Baby and Mommy stayed home tonight during a special session of the local town meeting but I went to find out more about all the fuss and see what's what, regarding a situation just down the road.

Apparently - as we found out a couple weeks ago when a State Police officer stopped by to find out what we know - someone threw nails on a nearby dirt-bike track. It seems that a guy down the hill has created a track on his land and he and other neighbors and their friends use it frequently. It may also be the case that these same riders use a public road to get to the track (I'm not clear on exactly where it is or whether that's the case).

Anyway, various neighbors don't like the noise and dust the bikes and ATVs generate, so there's a fair amount of ill will between a couple blocs of area residents. It boils down to the right to quiet vs. the right to do what you want on your own land, and respect from each party to the other's preferences.

For tonight's meeting the board brought in a professional facilitator. About 25 people attended, although not the guy who owns the land with the track on it did not show. No one's sure why, whether hard feelings or schedule conflict, although as far as we know the meeting was set up quickly - the town clerk drove up to tell us about it personally.

Leading the "con" side was a young couple who live right next to the track, which apparently runs along more than one side of their property. They seemed quite reasonable to me. Mostly they wanted limits on hours, number of riders, notification of big rides, and a little track re-routing.

Leading the "pro" side was our neighbor the cop. Although he brought in an offer to not ride before noon on Sunday, 9am on other days, and never past 8pm, that was basically it. He's terribly loud and belligerent and half the "arguments" he made were terrible non-sequitors, like no one should be concerned with dust because the highway dept. does not clean its cinders off the road until June and therefore the road makes a lot of dust too.

I do NOT like that guy.

For one reason he kept on saying that he could not promise that he would not ride on only one weekend day; that he could not promise to limit his pals' use of the track to shorter periods; that he could not tell his in-laws to keep off the track at specific times. I called him to task on this, and said: you CAN promise those things, but you CHOOSE NOT TO, and he copped to that in front of everyone.

He was still on about having moved out to the country for the peace and quiet but liking to ride his machines. That won him a lot of head-shakes from those who prefer no riding. What a piece of work he is.

The current situation is that a guy who volunteered to lend his bulldozer to re-route the track a little will contact the land owner; the riding hours such as they are will stand and some people will be phoned when more riding is to happen; and I think the animosity will continue.

For our part, we hadn't really heard the machines much until this past weekend when there were some especially loud ones there. This may be because they don't ride as much during the summer (only when it's a bit cooler) but I really hope more is done get them out of here.

You have a right to do what you want, so long as it does not impinge on the rights of others. By their very nature those machines do just that, as does the "choose not to" be neighborly attitude.