Idexx Laboratories has rejected Pike Industries’ invitation to discuss a compromise for the future of Pike’s Spring Street quarry – an offer Pike hoped would bring an end to the legal battle between the two Westbrook businesses.
In a letter to Idexx Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Ayers, Pike President Christian Zimmermann said Pike would be willing to end its effort to construct an asphalt plant on Spring Street in favor of being able to continue quarrying there.
“Let’s meet in person and resolve the dispute over Pike’s Spring Street quarry. By this letter, I am proposing a compromise that is more than fair to Idexx. A compromise will allow Idexx Laboratories and Pike industries to co-exist in the City of Westbrook,” Zimmermann wrote.
In response, Dick Daigle, facitilies director for Idexx, wrote that the company is “surprised and disappointed that Pike Industries is proposing a corporate backroom negotiation with Idexx that ignores the viewpoints and voices of many important stakeholders, including our residential and business neighbors.”
In its proposal, Pike said would not develop a quarry on the half of its Spring Street property closest to Idexx and would not blast more than 20 times per year – a reduction from what was allowed in the blasting permit issued, and later revoked, by the city earlier this year.
Pike is suing the city for its attempt to rezone the land around its Spring Street quarry from industrial to light manufacturing – a move that would kill Pike’s plans to move an asphalt plant there, anyway.
A public hearing in front of the city’s Planning Board regarding the rezoning is scheduled for Tuesday. The board will then make a recommendation to the City Council, which would hold its own hearing and then vote whether to implement the change.
Daigle said Idexx and its partners would continue to participate in these public processes.
“Important public business should be conducted in this way – not in corporate backrooms,” he wrote.
Pike’s suit over the rezoning was recently combined in court with another legal effort by the company – to appeal a Zoning Board decision that, if upheld, would prevent Pike from operating on Spring Street at all.
Jonathan Olson, Pike’s regional manager, said Pike still feels it has a strong case and would prevail if the court proceedings were played out, “but we’re talking about probably three years down the road,” he said.
Mayor Bruce Chuluda acknowledged Pike’s effort to compromise but said, regardless, he plans to continue moving forward with the effort to rezone the property.
Olson said he hoped the companies could “all get along and help the city,” but, according to Daigle, the quarrying company’s compromise plan isn’t the answer.
“Pike’s proposal is not in the best interest of the city or its residents,” he wrote.
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