Whether it was with the best of intentions or not, those who attended the Weare Town Meeting changed the petitioned warrant article designed to take U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s home through eminent domain. It was a legal move, but was it a morally defensible one?

We say it was not. When Weare’s voters chose to move to the official ballot law, known as SB2, what they were saying is that all of Weare’s eligible voters should have a say in the governance of their town – not just those few willing and able to sit through long Town Meetings.

More people signed the petition asking to take Souter’s home than attended the Town Meeting. Yet they were overruled by those at the meeting who changed the wording of that article to completely change its intent. The law does seem to allow voters to change the wording of all articles, including petitioned articles, as long as the subject of the article remains untouched. However, we think the subject of this article was changed when its result became the opposite of that desired by the petitioners.

What happened at the Weare Town Meeting was that those in attendance decided they could not trust the voters who did not attend to vote their way on March 14, so they took advantage of a legal loophole in the law to take away their choice.

We’ve voiced our opinion before that taking Souter’s Weare home by eminent domain is simple vengeance and not the way to make the point that eminent domain should not be employed for a town’s economic benefit. We think the majority of Weare’s residents would have agreed. But we will never know for sure with the change made to this warrant article. Shame on the voters who thwarted the process and took the vote away from the town as a whole.

— Editorials published by Neighborhood News Inc. are written by an editorial board. The board is composed of Publisher and President Amy J. Vellucci, Executive Editor Ginger Kozlowski, Managing Editor Christine Heiser and News Editor Susan Clark.

To the Editor:
The few people who attended the deliberative session managed to first negate the meaning of the original petition warrant article, then to completely replace it with a limp-wristed “resolution” asking the governor to strengthen New Hampshire eminent domain laws.

The Kelo decision removed our Fifth Amendment rights, and now Saturday’s meeting has removed the First Amendment rights of the more than 200 Weare citizens who signed a petition. The opponents who changed the language apparently feel that their fellow residents do not deserve the right to petition as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

I wonder if anyone out there cares that our First Amendment right “... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” has been violated. Anyone?

The headlines across the country say “Voters Decline to Take Justice Souter’s House.” The voters did no such thing.

The voters never had the opportunity to decide and never will (at least not this year). Just 93 detractors took it upon themselves to keep the more than 5,000 registered voters from ever seeing the issue.

Here’s what the new warrant article says.

Shall the town vote:

1) To ask its selectmen not to use their eminent domain powers to take David Souter’s home for an inn.

2) To urge the governor and the Legislature to adopt a statute and/or amendment to the New Hampshire Constitution to forbid eminent domain takings that would result in transfer of land or property to private interests for economic development purposes.

I’ll address the second part first. Big deal. It has echoes of the innumerable, empty, feel-good-do-nothing resolutions we see from Congress and the U.N. These self-involved citizens of the United States couldn’t even be bothered to send their feelgood message to New London, Conn., or Riviera Beach, Fla., or Congress.

At the beginning of the meeting, everyone present stood, faced the U.S. flag and recited a pledge that apparently meant nothing. I am appalled at the number of people who took the microphone Saturday and said, “It’s not our problem. New London and Riviera Beach, and the rest have to take care of themselves.” The number of these comments prompted my fellow Natural Rights committee member, Lisa Wilbur, to pen her version of the famous Martin Niemoller poem...

“First they came for the land in New London, Connecticut, And I did not speak out because I was not from Connecticut. Then they came for the land in Riviera Beach, Florida.

“And I did not speak out because I was not from Florida. Then they came for the land in Boston, Massachusetts, And I did not speak out because I was not living in Massachusetts. Then they came for my land, And there was no one left to speak for me.”

The first part of the new warrant article is the most dangerous. The minority of voters who appeared at the deliberative session have now elevated David Souter to be above the law.

David Souter is now the one and only person in the entire nation who has been specifically selected to be protected from abusive use of eminent domain. Protections he has refused to extend to the rest of the nation.

Now that we have guaranteed Fifth Amendment rights for Justice Souter, what about the rest of us? I guess it is legal for developers to swing through town and build malls wherever they wish as long as they stay away from property owned by the royal family.

King David Souter’s loyal subjects have certainly done their duty for the crown. Didn’t we fight a revolution over injustices like this?

Joshua Solomon
Weare

To the Editor:
Some of us senior residents of the Village of Glen Falls and Medford Farms can’t understand why the Medvil Association wants to borrow over $11 million to buy the parks and become a co-op. This is a huge amount of money to borrow at this stage of our lives.

Most of us who bought a house within this community did so because we wanted to enjoy our so-called “senior years” in relative peace, harmony and security. Now this security is being threatened by the intimidation of a few Medvil members who want to force this park acquisition on the remainder of the residents.

Some fear recriminations if they vote against their neighbors’ wishes (there goes the peace and harmony), and some have no voice or vote on the matter unless they become a paid Association member. In our opinion, this smells like coercion, intimidation and old-fashioned armtwisting.

Whatever happened to the freedom of the vote?

