Boothbay's selectmen held a special meeting to consider the approval of a warrant for a special town meeting to be held on November 6.

The warrant's two articles are to enact the revised zoning ordinance that has been in the works since 2005. The second article concerns an amendment for wind turbines.

Members of the planning board and board of appeals were also present at the October 1 meeting.

Selectmen Dan Harris, Ross Edwards and Chuck Cunningham voted to approve the warrant.

Selectman Eric Hodgdon voted against believing the two boards should meet and hash out their differences of opinion on wording.

Board of Appeals member Scott Adams said the board disagreed with the word "limited" in section five, 5.4.5.2.4.1: De novo Review, which reads, "A de novo review shall be limited to the application and supporting documentation as they existed at the time of the final decision by the Code Enforcement Officer or the Planning Board, as the case may be…"

Adams said that by definition de novo is not limited and requested that the word be changed to "however" to provide a "bridge" to something else.

The issue surrounding evidence that is brought to the board of appeals, not previously heard by the CEO or the planning board, also remained a hot topic.

The ordinance states that if "…the board of appeals determines that additional evidence is required in order to make a decision or if additional evidence has been presented that the CEO and the planning board should have considered, or that evidence that was taken by the CEO or planning board should not have been admitted, then the board of appeals shall remand the appeal to the CEO or planning board for the purpose of taking or excluding such evidence and reconsidering the original action in light of all the evidence. In remanding a matter, the board of appeals will issue a written statement of the reasons for the remand."

Adams took exception to remanding a case back to the planning board when any new piece of evidence had been heard.

"You are automatically delaying the process with this. The whole point of this was to enable the process to go smoothly from the fuel being fired to the ultimate decision," said Adams.

"If there is evidence that we hear that we don't feel has any bearing, materiality or credibility - then we shouldn't have to remand it because we are not giving it any weight."

Harris said that perhaps it would make sense for the board of appeals to be that "filter."

Ford responded, "If a citizen believes that information he is bringing to the board of appeals is material - so do we. To put in the ordinance that the board of appeals is going to decide whether or not information is material does a couple of things.

"It certainly sets up a predicate for argument between the two boards and it presumes to know what would have changed my mind, or anyone else's mind on the planning board," Ford said.

She suggested that the better thing to do would be to say that anyone that did not attend the original planning board hearing of the case because they "did not hear about it" could not request that the case be re-heard.

"I don't want parallel planning processes to be the case, where if they come to us and don't like our decision, they can get some people to come in. I've seen this happen in other cities, and suddenly the city council chamber was packed and the whole situation is changed. That isn't the role of the board of appeals," said Ford.

Selectman Hodgdon, "I really think both of your boards ought to go over that thing and deal with your issues."

Town Manager John Anderson said that there was no time for that if the new ordinance was to be voted on in November due to legal public notice deadlines.

"If we don't do this now, we have to wait until May," said Anderson.

Selectman Cunningham said his interpretation of the phrasing regarding evidence took care of everyone's concerns - including his own.

"I think the way it is written is awesome," said Cunningham.

Adams replied that he felt it could be "written a lot better."

"Material is material as it pertains to our decision not material in the sense that it has meaning; relevance is another word [in the phrasing]. It may be perfectly true that someone may come in and say, `it is going to block my view' which would probably be a credible statement, but not relative to the standards that the planning board has considered," Adams said.

Cunningham: "Basically then, you [board of appeals] would look at the evidence, decide it wasn't material and would not remand it back to the planning board either way."

After an hour of debate, Edwards made a motion to approve the warrant with the ordinance as written and Harris seconded.

"If we adopt this ordinance as written now, this gives the town a good, orderly process for answering planning questions," said Harris. "We need to improve this process and keep litigations to a minimum and I think that this document does that.

"Anything that happens in this town is going to depend on good will among the boards and agencies of the town," said Harris. "But we are going to have to work together, particularly the planning board and board of appeals, in developing processes that will make the administration of this thing smooth."

Copies of the changes and the revised ordinance are available at the Boothbay Town Office.

Boothbay resident Judy Dorr was present to request that the town deliver a truckload of smooth sand to her property on the Dover Road that had been damaged while the town was repairing culverts.

The drainage ditch was already blocked and the culvert, Dorr said, had not been attended to since 1993.

The extreme overflow of water that was released by the culvert affected Dorr's riding ring for her horses as well.

Dorr said she had previously attempted to contact Anderson, but received no reply and finally had to appear before the selectmen for action.

The selectmen approved Dorr's request for sand to correct the problem.

"I believe that Tony [Goode] was trying to alleviate one crisis and inadvertently created another," said Anderson.

"I would also like to publicly apologize to you Judy for the inconvenience and lack of prompt reply," said Anderson.

"It is all about communication," said Dorr, "I usually do not go about things in this way."