Elected town officials of Orangeville, at a special Town Board meeting Sept. 23, set aside the health, safety and welfare of the people of Orangeville, in deference to some of their own personal financial agendas in matters pertaining to zoning laws when they pushed through a proposed resolution for wind energy.

Health and safety recommendations from the Wyoming County Planning Board, and the engineering firm Wendel-Duscherer (which the town specifically hired to advise them at the cost of thousands of dollars to the Orangeville taxpayers) were then blatantly ignored, as were all documented information of Orangeville taxpayers and Clear Skies Over Orangeville's (CSOO) citizen preservation group as well as documented information from environmental lawyer Gary Abraham who represents CSOO. That 181 non-residents and a multi-billion dollar corporation's opinions took precedence over Orangeville taxpayers was crystal clear.

Orangeville Supervisor Susan May, councilmen Andrew Flint, James Herman and Hans Boxler Jr. voted unanimously for 700-foot setbacks of mammoth 450-foot industrial turbines from Orangeville taxpayers' property lines (500 feet from public roads), leaving no doubt that there was little regard for the health, safety and welfare of the people who voted them into office. Town Councilman Thomas Schabloski serves to gain financially from leases with Invenergy. Hans Boxler Jr. currently leases land to Invenergy and has several turbines on land owned by Boxler Dairy Corp. with the same company, Invenergy, that is seeking to expand their project into Orangeville.

Town Councilman Jim Herman has received monies from real estate dealings with Noble Wind for the building of an electrical switchyard in Orangeville. Orangeville has received no money for having this project built in the town. No one from the Town Board was present at hearing.

Noble is the company in which 47 Wyoming County landowners who leased land to the turbine companies including Boxler and McCormick farms ended up with liens on their properties earlier this year.

Documents were provided to the Town Board of distances other towns had indicated were necessary for mitigating the noise issue and guaranteeing peoples' safety.

This list includes among others: Town of Alleghany (Cattaraugus County) -- 2,500 feet from a residential home; Bennington -- no closer than four times the height of a turbine, or approximately 2,000 feet; Town of Richmond (Ontario County) - 2,500 feet; nearby Canada, Province of Ontario -- 1,804 feet from residence; nearby Potter County, Pa. -- 2,900 feet from property lines; Wales, N.Y. -- 2,000 feet; Lackawanna, N.Y. -- 2,000 feet.

Other New York towns have found no setbacks could be sufficient to protect residents and have therefore banned industrial wind turbines. In New York, Stafford, Castile, Gainesville, Warsaw, Le Roy, Bethany, Bovina (Delaware County), Brandon (Franklin County) and Malone have all banned them.

Consider this: Clear Skies commissioned an engineering firm to draw up a map to scale of Orangeville properties and found that turbines do not fit in Orangeville at safe distances from property lines and residences.

Noise levels measured in decibels in a quiet countryside such as Orangevillle measure approximately 25 decibels. Invenergy's push for 50 decibels is considered by DEC guidelines as extremely annoying to intolerable. At an increase of 6 decibels, sound levels double!

Noise levels measured by professional sound acoustic expert Rick James from Michigan, inside homes in nearby Sheldon have been measured 71 decibels. This was made public at a recent Sheldon town meetings by a Sheldon resident.

The zoning law states 50 decibels from property lines. There is no provision made for noise inside a house, therefore the resident is left to his own devices or lawsuits against the corporation. Unfortunately the Town Board has no power to do anything to help these taxpayers and complaints made to Invenergy have brought these residents who are having noise issues no relief, according to several Sheldon residents.

Town of Orangeville, it's time to put an end to government behind closed doors. The Constitution guarantees free speech, although there is very little of that in Orangeville. Say "No!" to the unlawful squandering of our God-given natural resources! Stand up for Orangeville and stop the incumbents from sacrificing our lives, health, safety and welfare. It is not too late to take our countryside and quality of life back! Remember: If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got!