Foes of racetrack /driving instruction center win in House

Carroll County Independent
April 14, 2005

By Chris Dornin
Golden Dome News Service

TAMWORTH – Fifteen citizen volunteers from this hamlet without a zoning ordinance watched every door to the Statehouse last week and both entrances to Representatives Hall, urging lawmakers to adopt HB 90. The amateur lobbyists got their bill passed, 273-76. Its unfavorable committee endorsement failed by 191-160.

Home-schooled eighth graders Eric Dube and Jamie Greene looked lawmakers in the eye last week and asked them to protect their town. The kids seemed to know their stuff.

“We were here last week too,” Dube said. “But they didn’t get around to voting on the bill. This is my civics class. The racetrack will be in the side of an undeveloped mountain. We live about a mile away, and we’ll hear it. It sits above an aquifer that reaches all the way to Saco, Maine.”

Greene said he was sales-pitching any rep willing to listen. They seemed to split about 50/50 on the issue.

“This isn’t about the racetrack,” he said. “It’s about local control. And yeah, I’ll have to write a paper about it.”

If the Senate agrees, it can now repeal what members of the grassroots coalition Focus Tamworth call a stealth law last year that did an end run around the town’s racetrack ordinance. SB 458 last session exempted “private driving instruction and exhibition facilities” from local rules for racetracks.

Six senators cosponsored SB 458, now law, including John Gallus, R-Berlin, and Robert Boyce, R-Alton. It cleared both transportation committees with a unanimous endorsement and passed through both houses on the consent calendar.

Lobbyists for Club Motorsports, Inc., and its proposed Valley Motorsports facility in Tamworth, argued for SB 458. The grassroots group Focus Tamworth found out about it later. So did the New Hampshire Municipal Association. They’ve been making up for lost time.

Municipal Association lobbyist Judy Silva said, “We made a mistake last year.”

Several cosponsors of HB 90 led the recent floor fight.

Prime sponsor Harry Merrow, R-Ossipee, serves Tamworth and said the 2004 law took away the town’s regulatory authority.

“Would any of you want that done to your town?” he asked his colleagues. “It affects every town in the state. We made a mistake last year. Now let’s overturn the committee report.”

Rep. Jack Dowd, R-Derry, said Stephen Condodemetraky, the president of Club Motorsports, lives in Derry and has his headquarters there. Dowd read aloud letters opposing HB 90 from Tamworth selectmen Mariette Ross and David Haskell, who said Focus Tamworth has targeted the track and no other businesses.

“The town did not request HB 90 and does not support it,” Dowd said. “The town gets $3,500 in taxes now from the track property. It will get $350,000 in the future. It’ll create 50 full time jobs and 250 part time.”

Bill supporters said those numbers should be much smaller, citing a research study. Dowd told lawmakers the town voted two years ago 57-43 percent against a zoning ordinance to block the track.

“It lost. It did not get the support of the people,” Dowd said.

Bill cosponsor Howard Dickinson, R-Conway, said the Tamworth noise ordinance is void if current law stands.

“The Conway selectmen have asked me to work for the bill,” Dickinson said. “Every town is vulnerable.”

Senator Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, represents Tamworth and voted for HB 458 last year, but said he’d likely support HB 90 when it gets to the upper chamber. As amended, he said it preserves the current definition of a private driving instructional facility, while keeping the principle of local control.

“I want to make it clear I personally support the driving project,” Kenney said, “and HB 90 has kept it from going forward. I know a lot of local people don’t want the track, period. But we need to resolve the issue in a public forum, not in a courtroom. I can support the bill, based on what I’ve seen so far.”

Kenney plans to research a similar driving instruction track in the town of Dalton. The state might benefit from its experience, he suggested, since that community is several years ahead of Tamworth. He warned Tamworth against using its noise ordinance as spot zoning, though.

“That would be unconstitutional, and the town would lose in court,” he said.

House Transportation chairman Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, said last year’s process was completely open and fair. All the hearings were properly posted.

“That wasn’t stealth legislation,” he said.

Rep. David Babson, R-Ossipee, said a vote for the new bill was a vote for an honest, open legislative process.

Afterward Stephen Gaal of Focus Tamworth was delighted.

“I’d like to point out that 57-43 vote came a couple of days after the town passed its racetrack ordinance,” he added. “At that time the community was comfortable about the racetrack. It just opposed zoning. HB 90 can’t prevent the track from coming. It just reapplies the racetrack ordinance to it.”

Condodemetraky deferred comment to his spokesman, Scott Tranchemontagne, who said current law allows local control, something Focus Tamworth demonstrated last month at town meeting by passing a noise ordinance.

“This is a $30 million development,” he said of the alleged threat to every town in the state. “If this is built in Tamworth, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll see another project like it in New England. The next closest one is in Pennsylvania.”

Tranchemontagne said the events will be closed to the public and will have no crowds or loud NASCAR-style stockcars.

“There might be 12 to 20 cars on the 3.3-mile course at any one time,” he said. “If you accept our opponents’ definition that we’re a racetrack no matter what, then you’re likely to support HB 90. But we’ve asked lawmakers to keep an open mind about that and weigh the selectmen’s view. They’re in the best position to decide if the town still has local control.”