Two Winchester residents hope to take their case against the town ( actually the planning board ) to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. The residents say they are unsatisfied with a recent ruling from Cheshire Superior Court regarding a decision by the planning board and the behavior of it's chairman, Margaret Sharra. ( The residents were appealing the decision to give Van Dyke a conditional approval and allowing him to disturb the 100' protected by town ordinance buffer zone and the fact that Margaret Sharra had ex-parte' communications outside of the meetings with various factors and that she influenced the board and it's decision by acting as an agent for Van Dyke and not remaining neutral ).
Superior Court Judge Brian T. Tucker ruled that the board's approval of Developer Robert Van Dyke's plans to build 32 condominiums was not "unreasonable or unlawful " as the abutters to the project had claimed.
The case ( 2009 - 0173 ) has been filed, but not yet accepted by the Supreme Court. The decision on whether to accept the case could be made by early next month according to a case manager with the Court.
Judge Tucker found ( ruled ) that Sharra should not have sought information about the application ( was not the application, but the written request to the board for reconsideration of their decision ) on her own from the N. H. Department of Environmental Services.
( actually judge Tucker ruled that no member of a planning board may participate in deciding or sit upon the hearing of any question which the Board is to decide in a judicial capacity if that member would be disqualified for any cause to act as a juror upon the trial of the same manner in any action of law. RSA 673:14, I ( 2008 supp. ) )
Sharra had asked the department for information to rebut claims made by Mr. Towne that mandatory buffers around wetlands would be violated among other offenses. Because she voted on the petition, the board should revisit Towne's request, ( actually it wasn't because she voted, she did not, it was because of the reasons stated above and her ex-parte' communications and in his ruling she was disqualified for her actions and the matter of reconsideration was remanded to the board for another hearing, " but without the DES information Sharra obtained independently" . The baord scheduled another hearing for Oct 5th, one which Towne could not attend because of health issues and though specifically told they could not use the prior info from Ms. Sharra did so anyways. ) Tucker wrote. But in hearing the reconsideration, the board could only discuss Towne's claims Van Dyke could be disturbing wetlands, Tucker said. ( untrue, Tucker ruled that if they had a hearing, they were to address all "the issues raised by Towne's motion". Something they once again did not do despite a court order. ).
Sharra could not be reached for comment.
Board member Kenneth A. Cole said the board discussed the issues at two meetings ( ? , only one meeting was scheduled for this discussion, October 5th. Did the board with Margaret Sharra in attendance have a private discussion ? This would be in violation of judge Tucker's order that she be disqualified from participating. ) this month and ruled again in favor of the developer.
Van Dyke originally presented plans for the condominium complex in November 2006 ( April of 2007 ) The planning board at the time postponed talking about the application until July 2007, after he got several variances. ( This information is also wrong. Mr Van Dyke approached the board in April of 2007, (1st meeting ); then came back in May( 2nd meeting ) and was sent to the Zoning Board because he was asking for hardship waivers on our Steep Slopes and Density ordinances. He came back to the board in July and his application was accepted as complete. )
First order of business: The Board reviews an application for site plan submitted by Robert Van Dyke of Rindge. The site is for a proposed 32 units condo Planned Residential Development ( PRD ). The property is located on Keene Road, map 15, lot 53, which is located behind Shamrock Real Estate.
M. Sharra updates the board on this application. She explains where the board left off in April, Mr. Van Dyke obtaining a variance for density requirements and the meetings with Natalie and the engineers report ( none of this was seen by several abutters as they had not received a notice from the planning board )
D. Beaman moves to accept the application ( though not complete ) as complete and move into a public hearing, K. Cole seconds, all in favor.
At this time Mr. Van Dyke still needs to apply to the State for septic approval, apply for alteration of terrain permit and storm water run off and a Joint Use Agreement from PSNH among other things. Mr. Van Dyke is also asking for two waivers. One waiver is for frontage on Route 10 in the highway commercial district ( required 500', his lot has 214' ) and the other one to permit septic systems in the 100ft. buffer area.
