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Conway
Daily Sun
9/28/2007
CMI again loses in Tamworth
Not
giving up on track: Appeal remains from last rejection
Nate
Giarnese
TAMWORTH—Crowd
applause greeted a latest Club Motorsports Inc. defeat late Wednesday,
as the controversial racecourse builder absorbed another rejection by
town officials of its plans to develop Mount Whittier.
In a
charged public hearing that stretched until 10 p.m., CMI brought forth
new plans for three access roads to its three parcels on the north face,
but with a surprise twist that apparently left Tamworth town planners
balking. The plans, according to the town attorney, detailed something
no one on the town level had seen in recent back-and-forth negotiations
with the company: commercial storage building in the uplands.
Unlike
a first rejection of CMI by the planning board in November 2006 — it
then said no to the company's full-scale $20 million private club with a
three-mile driving track and bridges over streams — these blueprints
were only for the roads and storage, revealing reduced wetlands impacts.
CMI
has said it at least deserves to be able to get to the land it owns at
the top of the Route 25 mountain, while maintaining it still intends to
build the track and exclusive country club, now stalled in a legal
fight. The company is appealing the board's 2006 rejection of its
full-scale plans in Carroll County Superior Court.
Planners
Wednesday night voted 3-1 to reject the latest application, after
considering whether to send it back to the town conservation commission
for a preliminary review of the buildings.
“No
one had ever seen the storage buildings,” said Sager, who moderated
the “somewhat contentious” hearing. About 150 packed the bleachers,
and 25 spoke, most against giving CMI a building permit, he said.
Some
in favor of granting the so-called special-use permit, under the
authority of the Tamworth Wetlands Ordinance, felt it was unfair to keep
CMI from its land.
“They
said, 'Look, everybody has a right to access their property, these three
accesses should be approved,'” Sager said.
Board
member David Goodson cast the lone yes vote. “I can't speak for
David,” Sager said, adding that he surmised Goodson meant to be fair
to CMI and the town.
Four
board members stepped away from the voting to “keep the peace,”
Sager said. Past hearings have been plagued by accusations of bias, with
CMI, and a court, identifying at least one board member as having made
public statements against the track before being elected to potentially
regulate it.
Tom
Cleveland, Herb Cooper, selectmen's representative Tom Abugelis, and
board chair Dom Bergen agreed not to vote Wednesday, Sager said.
Steve
Grey, David Cluff and Howard Nordeen, he said, voted to reject the
plans.
CMI
President and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Dahmen and Vice President
Jim Hoenscheid did not provide a statement to The Conway Daily Sun
before deadline.
Focus
Tamworth press coordinator Kate Vachon Thursday said the citizens'
watchdog group, which has fought to block CMI in several legal cases,
believed, “It was the planning board just doing its job.”
The
court Thursday also lifted a stay that was on the CMI appeal of the 2006
rejection, and granted a request by Focus to intervene in the case on
the town's behalf, she said.
Despite
its three major federal and state environmentally-based building
permits, the vote illustrates the company's record of less success at
the local government level. |