5/3/2012
Acciona Energia and Bp have targeted the Town of Cape Vincent, NY with a 140 turbines. Acciona sold their interest to Bp.
Cape Vincent is located on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The majority of the tax base is valuable seasonal property which lies along the shores of the Lake and River.
The Seaway Trail that runs through the town is one of New York State's most bragged about and financially supported scenic byways.
Cape Vincent is still under-developed as a tourist region and has more available vacant land and tourism potential than any single town on the St. Lawrence River.
During the early years of the local industrial wind siting process, the Chairman of the Town of Cape Vincent planning board and another member were listed by the wind developers as having a financial interest in and were being paid by British Petroleum and Acciona.
During the early years of the local siting process by Acciona Energia and British Petroleum, three members (A majority) of the Cape Vincent Town Board were listed by the wind developers as having a financial interest in and were being paid by Bp and Acciona.
As a result of these conflicts of interest and complaints to the New York State Attorney General, the Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo,
launched a formal investigation of certain Town of Cape Vincent public officials and their conduct regarding industrial wind matters.
That AG investigation is still open and no reports have been announced.
The New York State Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is well aware of the corruption complaints in Cape Vincent regarding industrial wind matters. In fact, he was in Watertown, NY when the industrial wind lease holding Cape Vincent town board members
passed an illegal and unconstitutional voter identification law designed to prevent certain Cape Vincent registered residents from voting against them in the election.
At a Jefferson County Community College forum State Assembly Member Kevin Cahill told the audience that one of the reasons for Art. X siting was because some wind targeted towns were corrupted by wind development and at a disadvantage
Cape Vincent was one of them. We were at a disadvantage for many years while wind lease holding public officials were giving away the town in return for their leases and good neighbor agreements.
Through a lot of hard work and effort of the Cape Vincent citizens, we removed the corruption the old fashioned way by hitting the bricks, registering voters and using the election process to eliminate the corruption. But we were left behind in the normal process of progress and the blatant industrial wind corruption prevented us from keeping up with our zoning laws and other development that took advantage of our Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River potential.
Because of nearly ten years of industrial wind conflicts and corruption, the Citizens of Cape Vincent were denied the right to local rule in the matter of developing zoning laws that protect the health and welfare of all the citizens of Cape Vincent. The industrial wind corrupted government blocked every effort to protect town citizens from industrial wind turbine impacts by agreeing with every wish of the industrial wind developers. The corruption allowed local rule to be replaced by corporate rule in industrial wind siting matters.
It is very important that Article X siting boards take into consideration past industrial wind corruption in towns like Cape Vincent before they overrule local zoning.
Furthermore, all siting considerations done under the influence of industrial wind corruption in towns like Cape Vincent should be ruled null and void by the siting boards out of respect for the citizens of the towns who were victims of the corruption.
In fact, it would be unwise to allow industrial wind developers who were attempting to site turbines at the time of the corruption to even apply for siting in those towns.
Richard Charles Wiley, Sr.
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