Top dogs
Boat-raiser
Local Little League wins all three divisions
Yacht regatta benefits Maritime Museum
Page 10
Page 11
Volume 52 Number 34
POSTAL CUSTOMER
PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #217 CONCORD, NH ECRWSSEDDM
shelburnenews.com
August 24, 2023
Parade Ground joke lands flat
It’s Shelburne day
Historic review committee votes no on revamp LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY KEN CRITES
The Crazy Cotton Candy Lady brought her own brand of fun to the annual Shelburne Day celebration Saturday. As did these master face painters. See more photos on page 12.
An idea to revamp the historic Parade Ground has stirred up the Shelburne community since June, and although the dust had seemingly begun to settle, things began to swirl again last weekend after selectboard chair Mike Ashooh wrote a joke online that has dozens of residents up in arms again. In a post titled, “Shelburne Dunking Booth at Shelburne Days,” he wrote, “Yes, that’s right! You can pay $10 to pitch a baseball and dunk your favorite selectboard member at this Saturday’s Shelburne Days at the Farmers Market! All proceeds go to help fund the Parade Ground upgrades! Because of Open Meeting Laws, you can only dunk one selectboard member at a time.” His post, meant as nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek bit to bring a little humor to the situation, has pushed some residents to such fury that they are questioning how to remove him from the selectboard. “Is there a way to remove someone from the selectboard?” asked Susan Declue, prompting follow-ups that outline what the town charter says about removing elected officers. “As for a joke, the Parade Ground upgrade is not funny,” Bob Birkett wrote. “It was conceived entirely within our town government, nurtured in relative obscurity, and then when it comes to public knowledge, all negative comments are brushed aside. Still the selectboard plows ahead with this misbegotten errand.” Contrary to those public
opinions, however, plans have not moved forward except for an initial review by the selectboard and open discussion where dozens of residents aired opposition to any plan to change the Parade Ground. The town’s historic preservation and design review committee must review the project before it could, hypothetically, move to the development review board. The original, unofficial plan would erect a 28-foot by 14-foot pavilion that would sit toward Falls Road. Other changes include the addition of benches, Adirondack chairs, and a 3-foothigh fence consisting of granite posts and a black metal chain. At a historic preservation and design review committee meeting earlier this month, members voted against the idea of putting any sort of gazebo on the historic parade grounds, and although the committee is not a quasi-judicial board, projects located within the Historic Preservation and Design Review Overlay district are required to go through this review before moving to the development review board for approval. “The development review board would look at an application to determine compliance with the zoning regulations,” Aaron DeNamur, the town’s planning director, said. “The historic preservation and design review committee’s opinion on something like this in no way requires the development review board to agree or enforce the (committee’s) recommendation.” But Dorothea Penar, a member of the committee, said that she See PARADE GROUND on page 7