Conway Daily Sun
2006-08-28

CMI supporter stands apart in crowded room of track opponents

All else aside, Anthony says good jobs are critically low

Nate Giarnese

TAMWORTH — Deep in the hallway crush of concerned citizens, environmentalists, Club Motorsports executives, their opponents from watchdog group Focus: Tamworth and lawyers from both camps, Andy Anthony was proud to fly company colors.

“They must love me, I wear one seven days a week,” the Tamworth resident said of his Club Motorsports T-shirt, and the reaction he said it draws among those whose diastase for the multi-million dollar driving club project is as overt as his own eagerness to see it built.

Anthony especially stood out during an Aug. 23 Tamworth Planning Board meeting dominated in large part by an anti-CMI crowd, dotted with some company supporters.

The company's track design will come under heavy technical and legal scrutiny in coming months, as a parallel debate over economics continues to echo around this small town's keenly interested populace. Anthony was one of a swelling mass of onlookers Wenesday night, watching and listening as the company's newest plans were accepted for review by planning officials.

Anthony, a handyman and a 42-year local, says good working-class jobs here are nearly non-existent. Entry-level work around town, he said, often pays no more than $6.15 an hour. And he lamented that better jobs can be had only after a gas-guzzling commute to distant surrounding towns in Conway or Rochester .

“I want this project to go in, I really do,” said Anthony, who owns 15 company shirts and believes the track can boost a sagging workforce. “If you want a job you have to travel out of town.”

CMI's opponents scoff at its promise to cart in well-paid, year-round work for locals, saying specialized workers will be drawn in from elsewhere and that there will be little to do when the snow falls. And some say a buzzing car track, although expected to pay a considerable property tax, will also drag down the value of nearby homes. But Anthony says Tamworth has already lost many of its crucial employers, and needs more. Sound from the CMI enterprise, he shrugs, will be all but unnoticeable next to loud Route 25.

For reasons he has little use for, some in town, he puzzles, seem content to let business slip away. But he said many others are ready for progress.

“This town is going further and further back than it is progressing into the future. If they want horse and buggies in here, why don't they just get rid of all the cars?" he wondered.