In September 2007 the board voted to deny the application. ( Based on the town's own Site Plan and PRD regulations and town Ordinances despite several protests from Margaret Sharra. ) The next month Sharra suggested the members reconsider, based on a Supreme Court's decision that boards could do so within a certain time frame ( Not for any points of law they may have missed or for being unfair to the developer as is required for reconsideration ) After 13 more hearings ( and many more he neither showed up for or requested a continuance of ) the application was approved in June 2008 ( wrong again, his conditional approval with 26 conditions was granted 4/21/2008, which anyone can verify by going here. )
http://winchester-nh.gov/Pages/WinchesterNH_PlanningMinutes/I0205C811
Towne asked the board to reconsider that decision, a request that was denied, leading to the lawsuit. ( Mr. Towne was not even allowed to speak, to present his motion, or give testimony, or even call upon others in the audience to provide additional testimony in his support; thus he filed suit to be given a chance to exercise his rights at a public hearing . )
Cole, a long time planning board member, said he hoped the case would soon be closed. " I know the appealers are sincere, " he said. It's been a long process. I'm sure it's not been easy for them ... and it's been a very expensive process for the town.
This will not be over anytime soon. The board once again has ignored due process and Mr. Towne's rights and besides possibly having to defend itself before the State Supreme Court, a very costly endeavor for the town, they will shortly find themselves back in court facing Superior Court Judge Tucker and explaining why they violated his court order and didn't wait until their next scheduled meeting granting Towne time to heal from surgery and allowing him to give testimony and present his witnesses at his own scheduled hearing. And of course there could be another appeal of the final approval which has been granted with conditions in which he did not fulfill when given his conditional approval over a year ago.
We hear that the town has spent well over $20,000.00 of your tax dollars defending the planning board's actions. If they had just followed their own rules and made Van Dyke wait until he had everything that was required for a completed application as mandated by the town's own regulations and ordinances, as they have many others who have come before them, then perhaps the town would not find itself having to defend the actions of a few. At least we have something in common with Richmond.
Any and all info can be verified by the town's own official record of both audio and written minutes, court motions and the Judge's decision by contacting us if so desired.
27 comments:
Looks like that reporter for the Sentinel really needs a lesson on getting her facts straight. At least she's consistent, her story on the WPD was filled with errors too. I guess they are not to keen on getting things right in Keene.
Thank you for clearing up a lot of questions many of us had as to what was really going on with this lawsuit. After reading this and several accounts of meetings at the towns website I can see now why these two abutters refuse to quit and that they do have a very good case against Margaret and the planning board for not following procedure as defined by our regulations. Just how much will our board of selectmen allow to be spent on this unreasonable behavior before they put a stop to it?
I have a question. Did I read somewhere that Mr. Cole has resigned from the planning board? If that is correct when was he reappointed? Why is he the speaker for the planning board? I am confused but do understand that the judge cannot rule fast enough on behalf of the citizens who have been misrepresented by the town. It seems to me that the alligator is about to bite the board in the butt.
Thanks for the information. We will put it to good use at election time. Perhaps the BOS will step up to the plate and do their job!
Ken did not run for the board this year, he stepped down; however he has been appointed an alternate by Margaret Sharra and sits on the board frequently. As for him being a spokesperson for the board in this matter, he may have been the only member willing to comment, though I wonder why Margaret didn't have anything to say, probably because she was named in the suit and found to be guilty by the judge and didn't want to answer any questions about it.
These two men have every right to be upset at the town and do what they are doing. Things I was told about them being just a couple of troublemakers and people against progress just isn't true, there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. I wonder how selectman Ken B. can comment on how the board is doing such a remarkably good job on this project and how he always follows the rules to the letter of the law, when the things I have now read show just the opposite? Why are so many in favor of something that obviously isn't needed, nor wanted in this town, what's really going on?
Though it is obviously going to cost us taxpayers much more money, I for one would like to see these two men prevail and perhaps as a result nothing like this mess would happen to anyone else here in town. I also feel that it is time for Margaret to step down and stop giving the planning board such a crappy name, many have complained about her in the past, it's plain as rain to see why.
