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March 9, 2010 Honorable Mayor White and Councilmembers, I want to be mindful and considerate of your time; I'm sure yo are contacted frequently. I have a few thoughts, however, that I feel compelled to share with you. I hope you wil have a few minutes to read this through; I hope, too, that you will find this information useful. First, I want to say that I have been taught to respect my gov rnment representatives and to use such address language as the opening above. I confess, however, that I hav rarely felt representatives to be worthy of such honor. You, each of you, have encouraged me a great deal in t e way you allowed, listened, learned, and discussed. I tip my hat to each of you...and...thank you again f r your service to Orono and to your sometimes unruly constituents. Mayor Jim, I especially want to commend you for respectfully allowing every person to speak who desired to do so at last night's Council meeting. I observed all of you listenin intently to comments made and gleaning from them information pertinent to the Hill School CUP. I then enjoy d your free, fair and impartial bantering of ideas. It appears to me that you have great respect for your neighbors ..your constituents...and for one another. It was enjoyable to observe...Thank you. I am naturally an analytical person. I listen, observe, and reap to gather information so that I can attempt to bring order to the chaos that so often surrounds us. I have don0 so regarding the Hill School CUP and beg your indulgence as I share my perceptions. This discussion must begin with an expression of some consternation with one of my neighbor's approaches to this issue. His input has been filled with questions which I believe he should have had answered by the good folks at Emily instead of broadcasting them as if there might be truth there imbedded. His tirades included conjecture and innuendo. All of that quite obviously put the folk at Emily on the defensive...hardly a neighborly approach, in my opinion. These tirades have also resulted in o r community becoming split and in our city becoming less favorably considered by the rest of the metro ar a. I have thought much about how that might have been avoided. More on that later. My final (at least to this point) belief is that this was never abcut...nor should it have ever been about...the worthy Emily Program. As the realtors say: Location, Location, Location; I would say this should be about Land Use, Land Use, Land Use...As I believe each of you concluded land stated in some form last night. Here's my take on this matter: Someone alertly used the expression, "Intertsification of Land Use". I believe that expression could well be summarized by the word, "residential," in this cas . Further, I would suggest that the expression could be symbolized by the paradigm, 24/7/365. What I mean to say here...this is my opinion...is that Orono hould not EVER allow continual use by a non- profit, or especially, by a for-profit organization in a residentially zoned part of the city. None of the existing entities in the Crystal Bay area have or have ever had round-th -clock hours. Not the Post Office, not the Art Center, not the Dakota Trail, not the school or any other occup nt previously in the Hill School building...Have I missed any? To my and to my wife's way of thinking, this issue should never have been about the Emily Program. Regardless the applicant, this CUP, which would grant permission to an organization to offer continuous service to its clientele in a residential area, should not even have been considered. I have thought this over quite a bit and have asked myself, "How could all of this clamor and distru t and anger have been avoided?" I believe the Orono staff should not have accepted a CUP ap lication for a 24/7/365 operation in a residential area...Issue over. Perhaps the staff does not presently have th t authority. Then, the Planning Commission had no business (in my reasoned opinion) forwarding this CUP to t e Council. If they had denied the CUP on the basis of intensification of land use...Issue over. Lawsuits? May e...but as Jim put it, "We have an attorney, too." My last point and my last thank you for getting through this m ssage: Orono should structure the CUP application procedures in such a way that they guarantee (as n ar as possible) that an application like this is not brought forward to Council in the future, yielding hard feelings a d hard expressions of frustration. Greg Peterson 1355 Arbor St(through lot to Briar, mere feet from the Hill Schoc1)l property)