by Moultonborough Speaks
In 2008, a town appointed Recreation Strategic Planning Team (RSPT) came up with a plan to build a $10M recreation complex. At town meeting in March 2008, $375K to fund engineering and phasing for the construction was voted down by nearly a two to one margin.
The Master Plan for the town of Moultonborough was approved in December of 2008 by the Planning Board. The Master Plan committee decided to include the RSPT strategic plan only as an appendix to the Master Plan. The chapter on recreation stated “What is right for Moultonborough in this area must be determined by the people of Moultonborough – the community has started the discussion and must continue the debate through to conclusion.”
After town meeting, town Administrator Carter Terenzini began holding staff meetings in his office to develop a phasing plan for construction of a recreation complex complete with a swimming pool, a 10K square foot building and a separate gymnasium building.
All of this has been done behind the scenes, no public input and no public meetings.
There have been attempts by citizens of Moultonborough requesting minutes of these ‘staff meetings’, to which they were told since it was a ‘staff meeting’ it is not subject to the RTK law. Another citizen asked if any members of the public could attend as it became known that non -town guests were attending these ‘staff meetings’. The response was negative and further explained by Carter Terenzini, TA, that these other people were ‘invited’ and again as staff meetings, they are exempt from the RTK law.
In a letter to the BoS and PB dated January 24th, 2010 Carter Terenzini wrote that he was giving them notice of proposed construction plan for the property, citing RSA 674:54, “Governmental Use” of public property, admitting that there is a ‘substantial change in use or a substantial new use’ for the site he is proposing for the recreation complex to be built.
This letter was on the Planning Board’s Agenda for 1/27/10 and discussed by the Town Planner, who stated that this was the official notice to the Planning Board and the Board of Selectmen. The Planning Board agreed to hold a public hearing on the phasing plan but has no authority to stop it or even put restrictions on it. Since it is “governmental use” the town can do whatever they want with the property. The PB scheduled a non-binding hearing on February 24th and decided to use the school auditorium as they expect a large turnout.
The contentious issues here are that;
1. These meetings were taking place under the guise of ‘staff meetings’ purposely skirting the RTK law ..and the will of the people
2. The town voted down this project and despite this, the connected folks in town have developed a plan to circumvent the will of the people with “staff” meetings.
3. These meetings were conducted by the Town Administrator and discussed how the town’s tax dollars will be spent without a vote by the town
4. The Master Plan chapter on recreation was completely ignored
5. These meetings were known to the Board of Selectmen, some or all and yet there is not one mention of it at any BoS meeting at least in public session.