I would like to comment on a few things. First, who the heck is this Margaret Sharra??? Where did she come from? By reading these blogs I understand that she has been around for a while but I have not lived in town for a while. I grew up in Winchester, graduated from THS and left town for the Military in 1994. As I remember the town was a great town back then. What has happened? It seems to me that Winchester needs to bring Jim Harrison back!! I do not remember the town being corrupt as it is now. As far as the BOS and other members I have read about the town needs to ALL VOTE. Get these people out of office. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE! This site is a great site and thank the people who do this. Are the people on all the planning boards, BOS, etc even qualified to do this? Do the members of the boards have any engineering degree's? Do they have back grounds in government? Let good people like Bob Davis run this town. Bob as I remember is a very smart man, has ran a business, knows about building and is a fair person who will do good for the town. Let's get these idiots out of there. When the people vote NO, the answer is NO!!!
One has to wonder who Margaret is really working for here, why did she make a phone call to dispute information provided to the board by a citizen? Didn't she take an oath to the town to work in the best interest of all of us and not contractors coming into our town? One can probably say she was just checking facts; but this judge ruled against her actions, leaving us all to wonder if she is really working for this contractor. I wonder why they keep calling Carl a soil scientist, he is not, he's just a septic designer for the average person with a wetlands scientist license. I know this for a fact. I question why Dean Beamon and Margaret refer to him as something he is not, what's really going on at these hearings? In any case, I agree with the above commenter, it is time we all get out and vote and vote some of these people out of office, it's clear they have their own agendas and are not working in our best interest as they have sworn to do, if they were, would the town have spent so much money defending their actions or would this judge have ruled that Margaret has broken the law? I don't think so.
This whole mess just reeks of favoritism and dishonesty. How can a board just ignore their own regulations and continue looking the other way? Why didn't they stop this project when the highway got flooded, it was obvious he wasn't following the law and there were problems. Why are they even allowing Van Dyke to start another project when he has that mess coming into town out on highway 119? That's a real eye sore and terrible waste of natural terrain. Can you imagine what visitors to our town must think seeing that mess out there and now another one on highway 10 coming down from Keene? Why didn't they make him do something with that first mess before letting him start another project? What happens now if he decides to give up out on 10 because of the litigation, will they allow him to destroy some more land and start another project? When do these people say enough already? I don't understand their thinking nor do I feel they are really doing a good job.
If this Van Dyke has not satisfied the conditions given him for a conditional approval, how in hell can they give him a final approval with conditions? Isn't this still just a conditional approval? This makes no sense to me and I'm pretty sure that this can't be lawful either. What are these people thinking? No wonder the town is in court.
As a member of the budget committee I am totally discussed with the selectmen for purposing line item increase of $25,000.00 for Land Use under the Judicial and Legal Expense line and the budget committee for not taking a stand on the obscene waste of the tax payers dollars. The Land Use legal fee approbation in 2008-2009 budget was $5,000.00. The 2008-2009 Legal budget was in the red for $19,688.97 or (64.55) % over budget. This year’s Land Use dept asked $30,000.00 for legal fees.
I made the motion to cut the legal fees from the Judicial and Legal budget for Land Use by $25,000.00. To stop this department from running the legal fee sham lead by Margaret Sharra. It just gives her a pot of gold to continue her agenda. My motion never got second by any other committee members. This shows me the budget committee members aren’t really serious about cutting meaningful tax payer dollars from our budget.
I am considering resigning form the budget committee in protest for the fact the committee is only cutting less than 10% and Selectmen Ken Gardener stated to the members we will any lost money that back at deliberation session. I am considering putting all my energy into making sure we have enough people to cut the budget a deliberative session.
Hang in there Bob, you'll end up getting the last laugh on those that continue to support wasteful spending. Sounds like these abutters are dead serious about this fight and are prepared to go several more rounds. I can only imagine what their legal fee bill is; but I'll bet they are looking to recover their money and more and probably will in a civil suit now that Margaret Sharra was found to have broken the law resulting in them having to file in court just to be heard. As for the comments by selectman Garner, he should be ashamed of himself for his attitude. Just who does he think the people of Winchester are, his own personal cash cow? I can only wonder what the people who voted for that fool will think now of their choice?
