[Rhodes22-list] Political - Now Ark Building, planning boards

[Robert Skinner]

Brad Haslett wrote:
> 
> The Lord spoke to Noah ...

Good one!  My wife is Secretary of the Gorham, Maine 
Planning Board.  She appreciated it.  Right now, even 
as we speak, one businessman is trying to get approval 
for a quarry, rock crusher, and asphalt plant 1500 
feet from a 76-residence subdivision.  

Yup - periodic blasting, significant noise and dust 
from the rock crusher, hydrocarbon fumes from the 
asphault plant, and truck traffic and back-up beepers 
24x7 during the road-building season.

Seems someone screwed up/was bought(?) in the zoning 
office, and the proposed use fits within the uses 
permitted within the zone.  And (Oh my!) somehow the 
new zoning did not show up on plans made available to 
persons who bought property nearby.  

There were many townspeople who objected to the 
proposed use, and the proposed quarry and plant 
conflicted with some ordinances of the town.  The 
Planning Board also expressed some immediate 
reservations about the project.

One week, out of the blue, against reccommendations 
from those who reviewed them, the Town Council (one 
of whom has a son employed at the proposing company) 
rushed through some new ordinances "clarifying" some 
issues AFTER the proposal had been presented to the 
Planning Board and been severly questioned, 
effectively forcing the Planning Board to accept the 
proposal, despite significant opposition.

After a year of such fooling around, the final 
decision (Donneybrook) is due within a few weeks.
The Planning Board (the voice of the people) will 
try to strangle the project with qualifications, 
limits on operating hours, and environmental 
monitoring of noise, toxic emissions, and wind-
carried particulate.

It is expected that whatever the Board puts down, the
follow-on law suits will tie things up for years.  

Given:

1. the questionable operational decisions by town 
staff,

2. the curious and clearly partisan decisions and
ordinance changes by the Town Council during the 
processing of the application by the Planning Board, 
and

3. the clearly expressed preferences of the concerned 
townspeople, 

the delays and obfuscation thrown down in front of 
this planned use are a good thing.

Doncha love small town politics?  Money and the "old 
boy" connections are a very powerful force, often
subverting the best interests of the citizens.  But
there is always hope...

/Robert