fellow directors filed for FY2014 and FY2015? What did the $1,833,264 in FY2015 expenses pay for? Why did the board shrink from eleven directors to seven during the same fiscal year?

Two members of the May 12 Select Board have prior Foundation ties to the Simes House. One voted yes. One voted no. Neither has publicly addressed that prior board service in connection with the May 12 vote. The two Foundations are separate entities. They share neither EIN nor officer roster. What they share is that each governed money that flowed in or out of the same building. Each IRS filing — the Plymouth Foundation's December 2024 Form 990-PF, and the Simes House Foundation's FY2014 and FY2015 Form 990s — is a public record. The names on those forms have been public since the day they were filed.

The Simes House Foundation's own board was equipped to do the work it commissioned. Its President during the construction years, James Pierson, is a licensed general contractor with twenty-five years in roofing applications, and a former Plymouth Fire Chief. Its Treasurer, Rick C. Welker, served as Acting Chief Financial Officer of Beacon Roofing Supply. Its Vice President, William E. Shain, signed the 2013 Preservation Restriction Agreement on the property as Secretary of the Foundation, and registered the Foundation as a planholder on the 2026 RFP for the building's sale.

The single largest documented construction expenditure on the Simes House is Plymouth building permit A1348, which covered Phase 2 construction from 2014 through 2017. The reported construction value on that permit was $2.6 million. The Phase 1 general contractor, on permit A1025, was Vareika Construction Inc. of West Bridgewater. The Phase 2 general contractor of record is not named in any public reporting reviewed for this piece. The Phase 2 contractor's name is on the permit application itself, on file in the Plymouth Building Department.

The Town of Plymouth has not, on the public record, named the Phase 2 contractor or disclosed which subcontractors, consultants, or design professionals were paid against the publicly authorized funds. The following questions sit unanswered:

Who was the Phase 2 general contractor on permit A1348? Which subcontractors and consultants did the Simes House Foundation pay in fiscal year 2015 against the $1,833,264 expense line? Which architect of record signed the construction drawings? Was prevailing wage paid on Phase 2 construction, given the October 2015 Town Meeting carve-out from M.G.L. c.149? What did the June 2018 $642,523 Bond Anticipation Note drawdown pay for, eleven months after the building's public ribbon-cutting?

The Foundation's own books place the bulk of the disposition in fiscal year 2015. Those expenses are reported in the same IRS filing where the directorship is disclosed. The two records are filed together. They have been public for nine years.

Deb Iaquinto, voting yes on May 12, told the Plymouth Independent the $40,000 bid was "very low, but they were willing to live with all the restrictions."

The restrictions are the only part of the deal Plymouth retains.

Five public records would settle the documented questions raised in this piece. The §16(c) Central Register notice required for any disposition of property over 2,500 square feet, published at least thirty days before bids open. The §16(g) Central Register notice required for any below-value disposition, with the reasons disclosed and the dollar gap between assessed value and accepted price stated. The Department of Housing and Community Development consent letter required under §9 of the 2013 Affordable Housing Regulatory Agreement: "the property shall not be sold or transferred without the prior written consent of DHCD and the Municipality." The bid analysis prepared under the RFP. The Town Manager's written award decision under RFP 22515 §A.

Any Plymouth resident has standing under M.G.L. c.66 §10 to request all five. The Plymouth Building Department holds a sixth record — the construction file on permit A1348, which names the Phase 2 contractor. The Plymouth Town Treasurer's project ledger is a seventh — and the only document that records, line by line, where the $4.97 million and the $642,523 BAN drawdown actually went. The Public Records Law gives the Town ten business days to respond to each request.

Plymouth should have released the Treasurer's project ledger when Cavacco asked from the dais in June 2023.

Should have named the Phase 2 contractor before opening bids on a $1.67 million assessed building.

Should have published the §16(g) below-value justification before ratifying a 97.6 percent discount.

Should have disclosed Foundation directorships before the officials who held them voted on the same asset.

Should have answered Zupperoli's question in print before the sale closed.

None of those steps appear on the public record as of this writing.

Plymouth spent $4.97 million on the Simes House. Plymouth drew a $642,523 Bond Anticipation Note against the same article codes a year after the building was publicly declared finished. In 2024 alone, the Town carried approximately $64,000 to keep the empty building operating.

Plymouth sold it for $40,000.

The records that would explain the gap have been public records since the day they were created. None of them have been released. The questions set out above remain publicly unanswered by Derek Brindisi and William J. Keohan.

For the Foundation boards, the vote tally, and who sat where — see Plymouth's Game of Thrones.

The ledger is still requestable. The permit file is still on the shelf. The question Cavacco asked in 2023 is still open.