Regarding the three-page petition, based on legal advice, Touchette said the board had to accept it. However, he added, the petition doesn't demand a revote of the March 3 town meeting ordinance amendment vote that OK'd the creation of a wind farm district. Essentially, the petition is a proposed land-use ordinance that seeks to ban wind power development in Roxbury as of March 3 until the town can create and adopt zoning and land-use ordinances. It requires planners to regulate wind power development "to minimize its deleterious effects on public health, safety and welfare." ..."We've also been advised to do a revote on the (March 3) ordinance, because there were a few gray areas involved," Touchette said. "We had a public informational meeting instead of a public hearing.

The [land use regulation] commission will decide whether to accept a staff recommendation to reject Maine Mountain Power's proposal to put 30 wind turbines on Black Nubble Mountain and Redington Pond Range in Franklin County. At the same meeting, the commission will also decide whether to accept a staff recommendation to reopen the record to consider a much smaller version of he same project with 18 turbines on Black Nubble only.

The fate of a proposed wind tower project for Roxbury will be at stake at a special town meeting this June. Several citizens pressed the selectmen to have the special town meeting as soon as possible at a selectmen's meeting on May 8. On March 27, the Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury submitted a petition asking for a 180-day moratorium on the wind towers. The selectmen approved the petition on April 11. ...The town meeting will take place on June 17 at 6:30 p.m. at a site to be determined.

MARS HILL, Maine — This year, when Steven and Tammie Fletcher took their traditional New Year’s Eve walk to the top of Mars Hill, the crisp winter stillness mixed with something unfamiliar: the whoosh of the new windmills towering over the northern Maine mountaintop. This is not how it was supposed to be, say the Fletchers and their neighbors on the north side of Mars Hill, where a 28-turbine wind farm, the largest yet built in New England, began operating in December. Residents say that town officials and company representatives repeatedly assured them that the wind farm would be silent. Instead, they say, the windmills have disrupted their mountainside idyll. On days with low cloud cover, when the pulsing, rushing noise is loudest, wind farm neighbors say it can disrupt their sleep and drown out the rushing brook that was once the only sound here. “It changes your whole feeling about being in the woods,” said Tammie Fletcher, whose mountainside house boasts floor-to-ceiling views of the ridge where the windmills now stand.

A second lawsuit — this one brought by neighboring property owners — has been filed at Waldo County Superior Court over the Board of Appeal's March 8 decision on the project...In their action, the Bennetts and Keating claim the appeals board — even though it ultimately supported their view that the project should be denied — erred in a number of findings.

A Canadian energy company plans to apply for a permit to construct a $250 million to $300 million wind farm on two mountains in northern Franklin County, a company official said Tuesday. TransCanada will file an application with Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission within the next 30 days, the company’s project manager, Nick Di Domenico said.

FREEDOM — A plan to put wind turbines on Beaver Ridge is becalmed again. Steve Bennett and his family have appealed the planning board’s approval of the project. In a one page letter, Bangor Attorney Edmond Bearor, who represented the Bennetts throughout the planning board hearing process, listed numerous instances in which Bearor believes the planning board should have rejected the application for lack of evidence. The letter was turned in to the town office on Saturday, the final day the ordinance allowed an appeal to be filed.

FREEDOM — The company that hopes to erect three wind turbines on Beaver Ridge worked on the cheap when it submitted its application to the Planning Board, according to attorney Ed Bearor. “It’s a mystery to me how a $10-$12 million project can be on such a skinflint budget when it comes to getting approval,” said Bearor, who represents Steve Bennett and other property abutters opposed to the project, during Thursday’s appeals board meeting. The board, which is considering overturning the Planning Board’s December decision to approve the project, was still meeting as of 8:30 p.m.

Members of the Board of Appeals asked sharp questions Thursday as they continued to review the wind power project proposed by Competitive Energy Services of Portland. Neighboring landowners have hired Bangor lawyer Edmond Bearor to press their case against the $12 million project, which would site three 400-foot-tall wind turbines atop Beaver Ridge to generate electricity for as many as 2,000 homes. As the board began to discuss the Planning Board’s decision to waive a requirement that CES prepare a storm water management plan, Addison Chase questioned whether the town’s code enforcement officer could adequately oversee construction activities on the site and the discontinued road that leads to it.

Thursday’s board of appeals meeting to discuss the Beaver Ridge wind turbine project was short and sweet. The board, which failed to announce the organizational meeting properly, decided to delay much of the work it had planned to do until it reconvenes at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the town office....... The appeals board will use Tuesday’s meeting set a date for hearing the appeal, determine if it needs legal council throughout the process–an attorney worked with the planning board throughout its deliberation–and to set a time limit for meetings.

