Author Archives: George Fergusson

12 May 2013: Clary Lake Dam Fund Update and Information

eyesI’ve received a few questions from people about how, when, and under what circumstances the Clary Lake Dam Fund monies will be spent. I’ll try and clear that up in this posting. First, I’m happy to report that Bill Donovan from over on the west shore of Clary Lake donated $100 to the Dam Fund bringing the balance of the fund to $1402 which is almost 1/3 of the way to our $5000 goal. Have no fear, when we are close to achieving our $5000 goal we will simply raise it; the $5000 goal was just an initial target. Bill’s donation was a good-faith gesture; he and a few other people that have donated money have said they will donate more money when the time comes to actually spend it. Yeah.

The plan is that the dam fund should be used to repair the dam as soon as possible regardless of who happens to own the dam at the time. Our thinking goes that whomever owns it is going to need financial and technical assistance. We’re prepared to offer that assistance. Assuming the Association does NOT own the dam then there are some conditions that must be met to receive our money; the Association will not simply give the money to the dam owner to spend as they see fit. We will discuss the scope of the work and the nature of the repairs as well as the projected costs and if we approve, then we will authorize the work and we will pay the bills. These conditions should not constitute a serious problem for the dam owner; when it comes to repairs we’re open to suggestions and ideas but we must assure that money donated to the Association for repairing the dam is well spent toward that end.

We also anticipate and are willing to help with other unavoidable expenses associated with repairing the dam such as the costs of designing and building a coffer dam between the narrow gauge rail road abutments, State permitting requirements, etc. We have set up a discussion list to talk about these issues and kick around ideas. If anyone is interested in participating in the list, get in touch with me.

As for when all this might happen… I’m sorry to say probably not for a while. Mr. Kelley (perhaps understandably) has not acknowledged our offer to purchase the dam but sadly, he  hasn’t responded to our request for permission to get an engineering assessment done on the dam either though it’s been almost 2 weeks since the letters were sent. This is truly “cut off your nose to spite your face” behavior on Mr. Kelley’s part because he would benefit greatly from a current engineering assessment. Given how far relations between Kelley and the Association have deteriorated, it is extremely unlikely that he will entertain letting the Association get involved in dam repair planning and execution anytime soon. Perhaps as the reality of a DEP enforced water level order approaches, Mr. Kelley will become more willing to negotiate. In the mean time, we plan, we collect money, and we wait.

Perhaps people will remember this article in the Lincoln County News last August:

How soon we forget eh?

Dam Fund Progress: [progressbar url=”https://clarylake.org/data/dam.txt” rounded=”0″ width=”400px” color=”green”]

09 May 2013 Lincoln County News: Whitefield selectmen to look into so-called flowage rights

confused_0Yet another Lincoln County News article in this week’s paper, this one by Dominik Lobkowicz about last Tuesday night’s Whitefield Selectmen’s meeting. Good article. Worth reading. I was at that meeting along with Sue McKeen. We didn’t talk, we just listened. The theme of this post is “Confusion” which is what that thumbnail at left is supposed to represent. The article isn’t online so I scanned it and the photo of Mr. Kelley didn’t come out too well. Sorry.

Whitefield selectmen to look into so-called flowage rights

There’s really nothing confusing about it. At issue is whether anyone in their right mind would want to own a dam without also owning the right to flood upstream property that they don’t own. If you owned a dam without also owning the flowage rights, why you could find yourself being sued by any one of a 108 lake shore property owners (or all of them) for flooding their property without the right to do so. It’s really simple. If you own a dam, you need the flowage rights. And DEP agrees. And so does the AG.

09 May 2013: Clary Lake Dam Repair Fund Update

smiley-face_0With all the doomy and gloomy petition stuff I’ve been posting of late, it is a real pleasure (that’s me smiling at left) to be able to provide this update on the Clary Lake Association fund raising initiative. Don and Lucy Norman of Jefferson stopped by the other day to talk to me about making a donation to the Clary Lake Dam Repair fund. They hoped that by putting some “seed money” in the fund that it would encourage others to contribute. This afternoon, Lucy called to tell me that she had just dropped a check off with our Treasurer, Linda Gallion.

