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Selectmen Vote to Pull Their Commercial Wind Turbine Zoning Proposal!
The Board of Selectmen voted on Monday, March 27, 2008 to withdraw their proposed commercial wind turbine zoning article from the Spring 2008 Annual Town meeting Warrant.
The majority of the Board, once again, embarrassed itself by showing its inability to lead and work with the townspeople in bringing this issue to a reasonable resolution. Since the town's now defunct Energy Committee first hatched their plan to install four huge industrial wind turbines in the water resources protection zone in North Eastham, the Board of Selectmen have belittled the concerns of the nearby residents and homeowners and have been adamant that it was going to be done according to their plan. Period, end of discussion!
Last spring, they realized that the town did not have ownership or control of enough land to properly site the project. Yet they refused to halt the project and continued to spend money provided by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to move it forward.
In the spring of 2007 the homeowners near the project site had gathered enough information and facts to predict that the planned project would violate the state's noise regulations. In the fall of 2007, a town commissioned ambient noise study confirmed that the homeowner's prediction was indeed correct. The Board of Selectmen still refused to abandon the proposed North Eastham project.
When the Ad Hoc Committee recommended a protective zoning bylaw in November 2007, some on the Board of Selectmen proceeded to belittle and criticize the hard work of their own citizen committee and then took the Ad Hoc Committee's proposal, stripped out the pertinent protective provisions, and proposed this onerous betrayal of the Ad Hoc Committee and the citizens of Eastham as their recommendation for a commercial wind turbine zoning article.
Selectmen McDonald caused quite a problem for the Planning Board and the citizens attending the Planning Board's public hearing on March 26 when he submitted last minute changes he had made to the advertised Selectmen's article. These changes had not been approved or even discussed by the Board of Selectmen. The Planning Board didn't know how to handle this last minute imposition so its procedure during the hearing was very confused and the effort became totally unproductive. The planning Board voted to withhold any recommendations until its next meeting on April 9.
At the Selectmen's meeting on Thursday, March 27, 2008, one board member astounded the audience when he proceeded to further insult the Ad Hoc Committee and their work by implying that it was their failure to do an adequate job on the wind turbine bylaw that had forced the Selectmen to make last minute changes to their proposal. He evidently has forgotten that the committee had made their report to selectmen way back in November of last year. He then attempted to revise the entire history of the proposed North Eastham project by claiming that the selectmen never really wanted to install four large wind turbines but really only wanted one or two smaller ones. He offered no explanation or apology to the residents of Eastham as to why the selectmen have felt it necessary to cause so much heartache and worry for the home owners near the North Eastham project site for the last year and a half. The thoughtlessness and callousness of some on the the Board of Selectmen will not be soon forgotten.
This was not the Board of Selectmen's finest hour!
Ad Hoc Committee's RECOMMENDED zoning bylaw
Selectmen's Proposed changes to Ad Hoc Committee recommendation
Ad Hoc Committee Chairman's Letter to the Board of Selectmen