Public hearings scheduled on bill to repeal state law that excludes CMI from Tamworth ordinance

2005-02-03

First meeting Feb. 17 in Tamworth

Nate Giarnese

TAMWORTH —

Two public hearings are expected to be jammed on a House bill that would repeal the now infamous SB 458, the state law that allowed developers of a proposed driving track to skirt a local ordinance which would have restricted its operation.

Behind SB 458, the most locally talked-about senate bill in years (now RSA 287-G), Club Motorsports Inc. darted from the sights of Tamworth's Race Track Ordinance, just days before the town law would begin to regulate the company's 251-acre motorsports park development on the side of Mount Whittier. The bill defined "private driving instruction and exhibition facilities," and in doing do exempted those facilities, including CMI's, from the Tamworth law targeting "racetracks."

A House committee will hear public input on HB 90, sponsored by local representatives to repeal the legislation, on Thursday, Feb. 17, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the K. A. Brett School in Tamworth, House Municipal and County Government Committee chair and Moultonborough Rep. Betsey Patten announced Monday. The hearing will carry over to a House session in Concord the following Tuesday.

The Senate bill eluded Concord lobbyists and local legislators on its way to unanimous passage last March. Citizens quickly became enraged at the resulting loss of local control in Tamworth, and shot angry stares and volleys of letters at legislators who apparently blinked as the bill smoothly became law.

Sen. Joe Kenney, who chaired the state senate committee that debated the bill, said the proposed legislation first seemed "innocuous," after uproar broke out in Tamworth last spring. It seemed an effective way to clean up state definitions and allow a new type of business into the state economy, he and the bill's prime sponsor Sen. John Gallus of Berlin said. Gallus also said Tamworth could have adopted zoning ordinances, which would have allowed the town to regulate all development.

Emergency temporary zoning was turned down by Tamworth voters, only to have some of its language recycled to construct the town's racetrack ordinance which passed town meeting in March with 84 percent voter support. The local racetrack ordinance, SB 458 opponents charge, has been drained of any potency by the passage of the bill.

As a result, Kenney weathered a strong but insufficient challenge to his senate seat by Tamworth Democrat William Farnum, who charged into campaign debates alleging Kenney should have known about the bill's impact, or worse did know, and did nothing. Gallus easily won his re-election bid.

HB 90 prime sponsor Ossipee Rep. Harry Merrow, after learning with alarm that the law stole town control, promised in February to file a bill "to flat out repeal," and did so on September 20 with HB 90, just as the House filing period opened.

The bill would return "private driving instruction and exhibition facilities," under the state umbrella definition, "racetrack," and repeal the law separating CMI's planned facility from big spectator raceways. "This bill repeals RSA 287-G, relative to private driving instruction and exhibition facilities," according to the state's website.

"This repeal will pass the House but will be a battle in the Senate," Ossipee Rep. Dave Babson, cosponsor of the House bill to repeal the law, predicted after the September filing.

"The senate has once already illustrated unwillingness to revisit the bill based upon its ease of passage," Kenney confirmed the prediction in an email this fall. "I did attempt to offer an amendment at the late hour in a committee of conference in June to address the oversight issue on such a facility but it was promptly shot down by legislative conferee members who stated 'it passed unanimously and what are we trying to do here. Let's leave it alone.'

"I can't win them all but I am willing to work with the public to come up with a better solution. Repeal of SB 458 in its full form will be difficult in the coming year, but the legislation needs to be filed to have the debate so we can strengthen the issue and come out with a better outcome," Kenney said in September. "In retrospect, five months after it became a major topic in Tamworth, I now do believe that aspect of local control has to be revisited out of respect to Tamworth which has no local zoning."

"The bill is a good thing coming back," Gallus said. "This will give it another chance to be heard. People who feel they didn't get a fair shake will get one this time around." Both senators reported correspondence from constituents unhappy with the legislation.

However, since SB 458 moved so frictionlessly through the Senate and the House, garnering nary a single no vote in both houses, senators will need to feel a heavy push from locals before considering a repeal, Gallus said, "This was the easiest bill I've ever seen go through," he said. "They better bring the local boys on board," he said. "If they are coming back with new legislation, they better coming back with total local support."

"We will listen to anyone and everybody gets to comment," but Gallus said, "It's going to be to some degree, who do you bring from the local community... selectmen and local people? The Senate has a tendency to listen to that type of voice."

Merrow said he expects a good show of citizens and local politicians at both House hearings. "I've gotten a lot of letters from selectmen around the state," he said Monday. "I expect 50 to 100 people to show up in Concord. Over 250 turned out for the last CMI-related public session in Tamworth — an October Army Corps of Engineers permit hearing, where most citizens came out vehemently against the track citing environmental concerns, and a handful testified that the driving club and its estimated 50 new jobs would be warmly welcomed by a "silent majority" in Tamworth.

Merrow, who will introduce background behind his bill to open the hearings, said his brief history should be the only mention of the CMI project. "This is not about the track," he said. "It's about local control."

The hearing will be recessed and continued at the Legislative Office Building in Concord the following Tuesday morning, February 22 at 10 a.m. according to a House Municipal and County Government Committee press release.