More Wind History - But Applied Directly To Today's Cape Vincent Wind Situation

Many of the local Cape Vincent wind historians show a laundry list of the events.  I am going to go further to show what I think are important focused portions of the history that we can learn from and show how they actually apply to today, based on my past experience in the battle.  Some of this is long but to understand it takes time and analysis you may not  get other places. 

On the Cape Vincent blog JLL  today he is referring people to a wind history. Not sure who has written this wind history, but it hits the key events well.  I know that K at the CV Pandora blog does pretty good CV wind histories as well.

These are overviews sometimes from people sitting on the outside. Would you like a little closer examination of a piece of wind history?  If so take a look at the link, documents and commentary below. 

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20091204/NEWS03/312049958

Now look at the actual details of the law suit. The only one WPEG ever won. Can we learn somthing???

If you don't want to examine the court document below, go on to the commentary that follows for an explanantion  But if you want an actual  LEGAL wind history from the point of view of a good attorney, and what legally matters and what doesn't, then read on. You won't see this in other histories.   Note also that this attorney was sharp enough to include the petitioners names on the petition, not just WPEG.  WPEG's last "expert" attorney didn't do that and that got the case dismissed.  The yellow highlighting is mine from when I was studying the case. .

Before some of you go postal that I am revealing names and secret information, these documents and names are all public information.  If you get that upset go talk to the WDT because they have already reported many of the details.  I am just showing a closer perspective.

In Nov. 2009 Mr. Hirschey was elected Cape Vincent supervisor ousting Rienbeck, and Mr. Bragdon was elected to the town board replacing Joe Wood who was stepping down.  However, they still had no majority, because Mason. and Mason and Orvis were still in majority control. That was very close to what I predicted the election results would be, that WPEG would not get control of the board as they hoped.

This left Tom Rienbeck in a panic because he kept promising a wind law but never came through.  The 2008 wind law committee’s law was too restrictive because of Clif Schneider’s good sound work the he managed somehow to get into the law. We had numerous sometimes heated discussions on this law since good or bad it would take at least 2 wind conflicted votes to pass it which I thought was a disaster, and I was convinced that Rienbeck was not going to pass ANY LAW anyhow that restricted the wind developers in any meaningful way.  I was confident that when push came to shove he and the pro wind board would kill it some way…which he did, by just letting the 2008/09 wind law committee’s work fade into oblivion.

But now Rienbeck’s term was up in less that a month and he wanted to ram a wind developer friendly wind law down the community’s throat before he left office and still had a super majority. Problem is that it would require 1 wind conflicted vote of that old board, and 2 if you wanted a super majority. What is interesting to note is that Rienbeck’s’ wind friendly desperation law  stripped all Clif Schneider’s very restrictive sound work right out of it.  This verified what I said earlier that Rienbeck would not pass any law that was wind restrictive, and now we could see that and what he really wanted despite the previous work of the 2008/09 wind law committee. I had said that committee was a pro wind feel good sham suggested  by the Albany wind lawyers OWH. . The ploy to get around the conflicts was in part that if a law came out of a committee that was good for the wind developers, then it could be said that the “community” via this wind committee had tremendous input and deliberation and the conflicted board should vote on it because it was not their law they were just ding what the community wanted.  They were only passing what the “community” had recommended, and not for their own gain.  Very clever, but that dog don’t hunt!!!  What I said was that anything too restrictive would be killed one way or another by Rienbeck and his board, and that was exactly what happened.

So WPEG was in a justified panic with less than a month to put their candidates in office and have any impact on any wind law.  They sued the conflicted members of the old board in an Article 78 proceeding trying to keep Rienbeck’s  wind friendly law from passing because of conflicts.  For once they finally went right after the conflicts of interest, as they should have for a long long time. Funny that some members of WPEG and others like Dick MacSherry would have allowed their restrictive 2008 law to pass with wind conflicted votes (even a WPEG attorney as well as I thought that was a terrible  idea) if they could have gotten their way, but now they were challenging the  every same conflicted votes they would have allowed to pass their restrictive their law.

