Jim Kenyon recently wrote a column regarding the Hanover Planning Board’s denial of my application for a solar installation on my property because I was 25 feet shy of a 100-foot buffer area — an area that one hardly sees and an area that I pay taxes on (“Lights Out on Solar,” Sept. 12).
During my application process, and especially at the hearings, I felt some members were biased against my project, and no amount of logic, data or explanation that I or my contractor provided could persuade them otherwise.
I chose the site based on capturing the solar power I needed, preserving my landscape and being aesthetically acceptable to the neighbors, who supported my location and thanked me for being sensitive to the neighborhood.
Thus, when I read that the New Hampshire Supreme Court had found that the Hanover Planning Board invoked personal biases when it ruled against Dartmouth College’s planned athletic facility, I felt validated.
The Planning Board had denied site plan approval for the facility based on aesthetics and objections by neighbors, but the Supreme Court said these were not legitimate reasons and the board “unreasonably relied upon personal feelings and ad hoc decision-making in denying the college’s application.”
What is most curious to me is why, for my project, aesthetics were deemed not relevant and why neighborhood support for my location was not deemed important. This clearly shows that the Hanover Planning Board is being capricious in its decision-making. The Selectboard needs to address the Planning Board’s membership, leadership and administration.
My financial recovery period for the solar project was 15 years. At age 70, I wasn’t doing this for the financial payout, but rather because I support renewable energy, just like all of the residents who voted for the renewable energy resolution. They are the true losers in the Planning Board’s behavior.
William Rosen
Hanover
Andy MacNeil’s Forum letter of Jan. 8 provides a teaching moment for the 10-year-old (“Move ‘Doonesbury’ Out of the Comics”). He complained that the comic strip Doonesbury should not appear with the other comics because it offends him.
I would instruct this young man that just because someone’s point of view is different, and may even be offensive to him, that is not a reason to remove it from the public forum. Free speech is what our Constitution guarantees in the First Amendment. He should be told that the freedom to express alternate opinions, side by side, is one of the values that separates our country from a dictatorship, and he is not obliged to read the comic if he does not like it.
Surely tolerance of different views is an important lesson in today’s world.
Helena Binder
Thetford
Kudos to Chantal Cautley, the Kimball Union Academy student who shared her thoughts on a woman’s right to choose. (“Fighting for Abortion Rights,” Jan. 9). If men were the childbearers we would not be having this fight.
Joy Waters
East Thetford
President Donald Trump shutting down the U.S. government for his wall and putting thousands of American families without their pay just for an expensive monument means he doesn’t care who suffers.
When the U.S. imposes sanctions on other countries, the only ones who suffer are the meek and the poor, women and children, and those governments have the same attitude as Trump: “I don’t care. I will survive.” Only a dictator would hold a gun to the heads of his people to get what he wants while the people go without. This is happening in this country right now, but that’s OK. Trump and his family have enough corrupt money to survive anything thrown at them.
Is this the way an American president should act, like a little kid playing in a sandbox? But why should I care? Every day Trump lies to the American people and we believe him by saying, “I don’t care.” Sad. Wake up, America.
Robert Pollard
Enfield
This year, our community came together and donated more than 500 books to four service agencies though the Book Angel program at the Norwich Bookstore. We received a letter that I quote in part: “Thank you for the generous books we received today from The Family Place. My 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter were so surprised and excited to open them. They called them the first gifts of Christmas. … Both books were exactly on point for each child. We enjoyed reading the books together this afternoon and each child has been flipping through the pages on their own all day long.”
What better result could be imagined?
Thank you for your generous support of this wonderful tradition.
Liza Bernard
Pomfret
The writer is the co-owner of the Norwich Bookstore.