What we find illogical in this park acquisition is the consequences of the enormous loan that is being considered. Medvil is imposing upon itself a debt, that at best, will be extremely difficult to pay off. There apparently is no concrete budget in place based on the actual costs of running such a large community, and the figures are everchanging and fluid. Such creative accounting does not bode well for us.

Most of the other parks in New Hampshire that have gone co-op are about a third the size of the combined Village and Medford Farms community, which has 300 homes. It sometimes takes a monumental effort to get a few neighbors to agree on any given issue; what a comedy in the making it’ll be to get 300 households to come to a decision involving money.

Now, wouldn’t this be a great fundraiser? We could sell tickets to the show!

Lori Parish
Lavone (Bonnie) Plummer,
Goffstown

To the Editor:
“An Uninformed Public Enables a Corrupt Government”. Do you know what has been going on at the Goffstown Town Hall? Do you attend or watch Board of Selectman (BOS) meetings on the Goffstown Cable Channel regularly? Probably not, especially if your children are of the age that all of your free time is spent taxiing them to their practices, games, dance, or music lessons.

Well, the Goffstown BOS operates with the intention that not many residents are paying close attention to them. The closed-door politics that have been taking place in Goffstown are an example of what happens in Washington when there is no safety net called “checks and balances!” The Goffstown Public Safety Department (PSD) scandal is one example of closed-door politics that the BOS wastes its time on and, luckily, this illegal fiasco finally hit a nerve in a great number of residents. Let’s be honest, that is not the only piece of BOS business that should make your blood boil.

As we go into the March vote, I for one would like anyone that reads this (letter) to ask questions and lots of them! Such as:

• How and why did Gossett McRae become a selectman without winning a popular vote? How and why did he become the chairman of the BOS?

• Why has the BOS snubbed their noses to the voting public by failing to follow through with the wishes of the majority vote (more than once)?

Do you believe a Goffstown selectman should take advantage of you by slashing department budgets to protect his own interests while sacrificing the safety of our children and ourselves by dismantling the Goffstown Fire and Police Departments, all while living outside of Goffstown? In my opinion, this person is public enemy No. 1 – and don’t forget, the remaining members of the BOS have supported this twisted person!

If you are upset with the way the BOS has conducted its business and you would like to know more about the present BOS, then I suggest you contact Nick Campasano. This honorable resident, who had enough guts to sit before the BOS and tell them that their PSD plan was illegal, has done his homework and will run for the position of selectman in the upcoming election! Let’s support Nick and send the current BOS packing!

Bruce Lemire
Goffstown

To the Editor:
Re: Mr. Upton’s letter to the editor in you Jan. 19 adition praising our selectmen for “being innovative” – to quote him, “Don’t bust down the selectmen’s door with a battering ram, just turn the knob, the door is open. Come in and listen to what they have to say.”

So far, despite repeated questioning, our selectmen have said nothing about the costs, time frame or much of anything else, other than that they wanted to, and temporarily did, eliminate Chief Carpentino’s job. If they have given any definitive information, it certainly has not been at their weekly meetings nor to the press. All discussions, at least since November, have been behind closed doors in “nonpublic” discussions. In fact, at one meeting, in response to direct questions by a member of our budget committee, Chairman McRae said something to the effect that perhaps his questions might be answered later. They were not.

Re: the editorial in the same issue, do not bet that selectmen McRae, Wheeler and their three silent partners are going to let the citizens decide on the police/fire merger. In the same article announcing the reinstatement of Chief Carpentino, Selectman McRae said that the selectmen will ask the town’s attorney to file for a reconsideration with the court because “we’re concerned the judge didn’t understand the circumstances.” What part of the law do you think Judge Mangones did not undersstand?

In the interim, we, the taxpayers, are going to be paying the legal fees on behalf of our selectmen, fees to date and until they give up on appeals or on requesting reconsiderations.

It is my understanding that our selectmen failed to include the fire chief’s salary in the budget.

If I am correct, are they taht certain that “the judge didn’t understand the law?”

As always, I invite a response from our selectmen via a letter to the editor.

Robert L. Dunn
Goffstown

To the Editor:
I own a 2004 Chevy Impala SS and I have used a “touchless” carwash in order to avoid possible scratching of my car. One day, when I closed my trunk, I heard water moving around and, after checking things out, I found that there was water inside my backup lights.

Since I didn’t want to take a chance at having my lenses crack if the water froze, I brought my car to the dealer and once they inspected it, they said the problem was more than likely from the touchless carwash.

Since I only use one local carwash, I went to the owner and discussed the problem. He told me this issue has never come up and said he would check with other owners to see if they had any complaints of this type. He also asked me to get a second opinion at a dealer of his choice and that if they concurred that it was caused by his carwash, he would take care of it.

I agreed to take my car to the dealership that he named and they told me the same thing – replace the same lights for $600 or install lights from the base model that are different.

The point of this is that even though there are no warning signs posted about the possible damage from the high pressure “touchless” wash, there are very expensive risks associated with them.

Needless to say, the owner of the car wash has refused to keep his word with regard to the repairs and I’m sure he won’t post any warnings for future unsuspecting customers.

Peter Buono
Weare

To read more letters from this week's issue, pick up a copy today of the newly designed Goffstown News at local newsstands.