Springfield City Council to appeal biomass plant

Date: 9/18/2014

SPRINGFIELD – The City Council is gearing up for another fight to prevent Palmer Renewable Energy’s proposed biomass facility, but who will represent it in that battle remains to be seen.

City Council President Michael Fenton told Reminder Publications after a near-unanimous vote at its Sept. 10 meeting, the council has filed a notice of appeal of the Massachusetts Land Court’s Aug. 14 decision to overturn the Springfield Board of Appeals’ decision and reinstate Palmer Renewable Energy’s building permit for a 35-megawatt wood-burning power plant on Page Boulevard in East Springfield.

However, in order to follow through, the Council is currently looking for an attorney willing to take on the case for free.

“Because the mayor seems intent on allowing this biomass plant, we can’t hire an attorney; therefore we are pursuing the option of finding an attorney who would argue the case pro bono,” Fenton said. “Given the high profile of this situation, I am confident we will be able to find someone.”

This course of action became necessary after Mayor Domenic Sarno issued a public statement in which he said he would not allocate any more city funding for the purpose of curbing Palmer Renewable Energy’s plans to build the facility.

“In a number of meetings with groups on both sides of this ‘green energy’ project, I have consistently stated that if this project passed the stringent federal and state environmental and health requirements, it would be dealt with as a jobs creating and tax revenue generating economic development project, which will provide 200 construction jobs, 50 permanent and well-paying jobs, as well as more than $1 million in local tax revenue. If it did not, the project would not see the light of day,” Sarno said.

“After the project passed all of these stringent requirements I still respected the council’s request and funded a land court case which we now have lost. Based upon the court’s decision my administration will not fund an appeal,” he continued.

Fenton said the council, which voted 11-1 in favor of filing the appeal, was still convinced that the Board of Appeals’ ruling was the correct one and it was their responsibility to continue to pursue legal options to uphold that decision.

“We’re appealing the decision of the Land Court in which the judge said Palmer Renewable Energy was entitled a permit as a matter of right,” he said. “We’re appealing because we still believe the Board of Appeals’ decision was correct. This use requires a special permit and that permit was revoked.”

Councilor at Large Timothy Rooke was the lone detractor on Sept. 10.

Councilor at Large Thomas Ashe was not present.

Sarno also noted in his statement that Michaelann Bewsee, executive director of the citizen’s group ARISE for Social Justice, also recently filed an appeal through Attorney Joseph Berman of Boston-based law firm Looney & Grossman.

“It makes no sense to fund another appeal at the expense of the city taxpayer when there is already one moving forward,” Sarno said.

According to information provided by Looney & Grossman, Berman specializes in “high-stakes disputes, including real estate,” and has argued “dozens of cases” before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial and Appeals courts.

Berman was not immediately reachable for comment.