The very exclusive and uppity Cleveland suburb of Gates Mills, OH is the latest community to fall prey to the misnamed, so-called community bill of rights that seeks to ban all drilling on, under or near property in the community. We’ve written about Gates Mills before (see these MDN stories). We originally chided Gates Mills Mayor Shawn Riley for concocting a plan that we thought would prevent drilling in the community (a community that already has some conventional wells in it). We were contacted by an MDN reader and by Mayor Riley to correct us: His intent is to pool landowners together and together (somewhat akin to a landowner coalition) to develop a contract that would strictly control how, when and where any Utica drilling would be done. He’s not anti-drilling–just really really careful and infrequent drilling. But there are a number of anti-drillers in town who want nothing to do with it whatsoever–and they want to force their preferences on their neighbors too. That’s what a “community bill of rights” does–it forces anti-drilling regulations down everyone’s throat. That’s what will be on the ballot in November in Gates Mills…
