Two-time Winter Olympian Dan Weinstein, of Norwich, Vt., speaks with his students during the Skating Club at Dartmouth's Speed Skating Program at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on March 31, 2016. (Valley News - Geoff Hansen) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
Two-time Winter Olympian Dan Weinstein, of Norwich, Vt., speaks with his students during the Skating Club at Dartmouth's Speed Skating Program at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on March 31, 2016. (Valley News - Geoff Hansen) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Credit: Geoff Hansen

Lebanon — It became clear early on at Monday night’s Zoning Board meeting that the parties involved came prepared to talk about different issues.

Zoning Board members showed up expecting they would hear a proposal for revised operating hours for a planned expansion at James W. Campion Rink.

Rink officials, meanwhile, were much more concerned about what would be allowed at the existing rink for the coming season.

Proponents of the rink worried that the language of a 1987 approval from the board would force them to open late this year. Nearly 30 years ago, the city gave the rink a set season of mid-October through mid-March.

Those dates fell by the wayside in the 1990s, when the rink began opening earlier and remaining open into the spring.

Earlier this year, a ruling on the facility’s expansion only confused matters.

So officials with the Campion Sports and Recreation Project, which operates the rink, came to Monday’s meeting with a crowd of supporters ready to advocate for the earlier opening. Following the 1987 regulations, they said, would cost revenue and ice time, and would interfere with groups already scheduled to use the facility.

John Hochreiter, chairman of the rink project, said the rink’s annual budget is geared to provide about $4,000 in revenue for maintenance.

The hourly rate for ice rental is $235 for peak hours and $185 for off times, he said, but the lost revenue from the later opening would quickly add up.

“If we lose one hour of potential ice time, it’s easy to do the arithmetic,” Hochreiter said. “It only takes 18 hours to eliminate out profit.”

With several weeks between the usual opening time in September and approved opening in mid-October, he said, the rink could face a fiscal crisis.

Zoning Board members, however, seemed perplexed by concerns over existing rink hours. They assured Hochreiter the board intended to rehear a May approval related to the rink’s expansion, but they had no plans to alter operating hours at the existing facility.

“The hours that we imposed were for year-round operation for going forward for the project,” said board member Jennifer Mercer.

Others agreed and said they weren’t asked to take up the rink’s current hours, just future ones.

“I’ve read some correspondence in the newspaper and some of the letters we received in support of the project, and there seems to be a narrative that the city is trying to bring the Campion Rink back to the 1987 hours for approval, which is (not true),” said city Zoning Administrator Tim Corwin.

Corwin said he hadn’t heard any complaints about the rink’s current hours and was only asked about the 1987 agreement by Nate Stearns, an attorney for the rink, a few weeks ago. The 1987 approval was most recent.

Stearns said on Monday he believed the restricted hours approved in May would be in effect, as long as the project was moving forward.

Corwin said he hasn’t been asked for permission to operate the rink off season, but the city normally doesn’t ask an existing business to stop operation unless there’s immediate safety concerns. Normally, he said, the city requires business to work toward solving zoning violations, sometimes by coming to the board.

Mercer said she’s heard concerns from the community that the city would shut the rink down, even though the Zoning Board wasn’t planning to discuss current operations.

Board members continued to hear those concerns at Monday’s meeting. Organizers of hockey and skating clubs came up one by one asking the board to ease the 1987 hours.

“For me, what’s important is that I don’t break a commitment to the veterans,” said Louisa Howard, who runs an adaptive sports program at the rink.

Others wrote to the board making similar pleas for action. “Youth players in the Upper Valley already begin their seasons much later than the teams they compete against in southern N.H., and in some cases as much as six to eight weeks,” wrote Jim Damren, assistant hockey coach for Lebanon High School.

Ultimately, the board decided not to address current operating hours in its rehearing on Monday, but were open to including intermediate hours in a future decision on the rink expansion. Members decided to continue the hearing to the next meeting on Oct. 3, but not before Chairman Jeffrey Halpin had some harsh words for rink officials.

“I really don’t think you as an organization have represented our board well to the community,” he said. “To have as many people come forward looking at us like we’re the people taking away their ice time, I kind of resent that.”

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.