In case you missed it, the Valley News had a long article on Sunday about the sign issue, and the CRC proposal in general. I’m not sure how their paywall works, but here’s a link to the article: https://www.vnews.com/Greensboro-Road-Signs-Cause-Stir-27627567.aspx
It pains me to say this, but I think it is clear that some members of the town staff see us as “the enemy” in this situation. This is not at all what we want; we have said time and time again that we don’t want to be in an adversarial position relative to the town. Sadly, I’m not sure that’s the feeling in Town Hall.
Quoting from the Valley News article:
“Meanwhile, town officials contend Acker and his neighbors dragged their feet obtaining permission for the signs. All they had to do was send in a letter and get the OK of Hanover’s five-member Selectboard, Town Manager Julia Griffin said last week.”
If that was “all we had to do”, then I wonder why town officers felt the need to send an email threatening $275 per day fines, telling us our signs were a zoning violation, needed permission from the NH DOT and so on. You can read the whole email exchange between me and town officials here and decide for yourself: Greensboro Road sign emails
I also still have questions about why specifically our signs were targeted for enforcement. If there were really safety issues, it seems like those could have easily been addressed by just moving a few offending signs? Or were the complaints really based on the content of the signs, which raises a whole host of other concerns. There are several other signs in obvious plain view on well traveled main roads in town (both in the town right of way and on private property) that don’t seem to draw any attention from the enforcers.
Thankfully, I think we got a very fair hearing with the Selectboard, (read more about that here). Reasonable people came to a reasonable resolution of the issue, and the signs can stay. So for now, maybe that’s all that really matters?
Greensboro Road Neighborhood Info 