Companies and politicians always run over the little guy
The Chronicle, 28 September 2011
My husband and I attended a meeting in Derby Line last week to ask questions about the upcoming wind project in my neighborhood. I wanted to make my position clear and I hope you’ll find space for this letter.
I went to the meeting because a few weeks ago there was a car parked across the road from my house. The car was empty other than a car seat and had New Jersey tags. After watching the car for several minutes, I was thinking about calling the Border Patrol when a man came out of the cow pasture near his car. He explained who he was and that he was taking noise measurements for the wind tower going up at my neighbor’s farm. I said “oh cool” and he gestured towards my house and said something about this place being a problem. I didn’t press him for details and decided to go to the scheduled meeting.
We went to the meeting and I asked a bunch of questions. The project people were well prepared to answer everything. I was sure to tell them I’m not opposed to wind power but if this project is going to disrupt our lives I might have issues with it. I started to get annoyed when the project people kept reminding us that we had to support our poor struggling farmers. The farm near my house that’s hosting one tower has a lawn service there regularly so it seems they’re doing okay.
When somebody said we needed to be neighborly towards these farmers I got irritated. I didn’t think it neighborly to learn agianst wind tower was going to be constructed near my house from the newspaper. I got over the top angry when my farmer neighbor sitting behind us got all huffy and a man from Craftsbury told me I would need a lawyer if I wanted the PSB to hear any concerns we have. I left the meeting pretty upset.
We got a letter yesterday from the wind project guy saying he’ll call to set up a meeting at our house. Sadly, there’s really no point in meeting with him because this project is a done deal. Nothing I say is going tochange that. The truth is that the people with the money will always win. The company with the money to build these towers and the farmers who own valuable land and have politicians on their side will run over little guys like us every time.
Tammi Monfette Poulin
Derby Line
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/09/28/companies-and-politicians-always-run-over-the-little-guy/