The Board of Selectmen have again been placed in a precarious position with the most recent nuisance finding by the Zoning Board of Appeals. The question whether the board’s subsequent action will be to file suit in superior court against the ZBA decision remains to be determined. One thing is certain, the increasingly weariness to community costs.
From the project’s very beginning, a high cost has been extracted from Building Commissioner and Zoning Enforcement Officer Gore, the Board of Health, the Planning Board, the Board of Selectmen, Town Meeting, as well as wind turbine neighbors. All have been place “between a rock and a hard place.”
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The underpinning policy measures Selectmen have balanced are budget deficit implications wrought by court ordered operational constraints and those of remedial action to eliminate the nuisance. All the while, during these years of cumulative rising costs, some participants have silently witnessed the community chaos from the sideline.
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The silent participants, acting in the capacity as financial catalyst - siting consultant - overall wind energy ‘coach,’ has been the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, both serving the Patrick Administration’s wind energy agenda.
Clearly society needs renewable energy for climate control mitigation and national, state and local economic/energy concerns. Becoming more and more obvious to Falmouth however, as more nuisance claims are likely upheld, is whether our community can continue to bear the array of costs associated with an improperly implemented good idea?
In other word, the state cannot be absolved from absolute immunity from these, and future, nuisance suits involving misplaced wind turbines in our community. Selectmen, as well as citizen, must weight the factual record of costs. Compelling reason exists that allow Selectmen a stronger position to defend FALMOUTH. It's time for take the state to task for wind turbine siting mistakes.
The time for the town to fight the neighbors and fight it’s Zoning Board is through. It’s time to dispute state immunity on this extremely costly community matter. The siting of industrial wind turbines too close to residents cannot be one in which the state simply asserts its “Common Good” authority over Falmouth.
The fundamental factor underlying Falmouth’s defense, if not obvious from ZBA proceedings, is the scientific and medical community’s inability to accurately access harm in a manner which is uniformly safe and responsible for Falmouth, let alone the common good.
It's time Selectmen protect Falmouth, and not grovel to the state.
