I’ve been a little concerned lately so today I had a chat with Dave Campo, Town Clerk for the Town of Waterford, to try and get some understanding of the upcoming RTM Meeting in regards to a letter we’ve all seen via social media about the Speedbowl’s compliance with noise ordinances. So if you are like me and don’t really know how the RTM meetings work, here’s some things I picked his brain about this morning.
The most important thing he told me was that this is NOT a public hearing. It is very preliminary within the process. A letter (in essence a formal complaint) will be submitted to the town. The RTM Moderator would then submit it for review by a committee sometime after Monday’s meeting.
Campo stated anyone would be welcome to show support for the track but it’s important to understand that it is NOT a public hearing and if everyone came with hopes to speak to the RTM, it would be unlikely that everyone would get that opportunity on Monday night.
Here’s how it would most likely play out.
- · Public comments would be allowed at the very beginning of the meeting.
- · You do NOT have to be a Waterford town resident to speak
- · The letter in question may not even be read prior to public comments session. (It may be at the discretion of the moderator, but typically it would read during the Correspondence part of the meeting held after Public Comments)
- · The Moderator would have the authority to limit the number of people who can speak on a topic or limit the amount of time each person is allowed to speak
- · There is typically no opportunity for the public to speak after this
The Business part of the meeting would follow the Correspondence segment. The public can not intervene from this point forward in the meeting.
Campo reiterated that this is very preliminary and that NO decision would made on Monday regarding ordinances that would affect the Speedbowl. Where it goes from here however would still be TBD.
The next RTM meeting in Waterford is in April.
If the issue progressed to the point in which a public hearing is necessary, it would be scheduled well in advance, there would be a notice in the paper for when & where it would be held and that would be where everyone could have their voice heard in the matter.
I think it’s important for the Speedbowl community to show their support when these issues come up and would think a contingent of people from the racing community showing up on Monday may be a good thing, but what I took away from my conversation with Campo today is that a public hearing is where that opportunity lies for our voices to be heard.
Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that… but I wouldn’t bet against the Speedbowl community if it did.
Hope this info helped
Stay positive
Sid