Date: November 21, 2006
To: Town Board, Town Planning Board and Town Attorney of Cohocton
cc: State of New York, Department of State, Committee on Open Government,
Steuben County Planning Board
From: F. Jeffrey Goldthwait, J.D.
I am a resident, property owner, taxpayer and registered voter in the Town of Cohocton and I speak on behalf of many fellow residents, property owners and taxpayers.
I respectfully submit a FIFTH written request for a written response by each of the Town Board and the Town Planning Board and Town Attorney to each of the following questions set forth in this document which has been personally delivered to each Board and the Town Attorney. The four previous requests were made on 6/20, 8/10, 8/15 and 10/23/2006. Not one response from any town official has been received to date. This is a wrong that must be righted.
1. What justification does the Town Board and Planning Board have for not reviewing and updating the town’s negligently, and irresponsibly out of date (i.e. neither reviewed nor revised since is adoption in 1970) “Comprehensive Master Plan” before making a decision to adopt any new Town Law or Town Zoning Law amendment when such a significant new land issue such as the proposed UPC Wind Turbine Project is being considered? See NYS Town Law Section 272-a, 10. which requires “Periodic review”.
Both the current Town Windmill Law and Local Law #2 as currently proposed and the UPC Wind Turbine project as submitted to date are in clear violation of and in direct contradiction to most of the “general objectives which support and complement the specific Comprehensive Plan goals” as set forth in said Plan.
Both Town Boards have a duty to heed and abide by the specific warning as stated in the Comprehensive Master Plan which reads “Misuse of the land can become a community liability for decades to come.”
In addition, NYS Town Law Section 272-a,11.(a) states “All town land use regulations must be in accordance with a comprehensive plan adopted pursuant to this section.” Neither Local Law #1 nor the proposed Local Law #2, both of 2006 and written to “regulate windmills and windmill facilities” has been reviewed to establish whether or not they are “in accordance with” the current Town and Village Master Comprehensive Plan. This must be done prior to the passage of any new “land use regulations. I call upon all Town officials to comply fully with the law as set forth above.
2. What are the names of the qualified, neutral and independent Legal, Real Estate Appraisal, Financial, Environmental and Small Town Business Development experts whose services the Town Board and/or Planning Board have retained in order to professionally evaluate the proposed UPC project in order to assure all the people of the Town of Cohocton that you are being reasonably prudent, diligent and impartial and thorough in your sworn duty to represent all of the people of Cohocton in a fair, judicious an non negligent manner?
3. What are the names of the qualified, neutral and independent financial and insurance experts retained By the Town to independently analyze the financial worth, stability, liability risk factors to the Town and its residents and performance of UPC (with its former ENRON executive(s) and its parent companies?
4. What are the names of the qualified, neutral and independent financial experts retained By the Town that concluded that a PILOT by UPC was financially more beneficial to the Town than other tax options?
5. Just what is UPC’s track record of successful, completed, fully operating and economically viable wind turbine projects to date in the United States?
6. Has the Town Board and/or Town Planning Board contracted with UPC and its related companies to guarantee that full indemnification and insurance coverage is in place to protect every resident and property owner in the Town?
7. Do you fully understand the severe limitations of legal liability to the Town of Cohocton that UPC and its related companies will enjoy at our expense and risk? What are the name(s) of the independent legal counsel, with no connection or relationship, financial or otherwise, to UPC, has the Town retained to represent and protect the legal rights, potential liabilities and property values as well as the right to enjoyment thereof of every property owner and taxpayer in the Town?
8. Why has the Town Board taken an apparent “oath of silence” and not responded to any public questions about the negotiations between the Town and UPC?
9. Why is it that the only expert legal counsel drafting documents and proposed Town laws in this matter is retained and paid for by UPC? Why does that same legal counsel openly appear to aggressively be pursuing UPC’s accelerated time schedule and one sided financial interests? Isn’t it the sole legal ethical obligation of said counsel to serve and protect the civil, property and financial legal rights of all Cohocton residents via the town boards of the Town of Cohocton at Town and Planning Board meetings?
10. Why has the Planning Board made proposed amendments to the proposed Windmill Law without first seeking the assistance of the Town Attorney and why did Sandor Fox the now resigned Planning Board’s Chairman refuse to answer that question when it was asked to him at that board’s meeting on August 3, 2006?
11. When will the Town Board and Planning Board address the issues raised as to the legality of some of the meetings held to date?
