ROXBURY — Selectmen and a few residents learned Tuesday evening that a wind power developer wants to put three turbines atop North Twin Mountain.
Bob Patton, the principal of Lower Falls Consulting in Falmouth, said the mountain has the potential for a small wind power site. He said a group will go before the Roxbury Planning Board to get a permit to erect a meteorological tower to assess wind resources atop the mountain.
He said the three turbines would be built on North Twin, which is on the south side of Route 120 off Horseshoe Valley Road and northeast of Black Mountain Ski Area in Rumford.
Another man with Patton, John Richardson, introduced himself as a lawyer with Moncure & Barnicle in Topsham. He was a gubernatorial candidate in 2010, commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development between 2007-2009, and served as a Maine legislator for Brunswick between 1998 through 2006.
Richardson is also a member of Native Power LLC, which is helping the Passamaquoddy Tribe build a wind farm in eastern Maine, he said.
Patton is Native Power’s lead technical adviser and a former Northeast development manager for Boston-based wind developer First Wind.
Richardson described the wind turbine proposal as a low-impact project proposed by Horseshoe Valley LLC, a newly-forming group which has four principals, whom he didn’t identify.
When asked, Richardson said Bob Linkletter, a Roxbury landowner and logger, owns the land on which the wind power project would be operating. He said they are trying to create a 3-acre wind project with turbines that would produce between 7.5 to 15 megawatts of energy.
Richardson and Patton said they wanted to introduce themselves to the community and let people know about their project. Both said it is in the very early stages of development.
Chairman John Sutton if they plan to also build turbines in Rumford and Mexico and Ricardson said no.
Toward the end of the board’s meeting and long after Richardson and Patton had left, resident Matthew Patneaude asked Sutton if a resident could petition the town to remove North Twin Mountain from the commercial zone for wind project development.
Sutton said yes.
In other business, selectmen decided to send one final letter to a property owner advising them that the board has decided to tear down a building previously deemed dangerous on the property.
“Just tear it down and haul it off,” Sutton said. “I don’t know as it’s right or not, but we did appropriate money for it.”
He suggested soliciting bids from a couple of local contractors to learn how much it will cost, then knock it down and level the land.
“I just would like to get the building down before it fills in with 3 feet of snow, because the owner never got back to us,” Sutton said.
Selectman Timothy Derouche said he would feel more comfortable sending a certified letter to the property owner advising them that the board will demolish the building on a certain date.
“We’ll probably own it by January,” Sutton said. “The adjoining landowner is worried about the safety of their kids and grandkids as we already declared it unsafe.”
Selectmen also asked Town Clerk Nina Hodgkins to contact Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant to meet with the board at its Nov. 9 meeting with cost proposals for an increased presence at Roxbury Pond. That information is needed for the town budget, which will be voted on in March.
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