Town Officials Lament Petition Article’s Passage

ORLEANS – The select board last week came to the defense of the town’s conservation commission, but members said it should have done so sooner during the annual town meeting.

The commission was the subject of a citizen petition article that sought to require that any future wetland regulations endorsed by the panel be first approved through town meeting before going into effect. The petition was brought forward by Town Moderator David Lyttle, who said that while any discussion and votes related to new regulations are done in open session, the commission’s hearings are not widely attended by the public.

“Advertising and holding a public hearing to adopt new regulations flies under the radar of most residents,” Lyttle said in defense of the petition at the May 13 spring session. “They’re usually attended by a couple of local engineers, myself and perhaps one other person, but very few residents.”

The article passed, but the select board on May 22 raised a number of concerns with its passage, among them misinformation that surrounded the article relative to the commission’s role in regulating and protecting wetlands and environmentally sensitive areas in town.

Kevin Galligan of the select board said while the board recommended against the article’s passage ahead of town meeting, the board should have done more to correct misinformation that was presented on town meeting floor.

“They’re our appointed board,” he said of the commission. “We should defend the people that we put in there, because they were accused of a lack of integrity, a lack of transparency.”

As an example, Galligan pointed to comments made by Gerry Mulligan, chair of the town’s zoning board of appeals. He said during discussion of the article at town meeting that regulations set forth by the commission, as well as the zoning board, governing what can and can’t be done on residential properties represent “a partial taking of property rights without compensation.”

“That was inaccurate,” Galligan said of Mulligan’s reference to takings. “Someone should have locked that down and said ‘You should know better.’”

“It was not a good look, and we should have been supporting the conservation commission more strongly,” echoed Select Board chair Michael Herman. “The way they were represented was inappropriate in my opinion.”

The legality of the article is currently being vetted through the state Attorney General’s office, a process that Town Manager Kim Newman said is customary with all citizen petition articles because petition articles are not vetted for their legality ahead of town meeting. A resident can bring a petition for inclusion on a town meeting warrant by securing signatures of support from at least 10 registered voters in town.

“What often can happen is because it hasn’t been vetted, the AG doesn’t uphold it when it goes,” Newman said.

Conservation commission members also spoke in their own defense May 22.

“We were accused of being a zoning body, which we clearly are not,” said Drusy Henson, who chairs the commission. “We were accused of regulating any house you can see from the water, which we do not. So there was a lot of misinformation there that contributed to what I see as the wrong vote on that article.”

Commissioner Judith Bruce said the commission is used to walking the delicate line between protecting the environment and respecting people’s property rights. But she noted that the commission works with a wide range of experts including architects, attorneys, surveyors and engineers in conducting its work. She also said she was bothered by the “misinformation, exaggeration and absolute false statements” she said were made during town meeting.

“We’re not pulling these restrictions out of the air and trying to annoy people,” she said.

Select board and commission members also took issue with the late hour in which the petition article was debated. The May 13 session ran almost five hours, and the petition was the last article to be debated before the meeting adjourned. Many voters had left by the time the petition came up for discussion, and some said that the vote in support of the petition was not fully representative of the town’s support for it.

“I think that exhaustion contributed to the passage,” Galligan said. “I think people are actually having second thoughts about this.”

Nick Athanassiou, chair of the finance committee, said putting discussion of the petition to the end of the warrant “tainted the whole town meeting.”

“Do we really have to have it at number 49?” he said of the article’s position on the 50-article warrant. “Is there a reason why citizen petitions show up at number 49?” Select board members said that petition articles have traditionally been placed at the end of the warrant.

Henson, meanwhile, said a motion could have, and should have been made to table the article given the late hour. Lynn Bruneau of the finance committee said that Lyttle himself was ready to table it, but the question was already called to end debate and bring the article to a vote.

For Mark Mathison of the select board, the petition was a call to the board to be more attentive and responsive to residents’ concerns. Petitions come from people who want to see change but feel that they can’t get it through the board, he said.

“I think we need to recognize the fact that the citizen petitions are coming in because people feel they’re not being heard, and we need to do a better job of perhaps listening and rectifying a situation before it gets to a citizen petition.”

“Let’s just put this out there,” Newman said. “If there’s an issue that people want to talk about that might end up being a petition, just have a conversation with us about whatever it is.”

With that, Newman said there could be room to work with Lyttle to bring a revised article back to voters for consideration in the fall. She said she expects to hear back on the status of the spring petition in the next two to three months, but said it is “likely” that the article will be overturned by the Attorney General.

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com