Paradise's anti-sewer group scores win with board selections

There have been, perhaps, bigger victories in the history of homo sapiens on planet Earth.

David took on and whupped Goliath. The 1969 Mets won the World Series.

Truman beat Dewey (not the Dewey on the Paradise Sewer Board).

The 300 Spartans outfought a horde of Persians in a gallant battle of defiance.

And, in this neck of the woods, the citizens of Paradise out-battled the combined forces of Sanders County government and a large engineering firm to turn back a sewer construction project two-thirds of the residents did not cotton to.

Hope springs eternal. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Start printing those "Don’t Mess with Paradise" T-shirts and hats.

This past Thursday evening, in a vocal display of peaceful civil disobedience, the anti-sewer forces of Paradise scored a major victory in their campaign to stop the proposed $4.5 million (in 2021 prices) project that had been backed by former Sanders County Commissioner Carol Brooker, and driven by regional civil engineering giant Great West Engineering.

After a week-long battle that increasingly took on the tone and look of a fight to the finish, the Paradise Sewer Board put an end to the one-woman battle staged by now officially ousted former board member Janet Barber.

Barber had submitted, then rescinded her official resignation to the board last month, and again this month.

She refused to vacate her seat at the PSB table, claiming the board never officially accepted her resignation. Along the way, she launched a profanity-laden tirade against board members Terry Caldwell and Dewey Arnold as she stormed out of one meeting, only to appear seated at the table for the next meeting.

This past Thursday night, before a full-house crowd at the Paradise Center auditorium, the board was ready to put an end to the who’s on the board and who is not controversy.

“If I am elected new president”, said current PSB member Janie McFadden, “we will get on with the business of this board”.

Just a short while ago, McFadden had emerged, along with fellow Brooker-appointee Don Stamm, as vocal and steadfast supporters of the sewer project, which was proposed by local land owner Bridger Bischoff, who wanted to build up to 40 residential units on a piece of land he owns on the northern edge of the unincorporated hamlet.

But Thursday night, McFadden had switched to a more pro-citizens stance, and with Barber looking on from the back of the auditorium, cast her vote along with the majority of the other members to officially accept the Barber resignation.

The board then cast a 4-0 vote to elect McFadden as president, in the process officially returning Barber to ordinary citizen status and launching PSB 2.0 as time ticked away against the remaining grant money that had been secured for the project.

The $4.5 million price tag and lack of public involvement set the anti-project forces into action more than two years ago, led by Paradise resident Lee Ann Overman, who said at a meeting in the early stages of the rebellion that she “usually likes a kiss before being bent over”.

Pucker up lady, you and your movement have won the battle, if not the war.

With the new board in place and apparently functioning as well as possible despite a slurry of comments and protests from Stamm that Robert’s Rules of Order meant the Barber-ouster issue was “not a done deal,” the PSB moved forward with filling the vacancy left by the vote to officially boot Barber off the panel.

In the process, they accepted the application of local resident Cody Lampman to become a PSB member, bringing the board back to full operating strength and creating a seemingly solid 4-1 block against the project as it currently stands.

Where that might be, is subject to debate, although most agree the lack of transparency related rules violations by the original PSB created a nightmarish potential legal quagmire.

Stamm, a pro-sewer advocate, cast the lone vote against Lampman prior to his nomination and a rousing round of applause when the 3-1 vote put Lampman on the Board.

Like the kid who raises his hand in the back of the classroom when the teacher suggests an extra 10-minutes-long recess if “no one has any questions,” Stamm continued to suggest the vote does not represent a done deal.

Those comments turned cheers for Lampman into angry “boos” for Stamm, who ironically was elected moments later to be the PSB’s new secretary, replacing McFadden, who had already taken control of the meeting.

With Stamm the new secretary, the board was anxious to move onto the remaining items on the agenda, including asking for an extension of a grant that was due to expire the next day.

In what became an hour-long struggle to accept the minutes of previous meetings as part of the official PSB record, Stamm continued his defiance.

“I will say this just one last time,” he said. “This is not a done deal”.

More boos rained down from the back of the auditorium as one citizen yelled out “Let it go, you already voted on it and she’s (Barber) out. You’ve (Stamm) spent two hours arguing about this just trying to adopt the minutes as read.”

What followed was a belated house-cleaning exercise as former board president Caldwell proposed that because Barber had taken a seat at the head table and tried to conduct business despite the resignations and rescindment activity which rendered anything done during the previous two meetings “null and void”.

With that, the previous actions and associated minutes were thrown out by a 4-1 vote.

That brought to a near-conclusion a tumultuous time even by PSB standards. At a meeting two weeks ago, a sheriff deputy who had been assigned to watch the proceedings due to the perceived rising temperaments, called for a higher-ranking Sheriff Department employee to come and help settle an argument over the Barber dispute.

That meeting ended with the deputies escorting Barber, Stamm and interim County Commissioner Claude Burlingame out of the meeting hall. That meeting had been boycotted by Arnold and Caldwell who did not want to take part in any “illegal” meeting activity caused by Barber’s continued presence and attempted involvement in the meetings.

An armed deputy stood watch at Thursday’s meeting, which despite heated vocal exchanges, came to a relatively quiet and orderly conclusion.

“I’m doing this because I want peace in this town,” McFadden said after the meeting adjourned. “Everyone needs to be heard in this matter and that’s what we are doing tonight and will continue doing in the days ahead”.

With that, the meeting attendees drifted out into the twilight and headed off to their homes.

For most of those in attendance it was a moment of triumph to savor after a several years-long battle.

“We beat the big boys on this one,” said Overman.

And while the whole struggle has created bad feelings and headaches among the town members and sewer proponents those for the project can take solace in one thing:

Their headache pales in comparison to the one no-doubt suffered by Goliath.