The check was for $1000.

I’m pretty much blown away by the Norman’s donation and wish to publicly thank them for their generosity. I’ve known this was coming for a few days and have been thinking in the back of my mind how I would acknowledge what they’ve done. Finally, I just decided to write this post.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Beverly D’Urbano for her generous donation of $50 to the fund and for being the first person (besides me) to try out our new online PayPal donation processing system! The dam repair fund, which a few days ago stood at $152 is now sitting pretty at $1202.

Make that $1302, Mary Shaw just donated $100 to the Dam fund!

Make that $1402, Bill Donovan just donated $100 to the Dam fund!

Dam Fund Progress: [progressbar url=”https://clarylake.org/data/dam.txt” rounded=”0″ width=”400px” color=”green”]

And….. we’re off! Remember: No amount is too big, or too small. Give Generously, and Give Often 🙂

09 May 2013 Lincoln County News Article: Dam Owner, Petitioner Spar Over Status Of Breach

newspaper-salesman-1flip-customShlomit Auciello has written another excellent article for this week’s Lincoln County News on the ongoing Clary Lake Water Level Petition. The in-depth article covers the matter of Kelley’s recent request for an extension of the deadline for comments and my objection to it and quotes my letter to the DEP objecting to the request almost in it’s entirety. The Clary Lake Water Level Petition story has certainly arrived, it is now entertainment for the masses. People will be clamoring for the next installment 🙂

Here’s a link to the paper’s online version:

LCN: Dam Owner, Petitioner Spar Over Status Of Breach

Here’s a PDF hosted on Google Drive:

Dam Owner, Petitioner Spar Over Status Of Breach

09 May 2013: Petitioner’s Comments on Clary Lake Assessment (minimum flows recommendation)

bam-customI have just submitted my comments on the Clary Lake Assessment (minimum flows recommendation) which was one of the two documents included in the ADDENDUM to the bathymetric survey released by the Department on 09 April 2013. I’m not sure my comments are really worthy of a BAM! thumbnail but it seemed appropriate. This is the 3rd submission this week. A short 3-word summary of my position on the new Clary Lake Assessment: Almost Good Enough:

Petitioner’s Comments on Clary Lake Assessment (minimum flows recommendation)

Here’s the revised Clary Lake Assessment if you want to follow along. The other document in the release were comments by the Maine Emergency Management Agency regarding their hazard classification of Clary Lake dam. I wasn’t going to submit comments on them, but they’ve sure got Paul Kelley’s undies in a bunch so maybe I’ll take advantage of the 30 extension to the comment period and write something up.

08 May 2013: Pleasant Pond Mill requests new hearing

kelley-headshot2Taking advantage of an offer made by the Department when they issued Procedural Order #5 dated March 4 2013, Paul Kelley has requested a new hearing. I only scanned the letter so I don’t have much to say about it now. I will have  more to say later I’m sure. I am assuming that DEP will grant the request since they gave us the option of calling for a new hearing but I suppose it’s always possible that they will decide his request for a new hearing is not justified and deny it. We’ll see. In any case, I guess I’m not surprised he has taken this step.

He also submitted an additional document which seems to be a summary of his objections to the bathymetric survey. Not too sure what to call it so I’ll just use his RE: line

08 May 2013: DEP Grants PPM Request for extension to file comments

The following email just came in from Beth Callahan, project manager for the Clary Lake Water Level Petition. DEP is granting PPM’s request for an extension. So much for the power of positive thinking.

Dear Mr. Kelley,

 The Department has considered your request for an extension of 30 days to reply to review agency comments that were sent to parties on April 9, 2013.  The Department will allow no more than 30 days from today’s date to review and comment on the documentation.  Please submit your comments regarding the review agency documentation no later than June 7, 2013.

On the bright side, it’s only 30 days and it will fly by as have the last 30 days, and the 30 days before that.

