At the April 14 Board of Selectmen's meeting, Town Manager Rob Yandow shared information regarding the Maine Turnpike Authority's response to the local uprising that has met plans to take homes and family lands here in York. The response from the MTA recommended that a citizens' group be formed to improve communication between the town and the authority, after which the original timeline essentially continues, culminating in an August submission to the Army Corps of Engineers which identifies the site which represents "the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative."
We are not impressed.
Selectman Dwight Bardwell aptly described the MTA's dog and pony show proposal as demonstrating an attitude that says to York, "We're just going to go through the motions because you guys are yelling a lot, but in the end we already know what we're going to do."
And this is the thing that the MTA is not hearing. They are assuming that at the end of the day they will still choose one of these proposed sites in York. Meanwhile, every man, woman and child in York is saying that none of those choices are acceptable and the MTA should go back to the drawing board and put the humans back in the equation before they do anything else.
Or as State Rep. Windol Weaver put it, "apply pressure on the MTA to treat the human habitat the same way we treat the habitat of our furry, scaly, shelled and slimy friends."
Additionally, we share Weaver's concern that "the MTA wants to make this decision in three months when lawmakers are out of session, thus robbing us of any way to respond from August."
Funny coincidence, that.
Citizens, we are being fed lines here, and we all know it. Perhaps at some point in this process the MTA will begin understanding that we actually do recognize what is going on, and we are having none of it. One thing is certain, the longer the MTA ignores the level of their disconnect, the greater the explosion that will occur when their plans ultimately collide with the unified force that is building here in York.
