By Ryan O'Connor
Staff Writer

Weare residents will no longer have the option to take U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s home and create the Lost Liberty Hotel through eminent domain at the vote on March 14.

Residents at the deliberative session of Town Meeting, which took place Saturday, Feb. 4, amended the warrant article which would have allowed the town to do so.

With many TV cameras and reporters in attendance, a motion was put forward requesting that Article 48 be moved up on the agenda. The motion passed by a vote of 123-23 and the circus began.

Lines of residents stood to say their piece on the matter, which has attracted the attention of media outlets throughout the country and brought residents from all over the state to Weare.

Lance Powers of Rochester was one such individual. He said he did not have a problem with the concept of eminent domain, but rather the abuse of it, and was interested to see how Weare would handle the issue.

“I’ve been in favor of doing something to keep this on the forefront. It is unfortunate that you have to go to these means to get your point across about eminent domain and taking people’s land, but I think it needs to be stopped,” he said.

“This is just one way of keeping it on the forefront and making it happen,” said Powers. “When it comes to this case, I think it would be a neat idea to have a landmark in the U.S. to state that this happened and why, but it shouldn’t have to. It should be done in legislation. It shouldn’t even come to this point, but, unfortunately, it has.”

Resident Walter Bohlin then requested an amendment adding “not, not, not” to the article in such at such a place and in such a way that it would have effectively negated the article all together.

“I felt that this was an absolutely no-win situation for Weare,” said Bohlin. “Why should we have played this game with people outside of this town? I felt that it was time to signal that the game was over.”

“There are plenty of ways to address this issue, and this simply was not the way to do it,” he added. “It’s a ridiculous notion to try to take land from one of our own.”

In essence, his point of changing the article’s wording was that should the amended article be passed at town election, the action of “not” taking the Supreme Court Justice’s home would have been voted for. Moreover, should the article have failed, the same result would have occurred in that a negative vote to the article would have had the same impact as never having it in the first place. After more debate, a vote by secret ballot was requested, and those in attendance lined up to cast their vote on the amendment.

When the final tally was announced, the amendment passed 94-59.

Resident Paul Doscher then requested another amendment which changed the wording of the article altogether to request that the town vote agaist using its power of eminent domain to take Souter’s home and further to urge the governor and state Legislature to prevent the abuse of eminent domain in New Hampshire.

The amendment passed unanimously and a subsequent motion from Town Clerk Evelyn Conner to restrict further reconsideration of the article also passed without contest.

While proponents of taking Souter’s property would have liked to see a different result, many felt they had at least partially gained attention for the cause.

“I do believe that we accomplished a considerable amount by the amount of press that we brought to this issue in Weare alone,” said Gary Hopper, chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Natural Rights and a former state representative.

“For the town to get together as a group and request that the legislature do something was a nice gesture, but I still don’t feel that that it will have the effect of it actually going to vote. It was obvious to me that our opponents were offering an olive branch to smooth things over. It was a nice gesture, but obviously it was still disappointing.”

He added “The only real losers in life are the ones that don’t try. We tried, but we just didn’t win.”

Other business

While the issue of eminent domain dominated the deliberative session of Town Meeting, several other issues were debated as well, including the town operating budget, a replacement vehicle for the building department, and two new police officers.

After talk about the necessity of the new building department vehicle under Article 29, an amendment was put forth asking that the requested sum be reduced from $30,000 to $20,000. The amendment was passed.

The option to vote on two new full-time police officers at the cost of $85,000 for the rest of this year and about $120,000 next year, was also debated, but no request for amendment was made and thus the article went forward essentially unchallenged.

Vice chairman of the board of selectmen Leon Methot, also put forward an amendment to reduce the operating budget by about $100,000, due to an error in anticipated revenues that he discovered earlier in the week.

According to Methot, of the anticipated $450,000 which is accumulated from a 10 percent tax on land taken out of current use, selectmen anticipate receiving 75 percent of that money, or about $337,500 to go toward the operating budget, which he said was an error in accounting.

“What it does is it overinflates your numbers and makes your budget look better. We are not interested in that. We want an accurate balanced number,” he said. “In order to accomplish that and not hit taxpayers with the entire amount, we put forward this amendment.”

The amendment, which was passed, will take $140,000 from the town’s general fund and reduce the operating budget from $4,151,333 to $4,050,829 to provide the town with a more accurate figure and not create a large tax increase. In addition, the default budget will also be reduced from last year’s number of $4,000,684 to $4,000,182.

“It’s ultimately going to still be a struggle for the town,” said Methot. “We are still going to have to curb some expenses as cost-saving measures to make up the difference, but we don’t have a whole lot of choice.”