Carroll County Independent 
December 06, 2007

OPINION:
Race track group should call it a day

Club Motorsports Inc., has filed an appeal to the Superior Court to overturn the decision made by the Tamworth Planning Board at a well attended public meeting on November 8th. It is another decision by the people of Tamworth through their elected officials that has gone south for this business group that has tried to push their way past the will of the tax payers again and again over the last couple of years.

The president of that organization claimed to be "stunned" by the decision in a piece that we ran last week, and one wonders how that could be. They have been thwarted at almost every turn of the track, so to speak. Though this is a divisive issue in Tamworth, the town's people pulled together a bipartisan committee that forged a solid document that was agreed to unanimously and presented to all the voters.

The Race Track Ordinance passed easily and so, one might have thought, that the race track group (CMI) would learn to live with it and build their country club style facility for sports car enthusiasts. But they knew that they couldn't live within the confines of the noise regulation even though they had touted over and over that the noise level wouldn't be louder than that experienced along the nearby Route 25 corridor already.

They decided to do an end run around the will of the people and sold the state legislators a bill of goods that said in effect that they were not a "race track," but rather a "driving instruction and exhibition facility." Although nothing but the name had changed, CMI no longer had to adhere to the regulations set down in the Race Track Ordinance.

Faster than a speeding Porsche 911, the town drafted a "noise ordinance" so stringent that it will be hard for Tamworth citizens to obey it while mowing their own lawns. The ordinance was presented to the voters one Saturday morning. The Town Moderator gushed, "Wow, this is the largest crowd I have ever seen in my 26 years of doing this in Tamworth." The ordinance passed with an astonishing 85 percent in favor.

CMI has changed their leads, changed their tactics and changed their thrust from the attitude of avaricious outsiders coming in to take advantage of the locals with no zoning, to beaten lawyer-poor fronts for an organization going through the motions to show their investors they are still hanging in.

Legal bills for their failed effort have been estimated at 10 plus million dollars and they don't even have a paved road up to the site of the proposed race track. Yes, race track. A $10,000 investment today would be a tenth of one percent of what they've already spent. At what point do they call it a day and admit that the will of the people working through the sometimes frustrating local governmental process has beaten the suits from the south.

It's time, we think, for the courts to stop wasting the tax payers money and the Judges over taxed time hearing appeal after appeal simply so that CMI can satisfy their investors that at least they tried.

P.G.C.