Enfield
Paulette Dunbar, 66, is scheduled to be arraigned on June 6 in Lebanon circuit court, according to Enfield Police Chief Richard Crate. The Class B misdemeanor charge carries a maximum fine of $1,200, but no jail time.
Crate said the charge stems from an April 18 Selectboard meeting, where Dunbar and her partner, Donald Plante, were scheduled to discuss the club’s taxes. The two live across the street from the club on Shaker Hill Road and have said its expanded membership and offerings endangers the couple.
In January, Plante filed a petition for injunctive relief in Grafton Superior Court, arguing the club violated Enfield’s zoning ordinance by expanding use on its 4-acre site.
For nearly 30 minutes, Plante argued the club shouldn’t have been granted tax-exempt status in 2015 without first applying as a nonprofit with the state. Selectboard members repeatedly told him the issue is closed, however, and asked him to change the subject.
“You’re taking the other taxpayers’ money and subsidizing the Enfield Outing Club without any sort of documentation, without any sort of proof, and trusting them for a year with everybody else’s money,” Plante said, according to a cellphone video recorded by club President David Stewart.
After the Selectboard called for a five-minute break, Dunbar allegedly walked by Stewart, “reached up, and grabbed his phone and kind of pushed it,” Crate said.
Stewart went to the police department the next morning, Crate said, and Dunbar was charged with simple assault on April 22.
Stewart’s recording shows both Plante and Dunbar seated about three seats away opposite Stewart. The camera is pointed directly at the two for the majority of the nearly 28-minute video, briefly panning to the Selectboard just a few times.
Plante is the first to leave after the board calls for a recess, passing by Stewart in the process. Dunbar follows a few seconds after, and the video shows her grabbing for Stewart’s phone, blocking its camera lens and pushing the device upward.
“Don’t you touch me. That’s assault, ma’am,” Stewart says, right before the recording ends.
In an email, Dunbar’s lawyer, Lebanon’s Charlie Buttrey, declined to comment on the incident, and advised Dunbar to do the same.
In a Tuesday phone interview, Plante said Stewart’s recording made his partner “very uncomfortable.”
“He’s not videotaping the meeting; he was videotaping Paulette and I,” Plante said. “He just sat there and videotaped us.”
Although Plante admits he didn’t see the incident, he said he heard Dunbar walk up to Stewart, tell him he was rude and then heard a “click.”
“(I) believe that she tapped his cellphone with her fingernail,” Plante said.
When police arrived at their house to speak with them, Plante said, the couple told officers their history with Stewart and that his videotaping at the meeting provoked Dunbar.
“She’s really feeling so much pressure from this man,” Plante said. “She’s only human.”
Stewart remembers things differently, however. He said he walked into the meeting and stood at an empty spot against a wall — which he said was a convenient place to take out his cellphone and record the meeting’s proceedings.
Stewart said he has been recording interactions with Plante since about mid-August, following several tense interactions between Plante and club members.
“I never moved an inch the whole time I was there” at the meeting, aside from squatting down several times to relieve the soreness of standing, he said.
“When (Dunbar) walked by me, she just gave a swat at my camera and myself,” Stewart said. “I don’t think I did anything to deserve that.”
At Selectboard meetings, he said, people should be able to watch and comment without fearing an assault, “whether it was physical or verbal.”
“I don’t want to ramp things up. I don’t want to call the police unnecessarily,” Stewart said.
He said Plante made their long-running issues public, however, by bringing news of his lawsuit to the Valley News shortly before the meeting.
“He decided to go to the court of public opinion, and lied and ramped up emotional fear in the community,” Stewart said.
Plante makes similar claims about Stewart, accusing him of having “blown up” after past municipal meetings. He asked the police department to cite Stewart for harassment after the April 18 Selectboard meeting, but Crate said the complaint didn’t fit the state statute for harassment.
“I’m disappointed that it happened and she didn’t keep her cool, but on the other hand, I’m proud of her,” Plante said. “Deep down in her soul, she’s not really happy with these people.”
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.