I am writing in response to Ms. Johannis' April 24 letter to The Valley Breeze, "Don't forget, Valley Alliance lawsuits cost town $26,000." First, I must note that given her concern about cost to the town, I am sure Ms. Johannis must be even more upset over the cost of the countless lawsuits and zoning appeals pursued by the attorney for Dowling Village and Rankin Estates, Michael Kelly. I look forward to her next letter about that.

Here's where we disagree. How on earth does filing lawsuits constitute "a repugnant attempt to discourage civic participation?" We filed our major lawsuit because the Dowling Village project proposed land uses that directly conflicted with our town's own zoning, specifically our Land Use Tables. The developer was pursuing the project as a Land Development Project, which required a Special Use Permit. Our own zoning regulations, section 9.2 (8), say, "All zone and area regulations of the district in which the special-use permit is sought shall apply to such uses... The disregarding of any such condition shall be considered as a violation." We thought that it couldn't be clearer that the zoning land use table prohibited retail under the current zoning. Note that the Superior Court itself said, "plaintiffs may be correct that an LDP is not the same thing as a use..." and "the Zoning Ordinance may not be a model of clarity.."

Ms. Johannis says "Despite the fact that they had the right to file suit, didn't that pose an intimidation threat and a financial burden on all involved?" Ms. Johannis is wrong. There was absolutely no intimidation threat. We didn't file the lawsuit for money. In fact, our lawyer had offered a solution to the other parties that would have reduced any financial burden to the other Land Development Projects. This solution was refused by the town.

Here's where we agree. Ms. Johannis says "...participation needs to be exercised with a certain degree of common sense... civic groups should exercise judgement as to which battles they choose to pursue." We completely agree. We thought that violation of our town's own zoning laws and procedures by the town was a compelling and morally right battle. Note that the Superior Court itself acknowledged we could not have obtained relief from the Zoning Board (although we tried), because the board does not have the authority to find the Zoning Ordinance invalid. In the end, however, the Court concluded that our recourse is "to the Town Council and not to this Court."

Ms. Johannis says that development of our tax base is important. We agree, but Dowling Village is not the way to do this. That is why: 1) we are part of the Branch Village Task Force; 2) we are developing a Buy Local campaign; 3) we fought against Woonsocket's MED zone, which would have cut our own North Smithfield tax base as we lost our small businesses; and 4) we fought to ensure that the Dowling Village developer adequately determine the tax costs to the town caused by Dowling Village (infrastructure costs: police, fire, etc., along with the tax losses to our small businesses). By the way, the developer's latest fiscal study has recently been seriously criticized by the town's own peer review as inadequate.

We both agree that conservation of our environment and natural resources is important. Since the Planning Board had not conducted any independent studies of the environmental and traffic issues of the proposed Dowling Village, despite a request from the Town Council to do so, the Valley Alliance had to do it. If Ms. Johannis thinks we owe the town $26,000 for the lawsuits, we think the town should reimburse us for the $46,000 that we paid for the independent studies.

Caroly Shumway

Chairperson, Valley Alliance for Smart Growth