Some petitioners have aired their frustration with the town’s subdivision ordinance, originally accepted by Paris voters by a small margin in June 2007.

Those petitioners have legitimate concerns about parts of that ordinance, and in December they presented selectmen with a new, alternative, ordinance. However, they worked outside the system, changing the focus from real issues to things that muddy the works: the closing of snowmobile trails to force some snowmobilers to sign the petition for an alternative ordinance; the talk of “taking back our town;” and the most recent ploy by the petitioners’ lawyer – using comments made at a public hearing by a municipal consultant hired by the town to look at the alternative ordinance.

Using the consultant’s counsel for themselves, they rewrote their original alternative ordinance and then submitted it to the selectmen, this time without petition signatures.

Lawyer Dana Hanley has stated that “Paris is out of compliance.” Do the unidentified drafters of this alternative ordinance, and the 221 petition signers, wish to be considered the legitimate body, and to designate the town the illegitimate body?

That would put the process of challenging the existing ordinance and creating a new ordinance in the hands of the petitioners.

Is that the intent, then? To supplant and manipulate a legitimate review process?

I wish the petitioners had been there March 3. They need to explain their case, legitimately, up front, and engage in real dialogue.

Kathleen Richardson, South Paris