By Christine Heiser
Staff Writer

Speaking against the proposed town charter at the Wednesday, Feb. 9, deliberative session is Stephen Monier, who was one of the original petitioners who asked for a charter commission to be formed last March. He said the change would give too much power to too few people. (Christine Heiser Photo)

Last-minute arguments over the best location to build a kindergarten marked the deliberative session of Goffstown Town Meeting, but the warrant article that would transfer the property across from Glen Lake from the town to the school district was sent to the March 8 ballot unchanged. Controversy continued over the land question as both sides met to discuss their differences in a meeting days after the session.

At the almost five-hour meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 9, discussion also centered around creating a town charter and purchasing firefighting equipment, but it was the property transfer warrant that caused residents to speak out, passionately at times.

“Already, 200 children have lost out on a public kindergarten education because of the Tibbett’s Hill Road problem,” said Lissa Winrow, chairman of Kindergarten for Goffstown. “And now we risk losing $2.2 million and another 200 children.”

The school district must present an firm opening date for the kindergarten by June 30 to receive $2.2 million in state building aid. If the matter of location is not settled and plans are not put into place by then, the money will be given to another community, and Goffstown will be forced to raise the entire $3.3 million cost for the school.

“The tax rate will go up if we lose that funding,” Winrow said.

If the district receives 75 percent state aid, the school will only cost taxpayers $256,000, a one-time tax impact of 52 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation. The kindergarten was passed in last March’s election.

But the plan to build the school on the town-owed land was opposed at the meeting by some who aren’t convinced that the 20-acre property, part of a 55-acre lot located on Elm Street across from the Glen Lake beach, is the best location.

Resident Collis Adams, who is an abutter to the proposed property, tried to amend Warrant 24 – first to name another parcel of town-owned land near the transfer station known as the “sand pit,” as the location for the school. When that amendment was denied, he spoke in favor of changing the wording so a commission would be established to study properties on which to build a school.

Town moderator Rodney Stark told the crowd of about 150 people that amending the warrant with the sand pit lot could not be done without giving the abutters prior notice.

The amendment to form a study commission went to secret ballot, and received 85 “no” votes and 60 “yes” votes.

Adams, who is a member of the planning board and chairman of the conservation commission, said he was only speaking as an individual and denied that being an abutter played a part in his decision to oppose the land transfer. He called himself a proponent of kindergarten, but said the Glen Lake property was not the right place to build it, citing wetlands issues, among other reasons.

The fight continues
The argument over the property tranfer spilled into the next week with both sides meeting privately on Tuesday, Feb. 15, to discuss their differences.

After the meeting, kindergarten proponents remained perplexed at the opposition.

“We’ve been looking for land to build a school for four to five years,” said Scott Gross, school board member. “Why, all of a sudden, is (Adams) against this particular property? And why didn’t he come forth with the sand pit property when the lawsuit (by abutters over the original property on Tibbett’s Hill Road) forced us to start looking again?”

Adams denied any personal agenda, and called the meeting with the school board “totally unproductive.”

“The school board has its mind made up,” he said.

The Glen Lake property, although big enough for a kindergarten, would not be fit for expansion for an already needed elementary school, Adams said. He believes the board is not taking future needs into consideration.

“The whole project needs to come forward at once, and they’re not doing that,” he said. “You can’t break up a project into pieces in the approval process. Developers have tried this for decades.”

He said each phase of expansion would have more and more of a cumulative effect on the wetlands on as much as 3 acres of the parcel. The state might give a wetlands permit for the first phase, but no future wetlands impact could be made on the land after that, which would prohibit expansion.

His biggest worry, though, is that building the school on the Glen Lake land would open the rest of the 55 acres to development. He also said that perhaps the selectmen have plans for the sand pit location.

“Something else is at work here,” Adams said. “I don’t know what the selectmen’s plans are; I asked them at the (deliberative session) but they didn’t answer.”

Adams said that it’s simply a matter of the sand pit property being a better place to put the school. It’s already excavated, he said, and would be cheaper in the long run.

“We’re not putting the school on the best piece of property,” he said.

But Gross said the Glen Lake property is the best thing they’re going to come up with in time.

“We’ve got two minutes left in the fourth quarter,” he said.

As a matter of fact, it’s a better property than the original Tibbett’s Hill Road land, he said. The traffic situation is better, there’s less ledge and the school can be hooked up to town water, which wasn’t the case on Tibbett’s Hill.

And if they do expand, they’ll be able to hook up to town sewer, too, he said.

He said the people the board has consulted say the wetlands impact would only be about 7,500 square feet.

The school board, when they began the kindergarten process, got a list of all the property owned by the town, he said.

“The sand pit property, along with most of the other parcels, was listed as unsuitable to build on,” he said.

The board originally rejected the Glen Lake land because they thought it had a deed restriction on it. The town acquired the land in the mid-’70s, and it was originally put aside for recreation use.

Contrary to what some believe, the land was never set aside as conservation land, he said.

When the board discovered, after the prior land got held up in litigation, that the Glen Lake property could, indeed, be used for public purposes, they jumped at it.

Gross said that the town’s master plan, drawn up in 1997, has a recommendation to use some of the property for a school, and perhaps a park, as well as other development down the road.

“Collis Adams was one of the signers of the master plan,” Gross said.

Adams said he didn’t know if he’d bring a lawsuit to keep a school off the Glen Lake land. Adams will have to recuse himself from the planning process as an abutter, though, said Gross.

“We’ve been trying to get this school built for five years,” he said. “At every turn, a roadblock has been thrown up. We’re not trying to build an incinerator or a casino. We want to build a school for little kids. It’s sad.”

Creating a charter
Because it was didn’t contain money items, no changes could be made to Article 22, which calls for approval of a town charter which would change the form of government in Goffstown from a five-member board of selectmen to a sevenmember town council and a town manager.

But after a presentation by John Caprio of the charter commission touting the differences between the current system and the proposed changes, several residents got up to ask why they should vote for a change at all.

Chief among them was Stephen Monier, retired police chief, who was one of the original petitioners who asked that a charter commission to be formed last election, but who opposes the plan formed by the commission.

He said he was “very much opposed” to the idea of centralizing power in the hands of a few, which he believes would happen if the town hired a manager.

“We’ve lost sight of the forest for the trees,” Monier said. “The question of whether it’s necessary has not been answered.”

He likened the plan to the governments already in place in Hooksett and Bedford.

“I like Bedford and Hooksett,” he said, “But we’re not Bedford. We’re not Hooksett.”

Other warrants
Moving forward to the March ballot unchanged were several other warrants, including those asking for approval of $1,865,000 for the next phase of road improvement plan, $15,000 for the Main Street Program, and $100,000 to put in a capital reserve fund to restore Grasmere Town Hall.

Petitioned warrants to reaffiren the town’s commitment to the current town ambulance service rather than considering privitization, and to direct the selectmen to present a plan for 24/7 fire and emergency coverage will also be on the ballot.

A warrant for two pieces of new fire equipment was amended to read “one,” as about half of the money requested is already in this year’s budget.