Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Whalerock endgame

How do town residents and abutters expect this running drama to end?
By Will Collette

In a recent column called “Grandstanding” by resident Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party pundit Mike Chambers, Whalerock developer Larry LeBlanc is denounced for “grandstanding” and phoniness. Chambers unloads on LeBlanc for standing before a large and hostile audience at the June 5th Zoning Board of Review (ZBR) hearing and saying that he would cancel the project if there was any scientific evidence that anyone might be harmed by his proposal.

To Chambers, his leader Ron Areglado and the other anti-wind NIMBYs, LeBlanc's offer was unacceptable. Since LeBlanc insists on actual science, and not the ersatz stuff the opponents have been serving up, he is obviously insincere. There are lots of other reasons why Whalerock is a dubious project, mostly economic. But Chambers and his cohorts haven’t even come close to making their ill-advised science case credible.

In its current state, the fight over the proposed Whalerock industrial wind farm project has degenerated into a dueling experts/dueling lawyers contest. 


This matter has gone to the courts twice. 

The first round was a draw where Judge Judith Savage threw out all the cases – the town’s, the abutters’ and LeBlanc’s. 

The second round was a clear win for LeBlanc when Judge Kristin Rodgers threw out the town for lack of standing, the abutters for filing too late and sent Whalerock back to be heard one final time by the ZBR for a Special Use Permit.

After two hearings, it seems likely to me that the ZBR will vote down LeBlanc’s application but in a manner that will make it pretty easy for LeBlanc to return to court for a third round, arguing the ZBR members had been either prejudiced against his project, or intimidated by the crowd, and that the town further corrupted the process through misconduct. I think the fake science that Chambers et al. have relied so heavily upon will figure prominently in the appeal.

If this is what LeBlanc was proposing, the health
effects argument would be more credible
It’s always hard to predict what might happen in the future, but this seems to be the path we are on. Whether there is a third round of litigation or not, LeBlanc will still be the owner of 81 acres, unspoiled for perhaps a century or more, strategically located along a picturesque stretch of Route One.

Let’s try to think just a little bit into the future, beyond the Wednesday June 19 Third Round of the ZBR hearings (there will be at least one and probably more hearings after that).

To grant the Special Use Permit LeBlanc needs to go forward with Whalerock, he needs a super-majority – either a unanimous vote or 4 to 1. By my count, the best he can do is 3-2 and that’s one vote short. More likely, the vote will be 2-3 or 1-4 against. Then LeBlanc will go back to court with a hearing record that could very well convince the judge that the ZBR vote was the product of bias or intimidation, with substantial errors by the ZBR Chair and the town’s attorneys.

If the court overrules the ZBR, LeBlanc gets to build the turbines. Under the terms of his sales-leaseback agreement with his Connecticut partner James Barrows, they may also build the affordable housing complex proposed but currently tied up in litigation.

No matter how many times Chambers or Ron Areglado or the other people who have worked themselves up into a frenzied hatred toward LeBlanc should attack him, LeBlanc still owns that property.

Mike Chambers was highly offended when LeBlanc stated before the audience on June 5 that “my vote is the only one that counts” when it comes to that land. Chambers took that to be an insult to the ZBR, saying If LeBlanc intends not to abide by the Zoning Board’s vote, maybe [LeBlanc’s lawyer Nick] Gorham has his brief already written to appeal a negative vote to the Superior Court.”

Well duh, Mike, yeah. If LeBlanc thinks the ZBR proceeding was conducted in a biased and improper manner, damn straight that Gorham will be taking this back to Superior Court. I’m sure Gorham has the brief half written – it’s a brief that practically writes itself. In addition to the brief, the judge will also review the transcripts and videos of the first hearing and the second hearing.

Let’s not forget that if LeBlanc returns to Superior Court for a Round Three, the abutters (if they have any money left) and the town (if it can get the court to agree it has standing) will go back to court, too. So Mike, what do you think of your chances on a Superior Court, Round Three?

Even if the court rules against LeBlanc in a Round Three, he still owns the property and there are other, even more unpalatable projects he could undertake, such as “forestry” which wouldn’t even require a special use permit under the land’s current zoning designation. All things considered, I’d rather look at two turbines than a denuded, clear-cut slope.

I don’t want either side to win because, in my opinion, none of the parties in the case have really focused on the general good of the people of Charlestown. I’m so sick of the whole thing.

For many years, the dominant political powers in this town – they’re currently called the Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party, but they have gone by different names (or sometimes no name) in the past – have held on to control by creating one emergency after another, one enemy after another. There’s always something so threatening to the bucolic peace and tranquility of this town that Charlestown has had to be in a perpetual state of war.

If it’s not Larry LeBlanc, it’s the Narragansetts. Or it’s Jim Mageau. Or it’s mean and nasty developers. Or it’s Democrats. Or it’s Providence. Or it’s low-income families. Or it’s the elderly who need affordable housing. Sometimes these menaces to Charlestown’s peace and tranquility act in tandem.

But in the world of Charlestown politics, there’s always at least one crisis brewing. And the CCA Party offers itself as the town’s only salvation. Like arsonists who also like to play fire-fighters.

Enough.

The Larry LeBlanc “threat” is actually very easy to resolve. Let cool and reasonable representatives of Charlestown (sorry, Mike, that doesn’t include you) sit down with LeBlanc and work out a fair deal so we can take that land as open space. We have the money.

Last year, many of the same people fighting Whalerock were ready to blow almost a million dollars of taxpayer money on a derelict campground less than one third the size and nowhere near the strategic importance. Or has everyone forgotten “Y-Gate” already?

In the end, I think that 90% of the town would like to see Larry LeBlanc’s land permanently set aside as open space. Can we please skip over the next several steps and get to that point where we make the deal we all want?


Yes, dear readers, I’ve covered this ground before. Click here to read my five reasons why we should buy LeBlanc’s land. And click here for my analysis of how much that land might be worth. 

More importantly, I think Charlestown citizens need to start saying NO to this siege mentality that disturbs our peace and tranquility far more than any of the CCA Party’s imagined monsters hiding under the bed.