Tremont town attorney began consent agreement well before campground was cited for violations
Will citizens send a message Monday at the polls? Mount Desert starts 24/7 coverage
TREMONT, May 7, 2022 - Discussions between the town attorney and Acadia Wilderness Lodge on a consent decree began well before the code enforcement officer even inspected the campground for violations, according to documents.
The decision to build eight yurts instead of 11 came from the campground itself, according to the consent decree, which stated that the campground engineer told the CEO on April 22 he had made such a recommendation to the owners.
On April 25, the CEO John Larson visited the site and sent the violations on April 26, which stipulated the settlement exactly as AWL proposed - reducing the yurts to eight, and paying a small fine.
But documents show the town attorney and the town manager began to discuss the consent decree as early as April 6, indicating the negotiations already were underway long before Larson was involved.
Town Manager Jesse Dunbar stated Thursday he received “privileged Email from James W.J. Collier, Esq. to Manager Jesse Dunbar at 2:06 p.m, on April 6, 2022 re consent agreement - marked as privileged.”
Dunbar was responding to Amy Tchao, attorney for Concerned Tremont Citizens, who objected to the way the consent decree was handled and invoked the Freedom of Access Act to see emails between the town attorney, town manager and lawyer for AWL.
Dunbar refused to release the emails, saying the communications were privileged. But he did acknowledge the following dates emails were sent:
Email from James W.J, Collier, Esq. to Manager Jesse Dunbar at 1:19 p.m. on April 11, 2022 re consent agreement - marked as privileged.
Email from James W.J. Collier, Esq. to P. Andrew Hamilton at 10:12 a.m. on April 12, 2022 re consent agreement - marked as privileged
Email from P, Andrew Hamilton to Manager Jesse Dunbar at 4:38 p.m, on April 19, 2022 re consent agreement - marked as confidential.
Email from P. Andrew Hamilton to James W.J. Collier, Esq. at 9:07 a.m. on April 20, 2022 re consent agreement - marked as privileged
The QSJ asked Larson what compelled him to take up the case of AWL in late April even though its putative violations have been made public since November when the attorney of CTR sued the town for allowing the campground such breach of code.
“I was just doing my job,” Larson said. “There was a violation and I pursued it.”
Larson did confirm that it was Collier who wrote the notice of violation. Larson merely signed it and sent to AWL April 26.
The disclosure of Collier’s efforts since early April to accommodate AWL will certainly fuel CTR’s claims of bias on the part of Collier.
CTR members have jousted with Collier numerous times in the adjudication of the largest development in town history - the proposed 66-yurt “glamp” ground. At one public meeting recently, Collier said a CTR proposal to seek restrictive ordinances for campgrounds was “stupid.”
Tchao had already objected to the way the consent decree was rushed through the select board despite a lawsuit filed by CT, an appeal in front of the appeals board and lack of review by the Planning Board.
By approving the consent decree on May 2, the select board allowed AWL to open as scheduled on May 15. A delay would have pushed the opening beyond the date the campground already had begun to accept reservations, according to its website.
Appeals board sends campground matter to court
Collier faced some sharp questioning at the appeals board meeting Thursday during which the board voted unanimously to reverse the Planning Board’s approval Nov. 1 of the Acadia Wilderness Village and vacated the decision.
All sides agreed to meet in court instead of giving the Planning Board an opportunity to consider a new application.
But not before member Richard Cohen, a retired judge, challenged the draft of the Findings of Fact by Collier, whose language appeared to favor the campground.
The appeals board voted 5-0 April 14 to find the Planning Board erred when it approved the 55-yurt Acadia Wilderness Village without taking into account the smaller abutting AWL as part of the whole application.
Cohen challenged Collier’s limiting the scope of the appeals board: “the Board of Appeals is charged with … considering only the Record made by the Planning Board.”
“Saying we considered only the record made by the planning board is not true,” Cohen said.
“We considered the fact that changes were made in the Village that were not reflected in the planning board record. And I believe that we have every right to do so. I don't believe that we have to pretend that things that everybody knows happened and pretend that events and documents in our own board records don't exist and make a decision based on self-imposed ignorance.
“The Village is not what it was when it was approved. Whether the differences are gigantic or miniscule, you can argue that forever, but there are differences and one of the reasons that we're unhappy about the fact that the planning board dealt with the Lodge to the isolation so the Village didn't exist. It does exist and everybody knows it exists.”
