Mahackeno Now

Y Downtown filed suit against the Westport Planning and Zoning Commission for approving the Westport Weston Family Y’s plans to build a new facility at Mahackeno. Y Downtown also named the Westport Weston Family Y as a co-defendant.

The suit alleges that the P&Z “acted illegally, arbitrarily and in abuse of the discretion vested in it” when it approved the Family Y’s Mahackeno application. Y Downtown contends that a majority of the P&Z “prejudged the application and were predetermined to grant the application regardless of the substantial evidence presented at the public hearings.”

The Westport Planning and Zoning Commission voted tonight (10/23) to allow the Westport Weston Family Y to build a new facility at its Mahackeno campsite.

The vote, which was 5 to 2, came after commissioners spent more than an hour editing the text of the conditions they imposed on the Family Y. The vote ends more than seven months of debate, including hundreds of hours of public hearings and work sessions. The Family Y’s Mahackeno application was the most scrutinized in the history of the Westport Planning and Zoning Commission.

The P&Z approval is the final in a series of six that began on May 10, 2006, when the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection gave tentative permission to the Westport Weston Family Y to build a waste-water treatment plant at Mahacknno. (Click to read more.)

After more than seven months of debate, the Westport Planning and Zoning Commission is preparing to authorize the construction of a new Westport Weston Family Y facility at Camp Mahackeno. P&Z is scheduled to vote on Thursday, October 23, 2008. (Click to read more in the Westport News.)

P&Z’s approval will be the sixth and final in a series that began in May 2006, when the Department of Environmental Protection gave the Family Y tentative permission to build a waste-water treatment facility at Mahackneo.

But six approvals are not enough for some people. Family Y member Debbie McGinley (shown below admiring the model of Mahackeno) is preparing to sue the Family Y and the Town of Westport - yet again. Last week, Ms. McGinley e-mailed Mahackeno neighbors and asked them to contribute to Y Downtown’s attempt to overturn P&Z’s approval. (Click to read her message.)

Ms. McGinley says, “the new facility will result in environmental harm to our land and waterways, pollution, deforestation, sprawl, excruciating traffic jams and a loss of vibrancy in downtown Westport, as well as increased infrastructure costs…”

Of course Ms. McGinley seems to care little about the increased costs she is forcing upon her fellow Y members. Every time Y Downtown - which Ms. McGinley founded with Indy Goldberg - files a lawsuit, the Westport Weston Family Y has to pay ever-increasing legal fees. Maybe that is why she is looking wistfully at the model.

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On Monday (9/29), Matthew Mandell (RTM District 1) asked his supporters to help pay for yet another lawsuit against the Town of Westport. [Click to read the e-mail message.}

And once again Mr. Mandell used racially charged language to criticize the Westport Weston Family Y’s project at Mahackeno:

This Rodney King type, “canʼt we all get along” rhetoric should have been the case before proposing a 102,000 sqf facility in a residential neighborhood outside of Westportʼs center… But, Iʼm in the more “no justice, no peace” vein.

We all remember that in 1991 Rodney King was beaten by four Los Angeles Police officers. The Los Angles District Attorney charged the four policemen with using excessive force. They were later acquitted by a jury, which included ten whites, and the acquittal sparked the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Many of us may not remember, however, that “no justice, no peace” is a slogan that was first chanted in the streets of Mississippi in 1955, when an all-white jury declared that J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were not guilty. They had been charged with the horrific murder of Emmett Till, an African American who was shot dead before his body was dumped in the Tallahatchie River.

What exactly is Mr. Mandell trying to accomplish by referencing this sordid story? Does he really want Y Downtown and its fellow travelers to take to the streets to protest a P&Z approval of Mahackeno? As they say at Staples High School, “whatever.”

Well, no, this is not a case of “whatever.” Once again Matthew Mandell, who is an elected official, is using racially charged language while speaking to the residents of Westport. If he’s doesn’t learn to bite his tongue, Mr. Mandell may soon find he has a lot in common with another Westport resident: Don Imus.

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Stop looking wistfully at the model! It looks like we’re going to “Make Mahackeno Happen.” The Westport Planning and Zoning Commission is expected to approve the Westport Weston Family Y’s Mahackeno project soon after the Labor Day weekend. (Click to read more on Westport Now.)

