3 hours later: Zander’s take on Moreau Planning Board meeting

By Zander Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer

I’m new at covering Planning Board meetings. I find them interesting (though exhausting). You learn a lot, about specific projects, about a community, about aroused citizens and about the challenge these volunteer board members face.

I expected fireworks at the July 18 Moreau Planning Board meeting. The controversial Biochar waste-heating project was on the agenda, but it was the final item, meaning the packed, increasingly irritated crowd, many bearing anti-Biochar signs, would have to sit through three other matters for two hours first.

Really every moment of the three-hour meeting was its own drama.

Moreau Animal Clinic

First came a public hearing on Moreau Animal Clinic seeking to build and relocate to a new facility on the corner of Nolan Road and Route 9.

Initially it seemed straightforward. Dr. Nicholas Outterson’s representatives requested a cheaper option for the traffic study they were asked to provide.

Then several of the project’s neighbors raked it over the coals.

Dr. Outterson stood up from the crowd repeatedly to respond to a laundry list of concerns.

From shrubbery size, to possible traffic jams, to too many parking spaces — it was clear these neighbors just didn’t want the project near them.

One woman took such a long time speaking that the crowd turned on her.

She told the veterinarian, “You’re suggesting that the people in town want to go to your building, I’ve never taken a pet to your business. I don’t know anyone that ever has.”

One onlooker said, “I do!”

Dr. Outterson said Moreau is growing fast; it needs more animal care.

He said, “I’m running [my practice] out of an old house and I can’t attract applicants. They want a nice shiny new hospital. They’re not coming to me. They’re going to Cornerstone down in Clifton Park.”

Dr. Outterson said, “I turn at least 10 people away a day. I get emails, my dog died because we couldn’t get to emergency because we couldn’t get them in that day.”

I found it sad. He was encountering resistance simply for trying to accomplish something.

Most of the people objecting were older. I thought to myself, who will speak up for the future? Where are the young people invested in Moreau 20, 30 years down the road?

The clinic battle put the night in context. Initially, the fierce opposition to Biochar takes you aback. “How can the planning board possibly approve this?”

But after the clinic hearing, I thought. How can anything get done?

The prolonged veterinary clinic interrogation upset members of the crowd.

Visibly frustrated Biochar neighbor Matt Boucher said a time limit was not enforced during this hearing, but was put on them the prior Biochar hearing.

He called out Town Attorney Karla Buettner who he said was shaking her head at him.

Acting Planning Board Chairman John Arnold said Mr. Boucher was correct on the double standard, and apologized.

He said he had not presided over the previous meeting, and was still getting the hang of running meetings.

The next few items passed, with little public input.

Jack Hall Plumbing and Heating was told to provide a more complete application for an office near Mr. Hall’s home.

Wife, husband & Biochar emotions

Finally came Biochar. Planning Board member Ms. Purdue, who has balked at the Biochar plan, read a prepared statement that elicited cheers.

The room was never quite quiet all night, despite Mr. Arnold’s repeated pleas.

Next to me a couple had their own drama — so perfect it seemed scripted.

Both were boiling mad about the Biochar plant. She kept saying over and over again, “How can they do this?!”

He was furious too, but was trying to keep her, and himself, calm.

She would stand up and yell.

He would tell her to sit down.

Then the board would upset him and he’d start muttering.

Over and over again, I watched him battle his own emotions while repeatedly telling his wife “Sit down!”

Finally, after she sat back down for the umpteenth time, she retorted to her husband, “What, they’re going to approve the project because I said something?”

It was too much for him. “I can’t take this anymore!” the man said and he left the room for at least 15 minutes.

She looked at me and shrugged, like “what did I do?”

I asked to take a picture of her sign and told her I was with The Chronicle.

She said “we learned a lot from The Chronicle…we had no idea this was happening!”

In the end, the decision on the Biochar project was delayed 45 days.

The crowd’s ire was directed at different people throughout the night.

Attorney in the spotlight

Certainly, many took issue with Karla Buettner, the Planning Board attorney.

I was frustrated by her too. I’d left three voicemails with Ms. Buettner’s office. She never called back. The only planning board member who responded to any of my inquiries was Ann Purdue.

It was ironic, then, when Ms. Buettner finally introduced the 45 day delay to the Planning Board, the crowd applauded.

“Please don’t clap for me!” she said.

On the one hand, I sympathize with Ms. Buettner. She represents the planning board. And some conflict with the crowd comes from people not understanding board procedures and roles.

But lack of transparency and communication is a problem, too. Moreau taxpayers have a right to ask questions of those who work for their government.

Those protesting are scared a new technology might be toxic.

Even Biochar CEO Ray Apy has said he understands their fear.

If in your capacity working for the town, you don’t take and answer questions, what happens if this plant is approved in what foes see as an opaque process?

All that said, you can’t be on, or represent, the town planning board without an iron constitution. That much is clear.

If the animal clinic elicited so much negative reaction, what doesn’t?

Mr. Arnold, acting chairman, who just recently stepped into a big job in the midst of the Biochar fight, must have known he would become a public enemy.

Noting the council appointed him to the board, he told the crowd, “I’ve never run for office, you wouldn’t vote for me.”

“Not a chance!” someone called out.

Nowadays, everyone’s an activist. Everyone’s a pundit on social media.

But members of the planning board actually do the difficult work. It’s not glamorous. It seems exhausting.

Brad Pitt is never going to get up at the Oscars and thank the Moreau Planning Boards of the world.

But their decisions have real, immediate effects on their community. In the best light, they’re trying to make progress.

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