08 May 2013: Petitioners Closing Remarks on the Bathymetric Survey

bugsToday is the due date for final comments on the bathymetric survey. I’ve just submitted mine. Not a lot to say about this. As I state in my letter, I stand by my original comments but agree with the Department decision that putting more time and energy into this is not warranted at this time. There are bigger fish to fry.

Petitioners Closing Remarks on the Bathymetric Survey

I have no idea whether Paul Kelley intends to submit additional comments about the survey or not. I wouldn’t be surprised as he can’t really afford to pass up any opportunity to lob another wrench into the works, not that it will do him any good at this point. Kelley’s thrusts at the Department’s midsection are easily deflected it appears. We’ll know by the end of the day if he’s going to take another useless and futile jab at them over this issue.

Next Up: Tomorrow I’ll be submitting Petitioner’s comments on the Clary Lake Assessment (minimum flows recommendation) or perhaps this afternoon if I can finish them up. I assume we’ll hear from DEP soon denying Kelley’s request for an extension to file comments. It would be appropriate I think for them to put off responding to him until about 4:55 pm tomorrow afternoon, leaving him with 5 minutes to submit something. That’s what I would do 🙂

Is everyone happy with me posting documents to Google Drive? It’s a whole lot more convenient for me, my only concern is whether people are having trouble viewing and/or downloading them from time to time. If you are, please let me know.

08 May 2013: Bizarro Web Site Behavior Resolved

613_confusionSome of you may have noticed some odd behavior on the site in the past 24 hours including getting dumped into your profile page when you thought you were going to look at say, water level charts. It turns out that an upgrade of a slightly buggy piece of software turned out to be even more buggy, and what’s worse, the bugs didn’t show up till the next day. Hate when that happens. Anyways, despite the fact that it provided some nice functionality, I’ve uninstalled it. You shouldn’t notice anything different except for the look and feel of the log in, log out, and forgot your password pages.

This is a good time to remind everyone that the site will be down for scheduled maintenance tomorrow morning Thursday, May 9 at 11 AM UTC (7 AM EST). The site will be down for no more than an hour, hopefully. Try not to panic.

07 May 2013: New Water Level Chart finds a home.

Water Level Chart from December 2011 to the Current Date

I’ve  decided this new water level chart will live on the Current Water Level Charts page along with the Year to date chart and the Current Month chart. All 3 charts are updated daily. It’s become a ritual.

This chart has garnered a lot of attention since I first posted it yesterday morning. It had quite an impact on me and apparently on many other people too.

07 May 2013: Petitioner’s Response to PPM request for additional time to comment

haha-transparentI’ve sent my formal response to yesterday’s request by Pleasant Pond Mill LLC for an extension of time to reply to the material released by the Department on 9 April 2013. It was the most enjoyable letter I’ve had the pleasure of writing in months. I suppose I should thank Paul Kelley for the opportunity to put it out there for the world to see just what I think of him and his shenanigans but as much fun as it was, it was a waste of my and everyone else’s valuable time. I don’t take kindly to that. Neither does DEP. I am confident they will tell Paul Kelley what to do with his request for additional time to comment.

Petitioner’s response to PPM request to delay comments

Ironically, Paul Kelley will have to download my response from this web site unless Anthony Buxton is nice enough to forward emails sent to the service list to him, as he is still the official contact for Pleasant Pond Mill LLC.

06 May 2013: Pleasant Pond Mill LLC requests extension of deadline for filing comments

darth_vaderIn yet another letter with more foot notes than actual verbiage, Paul Kelley makes a formal request with the Department for an extension of the time to file comments on the Clary Lake Assessment currently due May 9th. Mr. Kelley seems to be objecting to comments made by Mark Hyland of the Maine Emergency Management Agency that the Agency has no opinion on whether the dam should be breached, whereas Mr. Kelley maintains that the dam is already breached. Mr. Kelley wants to put everything off until June 6th to give Mr. Hyland time to respond to a letter Kelley is supposedly hand-delivering to him today.

