Another Town Whipped by Act 250

Two years ago the selectboard of the Town of Lyndon (pop. 5800) realized that town would soon require a new gravel pit, as the current pit was within three or four years of playing out. The town school board also realized that the new Town School needed additional playing fields.

Adjacent to the school's existing playing field was a large town-owned knob which, upon inspection, proved to be a very nice pile of sand and gravel. So, reasoned the selectboard, if we use the knob for our sand and gravel needs, in a few years when it is used up we can significantly expand the playing fields for the school children.

The school board agreed that this was a sound and reasonable plan that should be presented to the voters. At the 1995 town and school meetings the voters, after receiving satisfactory answers about hours of operation, fencing, erosion control, buffer zones, and dust, endorsed the gravel pit plan without audible dissent. The town submitted the required application to the District 7 Environmental (Act 250) Commission.

Last month the town got its answer: No permit, no gravel pit.

Two of the three district commissioners worried about "noise from trucks downshifting, braking or using beepers while reversing" being heard by someone. They also found that the existence of a gravel pit "increases the chances of someone's child gaining entry to the site and suffering a serious injury." They opined that "the gamble is just too risky to take," even though the thought never occurred to any of the hundreds of people at the town meeting, the school meeting, and the selectboard meetings at which the project was unanimously approved.

But the commission rejected the permit mainly because "the proposed gravel pit offends the sensibility of the average person. The project is shocking because it is completely out of character with the surroundings," and - horror of horrors - would actually be seen by human beings for five or six years. Thus the pit will have an undue adverse effect on the aesthetics of the area.

Of course the two commissioners couldn't identify a single "person" whose sensibilities would be shocked by one more gravel pit in town, other than themselves. Nor could they identify anyone who feared that the gravel pit would lure innocent youths to their deaths.

Commissioner Leniy Zenonos, a Barton barber whose work brings him into contact with real people, dissented. Emphasizing the unanimous support of the citizens of the town of Lyndon, he said "I do not agree that we should be substituting our own personal tastes or values for those of the general citizenry."

At this writing the reappointment of Commissioner Zenonos by Gov. Dean has not been announced, and there is good reason for him not to get his hopes up. In March the town filed an appeal of the case to theEnvironmental Board.

As with the Supreme Court's ruling in the school finance case, it is fitting to ask what the citizens of this state can do to keep their towns and their lives from being engulfed and overrun by the smug little preferences of rulegivers appointed by a distant Governor and essentially answerable to no one.

Short of wholesale revision of Act 250 or a major restructuring of local government, there is one worthwhile amendment to Act 250 that would help: no district commissioner can be reappointed to that position unless his reappointment is endorsed by a majority of sitting selectmen in the commission district.

Once the facts of this case became clear to the Northeast Kingdom's 150 or so elected selectmen, that amendment would probably put an end to the despotic regulatory careers of Commissioners Newell and Johnson. And other rampaging Act 250 commissioners all over the state would take quick notice.

April 1997