Cohen then went on to state that Collier stretched the truth when he wrote, “The Planning Board conducted an intensive review of the campground application over a period of over half a year. They held numerous meetings and public hearings; they required comprehensive expert opinions from the Applicant, AWL; and they had their own experts review much of the evidence presented by the Applicant, and by CTR.”
“I have two problems with that,” Cohen said. “Number one. It's not true.
“Why isn't it true? Because the application that the planning board reviewed was the application that was first before them on September 14, 2021.
“They were operating on a self imposed deadline of Nov. 1 and when you're galloping through town, you miss details.
“And certainly the fact the statement that it was over a period of six months is untrue.
“I've also wondered about the comparison between these people working their tails off and the Board of Appeals just kind of playing with it. I don't like that.”
This was not the first time that Collier has faced criticism that he favored developers over aggrieved neighbors in a dispute. The QSJ was unable to reach him for comment. He rarely responds to email questions.
Finding his relationship with the AWL lawyer too cozy, the attorney for Concerned Tremont Residents filed a Freedom of Access Act request for communication between the two lawyers which was rejected by Dunbar Thursday, as aforementioned.
Will Tremont voters take a cue from Southwest Harbor and begin to remake town governance?
TREMONT - The single biggest challenge for the town isn’t job creation nor attracting businesses. It is housing.
How many members of town boards have read the current Comprehensive Plan which laid this out in 2011 when it forecast the town’s population will be 1,729 by 2020. Instead, the census that year showed only 1,522 residents, the first decade of decline since 1960. (In the census of 1880, the town had 2,011 residents.)
The convulsive battle over Acadia Wilderness Village the past year had one unintended benefit - it shined a bright light on the paucity of any meaningful local leadership.
Most of the Comprehensive Plan was ignored by the select and planning boards the last decade, collecting dust on some shelf in the town offices.
Meanwhile, myths about the local economy continued unabated.
“I'd like to see the local kids be able to become adults and live here,” said newly minted Planning Board member Beth Gott last July 13 at a workshop. “We’re pushing the locals away. We're a working town. I mean, we have to be able to make a living, but do it right.”
Irony abound.
Gott’s heavy equipment construction company, the largest on MDI, enjoyed a huge decade of business building the type of housing out of the reach of the very “local kids.” In her year as Planning Board member, Gott did not make a single proposal to change that.
The 2011 plan urged the select board to create a housing committee to seek grants for affordable subdivisions to be built. That never happened.
It urged a comprehensive update to the land use ordinance to spur housing. The Planning Board only opted for an occasional amendment here and there.
The Planning Board never changed the zoning of the Kelleytown Road area as recommended by the Comprehensive Plan, subjecting it to the unconscionable use as a 63-yurt “glamp ground” which will employ only a handful of workers, add pollution, traffic and hoards of tourists to the most rural part of MDI, and produce a pittance in property tax.
Meanwhile, land-poor Tremont will lose a big opportunity to provide housing.
About one-third of Tremont's land is either owned by Acadia National Park or protected by conservation easement. Another 15 percent of the land is generally not suitable for development due to very poor soils or steep slopes. “While development could take place on many of the remaining soils, there are very few areas of land rated by the Natural Resources Conservation Service as having a medium to high potential for development,” the Comprehensive Plan stated.
“Almost one-quarter of the labor force is self-employed. While 800 people work in Tremont, only 220 of those are Tremont residents. This means that there is substantial commuting into town.”
As Southwest Harbor demonstrated this week, changes in local leadership can happen in a shorter period than many realize. Within six months, the “Old Boy Network” of four selectmen who were born and raised in SWH was replaced Tuesday, leaving select chair George Jellison as the lone holdover.
Will voters begin the excavation of the current cabal running Tremont Monday, as they did in Southwest Harbor this week, or has fatigue gripped the citizens movement which brought out 428 voters last November?
Select Board chair Jamie Thurlow is the local favorite. He changed his mind about running for re-election, after first saying he wanted to spend more time with his children. Under his watch, though, the town boards have veered strongly toward a pro-development agenda, forsaking housing initiatives.
His challenger is among those residents who fear the town will be smothered by tourism and does not want it to become another Bar Harbor. Jayne Ashworth is a retired IT professional and has attended virtually every town meeting on the divisive issue of Acadia Wilderness Village, which uses the same law firm that represents Ocean Properties, the largest hotelier on MDI. Her liability is that she’s “from away.” But she has the endorsement of Cindy Lawson, the head of CTR.
