Council-citizen
meltdown Ferocious exchange shocks observers
By Denise Duda
Gray--The Town Council held a scheduled workshop beginning
at 6 p.m. on Monday at Stimson Hall that had all the
marks of responsible civic interaction for two hours
and forty minutes. The last five minutes were another
story.
Joining the Council at the table was Town Manager
Mitchell A. Berkowitz and Town Planner Dick Cahill.
(Councilor Richard Hall was absent due to illness.)
The Council continued their assessment of town-wide
proposed zoning changes, reviewed the latest version
of zoning documents, including the wording and uses
of each zone, and proofread and clarified sections
in the draft that reflected proposed changes. Councilors
then weighed the benefits of incentives to businesses
for good road access management and rear parking as
well as issues concerning mobile vendors and duplexes.
Gray citizens Andy Upham and Jean Bibber both found
typos or mistakes and corrections were penciled in.
There was marked progress and positive interchange
between most citizens and the Council, Manager, and
Planner.
Townsperson Mary Miller voiced objections to any zone
changes, saying they were unnecessary at present.
After several interruptions by Ms. Miller, Council
Chair Pam Wilkinson reminded the audience that the
Council would discuss each zone among themselves before
opening it up for citizen comment. There were still
several breaches of this procedure after the Chair
verbally outlined the meeting guidelines.
At 8:40 p.m., the zone examination was finished and
Council identified their next step. They decided to
forward the Village Center zone draft to the Ordinance
Review Committee for the Committee's review. The only
item left on the Council's published agenda was "Other."
Chair Pam Wilkinson stated that Ms. Olson had something
to address.
Ms. Olson brought up a letter from the Fieldstone
Estates developer that had been written to the Council
several months prior. Fieldstone Estates is a proposed
two-phase large scale development in which a zone
change would have to occur for the phase two portion
of the project to move forward. The project is proposed
near the village center, off Yarmouth Road, in the
Rural Residential Agricultural (RRA) zone.
The developer had asked the Council to consider his
request for a change in the RRA zone to permit denser
housing development. Ms. Olson said that now that
the Council had a better sense of what it wanted to
do with the zones in that area, they should address
the developer's zone change request.
Ms. Olson stated that she didn't think that as a Council
they wanted to change the zone requirements, citing
the planned entrance to the development on RT 115,
but that the developer, like anyone else with property
contiguous to another zone, could make a request for
a zone change. She was repeatedly interrupted by Ms.
Miller, who has property near the proposed development.
It was difficult for Ms. Olson to complete her comments
about the contiguous zone idea.
Ms. Miller objected strongly to the Council's placement
of this substantive discussion at the very end of
a long meeting, especially after having the letter
in hand for several months. Abruptly, Ms. Olson rose,
whacked both hands on the table, leaned far forward,
and shouted, "Shut up! Shut up! You are driving
me crazy, woman! I have waited for months to say that!"
Ms. Miller responded in kind, with decibels rising,
harshly shouted words and nasty language crossing
the floor between the Council table from Ms. Olson's
aggressive stance to the now standing Ms. Miller.
They both gesticulated and shouted while Council Chair
Wilkinson addressed Ms. Miller to sit down. The heated
exchange continued. Chair Pam Wilkinson tried again
to reign in Ms. Miller, who demanded that Ms. Wilkinson
address Councilor Olson's behavior.
