Town Solicitor says new company has not shown its stake in
the case
By Will Collette
Buried in an avalanche of filings with the state court is a sales agreement for the land, as well as a lease-back agreement between N.I.N. LLC and LeBlanc’s Whalerock project that would provide the land for LeBlanc to build his unpopular industrial farm project.
Click
here to read the details – be sure to follow the links to the actual
documents.
Now the Town of Charlestown has filed
its objections to allowing N.I.N. LLC to join the legal circus surrounding
the Whalerock proposal, as well as its companion proposal for a large
affordable housing development.
Charlestown argues that LeBlanc has not followed proper court procedures to allow N.I.N. to join the fun. Further, while Charlestown acknowledges the sales agreement, it argues that N.I.N. “has not presented any interest, legal or otherwise that it has in the case at the bar.”
Ruggiero may be technically correct, since I saw no such
material from N.I.N. in the court records provided to me by the town[1].
However, this appear to be, at best, a delaying tactic by Charlestown since the
sales/lease-back agreements make it crystal clear that LeBlanc’s companies and
Barrows’ new N.I.N. property company are partners in seeking to push both the
industrial wind farm and the housing
development proposals.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for losing CCA Town Council candidate
(and recently appointed Chariho School Committee member) Ron Areglado and
what’s left of Ill Wind RI, filed their objections to the flurry of requests
for dismissal,
summary judgment or remand
from Larry LeBlanc against the lawsuits the Charlestown Town Council and Areglado’s
group have filed against LeBlanc et al.
LeBlanc argues that all of the objections the town and
Areglado et al. to his proposed use of the land have been heard before. He also
points out that Charlestown
has taken contradictory positions where it first upheld the Zoning Board’s
approval of a permit for LeBlanc’s wind farm and then took the opposite
position when the 2010 election changed the composition of the Town Council.
LeBlanc argues that the Town can’t argue both sides of the issue.
All of these current lawsuits were filed to replace the
bundle of lawsuits that were dismissed
last August by state court Judge Judith Savage who chastised all of the
lawyers representing the various parties for their terrible legal work.
So far, this exercise has been a guaranteed employment
program for lawyers, a boon to the pulp and paper industry, a showcase for bad
lawyering and a tense, high-wire act for the whole town.
I seriously doubt there’s anyone in town – including LeBlanc
– who want to see those 81 prime acres become host to either an industrial wind
farm or a big housing development – or both. Even if LeBlanc really
wanted to do the wind farm, financing for it is sketchy, especially since the wind
data for the site show that its commercial potential is, at best, marginal.
LeBlanc has made it clear in the past that he really wants
to sell the land. Now that he’s sort of “sold” the land to Barrows, he has
upped the ante.
As
I wrote when I analyzed the LeBlanc-Barrows sales and leaseback deal,
there’s actually little money that has changed hands – the actual sales deal
has a deadline for completion of December 31st. To me, that signals that
there’s still time and opportunity to work a deal. Charlestown, perhaps with
DEM’s help and new taxpayer-approved bond money, could still try to buy the 81
acres to set aside as open space.
Or we can continue to play this expensive and nerve-racking
game of legal chicken. Personally, I think it’s long past the time for
Charlestown to stop clucking around.
