Tag: Greensboro Road

Not exactly Profiles in Courage

I don’t know who will win the 2024 Profiles in Courage award, but I have a pretty good idea who won’t.

To nobody’s surprise, the Hanover Planning Board voted unanimously to approve CRC’s Site Plan Review Permit last week. There was very little discussion at the meeting, and no real debate. The decision, like so many in this 7 year saga, was obviously made behind closed doors.

Patrick Adrian of the Valley News wrote an informative article that captures the flavor of meeting pretty well, worth a read if you haven’t already: Valley News 12.8.23

In the written decision, the PB acknowledge that they don’t know if the site plan meets the town standards, but the members claim to be powerless to do anything about it. After all, they took an “oath”, so what else can they do?

Of course, history is littered with examples of bad outcomes that derive from blind obedience and allegiance to some higher order. “I was only following orders” and “I was just doing my job” are always the escape hatch. If this development some day gets built, and the results are as bad as all the neighbors expect, I think we will find little comfort in knowing that at least the Planning Board kept their oath.

In case anyone is curious, I looked up the actual oath that municipal officers take. It’s prescribed in the NH Constitution, part II, Article 84. You’ll note that it starts with allegiance to the US Constitution, and the NH Constitution. Only in the 2nd part does the oath taker swear to uphold the laws of the state, and only then after they have again sworn to uphold the NH Constitution a 2nd time. The full text of the oath is here: https://www.nh.gov/glance/oaths.htm

Article 5 of the NH Constitution is pretty clear:

“Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience . . . provided he doth not disturb the public peace or disturb others in their religious worship”

Creating a mega-development without adequate review to ensure that it doesn’t create traffic safety issues or flooding hazards certainly seems to fall under the category of “disturb(ing) the public peace.”

So, what’s next? An appeal, of course, and CRC also needs at least two state permits that we will be watching closely. Still a long way to go. Stay tuned . . .

And more about the signs . . .

The question of whether or not the signs should be allowed has been placed on the agenda for the Selectboard meeting for Monday, August 5. The meeting starts at 7:30 at Town Hall. I have no idea what will happen, but it should be interesting. If nothing else, it is an opportunity to demonstrate to the town leaders the depth of the opposition to the CRC proposal, so hopefully many neighbors and project opponents will attend.

Here is the email that I sent to the Selectboard requesting to be on the agenda:

Dear Selectboard Members – 
Per Catheryn Hembree’s email to me dated May 15, and several subsequent follow up emails, we are requesting permission from the Selectboard to place signs in the right of way.  The signs read “Protect our Residential Neighborhood” and are intended to encourage people to become more informed about the development proposals and the current situation on Greensboro Rd.
These signs have actually been around town for about two months now. We did not request permission when Catheryn originally wrote to me about the issue because we believed that we were complying with her request –  removing all the signs from the town rights of way, and displaying them on private property only.
We still believe that they are actually all currently on private property, and despite several requests from us, no one on the town staff has identified any specific signs that they believe are in a town right of way. But, we have received confusing and sometimes contradictory information about exactly where the signs can and can’t be.  To hopefully clarify the situation, we have decided to take the step of requesting this permission from the Selectboard as Catheryn suggested originally.   We would like permission to display the signs until September 30, 2019.
To help bring you up to speed on how we got to this point, we have attached copies of all the email communications back and forth on the issue between Catheryn Hembree, Rob Houseman, Julia Griffin, and us.  The emails are presented in chronological order so as you read through you will hopefully get a complete picture.
Thank  you for your consideration of this request.  We would very much welcome the opportunity to discuss the issues further and would appreciate being placed on an upcoming agenda.

For background on the issue, you can read my previous post on the issue here: https://greensbororoad.org/2019/07/29/so-about-those-signs/

So, about those signs . . .

The “Save Our Residential Neighborhood” signs that have popped up all around Greensboro Rd and out in Etna have caused quite a stir at Town Hall. I have received several emails recently from Town officials with conflicting information – the signs are allowed on private property . . . no they aren’t allowed on private property . . . you don’t need a zoning permit, you need permission from the Selectboard to display them in the Town Right of Way . . . wait, Greensboro Rd is a state road, there is no town right of way . . . you need a zoning permit to display them . . . the town will leave any enforcement to the state . . . the town will fine the property owner $285 per day per sign . . .

So, to try to cut through all the confusion and fog, Lara and I have requested permission from the Selectboard to display the signs – even though we don’t think we need permission, and even though we don’t actually own the signs or control the placement of them, but, that is what the town officials have told us to do,so that is what we are going to do. My personal opinion is that the signs are protected free speech, allowed by state law on private property in the same way that candidates signs are allowed. But, what the heck do I know?

We have asked to be on the next Selectboard agenda. The next meeting is Monday, August 5th, and we are told that we should know by Aug 1 if we are actually on the agenda. It would be great to have a big showing of support from the neighborhood. Even if we aren’t on the agenda, I plan to go to the meeting and raise the issue during the open agenda/public comments section of the meeting. Please save the date, and we will provide more details as we know them.

In case anyone wants to read the whole story, the link below contains the 100% unabridged version of all the emails back and forth from me to various town officals on the subject, presented in chronological order. I didn’t cherry pick, edit, take things out of context – this is every email start to finish, in order.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9jcaNqWKh9OX0Vib1ZTaVJtR3QxNnVmYzZRUldoeE5xZXpn/view?usp=sharing