Seems like yet another patently obvious attempt by Mr. Kelley to stall, obfuscate, and delay petition processing. I will be drafting a response to Kelley’s request vigorously objecting to it on as many grounds as I can think of, which is a whole lot. Anyways, here’s Kelley’s request:

There were two other documents attached to the email, a copy of the comments from MEMA and copies of emails Kelley previously obtained by FOA request. You’ve probably already seen them but for sake of completeness, here are links to them:

Kelley apparently has figured out how to send email to the Service List directly as opposed to sending them to PretiFlaherty and having them forward his correspondence to the list. I guess my chiding him for that behavior paid off. Congratulations Paul. Now there is no pretense at all that Kelley’s correspondence is being prepared by anyone but Kelley himself.

06 May 2013: A Year and a Half of Water Level Records

I got to wondering what a water level chart showing all the water level data I have collected since the 19th of December 2011 to today would look. The result isn’t pretty:

water_level-small

With the exception of May and June of last year and a few days in March and early April this year, the lake has been lower than -40″ below the top of the dam since I started keeping records. It will take a long time for the wetlands to recover from being “ravaged” to use a term Mr. Kelley seems to like so much.

I’ll update this graph periodically. I haven’t decided where it will live.

05 May 2013: Yet Another Website Banner

Panorama photograph by David Hodsdon taken on his shoreline looking north. One of 2 or 3 pictures he has taken that are now banners on the site.

David Hodsdon sent me a panorama photograph today that he took recently on his shoreline. I’ve turned it into yet another banner on the site. Unfortunately, there are 8-in-header_dh12059-12068_dxo-panorama35 banners on the site and they’re displayed randomly so the chances of any one banner coming up are 1:35 or in other words, slim. I wanted to make sure everyone saw it and knew where it came from. The banner is nice but the original 1920 x 618 image (below) is stunning (there’s a link on the image for the full size version). I’ve uploaded it to User Uploads. Displaying large photographs can be a bit of a challenge on a site with rigidly structured pages.

05 May 2013: Update on Online Donation System now with Membership Signups and Renewals

dollarIt took a little head scratching but I’ve implemented an online Membership Signup and Renewal system. I know I said I wasn’t going to bother with it till later this summer but it turned out to be simpler than I expected, once I grokked the internals of PayPal transactions.

I’ve also added a simple “progress bar” for tracking our progress towards our various Association goals including memberships, and donations to the Clary Lake Dam Repair fund.

Clary Lake Association Goals:
[progressbar url=”https://clarylake.org/data/total.txt” rounded=”0″ width=”400px” color=”green”]

You’ll find this “progress bar” somewhere on the sidebar to the right (currently at the bottom). It’s updated manually, not automatically so it’s not likely to reflect any given membership signup, renewal, or donation. I’ll update it periodically. No promises.

A note on the the Dam Repair Fund: $5000 is simply a goal and not necessarily an accurate estimate of the cost of repairing the dam. We have not yet received word back from Paul Kelley as to whether he’ll let us obtain an engineering assessment of the dam. The assessment would be used to obtain estimates from local contractors for needed repairs. What are you waiting for Paul?

Likewise, the goal of 100 members is an arbitrary number. Helps to have a goal.

Here is a link where you can renew your Association membership or join if you’re not yet a member:
Signup or Renew Your Membership On Line

Needless to say, the old tried-and-true way of signing up for or renewing your membership (printing the membership renewal form and mailing it in) still works. Or just come to the Annual meeting, and bring your check book.

Here’s a page where you can donate to the Association; the current fund raising initiative is the Clary Lake Dam Repair fund:
Donate to the Association

All the above links can be found under the Membership main menu heading.

