Kudos to the group of five Upper Valley young people for their thoughtful, nuanced, articulate opinion article (“Don’t Chase Away Lebanon’s Homeless,” Dec. 3) that focuses so well on the problem as well as the causes and possible solutions to this troubling perennial issue.
I strongly encourage Lebanon City Council members to utilize the compassion, knowledge, energy and communication skills of these young people to help address and hopefully mitigate or solve this homeless problem by engaging them in any new or expanded task force that is addressing this issue.
D.A. HillHanover
Don’t Chill Out — Heat Up
Contrary to the advice found in the Dec. 1 Forum letter “Chill out, Everyone,” we the people do not determine the values of society. Our values are misrepresented unless the electoral college is circumvented; any ratio other than “one voter, one vote” results in an unrealistic tally of the people and their wants, and an election based on said tally is invalid.
Chill out? No way! Act out and be counted; that’s our constitutional responsibility.
Kevin McEvoy Leveret White River Junction
Sununu’s Claim Needs Proof
With regards to the Dec. 1 editorial “Voting Reform: N.H. GOP’s Motives Are Suspect,” I am curious whether the editor had read the NHPR article that claimed “During an appearance … on the Howie Carr Show, Sununu claimed Democrats are busing in Massachusetts residents and using the state’s same-day registration law to get them to vote in New Hampshire.”
While possibly not as sweeping a claim of problems as the 3 million fraudulent presidential election votes being tweeted/re-tweeted, it is still a significant claim that really deserves some factual proof.
Bart Guetti West Lebanon
Thank you for your article on the proposed housing development in the Kings Grant area (“Residents Ask City Council To Intervene: Country Club Neighbors Upset by Proposal Review,” Nov. 29).
I live on Slayton Hill Road, a steep winding road. Traffic has increased greatly, including through vehicles from Route 120 and Poverty Lane (hard to believe, but I have first-hand reports on this). Wetlands above the road continue to be disturbed and destroyed. Even after the disastrous 2013 flood. And now there is a proposal to create access for 300 four-bedroom homes. And across a prime wetland at that. Regulations are important, and I recall that during land-use training from the state that I participated in we were told that we could always use common sense. We need planning with a more active overview and a particular eye toward the welfare of the residents.
Amelia SereenLebanon
Dartmouth Vs. Neighborhood
The Athletic Department of Dartmouth College and Hanover’s Planning Board have met repeatedly since June in an attempt to reconcile the Athletic Department’s proposal to build a 6.5 stories tall indoor practice facility that will face an established, stable residential neighborhood on Tyler Road with the neighbors’ passionate opposition. This massive building will cast a shadow for several months of the year on neighboring houses, and there are still ongoing discussions about noise and how late the facility should remain open.
The proposed building appears to be the dream wish of Dartmouth athletics because it is within walking distance of campus and would enable student athletes to easily practice their skills all year long as well as enhance Dartmouth’s summer athletic camps.
The use of this building fits only marginally with Dartmouth’s mission statement of providing “the best liberal arts education experience.” However, if one looks at the third paragraph of Dartmouth’s lengthy mission statement, sports are part of the “out of classroom experience” and coexist with service opportunities, engagement in the arts and foreign studies program, to name a few. None of these activities are meant to be carried out intensively all year long.
Several years ago, when Dartmouth built playing fields and tennis courts behind Thompson Arena, the Hanover Planning Board established noise and light regulations to protect the residential neighborhood nearby. It failed, however, to establish guidelines for a buffer zone to protect residential neighborhoods that are non-residential zones from the building of oversized structures. It also failed to anticipate that Dartmouth would propose such an immense structure devoid of architectural merit immediately contiguous to a functioning residential community.
The Planning Board is paying the price now and, hopefully, when this conflict is resolved, its priority will be to establish guidelines to establishing a viable buffer zone.
Christine EickelmanHanover
Solution Misses Major Problems
Jim Rubens provides us with a conservative fix for global warming (Dec. 4), but there is much to dispute in his solutions. I consider Rubens a friend and colleague. We spent many hours traveling to primary events to hold Republican candidates’ feet to the fire on global warming. Rubens is a rarity in that he is a conservative who wants to move beyond the question of whether global warming exists to issues of how it can be fixed.
Yet much of what he proposes is wrong. He opposes a carbon tax because Republicans will reject a revenue-neutral bill and environmentalists (so says he) support it only if the money goes to “left-wing social engineering projects.”
I think that a carbon tax, one that reflects the true cost of burning fossil fuel, is a small first step in leveling the playing field. This view is consistent with that of another conservative, former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis. The Sierra Club hosted Inglis at a Dartmouth forum a couple of years ago where he proposed and defended such a tax.
Ruben’s main solution is a “Manhattan Project” focused on coming up with a technical fix to climate change. While I agree that increased funding for renewable energy research is money well spent, this is a necessary but far from sufficient solution. This approach echoes the frequent refrain that “if we can put a man on the moon why can’t we …” but this misses the point.
The Manhattan and Apollo projects focused many technologies on a single defining event. When we detonated the bomb in 1945 or landed humans on the moon, we succeeded. Solving global warming is different. We have much of the technology we need to do this now, the problem is deploying it. The solution is no longer a single event but a more diffuse deployment over years. It requires massive restructuring of infrastructure and ways of life, not to mention the political hurdles.
Furthermore, waiting for such a silver bullet wastes time that we do not have. We are already seeing massive decreases in Arctic sea ice and projections of irreversible tipping points.
What I found most disingenuous, though, is when he notes that the incoming administration, the one that is the biggest impediment to his solutions, is the one he actively supported. Please, if you are truly interested in addressing climate change, the first step would have been speaking out against the future denier-in-chief.
Michael HillingerEtna