Conway Daily Sun
2006-09-26

Under pressure from CMI, two more planners step back from racetrack vote

Nate Giarnese

TAMWORTH — Under intense pressure from developers, two more officials have stepped aside from a high-tension vote on a key environmental permit sought by racetrack builder Club Motorsports Inc.

About a month after planner Herb Cooper recused himself, board cohorts Dominick Bergen and Tom Cleveland have done the same.

The controversial Derry developer will return to Tamworth in what will be announced in coming weeks as a public permit hearing with wide regional impact. Officials from surrounding towns will be called in to learn about revised blueprints of the project's wetlands crossings. Citizen turnout is expected to be stellar.

In a begrudging statement, Cleveland said he backed off only with stiff reluctance because “it seems to be New Hampshire law and to remain a participating member of the board would taint and confuse the process,” according to the Carroll County Independent.

He called it neither “fair” nor "right" that he was forced out of the vote, and slammed CMI for targeting officials who had resisted them in the past. The private developer, he charged, is guilty of “coming here and picking and choosing who they want to judge their application,” the report said.

CMI attorney Greg Smith had said the three had proselytized vehemently against the company before and could “taint” the “jury pool” when the planning board ruled on his employer's building permit.

The company's ambitious goal of carving the region's first upper-crust European-style driving club into the side of a local mountain has pitted neighbors against neighbors, environmentalists against the job-hungry and forced officials on numerous public boards to defend their neutrality.

On the most powerful political issue in recent history in this eclectic town of 3,000, almost everybody already has an opinion. But when Smith over a month ago demanded recusals from three duly-elected planners who would soon vote on the high-profile permit, some, including their constituents, bristled.

Cooper immediately assented to the CMI request. But Bergen and Cleveland did not. The two announced they had changed their plans after a non-public meeting with the town attorney.

Even after Cleveland 's own board had voted the defiant planner should should step aside, Cleveland insisted his personal opinion would not color his public vote. The question, he said, is a narrow one that need not bow to political overtones — simply whether CMI's latest plans comply with the letter of a town ordinance. But clearly, others watching the litigation-plagued saga tear rifts in the town and its government, thought it best to head off another potential legal mess.