Switching Targets

It's a hard thing to accept a loss. But adults suck it up, learn from it and move onto the next item on the agenda, a little wiser and often a little poorer. We getting much poorer suing ourselves over Pennell. In all the talk of appeal, nobody has pointed out the procedural error made by the presiding judge that would warrant judicial review by the Maine Supreme Court. We are all deluded if we think that the MSC will reconsider any substantive matters of the case.

Therefore, let it go and begin negotiations with SAD15. The District doesn't want Pernell and you can bet that Baldacci's new super district will unload it faster than a live hand grenade.

If our collective blood lust is up and we need to tilt at other windmills, I suggest suing the Maine Turnpike Authority. Can you think of any other entity that has done the town more permanent harm than MTA? With no regard to the economic, physical, or cultural damages inflicted upon Gray, MTA has erected a barrier toll solely for the benefit of the L/A industrial parks. We all know that this action alone has created a situation where northbound truck traffic uses Rte 100 to avoid paying the toll...resulting in unusually heavy semi traffic through our downtown increasing congestion, noise, pollution, and erosion of the traditional village character. Despite resounding protests from our townspeople, MTA and its hired guns flatly deny such conditions exists. Kudos to Leo Credit, Chair of the GNGBA, for reviving this grievance and calling a spade a frigging shovel.

Exhibit 2: The Gray Bypass has been a very expensive band aid to an avoidable problem. Anybody who can read a map can readily see that the most direct way to channel Rte 26-bound traffic to and from the Turnpike is via Mayall Road. Rural, relatively flat, and overlying sand and gravel substratum, the Mayall Road option would have been an inexpensive and elegant solution to alleviating the incessant congestion at Exit 63 and dangerous breakdown lane backups on the Turnpike during peak hours. In addition, it would have given New Gloucester a Turnpike exit of its own for its industrial and commercially-zoned lands.

But then again, such a strategy would have undermined the MTA's beloved barrier toll and abrogated promises made by Paul Violette to L/A officials and legislators who would be otherwise unfriendly to maintaining the MTA charter.

DOT has been the unwitting handmaiden through this entire sorry saga. Although we citizens have heaped our ire on DOT representatives, the real culprits have been comfortably and anonymously resting at Riverside Street. Who paid for all of these unnecessary and marginally effective bypass improvements? Who continues to pay for a gridlock traffic condition that has seriously undermines the economic and cultural quality of our historic Village?

Exhibit 3: Little known fact. MTA is currently sealing off all turnarounds that permit emergency vehicles to reverse directions between the northbound and southbound lanes. This is a knee-jerk response to the jerk who caused the rush hour pileup on I-295 in Falmouth back in January.
The media spin is that shutting off these turnrounds protects public safety. Private translation: sealing the turnarounds eliminates MTA's liability exposure. Repercussions: Our fire and rescue units will have travel long distances to access various points of the turnpike as it bisects Gray, increasing response times and delaying rapid patient treatment and fire suppression. Oh, and the extra diesel and on-call costs expended keeping MTA safe from liability will be added to your property tax bill.

Given this mounting stack of evidence what jury would not convict?