Poland spring: Consultant issues river of criticism

Hot on the heels of a dramatic change in leadership for the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, a consultant hired earlier this year to review Salisbury’s land use administration and permitting process has issued a blistering report stating emphatically that “the system is not working†and that if nothing is done, it “will continue to create conflict and litigation.â€

The report is especially salient given the actions of three P&Z members who voted Dec. 1 to unseat Jon Higgins, who had chaired the commission for 16 years. After initially declining to justify their actions, two of the three wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper doing so last week.

It was a positive letter explaining that “strong differences in philosophy†moved the trio to install Cristin Rich as chairman, Michael Klemens as vice chairman and Dan Dwyer as secretary. And it enunciated several deficiencies also outlined in the Poland Report, the 35-page document issued Dec. 14 by consultant Donald J. Poland of Hartford.

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Unfortunately, the missive came a couple of weeks too late for those interested in openness in government. If the points in the letter had been raised at the meeting on Dec. 1, then it would have engendered a healthy debate in which these philosophical differences could have been aired. Instead, the lack of explanation has sown the seeds of mistrust among Higgins’ many supporters and forced the trio to engage in damage control that could have been avoided with more openness in the first place.

The new leaders of the commission are certainly right about one thing: If the Poland Report is to believed — and I have no reason to doubt it — then the system is badly in need of reform. Whether the commission’s new leadership is comprised of the right people to do so remains to be seen. But some of the observations in Poland’s review are surprising even to this longtime observer of the town.

Of Salisbury’s land use administration, Poland says people tell him “many of the individuals and agencies within the system do not have a firm grasp on their roles and how their roles and responsibilities relate to the overall system.â€

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Having covered Salisbury for almost four years (and other nearby towns on both sides of the New York-Connecticut border), I know that there are always various factions in the business and residential communities who feel the decisions issued by local land use boards can be arbitrary and biased. Even so, I am shocked by the extent of the distrust in Salisbury portrayed in Poland’s report.

There is, among the residents and officials Poland interviewed, “a general perception of impropriety†born of a feeling that certain groups “are in cahoots with each other or are up to no good.â€

Poland goes on: “This theme was so pervasive that at times it appeared that no one trusted anyone. What was interesting about this was that there was not a common trend or single individual or agency that was free of such thoughts or who could escape such accusations.â€

More rockets were fired at the zoning enforcement officer and other officials who are believed to be inadequately trained and consequently exposed the town to costly litigation, such as the Nonkin-Haubrich lakeside fiasco, which inflicted more than $100,000 in legal fees on Salisbury taxpayers.

But most significantly, the Poland Report has laid bare the rift among longtime residents and “wicked weekenders,†as Poland quoted some in town as saying — to say nothing of a “clear divide in philosophy and perspective as to the role of government in its application of land use regulations.â€

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That, in a nutshell, is what the new leadership of the Planning and Zoning Commission will have to deal with. In their own words, enunciated clearly in last week’s letter, the town “needs to do a much better job at balancing private interests with the need to maintain community character.â€

Who could disagree with that? The key question is, “What constitutes an equitable balance?†A step too far in either direction could spell big trouble, given the “general perception of impropriety†that already exists in a deeply divided town.

Lakeville resident Terry Cowgill is a former editor and senior writer at The Lakeville Journal Company. He can be reached at terrycowgill@gmail.com.