12. Is not this proposed wind farm project in clear violation of the stated purpose of our newly enacted Zoning Law? Article 1;Sec. 120;2,4,7 which states in part that the “PURPOSE of said law is:
“2. To encourage the most appropriate use of land, to conserve and enhance the value of property:…
4. To provide for open spaces and recreation areas, protect natural resources, agricultural land, scenic areas…
7. To assure privacy for residents and freedom from nuisances and noxious conditions disturbing to the senses or harmful to the health, prevent unsightly, obtrusive and noisome activities, and generally enhance the community.”
13. Does not he proposed UPC project also violate Local Law No. 2 of the year 1987, Section 4. which reads:
4. DUTY OF MAINTAINING PRIVATE PROPERTY
No person owning, leasing, occupying or having charge of or control of any premises within the Town of Cohocton shall maintain or keep any nuisance thereon, nor shall any person keep or maintain such premises in a manner causing substantial diminution in the value of other property in the neighborhood in which such premises are located.
14. Why have the fatally flawed noise studies done to date by UPC not been independently investigated and addressed by the Town Board and Planning Board prior to the consideration of passing any local windmill law? These serious, health threatening, noise study defects have specifically been documented and brought to the attention of the Town Board and Planning Board in oral and written expert opinions presented both during and after the public hearing on proposed Local Law #2.
To rely exclusively on the information and advice of consultants selected and paid for by UPC, the clearly biased windmill project applicant in this matter, is clearly wrong and a dereliction of the duty of each board member. Lack of action on this issue alone, which directly affects the health, safety and welfare of the residents of Cohocton, is nothing less than recklessness, willful and wanton gross negligence, and beyond the scope of employment of each and every member of the Town Board and Planning Board.
We the people of the Town of Cohocton respectfully request FOR THE FIFTH
TIME IN WRITING and at least the TENTH TIME ORALLY answers to all of the above questions by each Board and the Town Attorney IN WRITING. We believe we have a right to the answers before any local windmill law is enacted. The Town Board and Planning Board have a legal, ethical and moral duty to provide full honest and accurate responses to the citizens each of you took an oath to serve fairly and impartially with honest due diligence, instead of recklessness, willful and wanton gross negligence well beyond each board members entrusted scope of employment.
On November 17th, 2006 I filed with the Town Clerk, for immediate delivery to the Town Board for consideration at the November 21, 2006 Town Board meeting prior to any vote on any windmill law, a duly executed affidavit with true and correct copies of two duly executed and witnessed petitions attached thereto.
The PETITION FOR MORATORIUM ON ALL INDUSTRIAL WIND TURBINE PROJECTS IN THE TOWN OF COHOCTON, N.Y. has 215 signatories to date, each of whom “request that the Cohocton Town Board, at the next scheduled Town Board meeting following the receipt of this duly signed petition, declare an immediate six month moratorium on all pending and future proposed projects for industrial wind turbines to be located in the Town of Cohocton, N.Y.
The PETITION FOR IMMEDIATE REVIEW, REVISION AND UPDATE OF THE “COMPREHENSIVE MASTER PLAN’ for THE TOWN AND VILLAGE OF COHOCTON, New York” has 196 signatories to date, each of whom “request that the Cohocton Town Board, at the next scheduled Town Board meeting following the receipt of this duly signed petition, take any and all lawful steps necessary to immediately begin a public process to formally review, revise and update the “COMPREHENSIVE MASTER PLAN For THE TOWN AND VILLAGE OF COHOCTON”. And
“..ask that the review, revision and update be jointly undertaken with the Town and Village Planning Board and the full participation, input and assistance of a 20 member ‘Citizens Master Plan Review Committee’ to be appointed by and selected from the following signers of this petition.”
The number of signatories on each of these recently started and ongoing petitions already represents respectively, 27 percent and 25 percent of the total number of Cohocton voters in the recent November 8, 2006 election. They also represent over 12 percent of all the residents in the Town of Cohocton over the age of 18.
I respectfully submit to the Town Board that these two petitions represent the true voices and will of the citizens of Cohocton and request that the Board declare an immediate six month moratorium on all pending and future proposed projects for industrial wind turbines to be located in the Town of Cohocton, N.Y. and take any and all lawful steps necessary to immediately begin a public process to formally review, revise and update the “COMPREHENSIVE MASTER PLAN For THE TOWN AND VILLAGE OF COHOCTON”.
You, each and every member of the Town Board of Cohocton, have reached a “point of no return”. For any member of the Town Board who votes in favor of Local Law #2 regulating windmills in its current form “there is no going back”. You will be held accountable for your actions and omissions by the people you took an oath to serve.
Very truly yours,
F. Jeffrey Goldthwait, J.D.
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