How do town residents and abutters expect this running drama
to end?
By Will Collette
In a recent column called “Grandstanding”
by resident Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party pundit Mike Chambers, Whalerock
developer Larry LeBlanc is denounced for “grandstanding” and phoniness.
Chambers unloads on LeBlanc for standing before a large and hostile audience at
the June
5th Zoning Board of Review (ZBR) hearing and saying that he
would cancel the project if there was any scientific evidence that anyone might
be harmed by his proposal.
To Chambers, his leader Ron Areglado and the other anti-wind NIMBYs, LeBlanc's offer was
unacceptable. Since LeBlanc insists on actual science, and not the ersatz stuff the opponents have
been serving up, he is obviously insincere. There are lots of other reasons why
Whalerock is a dubious project, mostly economic. But Chambers and his cohorts
haven’t even come close to making their ill-advised science case credible.
In its current state, the fight over the proposed Whalerock
industrial wind farm project has degenerated into a dueling experts/dueling
lawyers contest.
This matter has gone to the courts twice.
The first
round was a draw where Judge Judith Savage threw out all the cases – the
town’s, the abutters’ and LeBlanc’s.
The
second round was a clear win for LeBlanc when Judge Kristin Rodgers threw
out the town for lack of standing, the abutters for filing too late and sent
Whalerock back to be heard one final time by the ZBR for a Special Use Permit.
After two hearings, it seems likely to me that the ZBR will
vote down LeBlanc’s application but in a manner that will make it pretty easy
for LeBlanc to return to court for a third round, arguing the ZBR members had
been either prejudiced against his project, or intimidated by the crowd, and
that the town further corrupted the process through misconduct. I think the
fake science that Chambers et al. have relied so heavily upon will figure
prominently in the appeal.
 |
| If this is what LeBlanc was proposing, the health effects argument would be more credible |
Let’s try to think just a little bit into the future, beyond
the Wednesday June 19 Third Round of the ZBR hearings (there will be at least
one and probably more hearings after that).
To grant the Special Use Permit LeBlanc needs to go forward
with Whalerock, he needs a super-majority – either a unanimous vote or 4 to 1.
By my count, the best he can do is 3-2 and that’s one vote short. More likely,
the vote will be 2-3 or 1-4 against. Then LeBlanc will go back to court with a
hearing record that could very well convince the judge that the ZBR vote was
the product of bias or intimidation, with substantial errors by the ZBR Chair
and the town’s attorneys.
If the court overrules the ZBR, LeBlanc gets to build the
turbines. Under the terms
of his sales-leaseback agreement with his Connecticut partner James Barrows,
they may also build the affordable
housing complex proposed but currently tied up in litigation.
No matter how many times Chambers or Ron Areglado or the
other people who have worked themselves up into a frenzied hatred toward
LeBlanc should attack him, LeBlanc still owns that property.
Mike Chambers was highly offended when LeBlanc stated before
the audience on June 5 that “my vote is the only one that counts” when it comes
to that land. Chambers took that to be an insult to the ZBR, saying “If
LeBlanc intends not to abide by the Zoning Board’s vote, maybe [LeBlanc’s
lawyer Nick] Gorham has his brief already written to appeal a negative vote to
the Superior Court.”
Well duh, Mike, yeah. If LeBlanc thinks
the ZBR proceeding was conducted in a biased and improper manner, damn straight
that Gorham will be taking this back to Superior Court. I’m sure Gorham has the
brief half written – it’s a brief that practically writes itself. In addition
to the brief, the judge will also review the transcripts and videos of the
first hearing and the second
hearing.
Let’s not forget that if LeBlanc returns to Superior Court
for a Round Three, the abutters (if they have any money left) and the town (if
it can get the court to agree it has standing) will go back to court, too.
So Mike, what do you think of your chances on a Superior Court, Round Three?
Even if the court rules against LeBlanc in a Round Three, he
still owns the property and there are other, even more unpalatable projects he
could undertake, such as “forestry” which wouldn’t even require a special use
permit under the land’s current zoning designation. All things considered, I’d
rather look at two turbines than a denuded, clear-cut slope.
I don’t want either side to win because, in my opinion, none
of the parties in the case have really focused on the general good of the
people of Charlestown. I’m so sick of the whole thing.
For many years, the dominant political powers in this town –
they’re currently called the Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party, but they have
gone by different names (or sometimes no name) in the past – have held on to
control by creating one emergency after another, one enemy after another.
There’s always something so threatening to the bucolic peace and tranquility of
this town that Charlestown has had to be in a perpetual state of war.
If it’s not Larry LeBlanc, it’s the Narragansetts. Or it’s
Jim Mageau. Or it’s mean and nasty developers. Or it’s Democrats. Or it’s
Providence. Or it’s low-income families. Or it’s the elderly who need
affordable housing. Sometimes these menaces to Charlestown’s peace and
tranquility act in tandem.
But in the world of Charlestown politics, there’s always at
least one crisis brewing. And the CCA Party offers itself as the town’s only
salvation. Like arsonists who also like to play fire-fighters.
Enough.
The Larry LeBlanc “threat” is actually very easy to resolve.
Let cool and reasonable representatives of Charlestown (sorry, Mike, that doesn’t
include you) sit down with LeBlanc and work out a fair deal so we can take that
land as open space. We have the money.
Last year, many of the same people fighting Whalerock were
ready to blow almost a million dollars of taxpayer money on a derelict
campground less than one third the size and nowhere near the strategic
importance. Or has everyone forgotten “Y-Gate”
already?
In the end, I think that 90% of the town would like to see Larry
LeBlanc’s land permanently set aside as open space. Can we please skip over the
next several steps and get to that point where we make the deal we all want?
Yes, dear readers, I’ve covered this ground before. Click
here to read my five reasons why we should buy LeBlanc’s land. And click
here for my analysis of how much that land might be worth.
More
importantly, I think Charlestown citizens need to start saying NO to this siege
mentality that disturbs our peace and tranquility far more than any of the CCA
Party’s imagined monsters hiding under the bed.