03 May 2013: Online Donation System Launched

donatePerhaps you’ve noticed the donate button hanging out over on the sidebar. The Clary Lake Association is now set up to accept donations online via PayPal’s secure and convenient online payment processing system. We’re still setting up launch and landing pages and integrating the system into the site, but it’s basically operational. To make a donation, you’ll need to either log in to your PayPal account if you’ve got one, or create one if you don’t. PayPal accounts are FREE and offer many benefits over simple credit card processing sites including a wide variety of member services, dispute resolution, etc. PayPal accounts offer a convenient and secure way to shop on line- or in this case, to donate to a worth cause. So whether you’re signing up for a PayPal account or logging into your existing account, the donation process is painless, fast, and secure. Try it out!

The Clary Lake Association is a Non-Profit Organization so donations are tax deductible. After making a donation, you’ll receive a receipt by email suitable for tax preparation purposes. I’m not sure how small a donation you can make, but when I was setting up and testing things earlier I made a number of $1 donations so I know that amount works 🙂

Eventually we’ll be setting up an subscription system so you can join the Association or renew your Association membership on line, but I don’t see that happening for a while unless I find myself with a lot of free time this summer. You never know. The Fund Raising committee will also be conducting periodic fund raising campaigns and online promotions this year and will be using the same online donation system for their purposes.

02 May 2013 LCN Article: Ownership Questions Face Potential Dam Owners

newspaper_bw-customShlomit Auciello has written an excellent article appearing in this weeks Lincoln County News covering the Whitefield Selectmen’s Informational Meeting held last Tuesday night. The purpose of the meeting was to provide members of the public with information about the petition filed by Pleasant Pond Mill LLC for release from dam ownership, and to answer questions. I’ve already written several posts about the meeting. Here’s the online version of the article:

Ownership Questions Face Potential Dam Owners

One thing this article clears up for me was how Paul Kelley could say at the meeting that he’d not received either Clary Lake Association’s offer on the dam or their request for permission to obtain an engineering assessment on the dam despite both letters having been mailed to his Camden office Monday morning and emailed to his personal email address the same day. Kelley told Ms. Auciello that he does not accept business correspondence at that email address. Oh. I understand. My bad!

A local copy of the article if you want to download a PDF:

Ownership Questions Face Potential Dam Owners

01 May 2013: DEP Response to Comments on the bathymetric survey

The Department has responded to the comments filed by the Petitioners (me) and Pleasant Pond Mill LLC (Paul Kelley):

DEP 5-1-13 Response to comments on the bathymetric survey

In a nutshell: the Department blew us both off. In the case of Paul Kelley’s diatribe about closed records and administrative procedures, such a response was expected. However I am disappointed but not that surprised that the Department chose to ignore my request that they review their model.

Pursuant to Procedural Order #5, parties may provide additional comments on the bathymetric data no later than May 8, 2013.

They also sent along a revised Service List:

Service List 1 May 2013

01 May 2013: Report on the Public Informational Meeting on the PPM petition for release from dam ownership

not-a-crook-customA lot of ground was covered in last night’s 2 hour Whitefield Selectman’s special informational meeting. There were 26 people there not including the Selectmen. Paul Kelley was there. I wasn’t sure if he was going to show up. I’m glad he did. These are the highlights of the meeting from my perspective.

