Your Community - Your Choice

Dave LaMora’s name is included here but simply as a matter of record since he has participated in these events.  Dave may agree or disagree but will speak for himself on these matters.   However the opinions expressed here are mine alone.

I could pound on and on about this “community bill of  rights” thing and what I think  could be a better defense against Article X, and a defense of our home rule and constitutional rights, but I will make this statement and then you can all simply decide for yourself from here on how much commitment and will you have to truly protect our community.  Frankly I think the scattered statements I see on the blogs and hear around the community about resistance to Article X and protecting are community rights against corporate rule ring hollow, especially if the entire defense hinges on following and appeasing  a process with the power to preempt your rights, and  using a one time only a singular zoning law approach  as a defense.  If you want to find a definition of true gambling…this is it!!!

Recently Dave and I have had some more detailed  discussions with some people in our town govt and others about the ideas you have seen in posts and comments on this blog and on the JLL blog.  Those discussions revolved around the ideas of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to pass a community bill of rights which includes the idea that corporations should not be considered to have  constitutional rights like people that they can then bring to bear under constitutional claims to plunder communities at will by negating their local laws thereby leaving them powerless to determine their futures.   Just like BP and the State is likely to do in Cape Vincent.  These ideas are not aimed just at wind power in CV.  Nor is it  against all corporations.  It simply means we want a choice as to what we allow in our community or how much and enforce our rights to do so.  The point is to make this community  bill of rights another layer of protection, and force the corps to argue on a rights level, not only on a setback regulation level where they can easily dominate the argument .  There are other things that would have to be done as well as a comprehensive defense against Article X and BP.

Recently Dave and I talked  Mr. MacSherry our planning board chairman about these Ideas, and he was willing to listen face to face and try to understand the concepts.  We asked to meet with Mr. Hirschey our town supervisor, and he also agreed to a meeting last Friday morning.  We spent about an hour and he included councilman Byrne and asked the town attorney Mr. Mark Gebo to attend as well.   The five  of us  had a fairly in depth and interesting discussion on the issues of community rights and a defense against Article X.  The discussion was very open and many questions were asked and ideas explained.  I am not implying they agreed necessarily, and  no commitments were made, nor have we  heard  any further interest at this point.

In addition all the other town councilmen were contacted and these ideas were explained to them as well.

Not long before that we spoke to the WPEG organization at one of their meetings about our ideas.  Again a lot of questions were asked and information exchanged but no commitments were made.  

We now know that key people in the community know of an alternative and additional plan to defend against Article X other than to depend entirely  on our zoning law as the complete end game. We also know that the CV planning board chairman knows of the details of the plan as does every current town board member.

For the general public and blog readers who have an interest  I have once again posted links to a very good video by CELDF that explains the basics of what we face in CV, and a link to their Website.

It’s your community, and your choice if you really want to defend it, and defend your home rule rights over corporate rule as the current slogan says.  That is not going to happen all on its own nor will it happen by simply following along the Article process which has clear language that could completely take away any local land use decision we make and our home rule rights over those matters as well.  It’s simply your choice if you want to have this conversation in the community or if you want to have it with your town board.

Once again for clarity I will outline the basics.

A community bill of rights approach and approach to oppose Article X is not a zoning process. It is an independent question.  It is a defense of our community, rights to determine our  own future free from State or corporate control.

Immediately pass a resolution opposing Article X as the County did, and encourage other local towns under wind threat to do the same thing.

Refuse to cooperate with the Article X process by not sending local reps to sit on the siting board, and encourage other local towns and the County to do the same if an application is presented.

Pass a Community Bill of Rights and encourage other local communities to do so,  declaring we have the constitutional rights to deny State preemption of our home rule rights, or regulate or deny  any corporation doing business in our community, and that they cannot force their false corporate constitutional rights on us to, take away our right to determine our community’s future.  ( See the CELDF site)

I still believe that a prohibition of wind development is the correct direction and that our current law does not go far enough in its protections,  but no matter what, we should legally defend our right to determine that choice against any Article X decision that is contrary to what we determine is right for our community.

