Conway Daily Sun
2006-08-23

CMI, Focus: Tamworth brace for Wednesday planning board review

Company CEO again calls for recusals by two planners

Nate Giarnese

TAMWORTH — Lloyd Dahmen, president and CEO of racetrack builder Club Motorsports Inc., and a polarizing figure in this polarized town, expects some officials Wednesday night will have already made up their minds.

But when the CMI chief brings his revised set of Euro-style road course plans before the Tamworth Planning Board at 7:40 p.m. on Aug. 23, he presumes the two planners he says are biased by conflicts of interest will eventually bow out of voting. CMI is seeking a special use permit under the town's wetlands ordinance for the motor sports track.

After Dahmen's presentation, the board could decide in coming months on whether to issue a building permit for his Mt. Whittier driving club proposal, under what he labels a “selectively-used” town ordinance.

The company applied two years ago, but pulled its paperwork. CMI later told surprised local officials that its state and federal permits seemed adequate to break ground. A state court ruled otherwise, and sent CMI back to Tamworth .

By saying a town ordinance is used "selectively," the Chestnut Hill CEO means rarely, if ever. And the permit process, he complains, has been pushed on his controversial development company in a bid by activists to bury his vision of an exclusive oasis for wealthy hot-rodders and fast-car buffs.

But local citizen's group, Focus: Tamworth , which sued CMI to force it to follow town ordinance, says Dahmen's declarations ignore the facts.

According to Focus: Tamworth spokesperson, Kate Vachon, Dahmen's talk of dusting off a seldom-used law to toss at the private firm is off base. She said the special use permit the company is now seeking under the town's wetlands ordinance has been invoked recently on a number of occasions.

“There have been several recent applications,” Vachon said.

Focus has battled CMI for years in court. In effect, the two have also waged a pitched public relations struggle that has lasted through the company's two presidents. The group's members have vowed to force CMI under local regulations, several of which CMI has struggled to avoid. CMI contends the rules are unfair or impossible to follow.

The company and its local backers have painted Focus: Tamworth as a well-heeled minority bent on blocking an exiting business from injecting growth in a job-starved small town.

Vachon said the group, with a limited semblance of structure, consists of a five-person steering committee with a sizable, but unmeasurable, body of supporters. The group's only aim, she said, is to ensure businesses follow local laws. No mechanism exists to monitor any sort of Focus “membership” beyond the steering committee, she said.

Dahmen says two people sympathetic to Focus: Tamworth , Tom Cleveland and Herb Cooper, sit prominently on the planning board.

“They will do anything in their power to stop this,” he said.

A varied group of citizen watchdogs have sided with the Focus goal of bringing CMI under local regulations, including new sound restrictions aimed at protecting the town's coveted quietude.

Two years ago, almost to the day, when CMI was scheduled for a public hearing over the same permit, the two planning board members, Cleveland and Cooper, backed away from voting. The duo, allegedly sympathetic to Focus, recused themselves after a CMI attorney pressed them to do so after they first refused, he said.

Vachon said those planners agreed to step back when they were asked. Some citizens reacted with disgust to a contentious recusal process, calling it an insult to voters who elected the board.

“The issue has already been addressed, before, in the previous application those two people recused themselves,” Dahmen said. “It still has to do with Club Motorsports, I assume their recusals will apply.”

Dahmen said he does not seek to fan flames in a sometimes politically-bickering town where debate over his track has ignited burning divisions among a population of 2,500.

Indeed, he described a strong current of public sentiment flowing against Focus. Citizens worried that revenue-generating business is being scared away.

“It is surprising the number of people who say Tamworth is going backwards instead of forwards,” the chief executive and venture capitalist said. “People say Tamworth is going backwards in terms of tax revenue.”

Vachon shrugged off the suggestion that Focus is anti-business.

“Our concern is with enforcing local ordinances,” she said. Many have rallied behind the group, fearing a future of traffic snarls, water pollution and exhaust noise will pour own from the granite ledges into the Silver Lake basin.

Wednesday night, Dahmen said, he expects recusals again from the targeted board members.

“I feel strongly they should be recused, and would ask the planning board that the former recusals apply,” he emphasized.

Once the application is active, he acknowledged, its fate is out of his hands.

“This is a local government issue, let them decide,” he said.

The future ruling will remain open to appeal by either side, neither of which has shied away from lawyers or the courts, however.

“I think we owe everybody our attention since we've caused some stir around,” said Dahmen, the softer-spoken replacement to former CMI head Stephan Condodemetracky. This previous, far-younger entrepreneur was viewed locally as more brash.

Vachon said of Dahmen, “We are extremely pleased he has applied for the permit.”

Two years ago, CMI pulled its application at the last minute before what was billed as a regional hearing inviting public input on its wetlands ordinance permit application from other towns. Now, on Aug. 23 is the first meeting in a likely progression that could lead to a second such hearing. After CMI's presentation, the board will decide whether the application is complete. If it is, a formal review will open.

“We hope it is complete,” Dahmen said.