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Health & Fitness

A CAUSE FOR CORRUPTION OF THE COURT?

One the heels of Monday's fateful folly of Falmouth's Board of Health, one must wonder if political license to bully the court will be at work today in Barnstable Superior Court.

Today, in Barnstable Superior Court, proceedings will continue regarding Falmouth’s Board of Selectmen suing it’s town’s Zoning Board of Appeals.  At issue is the Zoning Board’s authority to conclude that the Town's industrial wind turbines pose a nuisance to an abutting neighbor (http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131021/NEWS/310210314).  

 

 

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Will the long arm of misguided political agenda and ambition pressure the Court into sacrificing Falmouth’s ZBA and the board’s regulatory authority for the renewable energy industry’s sacred cow?

 

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A Massachusetts Trial Court Law Library piece may offer a clue to today’s court results.

 

Wind: Power or Problem?

 

Wind energy has always generated controversy in Massachusetts and tomorrow Falmouth may become one of the first communties in the country to have its wind turbines decommissioned.  The Town of Falmouth, in a ballot question, is asking residents to override tax limits to raise the funds to pay back funds/grants used to build Wind I and II so it is free to tear down the turbines.

 

Question 2 on the ballot reads as follows:  Shall the Town of Falmouth be allowed to exempt from the provisions of Proposition 2 1/2, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bonds issued in order to pay costs of (a) decommissioning, dismantling and removing Wind I and Wind II, repaying grants received on account of such wind turbines, and for the payment of all other costs incidental and related thereto, and (b) originally constructing Wind I, including the payment of all costs incidental and related thereto?

In August of 2011 Governor Deval Patrick signed S. 2395 committing Massachusetts to a goal of installing 2,000 megawatts of wind energy before 2020. How much wind energy would be lost with the removal of the turbines and what this means for the Governor’s objective will be watched carefully by other communities who have similar complaints about noise and health issues in connection with operating wind turbines.

 

A Patrick Administration attempt at influencing the Courts?   Maybe. 

At the very least, in my view, a definite desperate “strong-arming” of justice!

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