 How about a little consistency and no hypocrisy?  And people wonder why I was so frustrated with WPEG especially when they claim to be all about ethics, and ran their last 2011 candidates on ethics.  I guess ethics would not have been a big concern if they had gotten their law passed.  The frustrating thing was they would have let this ethics lapse pass…at the same time it was obvious their restricted law wasn’t even going to pass anyhow!!! So why wrap yourself up in that ethics mess at all, especially when your name is the Wind Power ETHICS Group!!!! They had such  tunnel on this restrictive set back sound wind law and on only one approach that I guess they couldn’t even see the obvious.  So are they doing the very same thing with THIS 2012 wind law,  Do they once again have blinders on caused by Article X and over commitment to only ONE approach and now being supported by the marginalization of anybody who sees it differently. Keeping in mind that the new 2012 zoning committee would not even take any of my no wind approach input.

Of course the other thing that sticks in my ethics craw is why former WPEG town officers including the petitioners on this suit, who now sit on the town board, have appointed previously and currently conflicted Karen Bourcy to the planning board, and another conflicted member to which I am not aware of any legal public disclosure.  You don’t see a damn thing said about that from Hirschey friendly supporters or blogs now do you!!! Are we looking at another lapse of judgment here?

 So why is this important now??? Because these same people and their judgment ( which may not have been very clear in the past ) and  their supporters are the same ones driving the current wind zoning process saying the zone out by set backs process is the ONLY way to approach this issue. Keeping in mind that the previously law attempt was also a set back attempt and they were real confused about ethics related to wind laws. Keeping in mind that the attorney back then had to clear it up that a conflict was a conflict and it didn’t matter what the wind law said!  His clear message was that you either go after the conflicts or you don’t but you have to be consistent, you can’t have it both ways.  AND he pointed out something CRITICAL.  He said (I’m paraphrasing here)  “ How can I defend you if one minute your are against conflicts, and the next you aren’t because you think they will pass your law”. You gotta decide what you want”   He said “ I can’t defend that, and the other side would tear me apart in court with an approach like that.”

A couple people in the meeting said that yeah but we have the BEST sound “experts” and we will bury the other side in court. Our attorney pointed out that if you go to court and you think you have it all wrapped up with your experts…that is a real risky approach based on his fiest hand experience in many court cases..  Although I had several debates with this attorney over time, ad we didn’t always agree I thought he really had his act together.   My response was…”well thank you Mr. Attorney for finally bringing some sanity to this debate, that has been what I have been trying to say for months!!!”

  So maybe it would be wise to pay real close attention now to our board and committees and their “experts”.

Now I had no part in this law suit. I was out of WPEG but still talked to the players, even on this suit. However, as I read the court petition it was very familiar.  Much of the stuff in the suit was from a lot of documentation and research I had previously sent this lawyer on the CV conflicted wind mess. . But calm down… no I wasn’t the only one, but I sent him a lot of stuff and explanations of the CV fiasco.  Previously Mr. Hirschey then WPEG’s leader  directed me to forward all my research on the conflicts etc to this attorney.   I thought he was the best lawyer WPEG had ever hired, and I enjoyed the times I worked with him.

Here is something not many people know in the CV wind history.  In fact when the Wiley / King cartel passed their illegal voter law to try to prohibit seasonals from voting I called this attorney right away, and asked if his firm would take the case if any seasonal was actually aggrieved. I had at least two backers with me. I don’t know but I think we may have been the only ones who sought serious legal council and were ready to take action on it.   They said they would defend us if somebody actually attempted to keep us from voting. In the end he said that since the board of elections and the NY AG declared the law unconstitutional and guaranteed us that we could vote with out incident, he said our problem apparently was solved, but would pursue it if we were actually denied.  Knowing this attorney I doubt they would have taken on a case they thought they couldn’t wind.

Ultimately under the direction of this attorney WPEG got a settlement that the old board would take no action on any wind law until the new board was seated in Jan. 2010, and they attacked the conflicts in this suit.  Actually this is the only law suit of 3 WPEG would win against the conflicted town officers.  Good attorney that was a litigator…not an environmental attorney, and a direct attack on the conflicts that are the root of the actual problem and always have been.  No court debate over sound or birds or SEQR studies.   Geee I don’t know is there any message here, maybe one we could use in the future????  In the wind history the 2 times we put a big legal dent in the pro wind armor it was with this attorney, and that is jut part of his story …and WPEG on their last suit let him slide away. GO FIGURE!!!

 I am not an attorney, and I and others are accused of being amateur attorneys.  Well I can judge performance and what works effectively, and you don’t have to be a genius or “expert” to figure that out.