PUTNEY — After more than six months battling with the courts over the federally financed, state-constructed and -maintained park and ride in Putney, we have received word from the court that Superior Court Judge Thomas Walsh of the court's environmental division has determined that our appeal over the final issue - lighting - is without merit. The court has denied the appeal based on insufficient evidence that the lighting is above the maximum.
The case was not successful in many ways, notably in reducing the size of this inappropriate project and in reducing the quantity and light output of the lighting.
While I did submit several appropriate lighting products from different companies for review by the state Agency of Transportation, Wayne Davis was not at all interested in making any concessions (despite his open-door policy), and in fact took my submissions literally as if they were exact proposals for replacements for his lights, rather than examples of possible styles of lighting that could be configured to work in the exact way that the AOT had configured the proposed lighting to work.
The state spent thousands of dollars to mount and affirm its defense while keeping a blind eye to potential energy savings, potential downstream effects, and potential ill will for the townspeople of Putney. That money could have gone into outreach and into studies to determine the best size and types of lighting.
We submitted advanced lighting designs from the following companies: Inovus, SolarOne, and Sol. Each of these companies has fantastic products that would have saved the state money while providing more appropriate levels of illumination.
These alternatives would have had the added benefit of providing light during a power outage. You can view the products online at the Putney Energy Committee website.
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With more than 255 petition signers, with letters from both Dummerston and Putney energy committees and both those towns' conservation commissions, members of Transition Putney, and with opinions from - dare I say - hundreds of other concerned citizens, including more than 40 who packed into the Town Hall to voice their opinions, along with others who made many phone calls, I hope that all of this effort was not in vain.
When so many people feel as strongly as I do about a project like this and when people come up to me daily and thank me for the work I have done to try to reduce this project's size, I find it disheartening that the state court system simply ignores much of the material presented and that it should have to take an appeal to even begin to make a difference.
In hindsight, perhaps I should not have agreed to any concessions at mediation, as there were larger issues at stake: namely, that the state misstepped by not involving people and having public presentations well in advance of local decisions.
But the outcome might not have been much different.
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I believe that there is a fundamental problem with the process for projects of this nature in that the state should be required by law to hold more than one public meeting for such projects, and that if anyone contests a local decision such as a Development Review Board decision, then the first step should take place at the local level.
Having to mount a legal defense for a wrongheaded project like this one is not only a waste of time and energy, but also clearly results in no real gains.
No one I know could afford to mount a successful multi-month legal battle with any state and, while my regard for the Vermont attorney general's staff remains untarnished, I do not believe that it is appropriate to have them involved in what should be a local dispute.
Some realistic method of resolution should have been an option, well before an appeal is filed, and this needs to happen as a change in the state laws, at the legislative level. No citizen can be expected to win an appeal in Vermont Superior Court when up against the attorney general.
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I encourage everyone involved in this appeal to write a letter to your local representatives, asking for a real discussion on the process for appeal.
If we ever want to make a difference, we need more local control of what goes on in our home towns. This issue is similar to what many towns are facing with out-of-state, for-profit cellular corporations installing towers in towns that no longer have local control or oversight.
Because of the Public Service Board telecommunications plan of 2011, which limits and supersedes local involvement, towers are being built all over Vermont. These towers will not provide broadband for all; they will only provide cellular coverage for some, due to the rolling hills and valleys we like so much about this place.
So get involved, join a local energy committee or a town commission, speak your mind, and make a difference, while there is still time.