The state senate has killed a plan supporters say would have restored local oversight to the regulation of private race tracks.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports.
The Senate vote may put an end to a controversial debate that has raged for the better part of a year.
The issue first came up in 2004 after the Legislature passed a bill that reduces towns authority to regulate certain automobile tracks.
The law came in the middle of contentious negotiations between the town of Tamworth and a developer who wanted to build a membership-only race track.
Some in Tamworth believe the company Club Motor Sports International pulled a fast one, by hiring lobbyists to push through a vague bill that allowed the company to bypass local control.
To add fuel to the fire media reports show the developer made political contributions to five senators that sponsored the original bill.
This year, the House overwhelmingly supported House Bill 90, a bill that would have rolled back the clock and returned power to local communities.
Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan supported HB 90.
She says she believes last year's law sends the wrong message.
1:50 I honor this senate, and this legislature, I do not want there to be a perception that businesses can come ot the legislature to do end-runs around localities.
Several Senators framed the debate in terms of how their vote would appear to the public.
Some like Hassan, suggested passing HB 90 would definitively state the Legislature wasn't open for business.
But other Senators like Raymond Republican Jack Barnes were concerned about what business people would think.
Barnes told his colleagues he didn't know which way to vote on the issue until he found out Club Motor Sports has sunk over four million dollars into the project.
3:02 ...to stiff somebody for four million, one hundred thousand dollars, we should be ashamed of ourselves if we do that. b/c if I was a businessman out there, thinking about coming into Raymond, trying to get people to come to Raymond, how in the world do I entice somebody to come in, when we are going to turn around and say the hell with you....3:40 I ask you to think as a businessman having invested all that money. Thank you.
But Republican Senator Joseph Kenney, who represents Tamworth, questioned the business acumen of Club Motor Sports.
T.24
8:30 I respect the developer and how much money he's put into the project. He's provided some jobs in the area. He's provided a lot of hope for the area, but when it comes right down to it, there's been some bad advice that's been shared in the last year...they knew House Bill 90 was coming...that they were going to repeal SB 458. So if you understood that as a developer, and you knew that May of last year, would you have spent 2 million dollars?
But lurking behind the heated words about promoting business and influence peddling was the question of local control.
Often it is the GOP that leaps to the defense of local control.
But what made HB 90 different than other local control debates was that it divided Senate Republicans.
Four Senate Republicans cast votes for HB 90 in the name of local control.
That left 12 who opposed the measure.
But Senator Bob Flanders says it's not because he's against local control.
2:49 I questioned the selectmen, did you have an opportunity to put in warrant articles, did people ask you to put in warrant articles, the answer was no, no, no. so they had their opportunity. Local control is a town meeting. That's what local control is...so we didn't do anything against local control. And I will tell you know, if anything comes in the future that hurts local control, I will support local control.
Senator Kenney, one of the four Republicans who did support HB 90, agrees with Flanders to a point.
Last year's race track law does not erase Tamworth's oversight.
8:59 was total local control lost? No. was partial local control lost? Yes. And I think their belief there was enough local control to regulate this facility. But anytime we erode municipal measures...than we are taking away kind of our characteristics of small town government and the small communities that we live in.
Even with HB 90 dead, Club Motor Sports still must secure a variety of local permits, and work out a noise ordinance.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
