Editor,

How you can expedite a subdivision application in the town of Standish:

Be appointed to the position of town manager and then get your spouse to chair the planning board. After this is done hire a couple of controllable employees to oversee the application process. It is also a good thing if you know someone in the Environmental Protection Department to help move their approval along. After all you do not want to wait a year or so to get this approval which seems to be the case for everyone else.

While the preliminary meetings take place, groom the Vice Chair about the requirements needed to pass your plan. When it is time for final approval you wait for a Planning Board meeting when the seven-member board only has five members present. The Chair must recuse leaving only four members to vote on the subdivision, the minimum needed to approve. Now all those messy ordinance requirements have been circumvented.

Oops, unsure of yourself just want to reconsider your approved plan or not put up a large sum of money for escrow, neglect to see that the plan does not get the necessary signatures so while approved by the Planning Board; it does not get recorded at the Registry of Deeds within the required 14-day period.

If in six months you have got your act together and want to get your new plan revision approved by attaching it to the original plan that expired some months ago, just go back to the Planning Board and get it approved. Maybe with a minor problem of going back to the DEP, but since it still is the same piece of property, no problem here. The problem still remains to get a certified surveyor to sign and seal the plan and calculations. As unreasonable as it may be, the County Registry wants Seals and Signatures on plans before filing. Or are we going to have yet another misstep with this one, where the property got reduced and the number of lots remained the same.

This is how the process appears to me from attending the meetings and watching the broadcast reruns.

William Orr

Standish