Saturday, June 22, 2013

Commission not so supportive

Rutland Herald
June 22,2013
 
Thanks, Tracy, for clarifying your stance regarding the Killington Ski Village (Rutland Herald, June 19). Having been witness to the proceedings regarding the commission’s recommendations to the Act 250 commission and your participation in the regional issues committee and the full commission discussions regarding same, I can confidently state that you are sincere in your support of the ski village and the economic health of the Rutland region.

However, by the same token, I believe other more vociferous (and thus by my estimation, more influential) members of the commission were working towards intractable demands upon SP Land, such as making them responsible for fixing “adverse and unsafe conditions” in the Route 4/100/103 corridor from Killington to routes 89 and 91. That is 133 miles of road and 17 major intersections. That demand, once exposed to the full commission, was removed, thank heavens.

The housing requirement that you allude to was brought up at the last minute without even going through the regional issues committee, with no public or applicant comment allowed before a vote on it in the full committee.

Add to that, after the vote, when public comment was allowed, Chris Bianchi, chairman of the Killington Select Board, stated there was plenty of housing available in Killington already. Never mind the glut of empty homes in the surrounding area.

And to boot, the original recommendation letter (which ended up being rescinded by the RRPC after it was considered by the full committee) was never seen, discussed or approved by the full commission.

There are forces at work behind the scenes within your commission which are trying to sidestep full commission consideration for their own agendas, whether to quash development entirely or to extract every last pound of flesh from the developer.

While I respect your stance and word on your commitment, I cannot accept your stating the same on behalf of the whole commission

VITO RASENAS

Killington

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