The Town Board Has Rules They Feel the Public Must Abide By - And So Does Article X When They Preempt Our Zoning Laws - Question Is Do We Quietly Sit Down And Abide By Those Rules Too????

I am going to preface my remarks by making it clear this post is my opinion only.  Dave did not prompt me to post anything and hasn't since I opened this blog.  He prefers you call him and hear his side of this public hearing  story directly.  You can see his number in a post below.

I believe the controversy of the  public hearing represented a severe test of our ability to understand the concept of rights and if we have the political will and basic understanding to defend against Article X.  In my opinion Dave presented us with a very subtle yet extremely insightful challenge to see if we truly understood what was at stake and how the community will actually react when the battle begins.

I think many of us including me, until I had time to analyze it  later, never even realized what was happening or the relationship to Article X and what it meant beyond Dave’s specific zoning input. That is painfully obvious in the shallow blog reaction.

NYS grants us the home rule rights to comp plan and zone and  determine our community’s future.  Many of us feel those rights should be strongly defended.

 Article X actually recognizes our rights too, to protect the future of our community through land use. But there is one significant clause in that law that severely restricts our rights well beyond what is reasonable.  Article X is absurdly patronizing us with this gross contradiction  by saying that you can have your rights to zone as long as you agree to strictly play by OUR rules, rules formulated from large corporate interests, not the traditional zoning concepts of health safety and welfare.  This insidious game is given power through the ability of Article X to preempt our zoning laws despite our rights to comp plan and zone as we see fit.  It really now is not a fight about should we prohibit or zone by setbacks. What it is really about is the insidious tactic  Article X uses to  terrorized communities into believing that one of those rights is no longer even yours as an option or right.  You don’t have to wait to see if Article X will preempt your laws, because in essence by this tactic they already have.

If we  go down this zoning appeasement road or we play along in any way to compromise or enable it…we then essentially have NO community zoning rights at all.  Just about all of us in the wind opposition and beyond recognize this as an  absurd magic trick that we will not stand for.  Well, at least that is the current bravado!!!

Now fast forward to the Cape Vincent zoning public hearing and the controversy surrounding Dave Lamora and his insistence on his right and the right of anyone to speak for as long as they necessary and uninterrupted to reinforce their points. 

Speaking to petition your govt is a right granted in the US Constitution.  It doesn’t have any arbitrary time placed on it.  You have a RIGHT?  Arbitrary time constraints and even negotiating for more time starts you down that slippery slope.  So where is the criteria line as to how far we restrict that right as long as the speaker is relevant and addressing the issue at hand? The debate alone is of critical importance and is actually how we finally get to relevant decisions and policy.  And the more important question is, who has the right to restrict your rights with arbitrary speaking  rules some of which are just as completely arbitrary as the rules in Article X  which  restrict your right to your community’s future, well  maybe just a little bit here or there to be “reasonable”?  Arbitrary speaking rules can open the door to abuse of power to any other entity  that might have an agenda like our previous town board and their agenda on behalf of industrial wind developers.  They would just as arbitrarily restrict our right to speak and in fact shut down meetings completely so citizens could not be heard.  The only protection is that you have a vague hope that the powers that control the public’s right to speak  won’t be arbitrary and will be responsible, and all too often that is not the case as we saw with our previous town govt.  The right to speak is a critical right.  So where is the town board coming up with the three minute time limit?  It is a complete arbitrary and completely unreasonable number considering the gravity of the subject matter.  The fact is there was plenty of time for all the speakers to speak quite long, and frankly if that took till midnight on this critical historic matter… so what!

So Article X grants you rights … as long as you play by their rules under the threat of  preemption based on the arbitrary justification that energy siting is a critical State concern.  Something they haven’t even proven, just as  our town board grants you rights as long as you play along by their arbitrary rules as well.  There is no difference if you really want to talk about rights. In my  opinion Dave Lamora was incredibly insightful to see this comparison along with his points on the zoning law. He placed  a critical test of rights and how we perceive the threat of Article X right in front of our eyes to see if we really comprehend what is going on and what it will take to fight Article X effectively. 

