HANOVER — During the floor portion of Town Meeting on Tuesday night, voters meandered through regular business in about two and a half hours, but debates about procedure, the power and role of an effective democracy and international relations in the Middle East extended the meeting late into the night.
Voters passed all warned articles except for a plan to establish social districts, which was tabled due to a procedural error.
Articles approved included a $34.51 million operating budget, a plan to lease land to build a cell tower to address cellular service issues in Hanover and $200,000 to continue a multi-use path on Reservoir Road near Richmond Middle School and the Ray School. Voters approved a $2.4 million bond to purchase a fire ladder truck by paper ballot, 180-7.
In ballot voting earlier in the day, voters passed all articles except for a controversial petitioned article to roll back certain zoning changes that allow for increased density in residential areas, which failed 816-792.
As the business meeting wound down to article 23, to transact any other business, the tune in the Hanover High School gym shifted, kicking off a winding hour-and-a-half debate.
“I’m aware that there’s a resolution being brought on the Middle East conflict that people are planning,” Dartmouth student David Kriegsman said to the room. “I think this will generate a lot of unnecessary division without being the proper forum to solve the conflict. I therefore move to adjourn the meeting.”
All day, Dartmouth students and activists sat outside the polls informing voters of their plan to introduce an apartheid-free community pledge at the end of the meeting.
The advisory pledge calls on towns to “join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.” Voters in several Vermont communities, including Hartford in March and Thetford in 2025, have already passed similar measures.
In Hanover, groups including Upper Valley for Palestine, Dartmouth’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition and the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation organized the effort.
Hanover resident Zaria Night presented the article at the meeting but declined to speak to a reporter.
Kriegsman’s motion kicked off discussion and debate about whether the meeting should conclude, or even if such a motion is subject to discussion.
Susan Blum noted that Town Meeting happens only once a year and the town should “give an opportunity to everyone who wanted to come and present something.”
After consulting Hanover’s Town Meeting rules and state statute, moderator Jeremy Eggleton allowed 10 minutes of debate on whether to conclude the meeting.
“In my experience, the most divisive thing would be to close out debate without letting every side express themselves,” resident Martin Mosdal countered. “Every single one of you is here today at town hall with a belief in democracy and allowing everyone to speak their voice and I think the most divisive thing would be to turn against democracy.”
The motion to adjourn failed by voice vote. Following the debate about whether to end the meeting, Eggleton called for a five-minute break, prompting many residents to leave for the night.
After the break, Dartmouth student Oren Poleshuck-Kinel presented the diminished crowd with an “anti-terrorism pledge” that “affirms commitment to opposing terrorism, antisemitic violence and politically motivated violence wherever they occur.” The pledge also specifically condemned “the action of terrorist organizations including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (sic), IRGC” and “the October 2023 terrorist attacks in Israel.”
The anti-terrorism pledge failed by secret ballot, 59-37.
After voting, the group reconvened to consider the anti-apartheid pledge.
One resident, who identified herself only as a “92-year-old Jewish woman,” said she “felt very called to speak” on the proposal.
“I am heartbroken about what my people in Israel are doing to the people of Palestine,” she said. “Yes, a non-apartheid state, but also people — Israelis, Palestinians — standing together to want a homeland where all people can live and I have this hope that even on the campuses Palestinian and Jewish people can stand together to claim non-apartheid, that we could all live together. And that’s my dream, may it be in my lifetime.”
Dartmouth student Gabbie Ross strongly encouraged the pledge that is “just an extension” of a ceasefire resolution that Hanover voters approved in 2024.
“As Americans, as taxpayers, our dollars are being sent via military aid to cause more suffering to families… but we don’t have to support that,” Ross said.
Rabbi Seth Linfield, executive director of Dartmouth Hillel, urged the group to vote no on the resolution, which he said was inaccurate, arguing that Israel is not an apartheid state according to international law, but noted that the “larger question” is why the pledge singles out Israel.
“Why is it that only in the Jewish homeland that is branded by the world’s most toxic labels?” Linfield asked.
State Rep. Ellen Rockmore, D-Hanover, who is also a Dartmouth professor, called the resolution an “attempt to manufacture an illusion of consensus.”
The pledge passed by secret ballot, 59-35.
In ballot voting earlier in the day, voters reelected Carey Callaghan and Jennie Chamberlain to the Selectboard in uncontested races.
Voters also considered several zoning questions.
Article 7, a zoning change brought by petition, drew significant attention ahead of the vote.
The failed warrant article would have rolled back a series of zoning changes voters approved last year that permit denser housing development, including permitting triplexes and four-plexes in residential neighborhoods and reducing requirements like minimum lot sizes and frontages.
Opponents of the petitioned warrant article, including the Hanover Planning Board opposed the rollback, argued that the previously approved zoning changes address a dire need for housing in Hanover, especially affordable residences that are in short supply.
Supporters of the petitioned article had argued that some Hanover neighborhoods cannot handle the kind of density the previously-approved zoning changes allow.
Of Hanover’s 8,071 registered voters, 1,610, or nearly 20%, turned out at the polls Tuesday.
