Friday, December 20, 2013

Litigation? - So Who Is Suing Whom???


In all the Dennis Pearson “secret meeting” hoopla, it doesn’t mean something interesting was not brought to light. It appears the meeting was legal, Freeman said it was legal so move on.  Yet to me there still seems to be some confusion on a few points as I read open meetings laws and the numerous Freeman opinion letters on attorney client privilege related to open meeting laws.  I’ll get to that in another post.
But first… last night at the town board meeting a letter was revealed from attorney Curtin to town supervisor Hirschey.   It is posted on the other blogs so I won’t post it in whole again here. 
However, in part Curtin in his own words says the following in this letter.
“All the individuals who were present were represented by me, and the purpose of the meeting was to discuss  the potential of litigation as it related to the Article 10 application.”
Litigation????  So who is suing whom and why is WPEG there?  Apparently Curtin is now the WPEG attorney?   Is the litigation being referred to simply the defense of our law in the normal Article X process, and if they get a bad siting decision going to the court of appeals as the Art. X process outlines.
Do they think BP or another developer is going to sue if Art. X upholds our law because it is too restrictive?    Is the board going to sue the State if Art. X does NOT uphold our law?  Would they take a stab at defending our law AND home rule going beyond the appeals court process outlined in Art. X regulations?  Like sue the State over the Art. X process and our right to home rule and our laws.   Now THAT could be interesting…real interesting!  I doubt that is the case but it would get to the real heart of the matter.  I might be able to get behind that, if they showed some backbone on that approach.  Obviously I would prefer if they intend to do that to say NO to wind development outright and fight on their right to say no and prohibit wind in our community based on the comp plan. 
Or is the town thinking of suing BP or the State and/or BP for leaving us hanging in the Art. X process?   Or would they sue over a new developer and the BP sale, or that the State might let a develop pick up the pre-application process as is and not start over?
So what litigation are we talking about????  Some interesting possibilities.

3 comments:

  1. Curtin may have been apprehensive about what Judge Agesta was going to say or do at this meeting. The town had strayed from its normal sucking up,patronizing style when they commented to the PSC that someone must have overlooked the fact that there was no timetable as to how long an applicant(BP) could delay the stipulation process. Pretty ballsy for group who ,previous to that , had basically kissed the state"s ass.

    Maybe he thought the state would sue the town for insubordination.

    Thats about as likely as the town suing the state for anything.

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  2. Thanks 1:51 See also my next post for more on Curtain's letter.

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  3. Sorry Mr. CURTIN I miss spelled your name!

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