Windham is in trouble. Actually I should state real serious trouble. After watching the Feb. 15 Windham Town Council workshop thoroughly cemented that belief in my brain. The two subjects that proved that point to me were the council discussions on the Natural Resources Committee and the discussion on setting a policy and committee for continuing winter maintenance on public easements. The only missing during these discussions was Judy Collins singing “Send in the Clowns” and the bubbles from the Lawrence Welk Show floating in the air or in the absence of anything else, maybe a member of audience doing the same as judges on the Gong Show did by eliminating contestants by hitting the gong.

It is now more obvious than ever to me that special interests are at work on the Windham Town Council. As each week passes special interests come to light that should be investigated by a higher authority. For example, the rezoning of certain parcels of land but not the abutting land around those parcels. This is called spot zoning and is illegal in Maine because it gives special rights to a property owner but not the abutters. I guess it is high time to connect the dots in Windham and see who gets priority and which councilor is connected to the dots. More on that in a later column.

For me the largest abuse of council power is the Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP). When something in the plan meets a councilor’s wants then the plan becomes the absolute power for that. When it doesn’t meet a councilor’s particular needs, then it becomes a guideline and not a regulation. I say that it is high time to open a full discussion on what the plan really is and since it was never approved by the State of Maine, then it is nothing more than what Windham has done for past few decades, a joke.

The CMP calls for the establishment of a Natural Resources Commission (NRC) in Windham composed of Windham residents. It doesn’t call for those residents to be environmental scientists or anything else. Councilor Peter Busque wondered where the experts would come from and spouted off that such a committee would take away property rights. I guess most councilors didn’t read their packet because there was information that members of the NRC should be from a wide spectrum of interests and stakeholder groups. It should have also stated that none would be best buddies of the councilors. Councilor Noel noted the committee members should have some type of expertise to be on the NRC.

I suggest that we, the people, set some standards for the town council itself and the first standard should be that one would not be there for a self-serving reason. Then there was discussion on having the NRC act only when called upon by the town council itself. That was the very reason that the Ethics Commission failed. It waited for something to do because only the council could call it into action. Councilor Tommy Gleason mentioned the fact that if the town had followed the spirit of the CMP, there probably would not have been a need to discuss putting a sewer in North Windham. On page 2-17 of the comp plan it states: “Develop standards that may result in a development moratorium if, based on groundwater quantity data, the supply of groundwater for existing users could be negatively impacted by future development activities.” Bingo! Want to guess if the town followed the comp plan and why the groundwater has been impacted by development in North Windham?

The discussion on Public Easement Advisory Committee was just as disgusting as that of the Natural Resources Commission. This will be another group that is stacked because the membership calls for four out of the five members to be residents of public easements. This is just another example of excluding citizens of Windham on boards which is a good reason why so many either have vacancies or are completely void of members. Of course the charge ends with the typical old statement that this committee shall serve at the pleasure of the council. I prefer that the town council serve at our pleasure instead of their own.

Oh well, that’s what to expect when one lives in a town that probably will be in the top ten list of towns with the most population in Maine when the new census data is released. Wonder how many other of those towns have a part-time town hall like Windham does? A four-day workweek must be nice especially when many weeks become three days of work because of holidays and snow days.

Lane Hiltunen, of Windham, wonders if Dum Dum Pops have become Windham’s candy of choice.