Deny BP a PILOT, and make that known right now.  Same for any road use agreement.

There are also effective political and PR additions to this strategy that will not be discussed here.

Those are the actions, so once again here are the critical questions for you, our board, or the new candidates for the open board seat.

How confident are you our new zoning wind regulations will stand up  to Article X?

Are you 100% confident in our new law?

Would you be willing to pass a resolution to oppose Article X?

Would you be willing to not send reps to the Article X siting board as a protest?

What will you do if our law is preempted beyond the strict regulations in our wind zoning?  Will you be willing to legally defend our law in court to defend the community and our home rule rights?

If BP is allowed to site turbines ,will you deny a PILOT agreement?   Same for any road use agreement?

You have seen the discussion here on the blogs.  You can visit the CELDF sites to get more informed. You can call either one of us to get more information.   It’s your community, it’s your home rule rights and constitutional rights…and it is also now your choice as to how committed you are to defend our community and those rights,  or if we and our board are simply going to surrender to whatever Article X decides is our fate. You now know the alternatives and choices…and be sure to consider that Article X does actually have the power to preempt our zoning law, and that power is not there as just an afterthought or joke!

We need to have enough respect in ourselves and our rights and our long 6 years of painful efforts to not just give it all away to BP without a fight.  We need to have enough respect and will to at least tell them that if they are going to take our rights, then they will have to come TAKE them in a very ugly open public fight, and that we won’t just willingly surrender them.

In the end I still believe that NO industrial  wind development belongs in this town or in this region, and I think we should take the necessary steps toward that outcome instead  half measures trying to dance around the obvious.  I don’t think the sum total of our battle against Article X and the removal of our home rule rights should sit on a foundation  of one singular idea that our zoning law is the one and ONLY defense, especially when that defense has been established on being “reasonable” to Article X, when in fact no one knows what  “reasonable” is, and it’s anybody’s guess.    But it’s your choice!

My opinion based on all the people I have talked to in an out of our govt and around the community about this issue recently is that the community is asleep, lulled into a dream land that our singular  zoning law is all we need for a defense and basically the fight is over as a result.  Voting  was easy, and writing the new land use documents was all we had to do, and there is no need for a PLAN B.  That is a very dangerous place to be if you are truly intent on protecting your community.

 I think this is basically like the same simplified snake oil the wind developers try to sell you that all you need is wind power in your community, and all kinds of jobs and money will appear and all our energy and climate problems will magically disappear. You would think after 6 years we would have learned by now.   It has not taken one singular simple  approach to get this far in the CV wind battle and it is the same to protect our community and defend our home rule rights now.

American’s are basically reactionaries, and as I see it the next step in this process will be outright  panic.  That panic will arrive at the point people wake up and realize that the singular “reasonable” zoning law setback approach is about to come apart under Article X preemption, and the BP equipment is about to carve up our community.  The stunning realities will set in that many simply don’t want to face, and so will the panic.  Sad part is it will be far too late, and that is all you will be left with is panic and anger.   Well of course you will have the remnants of a community completely destroyed physically and socially.

I saw this very process take place in Arizona with a group who was not willing to fight with the toughest approaches and defend what they really wanted.   The result????   Many of them look out their picture windows at 62 – 400 ft wind  turbines day and night and can’t believe what they see.   Definitely not what they had hoped for, but was actually the logical end result of the appeasement and compromise approach they had chosen.

It’s not rocket science…if you work within, and enable, and appease and compromise, and play by the rules of  a system that is designed to site wind turbines and take away your rights,…well then geeee whiz and guess what…then you get those wind turbines and you get those rights taken away. Pretty simple formula to understand!  That is the script, and if you don’t want that outcome simple logic and intelligence says you have to play by a different script.

It’s all risky.  There are no guarantees in any approach.  But it seems to me you do what you can to shift the probabilities as much as you can in your favor, and playing in a game where the probabilities are all owned and engineered by the  opposing side doesn’t make much sense.

It’s your choice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HowKoNmODNY

http://celdf.org/