Falmouth To Take Wind Turbine Victims Homes By Eminent Domain

Falmouth To Take Wind Turbine Victims Homes By Eminent Domain

Falmouth Select Board Approves Article 2 Petition To Go To Town Meeting

Article 2 if approved by Town Meeting gives the Select Board the right to exercise the power of eminent domain to advance renewable energy

Presentation of Petition Article for November 10 2015 Special Town Meeting
a. Present Petition Article 2

The Article will be voted on by Town Meeting Members November 10, 2015.
The Town Meeting is the legislative body of the town.

Town Manager to Draft Explanations for Printing in the Warrant

Special Town Meeting Warrant will be published with Recommendations October 16,2015

Note # link to meeting :
http://www.falmouthmass.us/agenda.php?depkey=selectmen&number=7555

Citizen response :

October 6, 2015

Your Insane Proposal that the Town of Falmouth Should Exercise a Dubious Power of “Eminent Domain” to Remove the Innocent Residents that the Town Has Harmed

Dear Town of Falmouth

Your proposal that the Town confiscate the property belonging to dozens of citizens in Falmouth that are suffering injustice and harm because of the negligence of the Town of Falmouth is breathtakingly obtuse.

First, how do you arrive at the conclusion that these families should forfeit their homes because the Town is causing them harm, rather than concluding that since the Town has no right to harm anyone, violate their rights, or compromise their property values, the Town should simply discontinue the harmful activity and refrain from hurting them?

Even if the Town had the right to confiscate their property, do you actually propose to organize the community in this way? Do you really believe that it is in the best interest of the community to establish an example in which the Town, having harmed, bullied, ostracized and sued a group of innocent residents shoudl resolve the conflict by kicking them out of town?

Did it ever occur to you that some of these people have lived in their homes for decades, have enjoyed and improved their properties, have accumulated precious memories and have paid down mortgages and accumulated equity in their homes and that they might be slightly more attached to their abodes than to, say, their shares in a mutual fund?

Did it ever occur to you that the reason that they bought their homes in the first place is because they liked the house and the property and that they remained in these homes because they enjoyed living there?

Second, your “analysis” of the situation is nowhere near accurate. The harm and the hardship from the adverse impacts of Wind 1 and Wind 2 is in no way limited to the “abutters” to the projects -- as numerous studies and court proceedings have amply established and verified. The harmful noise and the intense strobing effect that the wind turbines produce radiates over a large area and is not limited, or “mitigated,” by any artificial property boundary.

You do understand that, after all of these years, do you not?

The actual number of families and citizens that would have a valid claim against the Town, and who could insist that the Town pay them “just compensation” for their properties is huge. As you know -- or should know -- representatives from over 40 families have filed testimony or complaints with the Falmouth Board of Health describing the adverse impacts that they have experienced. Keep in mind that some families have multiple individuals who are adversely impacted.

Third, it will be relatively easy to establish, once you open the Pandora’s box of “eminent domain,” that the property values of a vast number of homes have been adversely impacted by property devaluations of 10%, 20%, 30% or more. They could all file suit against the Town to insist that they be made whole on this property devaluation -- just as the Town has done through “eminent domain” with all of your abutters.

YOU might think that your modest proposal of pushing dozens of loyal, hardworking, innocent Falmouth residents out of their homes is a “fair and just” solution to this problem. But that is only because the two of you are both callous idiots.

No one wants to live in the world that you describe. At the very least, the vast majority of people would never want to live there with you.