The Westport News reported that the P&Z Commission took a straw vote on July 31 and a majority of commissioners agreed that the Family Y’s proposed facility at Mahackeno met all 10 requirements for a special permit. (Click to read article.)

The P&Z staff is preparing a draft approval which they will present to the commissioners on August 14. The commissioners are expected to vote on the approval in early September after they consider questions from the environmental interveners.

Another (and hopefully final) act in the application epic is coming to an end. The Planning and Zoning Commission will soon conclude its hearings on the Westport Weston Family Y’s application to build a new facility at Camp Mahackeno.

I think it is important to remember – as the P&Z process winds to a close – that the Family Y has shown time and time again that Mahackeno poses no threat to the environment.

• In 2006, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection gave tentative approval to build a wastewater facility at Mahackeno.

• In 2006, the Westport Flood and Erosion Control Board approved the Family Y’s application to build at Mahackeno.

• In 2007, the Westport Conservation Commission approved the Family Y’s application to build at Mahackeno.

• In August 2007, Connecticut DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy gave final approval for a wastewater treatment facility at Mahackeno.

The Family Y’s opponents repeatedly challenged all of these approvals, trying to overturn them. In August 2007, the Representative Town Meeting upheld the Westport commissions. The DEP approval was challenged twice and both times it was upheld after an administrative appeal.

Most recently, the Y’s opponents demanded that the DEP clarify how the new Aquifer Protection Area Program regulations would affect the Y’s Mahackeno project. The DEP replied that even though a small portion of Camp Mahackeno is within the Canal Street Well Field, the Y’s proposed new facility would not violate the new Aquifer Protection regulations. (The building will be sufficiently far from the well field.)

As in the past, the DEP’s reply was not good enough for some Y opponents. Edward Lerner – an attorney who represents Arthur Cohen – demanded that the DEP investigate Westport and possibly revoke the town’s authority to implement the Aquifer Protection Program. At the end of May, my former boss, DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy, told Mr. Lerner that, “The Department sees no benefit in considering program revocation and would, in fact, see it as counter productive to achieving our goal of protecting Connecticut’s groundwater resources for use as drinking water supplies.”

As a former employee of the DEP, I am appalled by the attempts to muddy the Family Y’s application that is now before the P&Z. How can you claim to be an environmentalist one month, and the next insist the DEP revoke Westport’s authority to protect our drinking water?

By now, I think it is obvious that there are no “real” environmental reasons to prevent the Family Y from building its project at Mahackneo. And I think it’s clear that those ardent opponents who continue to argue that Mahackeno will damage the environment must have ulterior motives.

That’s why I hope the P&Z ignores all the recent environmental hype and approves the application for the new Family Y at Mahackeno. Doing so will do more for the environment than giving in to those who have hijacked the environmental movement.

The Westport Representative Town Meeting (RTM) on Tuesday (6/3) failed to vote on discontinuing Sunny Lane even though the RTM’s Planning and Zoning Committee urged the entire body to do so. Instead, after a 45-minute discussion of the issue, the RTM voted to adjourn without finishing the agenda for its monthly meeting. (Click to read the article in the Westport News.)

The Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School has noticed that Amy Ancel (RTM District 3) threatened to sue Westport residents Adrian Bowles and Ronald Wimer. (Click to read entry from March.)

The Harvard Citizen Media Law Project opened a file on Ms. Ancel’s threat. Click to read it.

The Westport Weston Family Y on Monday (6/2) withdrew its application to the Planning and Zoning Commission for a special permit to build a new facility at Camp Mahackeno. The Family Y then immediately refiled its application, allowing the clock to be reset.

The Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday was due to close public hearings on the Family Y’s application. However, the Y was unable to get the Town of Westport to abandon a road on Mahackeno before the June 2nd deadline. The Representative Town Meeting is due to debate and vote on the abandonment on Tuesday, June 3rd.

Click to read more on Westport Now.

On Thursday (5/29) the Aquarion Water Company said that the Westport Weston Family Y’s proposed waste water treatment facility at Mahackeno will “not pose a significant risk to the public drinking water supply and would not jeopardize the health of our customers.”

Click to read the letter by Brian Roach, Aquarion’s supervisor of environmental protection.