May 24, 2012
Massachusetts

Judge won’t halt turbine lawsuit

By Peggy Aulisio, Editor | www.southcoasttoday.com 24 May 2012

FAIRHAVEN – A Superior Court judge denied a motion by the town and wind turbines’ attorneys to dismiss the lawsuit filed by residents of Fairhaven. Judge Thomas F. McGuire, Jr., issued the decision on May 14.

The judge’s statement referred to an earlier case the attorneys had apparently used as a basis for their motion to dismiss. He said it was not relevant to the issues in the turbine case.

Kenneth Pottel of Windwise, which has been trying to stop the turbines, said he was pleased with the judge’s decision. The turbines are on town-owned land.

The court document lists 21 plaintiffs, but two in the list, Robert Espindola and his wife, dropped out before the April election, before Mr. Espindola was elected to the Board of Selectmen.

The other plaintiffs listed in a footnote to the judge’s opinion are Margarita Bragdon, Susan Powers, Karen Isherwood, Kevin and Joyce Pottel, Grant and Maria Menard, Donna and Kevin McKenna, Christine and Peter Goben, John and Cheryl Methia, Douglas and Paula Jones, James and Sheryl Aguiar, Bradford Robert Peirce and Deborah Gabriel. They are represented by attorney Ann DeNardis.

The defendants include the Town of Fairhaven, former Selectman Michael Silvia and current Selectmen Brian Bowcock and Charles Murphy, Wayne Fostin in his capacity as building commissioner and Fairhaven Wind LLC. (Note: Some names were misspelled in the court’s footnote; those that The Advocate is familiar with have been corrected here.)

Two of the plaintiffs appeared at a Board of Health meeting recently ­— Ms. Isherwood, who said the turbines were aggravating an existing health condition, and Mr. Methia, who said noise from the turbines woke up his son.

For confidentiality reasons, the Board of Health is not releasing the names of people who submit complaints, but it had already received complaints from 14 individuals as of a meeting on May 14.

Chairman Peter DeTerra was unavailable just prior to this week’s deadline and the health agent, Patricia Fowle, was out of the office.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/05/24/judge-wont-halt-turbine-lawsuit/