Residents wrap up case against TicketNetwork application

By Suzanne Carlson
Journal Inquirer
Published: Thursday, March 4, 2010 11:54 AM EST

VERNON — Residents had a last chance Wednesday to address the Planning and Zoning Commission about the TicketNetwork Forest concert venue application before rebuttal from the applicant’s lawyer set for tonight.

In what was perhaps the most revealing of comments, Kanter Drive resident Maureen Donahue accused TicketNetwork CEO Donald Vaccaro of being delinquent on property taxes owed to the town on his home and two parcels of land on South Frontage Road, among other properties.

She also said Vaccaro owns many companies in Connecticut and Delaware, and “two of those were two years’ delinquent in filing annual reports with the Connecticut secretary of state until this Monday.”

Two dozen residents spoke in opposition to the concert venue application, citing misleading economic figures, contradictory statements in the application narrative, the venue’s exemption from state noise regulations, and TicketNetwork’s negative ratings from the Better Business Bureau.

Lawyer Joseph P. Capossela, a partner in the firm Kahan, Kerensky & Capossela, which is representing TicketNetwork Forest in the application process, also addressed the PZC, causing some residents to walk out in protest.

“I’m going to comment as a listener, if you will, or a member of the public,” Capossela told PZC Chairman Lester Finkle when asked why he was speaking. “I have a few things I would like to add since I’ve had the pleasure of appearing before you for almost 40 years.”

Capossela said the application has a formidable group of opponents, “former mayors, my dentist, an architect I worked with, Max Belding.”

The PZC should hear their comments, he said, but “sometimes the nature of the people objecting brings something different to the table.”

Maxwell Belding gifted 282 acres of land around Bolton and Valley Falls roads to the state in 1981 as a wildlife management area. Belding submitted a letter to the PZC saying he is “vehemently opposed” to the concert venue.

Capossela went on to question whether the PZC had looked at the site plan.

“This dirt, if you will, is zoned commercial. You folks zoned it commercial. Your job is to look at the land use, not the popularity contest,” Capossela said.

He added that the applicant is going to have 20 summer concerts a year, so for the other 345 days a year the venue would be “almost like a park.”

Capossela admitted he was “a newcomer to the application,” but said the concert venue would be “the softest, best use of the land I can think of.”

Cubles Road resident Edith Chernack requested that Finkle have Capossela state his address for the record. But it wasn’t until later when Blue Ridge Drive resident Rosemarie Deschenes made a similar request that Capossela was forced to sign in as a speaker.

Capossela said he lived on Rustic Lane in South Windsor but his law office was located on Hartford Turnpike in Vernon.

TicketNetwork employee Harmon Howe of Shady Brook Lane was the only resident who spoke in favor of the application.

Howe said he does not want his taxes to go up and that he’s concerned the PZC hasn’t heard from residents who are in favor of the concert venue.

Valley View Drive resident Michael Winkler said he was on the Zoning Board of Appeals several decades ago when a bowling alley was proposed for the same parcel that the concert venue is now being planned for.

Winkler said that at the time the ZBA was responsible for special permits, and he felt he could not vote for a liquor license at an establishment around the corner from Tunnel Road for safety reasons.

The liquor license was denied and the bowling alley was never built.

“So imagine my surprise when I read that a concert venue was planned for the parcel,” Winkler said.

Lynda Morhardt of Valley Falls Road said anyone who has an interest in the application has had an opportunity to address the PZC, and the only residents who spoke in favor of the proposed venue are TicketNetwork employees.

“We’ve submitted enough of the regulations and specifics to deny the application on a myriad of levels,” Morhardt said.

After public comment ended, Town Planner Leonard K. Tundermann said his office has received 85 form letters in support of the concert venue as well as 269 form letters and 73 personalized letters opposed to the application.

Dorian Famiglietti, lawyer for TicketNetwork, will have a chance at the microphone tonight during the meeting at 7 in the second-floor auditorium of the Senior Center.

The public hearing likely will be closed tonight, and the PZC is expected to vote on the application March 11.