Editor:
    As I watched the re-run of the S.P. City Council meeting of Monday, December 4, several things struck me about the discussion concerning the new maneuvers to “dead-end” Edgewood Road at the Cape Elizabeth line and thereby cut off the legal right to use the road by the Cape Elizabeth residents who live on Edgewood. These points are in addition to my immediate reaction, which was: “Is this little maneuver going to cost the S.P. taxpayers another $750,000, like the last street discontinuance in this neigborhood did?”
    The Fire Chief of Cape Elizabeth (who formerly was the Fire Chief of South Portland) told the City Council that South Portland residents could be confronted with public safety issues if the street was dead-ended and blocked, because of where fire hydrants are located as well as other reasons. The Fire Chief of South Portland was conspicuously absent from the meeting. One has to ask whether the S.P. Chief was asked to come to the Council meeting and express his thoughts? Is it possible that he was told to stay away from the meeting? Did the City Manager ask the S.P. Fire Chief and the S.P. Police Chief to make written reports concerning any public safety issues that might result from dead-ending Edgewood Street? Were the public safety officials asked to make specific suggestions about what might be done short of blocking the street?
    The only thing I heard said at the meeting was that the public safety officials of S.P. had “no problems” with now closing the street. If that is true, it would seem to me that the Fire Chief and the Police Chief ought to be asked to come to the meeting and publicly assure South Portland residents that they have no public safety concerns.
It also surprises me that a dead-end street can be created without adequate provision being made for a turn-around for public service vehicles. Just recently the discussion about Bog Road focused on building a turn-around area at the end of the road adequate to allow fire trucks, trash trucks and snow plows, as well as the public, to turn around without having to backup. Why no similar mention in the discussion of dead-ending Edgewood Road?
    Years ago, in a graduate school course on city planning, I recall a public safety lecture in which it was pointed out that the most dangerous operation of a fire truck, a snow plow or a trash truck is when the vehicle is forced to back-up. More property damage and more injuries result from public service vehicles being forced to back up than from any other operation. I did not hear that discussed at the S.P. City Council meeting. Neither did I see the S. P. Public Works Director present at the meeting to address such issues.
    What I did hear at the meeting was Councilor Baxter express anger over his understanding that South Portland residents were not allowed to speak at, or participate in, the hearing of the Cape Elizabeth Planning Board when it considered the Blueberry Ridge project. Perhaps, by now, Councilor Baxter has learned that his anger was misplaced, that someone apparently had misled him on to the facts, and that any S.P. resident who wished to participate in that meeting was given the right to do so, and even the Maine Supreme Court wrote about that.
    It seems to me that before making a final decision on whether to cut off Edgewood Road, the City Council needs to get all the City department heads who may have an interest here - at least the Fire Chief, the Police Chief, the Public Works Director - into a public City Council meeting, where the Council and, hopefully, the public, can ask them direct questions, and let’s all get the same information of the table. Let’s get rid or the hearsay and criptic comments and let everyone be on the same page.
    Maybe we can even invite folks from Cape Elizabeth to comment, as good neighbors should do!
Dan Mooers
South Portland