Brooks Bragdon Town of Cape Vincent addresses BP's Richard Chandler

Town of Cape Vincent ,Town board member and Deputy Supervisor , Brooks Bragdon Addresses BP Project Developer Richard Chandler

Brooks Bragdon : Are you familiar with the town's comprehensive plan,and what that is?

Chandler: I've read the town's comprehensive plan.

Brooks Bragdon: Okay, are you familiar with the fact the Cape Vincent is predominantly an aesthetic community with many views on the St. Lawrence River and Lake?

Chandler: Ah,sure.

Brooks Bragdon: And are you aware that it has many historic preservation properties?

Chandler: I am aware there are historic preservation properties in the town of Cape Vincent?

Brooks Bragdon: Are you aware that the current comprehensive plan, updating the comprehensive plan, is very similar to the prior comprehensive plan?

Chandler: I have not compared the current comprehensive plan to the previous one.

Brooks Bragdon: I just want to assure you, that it is, a great deal of time and effort went into it, but it's based on the prior comprehensive plan. It's based on studies, surveys ,that go back for decades, here in the town. It's not something that was invented recently and it's not something that was in any way altered for current circumstances. The current zoning law was created over a period of months. We estimated the man hours that went into it at about 3500 man-hours. It's very important, that the zoning law does not rest on its own, it is tied into that comprehensive plan. This community is certainly a very aesthetic, world-class community. And also a community that's blessed by tremendous historic preservation resources, and that zoning law, was intended to protect that. Recently ,you spoke with attorney Curtin he said, do you intend to take into account the recent zoning law that we created? Your answer such as I remember it, we read the law, we evaluated it internally within BP and came up with a solution that we consider reasonable.

Now, I want you to look me in the face  and I want you to tell me, are you going to come into our community on the basis of our zoning law or not? If ,you're not going to come into our community on the basis of our zoning law, we are going to have a complete commitment to an adversarial relation. If you're going to come into this community on the basis of our zoning law, I am personally prepared to work with you but I want you to answer it and not in gobbledygook. I want a clear understandable answer.

Chandler:  Can you please repeat the question.

Brooks Bragdon:  Do you intend to come to Cape Vincent within the terms of our zoning law?

Chandler: Again, we have factored in, we have read through the zoning law, we have factored that in, we want to continue to have a dialogue with the town of Cape Vincent and the Town of Lyme, to talk how we can further optimize what we have proposed here, this is by no stretch the final version by any stretch this is for discussion purposes, we like to have your feedback for what it is we are proposing, we have looked at the options that are available to us ,looking at the Article 10 process.

Brooks Bragdon: I see in relationship to the Gulf situation that you stand accused of gross negligence and your corporation is described as having a culture of corporate recklessness . When you were talking earlier about the Article 10 board and the response they gave you I almost had the idea that you were gonna make them tweak it or something like that. It comes back and it says the plan does not adequately address many measures appropriate to a robust public involvement program and that the PSC finds it to be inadequate and so I'm asking you, please cut the bullshit and tell us if you are to work within our zoning law or not.

Chandler: We are committed to working with the town of Cape Vincent and the Town of Lyme, to optimize the project that we have here.

Brooks Bragdon: Okay, that project is in extreme violation of our zoning law,it has nothing to do in our zoning law. I'm not going to try to beat it to death ,I'm just saying ,that has nothing to do with our comprehensive plan, nothing to do with the zoning law…

Hello!!

Chandler:  I'm waiting for questions sir.

Brooks Bragdon: Well do you have a comment?

Chandler: I'm here to talk about the project and answer questions that are available for you to ask, for me to answer.

Brooks Bragdon: Okay , I assume that when you say you have read the law and you got an internal evaluation, you came up with what you consider to be reasonable, from your viewpoint, that's enough ,you don't care about this law and you're just going to try to drive right over the top of it.

Chandler: We absolutely have cared about the interest of the Town of Cape Vincent and Lyme and Jefferson County New York State and we will continue to do so.