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SG-W:/ Newmarket, again!
Jeff Marine adds some excellent points to my rant. If you wonder why this is
so upsetting, why we can't seem to stop yelling about this project, one of
the primary factors has to be the behavior of our Planning Commission.
It's inexplicable. They have never responded to one issue the residents have
brought. The meeting before last, they spent an enormous amount of time
talking about how they could, to use their words, "bulletproof" the
Newmarket proposal, so that when it goes to court, the residents can't
possibly prevail. Our Planning Commission describes we, the residents as
"they" and "them," and talk about when "they" take "us" to court. "us" is
the Planning Commission and the developer, we residents are "them."
First of all, the developer sues the township in these cases (that is, when
it goes to a referendum, if the Board approves it, or more directly, they'll
sue the township if the Board denies it.). The citizens don't sue the
planning commission. So when they talk about we citizens suing them,the
Planning Commission, they're wrong.
The Planning Commission is a citizen advisory board. They look at a
proposal, usually to how it relates to the master plan (Newmarket doesn't
conform), they look at impacts (all negative in this case), they make a
recommendation and pass it along. In no way are they supposed to
"bulletproof" the plan so that citizens will have no right to question their
decision. Frankly, they shouldn't really care if the citizens question their
decision.
So, my final point is, when our Planning Commissioners call themselves and
the Developer "US," and base all their planning review on helping the
developer bulletproof his proposal, and we residents are "THEM," who is
representing the citizens of Pittsfield?
Obviously, no one. We have no right to speak at our own meetings, except for
a few minutes at the beginning. Any facts and impact studies we bring in are
viewed with suspicion, while the developer can sashay in and say anything
and be believed 100% (ie, "The schools were very active participants at the
charrette." Actually, the schools had 45 minutes, to share with utilities at
the charrette, and were basically ignored -Duany didn't really even figure
out who thay were, according to the Saline Schools rep). We are presumed to
be lying (Marjorie Shelton always says we're there for "political reasons,"
so I assume she means we invented all the negative impacts because we so
desperately want to hold local political office. She says we're "whipping
people into a frenzy" and "scaring" them. We're not concerned about our area
- we're just trying to make Marjorie and the others look bad).
I asked a question in the middle of a meeting last time - amazingly, they
let me speak; this has never happened before, that we could ask a question.
So I asked if I would be required to pay a minimum of $80,000 to pave the
road to serve Newmarket, since my farm fronts a gravel road (on two sides -
We'd pay another $80,000 on the other side) and Shelton literally screamed
at me that this was not the time or the place, that they had important work
to do - and they went right back to talking about the shape of the planters
in the Newmarket "downtown."
So, anyway, that's the big problem: The developer is representing the
developer, the Planning Commission is representing the developer, and no one
is representing the citizens. Tina
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