DRB chair resigns already
After a controversial week, he said the workload is not a good fit.
By Chea Waters Evans
Not quite two months into his tenure as chair of the newly formed Development Review Board, Lane Morrison has resigned.
In an email to the Selectboard on Tuesday afternoon, Morrison wrote, “Effective immediately I am resigning from the Development Review Board. The reconfiguration to the DRB process from the ZBA and the Planning Commission adds an extraordinary amount of work based on judging the current applications. I felt fully supported by the office staff but realize this assignment is not a good fit for me. Thank you for your confidence in selecting me to serve as a volunteer.”
Though it’s only met a handful of times, the DRB hasn’t been without its struggles, though Morrison did not cite them as a reason for his departure. During last week’s February 9 meeting, the DRB deliberated on the Donovan-O’Donnell application for a development on the corner of Greenbush Road and Lake Road. The purpose of the deliberation was to reconsider requirements for application approval that had been previously set by the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which is now disbanded and was replaced by the DRB earlier this year.
Prior to the meeting, Morrison had telephoned fellow DRB member Christina Asquith and asked her to recuse herself from the deliberations based on a public letter she had written as a private citizen prior to her appointment to the board. In it, she voiced her opposition to the Donovan-O’Donnell development. Asquith told The Charlotte Bridge that Morrison said he felt that her pre-stated opinion on the project would prevent her from fulfilling her role as an impartial judge in the matter; “I tried to share my points of view on that phone call,” she said, “He brushed them aside.”
Asquith said her opinions as a concerned citizen didn’t necessarily preclude her from fairly considering the matter as a member of the DRB, and that she wasn’t given the opportunity to disclose a potential conflict and then explain why she could still be impartial–a process that is clearly laid out in the DRB’s rules of procedure and conflict of interest policy. Asquith recused herself from the matter via an email to the DRB, saying she was doing so “under pressure from Lane.”
In a text to The Charlotte Bridge, Morrison said, “the DRB followed all local and State regulations without exception. There was extensive process review by staff and attorneys prior to the start of the last several DRB meetings.” Based on information provided to town attorney David Rugh by Selectboard Chair Jim Faulkner, Rugh recommended to Faulkner and Town Administrator Dean Bloch in an email that Asquith recuse herself. Asquith said in an interview that she had not been given access to the town attorney regarding this matter.
After the Feb. 9 meeting, Planning Commission member Kyra Wegman, who was in attendance, emailed Town Planner Larry Lewack as well as all of the members of the Selectboard, the Planning Commission, and the DRB. She expressed concern about the DRB’s 4-0 vote that evening granting a reconsideration of conditions set forth by the Planning Commission last fall during their last deliberation on the Donovan-O’Donnell matter.
“Ideally, this meeting could have been a joint effort between the entire PC and the DRB so that we could have discussed the choices and considerations the PC took in crafting the Donovan conditions,” she wrote. “Instead, I and Bill Stuono sat there listening, given no opportunity to speak on behalf of our work or to correct the record, while the DRB disparaged or dismissed an extremely detailed document as mistaken or incomplete; or claimed wrongly that our conclusions had ‘no findings’; or that we were operating outside our purview…In fact, our choices were not taken lightly, and were made over a collective five hours of meetings.”
Asquith said she would have been the lone dissenting vote in the Donovan-O’Donnell matter at the DRB meeting last week, and that she thought Morrison did not want her voice at the table. “I felt very much that his intent was to have me not be part of this discussion,” she said.
The Selectboard interviews and appoints DRB members; the board is made up of five full members and two alternates. They now have to choose a replacement member and the DRB will elect a new chair; member Charles Russell is currently vice chair.
Editor’s note: Speaking of conflict of interest, here’s a rundown of the potential ones here: Christina Asquith was a founding member of The Charlotte Bridge and former editorial advisor and board member, though she resigned when she joined the DRB. Kyra Wegman is the spouse of Jesse Wegman, who is a founding member of The Charlotte Bridge and a current editorial advisor. The Charlotte Bridge’s proofreader/copy editor, Damaris Herlihy, is married to DRB member JD Herlihy. And, finally, I live across the street from Charles Russell.
The issue that no on sees is Lane, when Peter Briggs tried to put the hop farm in, Lane worked with him to try and stop us. FOIA, clearly showed in his emails that he was pushing his friend Peter, and rigging the select board meeting against us. He is no angel.,