It seems to me that we have several people on our boards with a big "ego". I believe that it is up to the citizens to vote them out. The problem arises when so many of us are not "in favor" and not privy to the boards shenanigans.
It is in our best interest for Mr. Davis to continue in his role as a member of the Budget Committee. We, as taxpayers, need to know what is happening. Obviously, we cannot rely on the BOS. Please keep all of the information coming. We may not like what we read but we can at least make a informed decision about what is happening in the town. No one in this town likes to be lied to and treated like we are stupid. If we all band together we can get rid or the riff raff!.
Thanks informer for the info.
It must be tough to put the time and energy into the budget comm., only to have the selectman on that comm. tell the group that it doesn't matter what they think or how they vote he will see that it gets overturned at deliberative. Its not hard to understand the unproductive arrogance of some of the towns employees with backing like that. I would say to Bob hang in there so we get the info, and the rest of the comm. should make a formal protest because of Mr. Gardners attitude. The town employees don't need a union they have one its the BOS. If this doesn't make the voters rise up in revolt there is no hope for Winchester.
If you owned a business and were looking for help how many of the Winchester employees would you be willing to hire. Two or three at the most is what i suspect. If we ever get a board that works for the voters instead of the employees there are a lot of good unemployed out there looking for work. We need to get out the vote, talk to your friends and neighbors.
For those of you who may not remember, this is the same man who last year at the Deliberative Session, changed the wording on a proposed warrant article to give a $750.00 tax credit to our disabled tax payers to zero dollars. He thinks nothing of padding the coffers of the town spenders and employees; yet cries foul when something is proposed that will actually give a little relief to those who need it most. Shame on you Ken Garner and on those who voted for this arrogant, disgusting person.
Wow, you people have a serious problem in your town when your own selectmen threaten to go against your budget committee's recommendations and aren't afraid to say so in public. I don't know how you are ever going to get out of the hole you have dug for yourselves by electing people who obviously don't care about the town or it's people. For years I have heard stories about Winchester, now I know just how true they were. Many towns have their problems but nothing like I have been reading here, your town is in real trouble with leaders like that. I'd suggest a letter writing campaign to the AG's office or one of the State's bigger newspapers to shed light on what is going on; hopefully someone will step in and help clean out that rat's nest.
Help me out here, If money gets brought back during the deliberative session doesnt that mean that the voters want it back in the budget, Who votes at the session, not the selectman?.so your gripe would be with the majority of townsfolk? townspeople want these budgets and programs. I would take that to mean very few people agree with your complaints.
another thing you dont bring up is the fact all town and citys in the state are having money and tax problems not just Winchester. The article last month in the paper listed several town around us in the same position if not worse. why do you feeel this is a problem for Winchester only.I noticed some one asked the Informer last month to list 1 thing that they have changed for the better or improved in town, this might be a very good time to list them. everyday its becoming very obvious you are a small group of people on the outside and thats why you worry about the deliberative session if the majority of townspeople want something thats the way it goea. you may have better luck selling your homes and moving to a town that has no school fire department police departments or any things a community needs, Good luck on finding this place
Employees plus family and friends make a big voting block and i would be willing to bet the last blog came from the town hall on co time. The point is other towns are cutting back and with Winchester its spend spend spend. YOU MOVE
This small group of trouble makers only want accountability and if you think its just a few you must have forgotten about a guy named Stetser.
If you call 60 - 65 people the majority, you're as warped as your thinking. I have attended these sessions and it is mostly made up of the town employees, their families and close friends. They vote to promote more benefits for themselves and to protect their own interests than do what's good for everyone in town. The whole process is controlled by those being complained about in these comments. Another thing, no one checks to be sure that those voting are actually Winchester registered voters either, there is no paper ballot or check to see who is actually in attendance. It is assumed that everything is on the up and up like everything else that happens in this town.
Oh, and for what this site has done for all of us in town is open our eyes to all the crap going on behind closed doors that we have never been privi to .. worried are we?
