Portsmouth EDC Chair Rich Talipsky issued a statement today clarifying the context around the presentation on the economic impact of sewers in Island Park that was featured at last night's Town Council meeting. The PEDC’s full presentation is posted on their web site, and also attached below. Talipsky said:

The PEDC in "approving" this presentation to the Town Council has not "endorsed" the concept of sewers. Our reason for the presentation is to present an economic aspect of a sewer plan (with some hypothetical, but realistic scenarios) to create a construct for further study of the issue to ensure all the hearsay and innuendo surrounding this issue is properly analyzed and documented, Per the first and last slides in the presentation:

First Slide states:

• In our opinion the current public debate of the waste water issue affecting the Island Park/Portsmouth Park area is lacking in consideration of some very important financial realities and potentially powerful economic alternatives.
• We are here this evening to engage in this discussion.
• We understand that what we present here will have to be fully studied from a non-economic view and will require the review and concurrence of several other town bodies. But, we felt it critically important to address it to you, the Town Council, at this point.

On the last slide we asked that:

• The Town Council direct the Town Administrator to assemble and lead a team to analyze and report to the Council on the competing economic outcomes and risks for the town and all property owners of Waste Water Management vs. Sewers in the Island Park/Portsmouth area, including
  • The results of substantive discussions on the development of relevant property & participation in a sewer system (in particular the Cardi property).
  • The fiscal impacts and risks to the town.
  • The economic impacts to the citizens of Portsmouth in costs, property valuations, property liquidity and risk.

Large potential development concepts (such as the Cardi scenario used in our presentation) have potential significant impact on the Town and must involve the Town Council, at least for information, in their beginning concept stages. This was part of our reason for presenting it to the Town Council early without a rigorous analysis. It is meant to start a dialogue to engage all the potential stakeholders and eliminate the multiplicity of hearsay and undocumented historical information that has not been formally discussed or has not been discussed in a consolidated forum.

We understand that there may be flaws in our analysis and we welcome any and all comments in a structured process that will result in a compendium of factual data on the issue for future reference.

The PEDC understands that it is not in our charter to examine the non-economic aspects of this issue.

However, we felt it important to provide an economic brief on which to start a comprehensive discussion of an important issue, and ensure that the citizens of Portsmouth are part of an informed decision process, of what may happen to a large Heavy Industrial Zoned parcel in the future

Editorial note: Written from a press release.

They're Baaaaack...

Sometime after 9am this morning, fliers with misinformation about wastewater were illegally placed on mailboxes in the Island Park section of Portsmouth. There is no identification — whoever put these out is obviously too cowardly to identify themselves — but these are three-color printing, clearly not something slapped together.

The "facts" on the other hand...

Click image for PDF

The flier (you can click the image to open a PDF version) tries to scare residents by saying that "918 families in jeopardy of losing their homes" and calling the Lombardo report a "sewer solution" that will cost "$60-80 million." It urges residents to call the "four members of the Voting Block [sic]" comprising Jim Seveney, Mike Buddemeyer, Joe Robicheau, and Keith Hamiltion.

And who's behind this nefarious scheme? "Real Estate Developers want Island Park and Portsmouth Park properties at bargain prices with sewers."

Let's just recap: The work Lombardo is doing is all that stands between Portsmouth and a DEM order FORCING us to sewer, and the approach is to seek all possible variances from DEM to allow individual homeowners to maintain individual septic systems, and only where this is technically impossible due to lot size, to identify alternatives.

Here's the nut graf from the Town web site: "Areas found to be unsuitable for on-site disposal are studied further to determine the optimum method of off-site disposal suitable for the area (generally a cluster system or innovative collective system, or a combination thereof)." You can read all about it on the Portsmouth Wastewater site.

No matter how many times Tailgunner and company stand up at the Council and call this "sewers," that's just not what it is. There are homes in Island Park with lots too small for even a high-tech onsite system. I've been to the Town Planner's office and looked at the map. Even assuming that we can negotiate with DEM to relax their setbacks (distance from basement, property line, etc.) there are still about 70 homeowners who would need some type of combined, off-site system.

Lombardo is the engineer who has been trying to develop these alternatives and defend us from DEM. And the namesless forces of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt want you to lobby the Council to terminate this effort?

Whose side are they on?

Update: On Monday morning, I turned over my copy to the Portsmouth Postmaster, who confirmed that this use of mailboxes is a violation and promised to try to find out who was responsible.