Back in May, voters in Peterborough headed to the polls for ballot session of Town Meeting, and faced a multitude of questions. The hot item on the agenda was zoning amendment 15, a petition article submitted by local residents to repeal two Traditional Neighborhood Overlay Zones. If this sounds complicated already, its because it is. Zoning and Planning Boards are the antithesis to property rights, and generally complicate everything for everyone.
The petition amendment would have increased lot size requirements (generally not something to be in favor of,) but it also would have removed a “compliance” regulation that basically tells people what kind of houses they can build. Yuck. Skip wrote about the zoning amendment here.
Then, a few other residents submitted a protest petition. It was held by town administrators until after everyone (including a reporter from the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript) had left the Select Board meeting, and then presented to the Select Board. I wrote about that here.
Lo-and-behold, the original petition garnered a majority vote, but the protest petition meant it had to garner 2/3rds of the votes. So it failed. Sort of.
The original petition filers had themselves a lawyer, and rightfully filed suit in Superior Court, challenging the towns decision to accept the protest petition. Yada yada yada. But now, the Town of Peterborough ITSELF is suing two of the petition filers! Just two. Not all 15.
So, WHO in Peterborough authorized this lawsuit, and WHY did they single out two of the petition filers?
A request of one of the current Select Board members for current Select Board meeting minutes went unanswered, so tomorrow a 91-A request or 100 will be filed with the town administration. Peterborough deserves to know who is actually running this town, and why they’re suing their own residents over the town’s incompetence.
