Falmouth Selectmen Ignore Will of Town Meeting

Falmouth Selectmen Ignore Will of Town Meeting

Posted Jun. 17, 2015

http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20150617/OPINION/150619603/101019/json

Listening stopped in Falmouth last Thursday.

The intent of Falmouth’s Town Meeting may have been dashed away by the Board of Selectmen’s turbine decision.

Chairman Jones cited wind turbine fiscal responsibility seemingly above the “the will of the people.” In so doing, the board collectively compromised a valued tenant of democratic principle: the expectation that leaders listen to the people they lead. It appears listening was replaced by a prioritized municipal money motive.

The Selectmen’s Special Permit initiative flies in the face of Town Meeting. Wasn’t it Town Meeting’s intent, in adopting the 2013 wind turbine bylaw, to employ a measure of needed closure involving the community’s turbine torment (the very catalyst for the more restrictive bylaw), and to prevent any such future folly?

What does the re-opening of the wind wound say now about Falmouth’s future? The board’s decision seems on course to extract an even higher toll from the citizens and contributes to dividing the community further. Acknowledged by Chairman Jones as fiscally driven, the decision is a sad, shameful example of a campaign bent on money, totally deaf to the voice and vision of the backbone of local government -- the citizen representatives of Town Meeting.

Is it too late to gift-card something from “Miracle Ear” to the board?

Mark Cool
Falmouth

Source : letter posted in Cape Cod Times http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20150617/OPINION/150619603/101019/json