Well, we’ve come a long way. Thanks to everyone who has helped.

Check out the latest & greatest:

In an upcoming Wayne Town Council meeting, the Wayne Town Council will vote whether to repeal the ordinance that bans wind turbines from Town and replace it with a new, more permissive ordinance.

My previously rejected application for a wind turbine fully complies with the new ordinance. This of course is great news — if adopted, we’ve changed the rules, and we get our wind turbine.

Unfortunately, unless we do more, the rules will still be unfairly restrictive. Although, we would get our wind turbine at Wayne Auto Spa, in all likelihood that’s the only one you’ll ever see in Wayne. And the application process would likely continue to be almost as horrific as what I have been through.

In many respects, the new ordinance is akin to allowing solar panels, but only if they are installed in a perpetually shaded location. Not much point to that, is there?

However, let’s keep things in perspective: We’ve made enormous progress and we have great momentum.

Now is the time for a big push — but this time, in Trenton.

Since the new ordinance only goes far enough to get rid of certain claims in my litigation, and not a whole lot further, I continue to have real concerns about it and more importantly, about how these issues are dealt with at the local government level.

Happily, I expressed those concerns in Trenton, when I testified before the Assembly Telecommunications & Utilities Committtee on Bill A-3062, which would make wind turbines and solar panels “inherently beneficial” for municipal land use purposes in New Jersey.

Assembly Bill A 3062 was voted out of committee and has been referred to the Assembly Housing & Local Government Committee. The companion bill in th Senate, S 1303, was passed by the Senate by a margin of 37 to 1.

Though this Bill will make it much easier to get a variance for renewable technologies, it does not go far enough to address the real concern: namely, the absence of a fixed set of rules that if complied with, anyone in the state could install a wind turbine or another kind of renewable energy technology, like solar panels.

Gov. Corzine is expected to sign it into law when it hits his desk.

That’s all good.

But we need another Bill that makes the rules clear and defined. New Hampshire already did exactly this. No reason why New Jersey can’t.

Please take five minutes of your time and send the following three lawmakers a note, maybe something like:

“Dear _____,

I support a comprehensive legislative solution that makes one set of wind turbine rules for everyone in the State to follow. Without these rules, I will not pursue this technology for fear of a pointless, time consuming and expensive journey to my local land use board.

Allow me to make a difference and adopt a new law to solve this important problem.”

That would be awesome. It doesn’t matter if you don’t live in NJ — send the email anyway. It takes just a minute and there’s no downside. Show the pols people are watching. And forward this to anyone & everyone and post it wherever you can online — its time to build momentum with an email campaign.

Please copy me at robert.w.burke@gmail.com if you do send the emails.

These are the NJ lawmakers who can make this happen:

Sen. Bob Smith, Environment Committee Chair: senbsmith@njleg.org
Assemblyman Upendra Chivikula, Chair, Telecommunications & Environment Committee: AsmChivukula@njleg.org
Assemblyman John McKeon, Chair, Environment & Solid Waste Committee, AsmMcKeon@njleg.org

Thanks everyone.

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