Falmouth Massachusetts Town Meeting 6/22/20

Town Meetings in Massachusetts generally follow a format that gives all voters residing within the relevant jurisdiction a say on everything from budgets to zoning laws. Town Meeting approves the money spent by the town.

Last November 2019 Town Meeting approved ARTICLE 14: "To see if the Town will vote to appropriate a sum of money to initiate the process of disposition of the Wind Turbines which includes dismantling, relocation, engineering, permitting and other related costs, and to determine how the same shall be raised and by whom expended. Or do or take any other action on the matter. On request of the Board of Selectmen."

( 2.5 million and more down the road )

Town Meeting Members ignored this amount of money is more than the purchase price of the first town-owned wind turbine!

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative today known as the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in 2008 was left holding two Vestas V 82 type 1.65 megawatt wind turbines, costing the quasi-public organization more than $3,500 per month in storage costs since 2005.

The two turbines, originally purchased in 2005 for $5.2 million or 2.6 million each from Vestas Wind Systems A/S, went on the auction block. One potential stumbling block, however, is that no one bid on the gear-driven wind turbines designed in the late 1990s.

NEG Micon formed in 1997 built the NM type 1.65 megawatt wind turbine. In 2004 Vestas bought out NEG Micon producing the turbine as the Vestas V-82. This type of wind turbine generates 110 decibels of noise. The Town of Falmouth was warned about the noise level prior to installations.

( NEG Micon went bankrupt over massive gear box failures) The private owned NOTUS V-82 wind turbine has had its gears replaced.

The MassCEC went into the business of buying and selling wind turbines to the tune of 2.6 million each. The MTC now the MassCEC had to give the Town of Falmouth 1 million in advance to take one of the wind turbines. The cost of the turbine at that time came down to 1.6 million.

In June of 2017, the Massachusetts courts determined both the town-owned 110-decibel wind turbine are a nuisance. There is nowhere to operate these turbines in the Town of Falmouth.

Falmouth Town Meeting the legislative body of the town in a bizarre act last November voted to approve 2.5 million to take down the turbines and put them in storage.

The fall meeting at the Lawrence School Auditorium authorized and appropriated wind turbine article 14.

Town Meeting Members failed to understand considering the state had to give the town 1 million to take the 2.6 million dollar wind turbine the original cost in 1.6 million.

Town Meeting voted more to take down the turbines than the original purchase price.

A group of Falmouth residents appealed the June 2017 court shut down (proposed interveners) and lost.

The judgment declared that two wind turbines operated by the town were a nuisance and ordered that their operation cease and desist. The town did not appeal that judgment.

The proposed interveners (town residents) sought to defend the interests of the town by intervening for the purpose of filing a motion for relief from judgment to modify the remedy.

The state appeals court denied the motion concluding that the interveners could not likely establish standing and that the motion was untimely.

The town over seven years lost as many as eleven lawsuits and appeals over the 110 decibel wind turbines that no one would even bid on at a public auction.