Next year the town will have another chance for a makeover of the select board when the nativist Howard Goodwin and controversial McKenzie Jewitt are up for re-election. Both are in the building trade business and strong supporters of development.
Goodwin was the selectman who led the move to deny Judge Richard Cohen membership on the appeals board which was reversed later after much criticism from residents.
Jewitt resigned in 2016 as town clerk after the state removed Tremont’s designation for vehicle registration, forcing residents to have to drive to Ellsworth to obtain new licenses.
The Islander, in an article written by Mark Good, who is now the planning board chairman, reported, “Kristen Muszynski, communications director of the Department of the Secretary of State, which oversees the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles), said the action was in response to ‘ongoing issues’ at the town office.
“A major problem involved record keeping. The ‘inventory was not matching up to cash reports’ made to the BMV,’ ”Good quoted Muszynski as saying.
Whether the town stays rural residential as preferred by most residents in multiple surveys starts with local governance. Monday, residents will have the opportunity to embark on a new journey.
Or they could follow the familiar pattern of voting for the “local” candidate against their own interest. That would not be the first time it’s happened.
Bar Harbor official continues her fight against clear cutting in Town Hill
BAR HARBOR - Private equity companies often finance the mapping of entire regions for land which might be suitable for one commercial purpose or another. The result is towns caught unawares and paying a big price for sloppy ordinances.
The Planning Board is in such a predicament. This week it notified the commercial solar company seeking to clear cut 10 acres in Town Hill that it still needed to explain how it would comply with the town’s shoreline standards.
That is not stopping Code Enforcement Officer Angela Chamberlain, an abutting neighbor from pursuing her full-throated protest of the project.
“This project won’t provide any jobs, this developer won’t become part of our community or give back through community involvement, and the developer won’t even be required to pay property taxes on the structures” She stated in a letter to the Islander. “Bar Harbor residents don’t need solar developments to be located in their residential neighborhoods to take advantage of the benefits of solar power.”
In a separate letter to the Planning Board which was not read at its meeting, she stated:
“At the April 6, 2022 meeting, the Board required the applicant to show the locations of trees at least eight inches as measured 4 ½ inches above grade. It is my understanding that the applicant only identified those trees over 8” in the buffer that they are creating along the abutting property lines and not in any of the actual area of development.
“The letter from Inland Fisheries and Wildlife states that as project details are lacking, their comments were non-specific and should be considered preliminary. They further note on the second page that ‘We generally recommend maintaining 100-foot undisturbed vegetated buffers from the upland edge of all intermittent and perennial streams and any contiguous wetlands. Maintaining and enhancing buffers along these resources is critical to the protection of water temperature, water quality, natural inputs of coarse woody debris, and various forms of aquatic life necessary to support fish and other aquatic species.’ Would the applicant consider moving back 100’ from those resources as IF&W recommends?
“The letter from Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry also states that the applicant may want to have the site inventoried by a qualified field biologist to ensure that no undocumented rare features are inadvertently harmed. Did the applicant do this?
“Clearing trees around wetlands, streams, and vernal pools does not maintain or preserve the sensitive and natural areas to the maximum extent.
“How will the applicant prevent vegetation, grass, weeds, etc. from growing on the fence? Will a herbicide be applied?”
Mount Desert to start 24/7 emergency coverage
NORTHEAST HARBOR - The new town-run fire/EMS operation will start its 24/7 coverage Monday at 7 a.m., Fire Chief Mike Bender said.
He has hired six new firefighter/EMS staff to make up the four platoons needed to provide the coverage. He still has two more positions to fill.
The town meeting voted this week to approve bonds of $5,238,427 to fund improvements to the Northeast Harbor Fire Station, including removing the roof and west wall of the truck bays, adding a new bay and a second story with staff quarters, and upgrading the electrical service.
Earlier, voters had approved funding to turn the Somesville firehouse into a 24/7 professionally staffed station. That project is expected to complete by August, Bender said.
The town is in the midst of assuming ambulance coverage from the Northeast Harbor Ambulance Service, a non-profit which was founded in 1938. That provided an opportunity to upgrade fire and EMS coverage and to better serve the western side of town, which can take an ambulance 15 extra minutes to reach from Northeast Harbor.
The change to a more accommodating work schedule also gave Mount Desert a competitive edge in recruiting emergency personnel which is experiencing a nationwide shortage.