In essence the town board with their arbitrary restriction of Dave’s and all of our speaking rights,  and demands  that the only way we can have those rights is if we play by their arbitrary speaking rules is doing to us the very same thing that Article X is threatening to do to all of us when they tell us we can have rights too…as long as we appease them and play by their rules. Yet the vast number of people who are now familiar with this CV public hearing incident never saw this.  In my opinion I think Dave in large part put forth a severe test for all of us to see what we would do as a community.  Kind of a mock battle if you will to test our metal for the extremely hard battle we all know is coming.  So how did we do?  In my opinion, based on the blog reaction, the town board reaction, and the comments…we failed miserably.  In fact not only did we fail, we failed to even recognize where the battle was taking place and who the enemy is.  That is pretty damn scary to me considering what we are facing. 

So do you out there on the blogs and in the community actually have any grasp at all about what you are actually doing when you attack Dave?  You are actually defending and endorsing the very tactics of the State’s Article X.   By defending the arbitrary speaking rules of the board and their and your demands to inflexibly stick to those rules or even putting other “reasonable” restrictions on them at all. As you defend  the town board and attack Dave  you are supporting and endorsing the very same thing you are frightened to death of that Article X will do to YOU Play by our rules or we will take your rights AWAY, or you will be arrested!!!  You can’t win in that game with appeasement.  When our board was confronted with this situation they failed to grasp the fundamentals and over reacted because they had very little else in their file to compare to except what experts had prepared for them and rigid arbitrary rules.  This does not inspire confidence in me about their judgment in the zoning process or the coming defense against Article X.  They still have time to rethink their approach and Dave’s commitment to help them defend against the insidious Article X threat to our community, and to home rule and zoning rights themselves.

I  have known Dave a long time.  I know he is a very bright and perceptive man. If he did what I think he just did he just went up one more notch on my scale.  If I have to follow someone into battle over Article X, I will follow  someone who has the insight and flexibility to endure by creatively structuring the fight and adapt on he battle field instead of following  people using an inflexible one dimensional zoning approach AND  imposing the very same stifling  tactical rules that Article X will use on us. I can’t wait for an Article X board to tell some of you to sit down and be quiet after your three minutes, and that you are out of order and will be arrested as they strip away your rights to defend your community’s future.

And the critical question is, when an Article X board comes to town just exactly what are YOU going to tell them? Are you going use the same tactics that you are using to defending the town board? Are you going to comply and  say you are willing to play by their arbitrary and patronizing rules to restrict your home rule rights?

The sad part, and what I think many of you don’t see about what Dave has tried to pointed out  was…if you endorse the zoning law appeasement of Article X to look  “reasonable”, and let it drive your zoning process by implied threats when we can’t even clearly define “reasonable”, and if you have written letters to the PSC in effect validating the very rules  process being designed to take your home rule away, or if you sit down when somebody arbitrarily says your time is up…then you already gave them your answer, and every time you attack Dave you once again reinforce to NYS and BP your wiliness to compromise and follow rules that put you at an extreme disadvantage.  Under these circumstances nobody will have to tell you when your time is up and to sit down, because you will have never had the opportunity to stand up at all as your home rule rights evaporate!

You can bet that NYS and BP are already taking notice of your willingness to give up your rights and play ball by their rules.  They  will formulate strategy based on your willingness to relinquish your rights through some vague attempt to be “reasonable,  and your willingness to repeatedly attack the very man truly willing to  defend your rights and the community’s rights to home rule.  They can already take measure of how effectively the Article X threat is working to paralyze our community.

Just remember with each of your attacks on Dave or comments to adhere strictly to the "rules" when BP brings the  Article X board to town they will recognize the precendent you are setting on inflexibly  and defense of following arbitrary rules.  They will expect you follow your very own precedent in following their arbitrary rules as well, as they preempt our zoning and take away our home rule rights...

... be careful what you wish for!