Planning Board Conflicts of Interest - But We Are All Still Losers!

The news at the Cape Vincent Planning Board meeting was that the PB decided to keep open the BP permit application.  That  being said I noticed something else very refreshing and the Chairman Mr. MacSherry mentioned it as well.  This was a very important discussion about BP and wind development in our community.  The two PB members with conflicts of interest with BP were not present, Karen Bourcy and Rochne Burns.  I applaud the PB Chairman and his board for dealing with this issue.  And I also applaud Mr. Burns and Mrs. Bourcy for complying with the ethics code of our town.  It made me reflect on where we might be today if our previous govt. had taken this path.

But I would like to make something clear.  Having a conflict of interest in and of itself is not unethical or illegal.  You can have a conflict and run for office and the you can have a conflict and be in office, and the voters will determine whether you are acting ethically or not.  But the line gets drawn when you act in a way that could even be perceived as favoring your own interests.  Then you must remove yourself from the discussion and voting on that issue. This doesn't have to be written in a code or a law...it's just plain common ethical sense.

I believe the pro wind side cut their own throat. Not because of the conflicts outright but the fact that they entrenched and defended the conflicts of the officers who acted with conflicts in place and this was to the  severe detriment of their very own cause.

Long ago near the beginning of this wind controversy I had a discussion with Paul Mason a wind lease holder for 3 hours on his deck. I made a prediction that myself or WPEG was not the problem for them.  I predicted that the real problem was going to be their govt officials and their conflicts that would ultimately take them all down.  And that is pretty much what happened to the letter.  I guess I was stupid to even offer that advice because it could have been detrimental to my anti wind cause if they had acted more reasonably and a compromise was reached.

I guess I could say I wish they would change and be reasonable, but since I don't want ANY turbines now in this community, their repeated entrenched moves, like the blogger law suit which is classic, and voter ID laws, and letter to assessors of seasonal voters etc which keeps energizing the anti wind or even the more middle ground of the community then they just keep working in my favor.

They just don't seem to ever understand that if  they were excited about wind development, if they had actually proceeded with a discussion that truly had the best interest of the entire community in mind, and not  totally in the best interest of BP and Acciona, they would have been much much  further along, maybe even with turbines spinning right now. 

The very first encounter I had with Rich Edsall in an official meeting started with he and Andy Binsley being defensive and yelling at me, a citizen they didn't know who asked a respectful question about met towers.  Binsley even said as a public officer that my questions were stupid. So how are you supposed to react to that?  There was a point in this fiasco that some of us , even me, under the right circumstances might have considered a reasonable discussion or compromise.  But by their own behavior those days are long gone and many of us were not even able to have that discussion.  And frankly I recognized early on that the conflicts of interest was one of our absolute best leverage points because it leveraged people to my side who otherwise were not anti wind or would have compromised.

That night Edsall and Binsley lit a fuse on me that there was no need to light if they had just been a little more savvy and comprehended what they were about to embark on and what they would unleash in many of us and even some people on the fence and pro wind, by using this behavior.  And after all this time pro wind are still doing it , and as I said the blogger suit is just one more vivid example of a lack of comprehension of what they are actually doing to themselves. That suit is going to backfire on them just like all the other moves on BP's behalf.  Just like the choice Edsall and Binsley made by yelling at a citizen asking a simple question.  Pro wind has  been on a self destruction path since day one that BP and Acciona engineered for them and they are simply unable to recognize it.

BP came here with a simple plan to profit on the backs of this community.... EVERYONE in the community. To them BOTH sides are an inconvenient distraction potentially in the way.  BP took a very basic human thing from all of us....the ability to have a simple discussion. BP does not recognize  human beings in our community, only profits.   In the end pro wind may get their turbines via Article X or I may get no turbines...but based on the anger and frustration and sadness exhibited by one pro wind person I encountered today...they will be like all of us...they won't escape the disaster BP has brought down on  this community.  The pain and suffering will not go away.  Not for pro or anti wind or anybody in between.  As I have said many times...there are NO winners in this battle...NONE.  Winning and losing is only an illusion, and the further we go down this road with BP and Article X  in control and all of us out of control the bigger and bigger the illusion becomes.

It's like in  the age of nuclear war...the real enemy isn't on either side...it's in the finality and total destruction of the war itself...that is the real enemy!  And like this type of war, it's not IF there is a winner...there simply CANNOT be any winners.  BP saw to that early on.

The best community for a wind developer to do business in is one in which they residents are screaming at each other at such a pitch that nothing else gets through, better yet get them to sue each other, otherwise joined together we might make uncomfortable and inconvenient demands on BP, such as a community wind power co-op, or a much bigger PILOT, and more profitable leases for the lease holders.  You could see this today after the PB meeting.  BP has gone to Article X which should be great news for pro wind, yet they don't seem to be happy even now and we are still screaming at each other over old wounds tearing off old scabs. The BP project manager doesn't have to come to CV or communicate with our boards because we will self destruct all on our own.  But this way BP can carry out business in the community unhindered.  It astounds me that the pro wind side didn't take an effective organizing strategy early on instead of being divided and conquered one lease at a time.  They became manipulated and losers the day they individually signed their leases.  That too is only common sense. 

And sadly with BP running to Article X, BP can now completely ignore EVERYONE pro and anti in the community because BP has ensured we will lose complete control over our future.   Neither side can be reasonable now even if we wanted to be.  BP and Article X have taken that away and left only the illusion one side might come out a winner.

Consider if in the process for whatever reason BP pulls the plug on their project and walks away.  This is hard cold calculated business and that is a very real possibility.  What are we left with?  An ugly law suit that goes nowhere, a community completely destroyed, our home rule rights removed, a community that is the laughing stock around the state, and we will still be screaming at each other, but now for no reason... even though the thing that caused us to scream at each other will  be long long gone.