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Health & Fitness

Selectmen Seek Hidden "Nugget" from Public

Falmouth's Board of Selectmen are seeking input to mitigate wind budget deficits. Here's one - Stop playing the Patsy - Just say No - Refuse to be Held Hostage by the State.

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mark cool, Neighbor

Last year Falmouth received two letters regarding help requested to disentangle the town from the fiscal chaos the community’s wind project is causing.  One reply was from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MCEC) and the other from the state’s Water Pollution Abatement Trust. The sentiments in both – “You’ve got to be kidding.”  

State arrogance? Especially since it was state encouraged siting guidance that now saddles Falmouth Taxpayers with the cost of fixing the mistake.

Isn't it a slap in the face to the community and to local environmentalists who have been arguing for years that the town’s wind project costs the town thousands of dollars annually?  Selectmen Murphy underscores it perfectly - “I think it is clearly evident that with the state’s clean energy initiatives the folks in Falmouth are being held hostage.” ~ Fal Enterprise edition Apr 5, 2013   

 

A year later, what’s been done?  Have we been any better off taking it out on  “co-hostage” residents.  Have we been any better off blaming the ZBA or the Barnstable Superior Court Judge? Or have some community leaders simply become complacent and have accepted being held fiscally hostage by the state? 

 

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The reality is simple.  MCEC should bear the full cost of giving town decision makers bad advise.  Selectmen need to understand the citizen outraged and stop acting as neutered public officials.  Selectmen need to lead their constituency, be clear with the state and insist that MCEC bear the financial consequences of its mistakes. 

 

There is plenty of precedent for the board to become more assertive.  If the state agency were a utility (MCEC is actually a utility vendor for renewable sources of commercial electricity generation) it’s been the case that the utility have been held liable for the cost of pollution mitigation and remediation in customers’ bills.  Duke Energy in North Carolina is the most recent example.

 

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Falmouth’s problem is no different.  Falmouth is the customer of MCEC’s pre-construction sound modeling consulting services and the wind turbine feasibility site reviews.  Derelict siting guidance provided by MCEC is damning evidence that requires customer compensation – Falmouth’s financial remediation.   

 

There is something morally unsettling about insisting that a customer (Falmouth) pay for a problem not of their own making.    Gov. Patrick and the General Assembly should now know that Falmouth won’t stand for a practice of being used as scapegoats. They should be put on notice that deceit and "snake-oil" persuasions, riding the coat-tails of an agenda, will not be tolerated.

 

Spring 2014 Town Meeting will soon be asked for more wind project “bail-out” money.   A hidden “nugget” worth Selectmen's consideration in remedying the community’s financial ‘bleed’… that town fiscal managers hold those actually responsible for our wind budget deficit… accountable.  That would be a good start! 

 

 


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