Lyme wind law based on subjective survey

FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2008

To the Editor

The Lyme Town Board recently passed a very restrictive wind zoning law. They claim their restrictions were based on the will of the people as shown by the wind survey. The person who formulated most of the questions and tallied the results has based his findings on very subjective questions and drawn his own conclusions about what the answers meant.

For example, the questions about setbacks from the waterfront or from hamlet and village had the following choices: 1,500 feet, 3,000 feet, 4,500 feet or "not near the water, hamlet or village." At last half the respondents checked "not near." Some people also checked one of the other choices. The individual who tallied these results concluded that all people who checked "not near" meant more than 4,500 feet.[Watertown Times]