Local reaction opposing the Freedom Planning Board’s Dec. 7 decision permitting Competitive Energy Services (CES) to erect three wind turbines on Beaver Ridge has now gelled in the form of an appeal at the local level brought by 27 town residents. A letter from Bangor attorney Ed Bearor received Tuesday at the town office addressed to Addison Chase, chairman of the town board of appeals, lists those appellants, all of whom live or own property within two miles of the proposed project site. Earlier, Bearor was on record as representing just four appellants, Judy Bennett, Steve Bennett, Jason Wade and Erin Bennett-Wade. In another letter from Bearor to the appeals board chairman received Wednesday, the attorney contends the planning board “improperly found, without sufficient supportive evidence in the record, that the project would meet” a variety of standards set down in the town’s recently enacted Commercial Development Review Ordinance. The specific areas of disagreement with the planning board’s permitting decision include noise, stormwater management, avoidance and mitigation of damages to public roads and drainage systems, bonding, and fire suppression. The pending appeal is also based on the planning board’s response to CES’s intention to combine transmission lines and points of connection to the local distribution lines, the Portland-based company’s alleged failure to demonstrate sufficient right title and interest in the area between the end of Sibley Road and the proposed project site and its alleged failure to demonstrate “that the project would not adversely affect the scenic or natural beauty of the area.”

FREEDOM — The board of appeals is set to begin hearing arguments on three proposed wind turbines on Thursday. The first of five scheduled meetings is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the basement of the First Congregational Church. A meeting originally scheduled for Friday has been canceled, said Addison Chase, chairman of the appeals board. Selectmen agreed to hire Waterville attorney Al Stevens to guide the appeals board through its deliberations, Chase said.

KIBBY TOWNSHIP, Maine - A Canadian-based energy company has filed its application with state regulators seeking a zoning change and development permit for 2,900 acres in western Maine to build a $270 million wind farm. TransCanada Corp., based in Calgary, Alberta, is proposing to erect 44 wind turbines on 13.7 miles of ridge line on Kibby Mountain and Kibby Range in Kibby and Skinner townships in northern Franklin County near the Canadian border.

Three environmental organizations agreed to back the proposed Kibby Mountain wind-power project in Franklin County after the developer agreed to pay $500,000 to protect several high-elevation acres in Oxford County. According to a late Tuesday afternoon report, the Appalachian Mountain Club, Maine Audubon and Natural Resources Council of Maine negotiated the deal with TransCanada Maine Wind Development Inc.

After Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan admitted he improperly discussed a pending case with a Land Use Regulation commissioner, Gov. John Baldacci has ordered his cabinet members to undergo refresher training on discussions with regulatory agencies. "They got to be reminded," Baldacci said in an interview Thursday. "Guidance is being provided through the Attorney General's Office and what I have done is direct the counsel, Mike Mahoney, my counsel, to work with the guidance that has been provided with the other commissioners and make sure they all know." Baldacci said several commissioners, including McGowan, have regulatory bodies within their agencies. All cabinet members need to be sure that any contact they have with regulators is within the limits of the process established by the agencies.

A controversial plan to erect an AM radio station on outer Broadway has prompted residents from both sides of Kenduskeag Stream to join forces in an effort to get the city to put a temporary halt on that project and others like it. The idea is to give the city some time to study the appropriateness of towers and turbines planned for the rural residence and agriculture districts.

Many of the landowners whose property abuts the Beaver Ridge windmill project met at the Beaver Ridge Road home of Sally Hadyniak Saturday afternoon to voice some concerns about the windmill project and explain why they want the town to reinstate its commercial development review ordinance. ...[Resident Jeff] Keating explained at Saturday's press conference that he wants to see in writing that the builders of the project, formerly referred to as Competitive Energy Services (CES) but now known as Beaver Ridge Wind LLC, will abide by the standards set forth in the ordinance. Originally, CES had worked with the town while it created the ordinance but, according to the abutters, were ultimately unwilling to make the windmill project meet the ordinance's guidelines, and encouraged the town to get rid of the ordinance after it had been enacted.

Under close questioning by Bangor attorney Edmond Bearor, lawyer for the family of Selectman Steve Bennett, a representative of Competitive Energy Services of Portland was unable to provide definitive answers to several questions about the proposed wind-power project on Beaver Ridge. Bearor attended a Monday, Nov. 20 meeting of the Planning Board to represent the family of Bennett, which owns land abutting the site where CES is proposing to build three, 400-foot wind turbines.

"Let's develop criteria where wind power should go, where it fits," Saviello said. Saviello's bill, LD 1644, would require LURC to review and establish site requirements for wind power. The legislation, which has been sent to the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee and is likely to have a public airing within the next few weeks, calls for a seven-member committee of representatives of all sides of the wind power argument. The committee would precisely define the requirements of "community benefit." Those in favor of the Redington plan believed it would benefit the community, but Saviello's bill calls for the committee to define benefit and community - more than just the township of Redington would have been affected by the project, he said. "We're defining community," Saviello said. "It's not just the unorganized territory; it's the town around it. And what's the benefit? If we're going to shut down a coal plant, show us where." The bill calls for the creation a list of areas in which wind turbines would not be allowed.

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday appointed Planning Board members Barry Bunten, Mark Henry and Randy Orr to the local Planning Commission to address a deficiency in the town's comprehensive plan. With help from John Maloney of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, the commission's job is to create a section on renewable energy.