In attendance was Amanda Shaw from the Shafer Law office and Ken Teeter from Resource Associates, both representing Flying J. Citizens from all over town and Jen Molloy from the Cortland Standard. All 7 ZBA board members were there, as is usually the case. Sharon Flint took the minutes.

The meeting started with the reading of the document prepared by ZBA Lawyer Fran Casullo. After the board members read it to themselves Fran Casullo read it out loud. I'll have a copy of it here in a few days. Fran's reading was impressive. It sounded very official and lawyerly. It said in short, that Joe Oliver and the others had standing and that Doug Staley was wrong... again... in his interpretation of the buffer zone and that the town law was clear etc. The manner in which Fran talked seemed to indicate that Shafer was going to sue the town, over this issue ... again... on Flying J's behalf.

You might be asking yourself why they would sue us when they lost the last time and the issues are the same and they will likely lose again. While they might think they will win. What is more likely is this is just a technique to wear down the town and spend our tax money until we give in. Of course if they just read and obey our laws all of this would be behind us. Some lawyers seem to think that laws are just there for you and I. Big companies, who can afford to pay hungry lawyers, don't have to obey them. HEY... Flying J... Think again, you are welcome here if, and only if you obey our laws!

After the reading they voted... 6 yea 1 nay. This is the same vote as last time with one extra 'yea' from Bob who was absent at the last buffer vote. Pretty conclusive that the ZBA is intent on holding up the laws of our town. I wish to personally thank all of the ZBA members for the time and effort they put into this. They serve in this unpaid position to the benefit of us all. I hope the town board takes notice of this and keeps this group together.

After the vote I asked Dan if I could ask what I thought would be a simple question. First some background. Some months back when Joe Oliver first made his appeal Fran Casullo threatened to make Joe pay for the appeal. It was a big story at the time. My question was... Paraphrasing it... 'Now that Joe Oliver has been given standing, and the ZBA has found in his favor. and against Flying J... Will Flying J be charged for the cost of the appeal?' A simple yes or no with a small explanation would have sufficed but what I got was quite different. This question seemed to really tick Fran Casullo off.

Perhaps I should tone that down a bit.

He was frustrated by my question... naw...

He was annoyed by my question... naw...

He was aggravated by my question...

I'm starting to get the impression that Fran may not like me. Oh well... whatever. He dug out his law book and read the law to me, that he says, gives him the right to charge appellants for an appeal. He was pretty intense and I didn't want to aggravate him any more, but I still wanted an answer. I never got a clear one except that you could only charge the loser in England. Guess the answer is no, he won't charge Flying J for the appeal. Maybe the person to charge for this is Doug Staley. He was the one that caused all of this by his erroneous finding. Two times in a row, I might add.

I'll go into this more in the Town Board meeting report. The subject came up there also.

The town board meeting started at 8PM following the ZBA meeting. The first part of the meeting went along quickly. Then the public comment section came up. I'll give a full report later today or tomorrow but the gist of it was this.

I wanted to know how much money would be coming in from Flying J property taxes and sales taxes.

I wanted to know how much extra cost Preble taxpayers would incur when Flying J comes in.

There was a long and heated discussion about why we haven't fired Doug Staley for making these costly mistakes.

There are some very interesting revelations in this area but I need to review the tape before I write it up.