Summary of 03/28/07 CONE Public Hearing

Thanks to all of you who were in attendance last night at the public hearing and to those of you who got up to express comments, questions or concerns. I also want to thank in particular Planning Commission Chair Crossman and all the other PC members for allowing extended time late into the evening so members of the public could speak.

The public hearing got underway at about 9:45 PM and ended at about 11:30 PM. Concerns were brought up about damage to Tiogue Lake, flooding to homes on Little Tiogue Lake, York Dr., West Lake Dr. & Johnson Blvd. near HH School, child safety and the environment. Someone got up and said she had lived on West Lake for over 20 years and had never seen flooding on Johnson Blvd. until last year. The town admitted that they have not enforced their own soil & erosion control ordinance. Someone asked that the town hire a hydro geologist to study the water flow issues for the entire area. Some public documents and photographs were submitted by the public to the Planning Commission for the members’ review. We wish that the Town Engineer or the Town Manager (who has an engineering degree) were at the meeting last night to listen to all testimony and to answer questions. Had it not been for Parent-Teacher conferences scheduled for yesterday there may have been even more people in attendance to provide input to the Planning Commission.

The public hearing on this phase of CONE has been continued until the next PC meeting on April 25th. Hopefully the public hearing will be scheduled for earlier in the evening than it was last night. We look forward to this next meeting; anyone who missed last night should take advantage of this next opportunity.