Why should we move? We have no high school here, we pay to ship our kids out of town to be educated and yet they can't pass simple aptitude tests. We have a fire dept that caters to race track campers and fills swimming pools out of state. The police dept is under the scrutiny of the AG's office and several of our officers have had past conduct issues. Our selectmen don't respond to any questions and our planning board is run by a self serving diva. Why move, we have everything you listed here in Winchester. We are not a small group of people as you will see come election time, the clock is ticking, when we vote no, we mean no.
As for what this site has done, it's torn down the curtain of denial and made our town government much more transparent. It has brought to light numerous problems we should all be aware of when making decisions that will not only affect ourselves but our neighbors, families and friends and other townsfolk. It has shown us how foolish some of us have been to support those we believed actually were working in our best interests and for the betterment of Winchester. What we have been shown is the truth and we don't like what we see. It has brought many of us together for the first time to seek change and shown us that those we trusted to do the best job they can for all of us are not and are only doing what's best for themselves. That's some of what this site has done and I for one am very grateful that a handful of people stepped up to open my eyes and those around me.
Having attended my very first Deliberative Session last year, I can attest that the MAJORITY of those in attendance were town employees and their relatives. How do you expect a smaller budget if they are the ones controlling things.
The same goes for the School's Deliberative Session (which is not held at the same time - for those of you that are FINALLY going to come out and help this year). It was packed with teachers and their relatives.
We should make it a REQUIREMENT that everyone's identification be checked (with a valid driver's license or photo ID) and this includes VOTING at Town Hall! This should include ALL of those individuals who consider themselves Winchester Royalty!
Talk with ALL of your neighbors. Let's make this the year that we stop the back stabbing politicians and get professionals running the show.
We need individuals that are qualified to be on these boards. Encourage the Engineers, Architects and Contractors to run for Planning Board (not greedy real estate agents), business men/women for Board of Selectman and accountants for Budget committee. And someone with a College degree for School Board!
Information gather through the "right to know" law has the land use dept. up to $40,000 in spending this year on lawsuits and other expenses. That's quite a big jump from a $5,000 dollar budget, so how does the selectman defend giving Margaret a raise and bonus? She should be paying this money back to the town of Winchester instead of being rewarded. What a joke this board of selectmen are, they're a real bunch of jackals and should all be removed. Their isn't an honest one in the whole bunch.
Does anyone know if Mr. Towne filed another lawsuit over the way he was treated by these shameful people? I hope did and the court finds for him and fines these fools for what they have done. They are a disgraceful lot!
Yes, he did.
This has got to be getting very costly for this gentleman, didn't I read somewhere on this blog that he is disabled and collecting disability and also has several health issues? This is really appalling that someone who is obviously struggling through life has to be treated in such a manner in order to just be heard and have his say. There is something very wrong with our leaders for allowing such a situation to manifest into court case after court case and for decent people to be treated so badly. As a town we need to step up and make sure that this doesn't ever happen to anyone ever again in our town and vote those responsible out of office as quickly as we can. I am ashamed to say I am from Winchester and offer Mr. Towne my apologies for casting a vote for some of these irresponsible people.
So as I understand it, there are now two ongoing suits in two different courts in regards to this matter? It would seem the prudent thing to do here would be to admit guilt, offer some kind of solution or settlement and remove Margaret Sharra from the planning board for what she has cost us taxpayers defending her illegal actions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is going to cost us a heck of a lot more if it requires going to the Supreme Court as well as back to Superior Court to defend her actions towards Mr. Towne and the other abutters. Why can't the the selectmen see this? There must be some other reasoning involved here or perhaps just total dislike for these two men who have stood up for what they believe.
If the selectmen are fighting this because they don't like the two gentlemen standing up for themselves it's not reason enough to go to court. So it really looks like a cover-up for wrongful activities going on in town hall. It seems that when the board does things that are wrong they figure the individuals will just go away. I guess they have finally met up with some who don't see it that way and think that principles and the law are important. Hopefully the town selectmen (I was going to write leaders, but realized there is no leadership) can see this before causing any more harm to the people of this town and the people they have directly targeted.
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