Posted by Dennis Herrick on January 13, 2010 at 10:44:05:
From Today's Fosters Daily Democrat
Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010
Selectmen should say no
To the editor: Last night (Jan. 4), Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch attended a selectmen's meeting in Nottingham to address issues regarding the permits issued to USA Springs and large groundwater extraction.
We learned at that meeting what many of us have known for years that a state attorney will tell us that there is nothing we can do as a community but sit back and accept the harm. To ask the state's attorney how we should proceed against state agencies when we feel they are wrong is an exercise in futility. It's like asking the fox to design a chicken house to protect the chickens from predators. Do abused children go to the attorney representing the abusive parent for assistance?
We were told, predictably, that as a municipality we can only do what the state says we can do, that we the people of Nottingham have no authority or right to protect ourselves from harm, and even though we passed an ordinance at a Town Meeting to protect our groundwater the Select board can choose not to enforce the will of the people. This is in direct opposition to the N.H. Constitution, Article 8, which states in part, "All power... being derived from he people, all... officers of government [the Select board] are their substitutes and agents, and [are] at all times accountable to them."
So what happened to the democracy we hear so much about when the will of the people can be subverted by three (or two) people? Gail Mills should be commended for asking such an important question as we now know exactly what kind of a select board we have. They have consistently refused to enforce our Water Rights Ordinance. Fortunately any citizen can and has been enforcing it but only the Select board can tell the Building Inspector not to reissue an expired permit as its issuance violates a town ordinance.
What we need are selectmen who have the backbone and the resolve to stand up and say no. We will not be bullied into cowering down to the state. We will abide by the will of the people of Nottingham and we will enforce this water rights ordinance, and we will never surrender, because the state's system of issuing permits to allow a corporation to come in to our town and cause harm to the community is just plain wrong, and we will not abide by it. We will put the health and welfare of the people first.
There are many boards of selectmen in this state and elsewhere in this country that have been told by their attorneys that similar ordinances are "illegal and unenforceable," and the selectmen have said that that may be their opinion but we are going to enforce it anyway. When Rosa Parks sat down on a bus, she said, in effect, I know what your laws are, and they are wrong, and I will go to jail rather than abide by them. That is resolve.
The select board has been told repeatedly that attorneys licensed by the state take an oath to uphold the statutes and precedents of this State and are therefore duty bound to say that any ordinance that challenges those existing laws is 'illegal'. The state attorney general is not going to say anything different. 'Illegal' just means that it challenges an existing law. It does not mean it is wrong.
Judy Doughty
Nottingham