The emotional Senate fight lasted an hour, with 50 people from Focus Tamworth watching from the balcony. This group had lobbied senators to repeal a year-old law, SB 458, which passed without the community’s knowledge. That law voided the town’s racetrack ordinance, two months old at the time.
HB 90 would have re-imposed town rules on CMI’s plans for a staggered-start, race-against-the-clock driving facility in Live-Free-or-Die Tamworth, a town still without a zoning ordinance. The project is not a racetrack, though, as defined by current law. It’s a private driving instruction and exhibition facility.
Club Motorsports' former President and CEO, Steve Condodemetraky watched the floor debate and later refused press interviews, referring reporters to his spokesman. But Condodemetraky walked up to Senator Joe Kenney (R-Union), who gave an eloquent speech in favor of HB 90. His constituency includes Tamworth. The two men shook hands and talked cordially. Condodemetraky said he had no hard feelings.
Members of Focus Tamworth promised to appeal CMI’s wetlands and water quality permits. The debate has hinged on local control. Sponsors of HB 90 said the club did an end run around the will of the people, and lawmakers let it happen.
Steve Gaal, a Focus Tamworth leader, said many townspeople feel betrayed by lawmakers and the company. Citizens petitioned the selectmen in late spring 2003 to put a racetrack ordinance in place, he said. A committee of friends and opponents of the track studied the problem that summer. CMI officials went to every session, Gaal said.
After selectmen enacted the proposed rules, CMI threatened to sue over the decibel limits. In response, selectmen took out the 89-decibel limit at trackside and raised it from 66 to 69 decibels at the property line. That change let the volume rise by 30 percent. “CMI was quoted in the press saying they could live with that,” Gaal said.
A few days later, voters rejected zoning, believing their new racetrack rules protected them. Meanwhile, CMI got lawmakers to sponsor SB 458. Tamworth voters ratified the racetrack ordinance by 84 percent the following March. Former governor Craig Benson had signed SB 458 into law a few days earlier.
“CMI filed their environmental permits the day they knew the governor would sign SB 458,” Gaal said. “The day after it took effect, our conservation commission chairman got an anonymous copy of the law.”
Senator Robert Boyce (R-Alton) cosponsored SB 458 and said the proposed club will not be a racetrack. He listened to 20 or 30 BMWs two weeks ago on oval at Loudon.
“I was at the convenience store across the road,” Boyce said. “For a few seconds I could hear one sports car. But the noise from Route 106 was much louder.”
Senator Joe Kenney (R-Union) serves Tamworth and voted for both SB 458 and HB 90. One the one hand, he favors building the track because the former Mt. Whittier ski area nearby has been closed for a long time. Kenney also tried turning SB 458 into a study committee last year, he said. “I was not overly aware of what it would do,” he said. “I take responsibility for that. By May (last year) I knew we’d be right back here talking about it again.”
Kenney read aloud a letter from the three Dalton selectmen, urging lawmakers to pass HB 90. They said the racetrack or defensive driving school in Dalton, Team O’Neil, has faced state enforcement action for filling wetlands, allowing too much runoff, failing to get permits, and possible septic violations.
“SB 458 set a dangerous and unwelcome precedent that impinges on local control in every city and town in this state,” the Dalton officials wrote. “This is particularly true for towns without zoning and special noise and nuisance ordinances, as is the case here in Dalton and in many communities.”
Kenney told the Senate he is not anti-business and not an ally of Focus Tamworth.
“They ran a candidate against me last year,” Kenney said. “The 65 percent vote for a noise ordinance this March is the true indicator of local will. This has been my most difficult vote here in the last 11 years.” Later Kenney said he probably picked off a couple of votes in favor of the bill.
“The legislature refereed a fight that should have gone to Superior Court,” he said. “The new noise ordinance is probably too restrictive.”
Senator John Gallus (R-Berlin) cosponsored SB 458 and said the legislature enacted it last year in an open process. “You’re not going to have 150,000 spectators in Tamworth,” he said. “The Tamworth selectmen have told us they opposed HB 90. That’s local control. They should know what their constituents want.”
CMI spokesman Scott Tranchemontagne said the company is pleased the Senate voted to support a good new business, the new jobs and the tax relief Tamworth will now get.
“We have invested $2 million in this project since SB 458 passed last year,” he said. “To change the rules on us after all that would have sent a chilling message to Club Motorsports and to any other business that wants to come to New Hampshire. HB 90 was, quite simply, a bill from a special interest group trying to kill our project.”
Senator Bob Letourneau (R-Derry) led the opposition to HB 90 as chairman of the Transportation Committee.
“Before we passed SB 458 last year, there were no private driving facilities in New Hampshire,” Letourneau said in his floor speech. “Now they’ve invested $4 million of an eventual $30 million project. The company will create 50 jobs and bring in $350,000 a year in taxes. The whole project will stop, if you will excuse me, in its tracks if this bill passes.”
Senator Carl Johnson (R-Meredith) voted for HB 90 and said the track could still go forward if the bill became law. “What we do here doesn’t just affect Tamworth,” he warned colleagues. “It applies to a lot of other communities.”
Judy Silva, a lobbyist for the Municipal Association, said her agency goofed last year. “We are extremely disappointed,” she said of the recent Senate vote. “Towns have lost local control.”
Eric Dube, a home-schooled Tamworth eighth grader, has watched the adults practice democracy this spring. He heard CMI president Dahmen tell committee members his firm had spent that $2 million. “I don’t think a lot of the testimony was true,” Dube said. “Now it’s $4 million. It’s funny how they spent that additional $2 million in two weeks.”
