Ed Bender Appointted to Cape Vincent Council Seat Left Empty By the Passing or Brooks Bragdon

Well I guess this is truly unfortunate.  Is this what registering in CV to vote gets you??????

Let me remind some of you of a little history surrounding Mr. Bender that helped drag this town much deeper into crisis.

At one point there was a vote made by the  long ago heavily wind conflicted planning board.  With no viable reasoning they declared that wind turbines could be declared utilities under CV zoning law.  It was absurd, nor did they even  have the authority to make that interpretation.  This vote was taken with many people on the PB having severe conflicts of interests in the wind matter.  This was a huge step by conflicted town officials driving the agenda significantly forward for wind developers and the ethical cesspool they made of our town.  It would haunt the town for years.

The group WPEG hired an attorney and challenged the PB decision and asked the Zoning Board of Appeals for a ruling on this bogus interpretation of CV zoning.  Mr. Bender was the chair of the ZBA at that time.

The case was heard by the CV ZBA and massive wind turbines were declared to be utilities under the old CV zoning with 3 to 2 vote of the ZBA.  It was idiotic, and Bender was one of the yes votes.

This is one reason that for  a number of years CV had no zoning to control wind development. The pro wind people simply wanted to shove it under the  old law so they wouldn't have to take time to amend the zoning or do a critical environmental review.  This was also completely contrary to the Comp Plan which they knew would also create a legal disaster for them.   This ruling also meant that the power on sting wind turbines would remain in the hands of Rich Edsall the PB chairman at the time who had massive conflicts of interest with his BP leases, and his families leases.

This did go to the NY Supreme Court, and the court ruled in favor of the ZBA decision.  But the court NEVER actually ruled on the critical question of turbines being utilities.  They simply deferred under home rule to the ZBA to have power to make that decision.

Now let me make this simple.  Let's say BP has 100 turbines set up in CV.  And during a winter ice storm the electric line to your neighborhood goes down.  Who the hell are you going to call...the wind farm????  Of course not, because they are an independent power producer, not a freakin utility!!!

You don't hear much about Ed Bender regarding the CV wind disaster in CV, unless you really understand the wind history, but he was a key figure that drove this town deeper into the black hole that ripped it apart.  I doubt if he really grasped what he was voting on in that ZBA decision or the massive distortion it was to rational zoning.

Yet here he sits at the heart of CV power.  Thanks Urban and John for once again crapping on the seasonal voters who put you in power.   And I am supposed to believe this BS Rick Wiley at JLL spews out about my vote counting!

The way things are headed CV is going to remain a wasteland.  The Hirschey administration at one time had the super majority political power to really clean house and make a difference.  Instead they played this appeasement game.

People have expressed the view that I have helped pro wind because I didn't march lockstep with Hirschey. That is absurd!   But the reality is the Hirschey group squandered its power and responsibility and  has done far more damage all on their own.