  • The Selectmen prepared a letter yesterday which they sent to Kathy Howatt of the DEP regarding the pending request by Pleasant Pond Mill LLC (PPM) to be released from dam ownership, noting that a request has been filed with the DEP requesting the petition be denied (that would be my letter dated 29 April 2013). The town’s concern is the considerable effort and expense they have to go through to hold a public hearing on the matter and wondering what the DEP might do about it: Town of Whitefield’s 30 April 2013  letter to DEP about the petition.
  • The Selectmen have prepared another letter addressed to Paul Kelley which they signed at last night’s meeting and hand-delivered to him asking him for the cost or price of the dam. Kelley has until 10 May 2013 to respond. At issue is the Town’s need to prepare a warrant for the town meeting and the voters of the town of Whitefield will need to know the cost of the dam. Because of the time required after receiving the information from Kelley, the Selectmen voted to push out the public meeting date to Thursday May 30, 2013. It was going to be May 22nd. Why it is going to take Paul Kelley 10 days to respond to the Town with his asking price for the dam is beyond me.
  • I’ve already written in a previous post about Kathy Howatt’s email to Paul Kelley and how the Department has concluded that Pleasant Pond Mill lacks sufficient right, title, and interest to satisfy the statutory requirements for transferring the dam. It turns out the Office of the Attorney General interprets the statute as I do about- that the flowage rights must be included in the conveyance of the dam. Kelley has until May 13th to supply DEP with the requested information. As I see it, this means he’s either got to transfer the flowage rights back to Pleasant Pond Mill and send DEP a copy of a recorded deed to prove it, or he can pick up his bat and ball and go home. That email was subsequently forwarded to the Town of Whitefield and is now public information: DEP Email to PPM requesting proof of sufficient right, title, and interest.
  • Paul Kelley said one particularly revealing thing while talking about selling the dam: that Art Enos, the mortgage holder “does not want the dam back” and that furthermore, “Art may get the dam back” and that whomever ends up with the dam will likely end up negotiating with Art over the balance of the mortgage. I can just imagine that Art will be  thrilled- THRILLED I say, to hear this. This statement (which I’m sure Paul wishes he hadn’t made) also corroborates what I’ve been saying all along: that if the it looks like he’ll get stuck owning the dam with a water level order on it, he’ll dump the dam back in Art Enos’s lap. Kelley can’t simply sell (or even give away) the dam because he still owes substantial money on it. This is another reason why Kelley has filed this petition under false pretenses: not only does Pleasant Pond Mill LLC not own the flowage rights, he doesn’t have clear title to the dam itself. He doesn’t so much want release from dam ownership as much as he wants relief from the mortgage on the dam. That should be a private matter between him and Art Enos.
  • When asked why he wanted to get rid of the dam, he said Pleasant Pond Mill owns a property with no viable commercial use that is just going to cost money to own and will never make any money.
  • Kelley was asked why he split the property (transferred the flowage rights to Aquafortis). Kelley never did satisfactorily answer this question. At least I didn’t understand what he said. He did say that he was advised to do so by a lawyer as if that some how makes it alright. When talking about flowage rights, he did more to confuse the issue than enlighten anyone, talking about “flow rights” vs “flowage rights” vs “water rights” without actually explaining the difference between them. Clearly and attempt to obfuscate the issue. Flowage rights are fundamentally very simple. I understand them.
  • In another revealing exchange, Ron Rollins came right out and asked (thank you Ron!) point-blank what does Kelley want for the dam?  Again, Kelley did provide a satisfactory answer. Kelley said that Pleasant Pond Mill “does not hold the mortgage” though nobody seemed to care enough to ask who DID hold it (Kelley’s machinations around who’s who and who owns what is tiresome). I asked what the outstanding balance is, Kelley said he does not know how much the outstanding balance on the mortgage is; that nothing has been paid on it for a long time  and that it has been accruing interest for years. FYI, the original (recorded) mortgage deed specifices an amount of $60,000. We don’t know how much (or how little) Kelley has actually paid on it but the implications of what Kelley said about it is that the sum could be considerably more than the original mortgage.
  • Dennis Merrill suggested the town will ask DEP to in effect “stop the clock” on the timing of town public hearing (within 60 days of the filing of the notice of intent i.e., April Fools Day) though it is unclear if DEP has the discretionary authority to make such a ruling.
  • There were the usual direct questions about Aquafortis Associates each followed by Kelley’s evasive (and predictable) dodge-ball tactics of talking at length without saying anything. We all know who Aquafortis Associates is, we have the real estate transfer tax form Kelley filed with the Town of Whitefield when the property was transferred to Aquafortis Associates specifying that no transfer tax due because the transfer was a “Conveyance from one LLC to another with same principals.” Who does this guy think he’s fooling? His continued subterfuge around this subject is painful to watch.
  • Apparently in an attempt to defend himself against allegations that he is somehow responsible for the ecological and environmental disaster taking place on Clary Lake, Kelley asked if anyone was aware of any illegal activity on the part of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC. This statement out of many that Kelley made during the meeting epitomizes the disconnect between Kelley and everyone else: Whatever has happened, he’s done nothing wrong. He’s broken no laws. He’s committed no crimes. Yes the impact of the draw down on Clary Lake is tragic, but it’s not his fault, he’s done nothing wrong. The loss of wildlife habitat is regrettable, but it’s not his fault, he’s done nothing wrong. This man refuses to assume responsibility for the consequences of his actions. That ought to be a crime.

