Clayton Supervisor questioned

Letter to the editor

From the Thousand Islands Sun

Supervisor questioned

What has happened to public accountability in Clayton?  A letter to the editor was published in the Watertown Daily Times in early April asking this very same question.  Specifically, what is going on with wind power development in Clayton and neighboring towns that is not being shared with the people of the community?

Now, a few weeks later, there is new troubling information that has come to light.  A series of emails have been found that confirm that wind development is happening away from daylight.

Many residents of Clayton had been led to believe that the Horse Creek wind project proposed by Iberdrola Renewables had been placed on indefinite hold and had finally died a natural death.   

When Iberdrola walked away from its proposed wind project in the Town of Hammond, finally having come to the understanding that the project was thoroughly unwelcome by the majority of the community there, many of us assumed that Iberdrola had also come to its senses with regard to the Horse Creek project. We had good reason to assume that because we heard nothing from our town officials to the contrary. We assumed our local officials would keep us informed.  We assumed too much, come to find out.

We learned to our dismay that Iberdrola had formally filed back in December a notice with the Public Service Commission of their intent to proceed under New York’s Article 10 law with the Horse Creek Project. We also learned that this formal notice had been provided at the same time to the Clayton supervisor and planning board chairman.

Strangely, the supervisor never felt it necessary to inform his constituents that he had received such an important notice!  Nor did the supervisor see any need to inform the people that Iberdrola had last year expressed interest to the State in developing a much larger wind project that would include not only Clayton, but also Brownville, Orleans and Lyme.

Have you wondered why Iberdrola has not been publicizing its development plans in the newspaper? Have you wondered why Iberdrola has not considered it worthwhile to come to open meetings of the Clayton Town Council to educate us about their proposals? And have you asked why our local officials are not asking any questions on the record?

Supervisor Taylor has several times made the point that the State’s assumption of ultimate electric generation siting authority under Article 10 has taken the matter out of local hands. He would have you think that he is now really nothing more than a bystander in the process.

Anything but.  We know better and so does he.

A watchful citizen has just helped us add some pieces to the puzzle. A freedom of information request to the town has produced a series of emails, with references to numerous telephone calls and arrangements for face-to-face meetings in those emails, between the Iberdrola business agent for the Horse Creek project and Supervisor Taylor. These emails, of which there are undoubtedly more going back earlier, stretch from October 2012 through April 2013.

These emails clearly show that there has been a steady and frequent exchange going on between Iberdrola and the Clayton town supervisor for an extended period. Both well before Iberdrola filed its initial notice to proceed under Article 10, and since, the chief elected official of the town of Clayton and Iberdrola have been conferring with each other on the legal, procedural and public relations aspects of Iberdrola’s project for our town.

And yet nothing of what our supervisor has learned has been shared with the people!  If it were not for some careful and lucky findings on the part of some citizens we would not even know the little that we know so far.

It is getting very hard to see how the Clayton town supervisor has been open and transparent in this matter with his constituents and fellow local officials.  It is hard to swallow his dismissal of his own influence on the outcome of any wind power proposal because of Article 10.  And now it is impossible to believe that our chief elected representative has been careful to maintain a cautious and arm’s-length relationship with a company that plans an industrial project of monumental proportions for the town.

Time again to ask, “What’s going on here?  Who is working for whom?”

Francis Andre

LaFargeville