Article X - Does The Town Board Have The Power To Checkmate It???

All this hoopla in Cape Vincent about Article X may in fact all be a moot point if someone would answer one simple question. Let’s get our noses out of  the Article X
Tunnel vision hoopla and think for a minute.

Can an Article X siting board force a community to take industrial wind turbines AND a PILOT agreement?  I would think the answer would be NO.

If they can't force a PILOT then it seems we are expending a lot of energy for nothing. The mantra circulating around for several years is that if a wind developer doesn't get a PILOT, then they are history...game over.  Now here is where the super majority of the new CV Town Board comes in.

CV Town Supervisor has 4 votes to work with. He has a Super Majority.  The JCIDA has made it such that any PILOT must be agreed upon by the town, the county and the school board or else it won't fly.  Well that seems to make it rather simple.  So pass a law with the super majority that simply says that based on the evidence and the science, ( or lack of it) and the research of 6 or 7 years in CV that industrial wind energy is a bad fit with our land use goals, and documents and could seriously impact our economic future, and as a result the Town Board will give no financial incentives (a PILOT) to any wind development plans or any similarly invasive development..

Pass your new zoning, pass your new comp plan...whatever, then just kill any wind development through a NO PILOT resolution.  So what are we waiting for?

The way things look over at Jefferson County they also may be smartening up on the wind development stupidity and hopefully would not vote for a PILOT fro CV.  I mean hey…if you can oppose industrial wind in the Lake and understand that it is a fiasco what would be the point of approving it on land with all the additional impacts to people and the region. Why would you give away more Jefferson County tax payer money and scenic resources in a PILOT for this “stupidity” as one Jefferson County Legislator calls it.  I would hope they learned their lesson on the Galloo Is. wind project.

When Mr. Hirschey spoke to me in Aubreys about a PILOT agreement as leverage a year and a half ago or so before the current board was elected, his point was then that he and Bragdon were going to hold out on a PILOT unless Orvis would go along with better siting criteria for wind turbines.  At that time there was NO wind law to guide siting and Edsall and the planning board had control of siting, and Hirschey didn’t have enough votes on the town board to do anything of consequence since Orvis, Mason, and Mason had the majority. But he did have the power to vote on a PILOT, given to him by his very own  JCIDA.. He felt that Mason and Mason should or would not vote because of their conflicts, and  he was smart enough to see the leverage point since Orvis would need Hirschey and Bragdon to pass any wind PILOT if the others actually recused. That was his plan back then. I thought although tactical, why are we talking about ANY  PILOT at all if that would make a developer go away, and second why not hold out for the “restrictive” wind law he always wanted instead of the bogus idea of siting through the Planning Board.  If you have at least some voting power why not use it to your greatest advantage.

But things have dramatically changed now with Hirschey holding a WPEG super majority on the Town Board.  So if you were willing to block a PILOT back then…why not block it right now and make this whole thing a done deal?  NO PILOT…NO WIND DEVELOPMENT despite Article X.

But maybe since Mr. Hirschey’s  buddy’s on the JCIDA who saw he was in a pickle for siting wind turbines with at least some sanity (at least in their view) back in 2009 gave him this temporary voting leverage power for towns to vote on a PILOT, maybe he is not willing to use that power outright now and screw them over now since some of his JCIDA buddy’s like Alexander  seem to want wind development.

Then there is the Jan.2012 vote by the JCIDA to reverse a previous stance to let each taxing entity vote for or against the PILOT and now  be able to force a standard PILOT on the all taxing jurisdictions.  That resolution passed narrowly with a 3-2 vote but later the JCIDA backed off saying they would not force a PILOT despite this vote.

But at the point of this JCIDA vote is where it gets real interesting and  nobody was talking about this back then, because the other blogs are so pro Hirschey.  

According to the paper WDT, Mr. Hirschey apparently was on a committee working on the new language of the proposal to force a PILOT  on the taxing jurisdictions.  So why would that be?  According to the WDT he apparently was considering voting for the resolution as well…WHAT????? He backed off at the last minute and voted against it and it still passed narrowly only to have the JCIDA back off later.  Fortunately our local Jefferson County Legislator Mike Docteur had clarity on this issue voted against it stating basically he could not justify taking away local control from communities on this issue.  I wonder if Mr. Docteur had to sit Mr. Hirschey down and explain this to him.

Now the CV blogs poured praise on Hirschey for his voting against the resolution that would have had obvious negative consequences for wind targeted towns in Jefferson County, and that’s fine…but that doesn’t answer the rather important questions I outlined above. Why was he on a committee working on the language that would have denied towns the right to vote on a PILOT, and why did he almost vote FOR that resolution?
Somebody want to explain that one to me?

Could it be that now that Mr. Hirschey had the CV Town Board votes to get  his “restrictive” setback wind law that now it was OK to force a PILOT on us, and he didn’t need that power to vote on a PILOT as a town any longer to neutralize the old board where he didn’t have a majority?   I think it is also important to note that this vote came not long after the new CV Town Board took office.  Does Mr. Hischey expect some wind development in our future…a result that might some of his JCIDA buddies  happy.  And if that is the case is he in fact holding out for a PILOT from BP for the town coffers?