That about wraps up my reporting. When it was all said and done, nothing substantive was accomplished and the Town is left with more questions than answers, but then it was after all just an informational meeting. If I think of anything else of importance I’ll post it. I’m interested in what other people who were there have to say.

30 April 2013: Initial Reaction to Whitefield informational meeting on PPM petition for release from dam ownership

mexicanstandoff-customI’m too tired to report fully on the meeting tonight, and besides, I’ve got to ponder all that went down first and review my copious notes. The meeting lasted 2 solid hours and there were 26 people there including Paul Kelley but not including the 5 Selectmen and the Town Clerk. Shlomit Auciello of the Lincoln County News was there so I anticipate  some coverage of the meeting in this weeks Lincoln County News. Many of the people there were Clary Lake shore owners as you would expect, but not everyone. You don’t have to own property on Clary Lake to care about it. Many thanks to those of you who showed up and participated. I’m sure you’ll agree, it was well worth it.

Before heading for bed I will say that the informational meeting held by the Selectmen of the Town of Whitefield was well attended, well run, highly informative, and very illuminating despite the fact that nothing substantial was finalized, nothing important was decided, no solid facts about the dam such as what Paul Kelley wants for it were to be had, none of the outstanding issues were resolved (such as when will the public notices required by the statute be sent out- that question of mine was ignored). The town is no closer to having a handle on what they’re up against now than they were before the meeting. I attribute most of this “nothing substantive happening” to Paul Kelley’s total inability to answer a simple question with a “Yes” or “No” answer. Paul, for all his talk, actually says very little of substance. He answers questions with questions. He goes around and around an issue without every really hitting it on the head. When you ask one question, he answers another question. That’s because everything is problematic. For example, when Sue McKeen asked if there has ever been an engineering study done of the dam, he launched into an explanation of how back in 2003 when Pleasant Pond Mill LLC bought the mill building and mill pond from the Chase heirs, they hired URS of Portland to do an engineering assessment of the mill building and mill pond, and that such an assessment could be done on the Clary Lake dam too. A better answer to the original question would have been a simple “No.” But nothing is simple for Paul. Everything is problematic.

By the end of the meeting, if Kelley had used the term “problematic” once more I swear I would have jumped out of my seat and throttled myself. Everything is problematic for Paul Kelley. The dam is problematic. Flowage rights are particularly problematic. Property ownership issues are problematic. Moving the red house off the dam? Problematic. Dealing with the DEP? Problematic. Dealing with the town? Problematic. Problematic. Problematic.

At the beginning of the meeting Dennis Merrill talked about an email he received earlier today: Kathy Howatt, DEP Project Manager forwarded to the Whitefield Town Office an email she sent to Paul Kelley yesterday afternoon at 4:57 PM saying that he has until May 13, 2013 to produce evidence of having sufficient right, title, and interest in the dam including the flowage rights or the petition will be return returned. The email includes an opinion from the Office of the Attorney General on the matter of the interpretation of the statute as pertains to “Property Rights Transferred” i.e., they include title to the dam and land under the dam, title to equipment and other personal property normally located at the dam site, flowage rights, and access rights. It was a private communication between Kathy Howatt and Paul Kelley until she sent a copy to the Town of Whitefield. Now I’ve got a copy:

DEP Email to PPM requesting proof of sufficient right, title, and interest

While that email made my day, I’m sure it ruined Paul Kelley’s. It’s a nasty email, the tone isn’t pleasant at all. At least that’s the way I read it. I’m glad it wasn’t sent to me.

More on the meeting tomorrow after I’ve slept on it.