ELECTION DAY : April 2008 Archives
A response to questions about Moultonborough
April 1st, 2008
Editor, The Citizen: Since Mr. Kim Dubuque wrote an "open letter to me" I must respond and expand on my points in a factual manner. I also must apologize for referring to Kim as "her". We have never met and I just made a wrong gender assumption.
In regards to the secret ballot petitions, you stated: "Could the motivating factor be that you and your core group were trying to make a point? In my opinion you were. I feel you accomplished your goal." The goal was not to make a point. The goal was to assure a fair and equitable means of voting on contentious issues. And yes, on that level it worked. As to your point, "Why were the last two petitions withdrawn"? While it may seem odd that this year there were so many petitions, I was not the only one requesting secret ballots in Moultonboro's Town Meeting. I didn't sign all of them. As for why the last two were withdrawn, I really wouldn't know as I was not one of those that requested that they were withdrawn. Perhaps that can be answered by those that did.
You further stated, "What I think, is that the petitioners became aware of the will of the overwhelming majority in the room and realized that what they were doing caused more harm than good". No. Harm or good were never factored in to the equation. Look at the issues that were on the table. I signed the secret ballot petitions that I felt strongly about. Period. Others did the same. I would tend to doubt that they withdrew the petitions as they were "swayed by the overwhelming majority" as evidenced by dwindling volume of voters after the community center vote.
As to the volunteers, you stated, "Another point I would like to make is I find your insinuation that the citizens who circulated and presented the petition for the community center intentionally inflated or sought out non registered voters to sign it, at the very least offensive. Anyone who knows the people involved with this project knows them to be hardworking and well intended members of our community". The point that was finally made successfully by voting down the $375,000 study funding is that most agree that a community center is worthwhile. The RSPT however drew a line in the sand and never looked for a middle ground. It was all or nothing and a very valuable lesson learned as evidenced by the new strategy of this team to think about how to phase this out and make it more palatable for the public. I have no doubt that those involved in any of the projects on any of the committees works hard. That was never an issue for me. I commend them for their hard work. I commend the selectmen for doing the jobs that they do. The issue I have is when they are swayed by a petition that is one third invalid and never thought it relevant. The RSPT and supporters continually referred to the opposition as a "small vocal minority". Apparently it is not.
As for your last issue, "I would also like to address Mrs. Punturieri comments about our select board. It is easy to accuse using generalizations. For those accusations to be plausible you need to use facts. Knowing the members of our select board, I find it highly unlikely that any of them would publicly ridicule a citizen for speaking his or her mind". I would invite Mr. Dubuque to take a look at some of the film footage of some of the selectmen's meetings available in the library, to view for himself some of the indignities that transpired. They are too numerous to mention and the issues have been decided. Enough said.
Linda Punturieri
Moultonborough
