Judge favors arts group
Planning board to reconsider application for study center
The Daily Mail
May 6, 2009

State Supreme Court Judge Joseph C. Teresi has ruled that a Cairo Planning Board decision regarding arts organization free103point9 was “arbitrary and capricious.”

The Planning Board will reconsider the application for the organization’s Wave Farm residential and not-for-profit art study center today at 7 p.m.

“Upon remand the Board shall consider the petitioners’ application in its entirety, including the additional submissions as authorized herein, prior to voting on or issuing a resolution,” Teresi wrote in the decision he handed down April 17.

Free103point9 Executive Director Galen Joseph-Hunter said local residents have offered their support to the station during the ordeal.

“We will continue to pursue every avenue to right the wrong that has occurred over the past 18 months,” she said.

On Feb. 4, 2009, the Planning Board denied the arts organization’s application for the site, which will also include performance space.

The arts organization provided Teresi with an audio recording of the meeting at which the project was discussed.

Teresi stated in the ruling that denial was arbitrary and capricious based on the following facts proved in the record:

  • the station had submitted documentation that the state Department of Health had approved waste disposal plans;
  • the Town Highway Department did not have jurisdiction over a driveway into the property;
  • the Planning Board does not have the authority to deny an application based upon its failures to comply with state Building Code requirements;
  • the organization proposed to obtain a state liquor license for its events;
  • the organization’s site plan showed locations of trash receptacles, the organization would work to prevent patrons from trespassing on neighboring properties and the organization would address the noise level leaving the property;
  • the Planning Board used a consideration that was outside the scope of the Town of Cairo Site Plan Review Law in telling the organization it could have mitigated undesirable impacts with project modifications; and
  • the site plan showed the site is surrounded by forest that will remain substantially undisturbed, which will provide adequate screening of the site.

Teresi ruled that although the record did not disprove that plans for off-street parking were sufficient for large events, “the standard the [Planning] Board used to make its determination was not supported by foundationary evidence of its accuracy, applicability or general acceptability.”

“While the [Planning] Board’s reasoning in this regard is not wholly arbitrary and capricious, the record is not clear that based upon this factor alone the [Planning] Board would have denied petitioners’ site plan application,” the ruling states.

Teresi handed down a similar ruling in January, which stated that a Sept. 3 resolution passed by the Town Board to deny the application had violated the state’s Open Meetings Law.

Free103point9 has been working to create a community-oriented radio station featuring local cultural events, as well as school, hunting and historical programming. The organization will launch an online version of the station May 9 and will begin airing programming on 90.7-FM in 2010.

“We cannot believe the Town of Cairo wouldn’t want a community radio station or an internationally recognized art center and library, and we can’t wait to get the people of Greene and Columbia counties on the air producing their own local radio shows,” Program Director Tom Roe said.