May high court leave turbine ruling alone
Cape Cod Times | Mar. 27, 2015 | www.capecodonline.com
Despite neighbor complaints, consensus failures, exceeded noise caps, nuisance violations and even the town suing its own zoning board, Falmouth’s turbine troubles might be moving closer to closure. The crucible of the past five years has been laid in the lap of the state’s Supreme Judicial Court.
The justices will weigh Town Hall’s assertion of an all-empowering municipal bylaw governing the interpretation of the zoning code and all of its bylaws as a whole. The key question is whether a single bylaw that affords totalitarian municipal power should render meaningless other related pieces, parts and portions of zoning code and bylaws.
Of course, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court may choose not to review this case at all. It could simply defer to the recent appellate court ruling where it was found that the town of Falmouth’s interpretation wrong, and that the town was not exempt from its own windmill bylaw.
This decision not to review would be the better for all. Falmouth then might finally begin a new course as a community and start fixing this unfortunate folly and move on.
Mark Cool
Falmouth
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/03/27/may-high-court-leave-turbine-ruling-alone/