June 15, 2011

Drilling ban introduced; new zoning not introduced

A lot happened at tonight's Town Board meeting, and I'll need to report much more, but here's a too-quick summary.

The Board introduced an ordinance that would ban natural gas drilling by amending the existing zoning, and scheduled a public hearing on it for July 20th. I suspect that tonight's hour and fifteen minutes of comment will prove considerably shorter than what we hear on the 20th. Once the public hearing is complete, the board can vote on it (though it isn't required).

The new zoning, however, was not introduced. Attorney Perkins is still working on it, and there were a few substantive-sounding questions remaining, if I heard right. The board will also likely incorporate drilling bans into the new zoning, though they didn't discuss that in detail.

There were fewer people there tonight than at the petition presentation in April, maybe 60, of whom about a third seemed to oppose the ban.

More soon.

Posted by simon at June 15, 2011 11:02 PM in ,
Note on photos