Conway Daily Sun
2-21-2005

State legislators say they were snookered by sponsors of SB 458

Without the bill, CMI would have sued Tamworth

Nate Giarnese
TAMWORTH-Passage of Senate Bill 458 was not illegal, but it was done deceptively, charged legislators Thursday evening at a public hearing held by members of the House Municipal and County Government Committee, on the state law that undermined the Tamworth's authority to regulate a proposed motorsports track.

"SB 458 was passed by the House and Senate and was signed into law by Governor Benson in a perfectly legal manner. However, in my opinion, that is as far as it goes," said Rep. David Babson, R-Ossipee. "There should be no room for deceptive democracy in our system. And this is what SB 458 represented."

The committee, chaired by Rep. Betsey Patten, R-Moultonborough, was urged by residents and state and local officials, to repeal the new state law, defining "private driving instruction and exhibition facilities." The repeal bill, HB 90, is sponsored by Rep. Harry Merrow, R-Ossipee, and backed by a host of Carroll County representatives.

"It deserves to be killed for no other reason than the terrible process," Rep. Howard "Crow" Dickinson, R-Conway, said Thursday before a crowd of more than 150.

A representative for the developer, Club Motors Sports, Inc., however, said they would have sued the Tamworth if Senate Bill 458 had not passed.

CMI attorney Susan Duprey defended the company's decision to seek legislative relief from Tamworth's Race Track Ordinance, that she said singled out CMI and was unreasonably restrictive. The company's only other choice would have been to sue the town, she said, costing taxpayers thousands in legal expenses. "We went to the legislature because we did not want to sue the town," Duprey said. "Although we felt that we had been put into that position."

"(The Race Track Ordinance) turned into a private ordinance that only applies to us," Duprey said. Under the ordinance's noise level limits, "Our sound engineer is telling us we can't run a lawnmower on our property," she said "No one else in this town is subject to its limits," she said. "Why is our sound worse than anyone else's?" Duprey and others testified Thursday and at other hearings, that existing industry, including a rock crusher and several lumber yards, already produces substantial noise in Tamworth.

Dickinson, Babson and Merrow charged the municipal committee with righting what they said were serious wrongs in SB 458's passage, first heard in a Senate Transportation Committee hearing, with no Carroll County representatives present.

SB 458's sponsors, they said, kept deliberations sheltered in the senate committee, well aware that a storm of debate swirled in Tamworth over Club Motorsports Inc.'s "racetrack" project. The bill would later exempt the planned 251-acre driving park and three-mile practice road course from town "racetrack" regulations, passed by an 84 percent majority of voters in March.

"The developers apparently did not want the town of Tamworth to have any control over the project, so they enlisted the aid of a senator from a different county to introduce their bill and were able to get it cosponsored by senators and representatives from other parts of the state," Merrow said. "At no time was I ever told that this was being done. I missed it completely and I accept the blame for doing so."

"Everything that was done was done legally, but that doesn't make it right. The title of the bill was "relative to private driving instruction and exhibition facilities." In reading this I don't believe anyone would recognize that this bill was specifically designed to apply to the Tamworth race track," he said. "As a result there was no opposing testimony at the hearing. The only testimony was from the developer and the bill's sponsors."

Babson went on to criticize lawmakers behind the bill, suggesting SB 458 sponsors were either mislead by Derry developer, CMI, or complicit in the alleged deception. "Why would Sen. Flanders, a cosponsor, tell the senate, and I quote, 'We are not overriding home rule in this situation in any way', when, in fact, it had everything to do with overriding local control? Why would a lobbyist tell Rep. Merrow and me, the morning we discovered we had been snookered, that they had to put the bill in because they couldn't live with the noise ordinance and should not have to, if others don't have to? You don't suppose the developer was trying to circumvent local control, do you?," Babson asked, raising his brow.

"Madame Chair, this was nothing more than a blatant and successful attempt to deceive and subvert the democratic process. There was never any intention to have an open discussion about this bill. It was deceptive legislation and we should all join together as representatives of the people of this state and do the right thing, repeal it," he said.

Duprey, one of three to speak out in support of SB 548 Thursday night, urged the House committee to strike down the repeal, and said Tamworth has several local tools to regulate the project. "I disagree entirely that this town or any other town has been robbed of local control because of SB 458," she said. Tamworth voters shot down a zoning ordinance, she explained, that would have let town officials conduct site plan reviews and restrict the project in its building phase. "Tamworth chose in its wisdom not to adopt zoning, it chose not to adopt site plan reviews," Duprey said.

A Tamworth sound ordinance, up for town vote on the warrant in March, Duprey called another "very clear example of how this town and all other towns can impose local control."

Thursday's hearing was punctuated less by the jeers and grumbles that marked an U.S Army Corps. hearing in October, when speakers stirred emotions in the crowd and offered a grim post-track vision for the environment and local economy. Committee chair Rep. Patten frequently steered comment Thursday away from CMI and its track, and towards the HB 90 repeal bill.

The second part of the House committee hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday morning, Feb 22, at 10 a.m. at the Legislative Office Building in Concord. "Due to time restraints and the high interest in HB 90, a speaker may testify a second time in Concord only if important points arise that were not previously covered," Patten said.