Has all common courtesy left the Otisfield Planning Board?

Wednesday’s meeting of that board seems to indicate it has: Abutters of a proposed cell-tower site were not permitted to speak. At all.

The Planning Board has no legal obligation to entertain public comment during its regular business meetings. But this wasn’t a regular meeting. This was a court-ordered fact-finding meeting to review an application for a building permit to construct a 180-foot-high U.S. Cellular telecommunications tower on Scribner Hill.

The municipal ordinance requires that the board gather facts on how the proposed tower affects scenic and historic resources, and many other things, right down to documenting the color of the tower’s finished landscaping. That’s a lot of detail, and it’s not a stretch to consider that if greenery is important, then so is input from abutters.

The Otisfield Planning Board didn’t consider public input during the initial permit process and, apparently, has no interest in considering input now.

In other words, what the residents of this town might have to say about this project just doesn’t matter.

That’s wrong.

In January, members of this board approved a building permit for the cell tower and the code enforcement officer issued a building permit.

A group of Scribner Hill Road residents filed suit in July, seeking dismissal of the permit, because abutters had not been allowed to provide input during the permit application process. Some were not even notified of the proposal.

Last month, the Oxford County Superior Court ordered the Otisfield Planning Board to restart the permitting process and develop and document “findings of fact and conclusions of law” — something it failed to do during the building permit process.

That order seems very clear about what is required. It’s a “do-over” order by the court because town officials didn’t follow the correct process. Based on the board’s refusal to take comments from abutters at its meeting Wednesday, the town seems intent on ignoring the process a second time.

That’s a curious stand to take, given that the court has retained jurisdiction over this case and the town will return to court for a ruling on the thoroughness of its fact-finding process before the permit can be issued. Doesn’t it make sense for the Planning Board to be as thorough as possible to encourage the court’s favorable ruling? To prove that it has done its due diligence in developing findings of fact?

It sure does.

Common sense dictates that basic fact-finding includes hearing what abutters have to say. That’s all the Friends of Scribner Hill wanted and, it seems, that’s also what the court wants.

These abutters are not asking that the project be stopped, just that the facts they have ready to present are heard. The permitting process for telecommunications tower projects is a brand-new process in Otisfield, and the town made mistakes in issuing the permit, which it has acknowledged. That alone is justification to hear from abutters as a basic courtesy.

We have no idea whether Scribner Hill — a scenic spot just east of Thompson Lake — is an appropriate place to build a cell tower. We do know, however, that residents of Scribner Hill Road must be heard and the Planning Board has an absolute obligation, as part of the court-ordered fact-finding process, to hear them out.

Without making that effort, there is little compelling reason for the court to uphold the permit, which U.S. Cellular seems to recognize.

The company recently returned the building permit so as not to “muddy the waters.”

Too late. The situation is already muddy.

The Planning Board has an obligation to everyone in Otisfield clear it up.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.