TOWNSHEND — The Selectboard threw its support behind a planned second annual Holiday of Horses Parade, tentatively set for the second Sunday after Thanksgiving
Resident Laura Richardson asked the board at its Aug. 18 meeting for permission to organize the event and for logcal support - particularly traffic control and parking.
The Selectboard said yes.
Any cost to the town would come through invoices from the Sheriff's Department. Many people would want to volunteer, Richardson said, and she predicted more participants would want to take part than did last year.
Townshend's first Holiday of Horses Parade was billed as an impromptu, whimsical tribute to equines and local nonprofits. The parade started at Leland & Gray Union High School, proceeded to Valley Cares, and returned.
Town Hall was open for all to warm up with hot drinks, good conversation, and a gift drawing. There were costumes, clowns, and candy.
Richardson said staff and patients from Grace Cottage Hospital enjoyed the view from their windows and that the parade lapped around Valley Cares three times in response to an abundance of smiles and waves.
“The main concept was to have fun, which we did, and to bring attention to the local nonprofits of the area, as they're doing a lot of fun stuff,” Richardson said.
She promised to return to the selectboard with additional details as they become available. She said the event would last approximately an hour and that the second Sunday after Thanksgiving seemed like the last, best chance to hold the event before snow flies.
“Nobody's gonna ride horses in bad weather with plow trucks going by and lights flashing. It would all be advertised as weather-permitting,” she said.
Listers chair denies office started petition
Stanley Bills Jr., chair of the Board of Listers, says a recent petition protesting a pending land sale here was justified, that he and most of the listers signed it, and that he doesn't know who originated it.
He just says it wasn't his office.
“That would be out of our scope. We weren't elected to [float petitions],” he told The Commons several days after a story discussing the petition ran.
According to Brad Boucher, who offered the town $2,500 for a two-acre parcel at 67 Higgins Lane, Townshend Acres, a petition calling for the deal's scuttling was factually incorrect but not worth fighting. He withdrew his offer Aug. 18.
Townshend bought the land at tax auction in 1996 and sees no value from it. Any money the town might collect from its sale above its own costs would have to be turned over to the original owner or, failing in that effort, to the state.
That deal is off the table. A one-paragraph petition recently making the rounds demanded that the parcel “be sold at public auction, and not in the arbitrary amount of $2,500. The assessed value is $22,000.”
At the Aug. 18 meeting Boucher questioned the appropriateness of a telephone call he said he received from the Lister's office the previous Friday in connection with his offer.
“The townspeople have spoken. However, I feel they weren't given all the facts; they were manipulated or misinformed - lied to, or whatever you want to say,” Boucher told the Selectboard.
He challenged the facts as the petition delivers them and said that he was approached by signers who had come to believe they were misled by the document. In any event, he said, Townshend has lost the sale and any tax revenue it would start to generate.
The petition's author has not stepped forward. Boucher suggested that, owing at least in part to the petition's language, the Lister's office may be linked.
He said he had recently received a phone call from a Robin at the listers' extension inquiring about his offer. He suggested this was aimed at prying.
“Does that office generate the petition, or is that for the townspeople to generate?” he asked. “I can write a petition about anything and get people to sign it. Where is the responsibility of portraying the facts? Is that office held accountable in any way? Did they generate it? Did they generate the verbiage, or is it a lone wolf?”
Selectboard Chair Kathy Hege had replied: “At this point I can't specifically answer that with certainty. There's a lot of speculation.”
Boucher suggested the petition did the town a disservice.
“They [the petition's author or authors] talked about an auction. They [the town] tried to auction it off. And nobody bought it. I thought I could do something with it. I thought what I offered was very fair,” he said.
Whatever its merits, Hege explained that the petition seemed destined to meet its legal threshhold of 5 percent of registered voters.
She said it had not been submitted to the town clerk yet and was not official.
Hege returned to the notion of the apparent and unwarranted interest of the listers office.
“I'm a little bit concerned by the fact that somebody not from this board approached you about the land sale when in fact your offer was to this board. So I'm really not certain what prompted the office of the listers to contact you … because it was a done deal at that point,” Hege said.
Boucher said he had received a message from a woman named Robin at town extension 104, the listers office. He said he did not call back.
Later, he said, he learned of the petition.
Robin O'Neill is a lister here. Afternoon calls to O'Neill's office that Tuesday were not picked up; an email to Bills inviting comment was not returned by press time.
Several days later, Bills called The Commons.
He said he did not know who had started the petition. “I don't know that that's really relevant. I guess I could try to find out,” he added.
“I am not an attorney, but I feel that everyone should have an equal opportunity to bid on it [the parcel]. It doesn't matter if they're from Townshend, Texas, or California. That's the way I view a democracy,” he said.
“Where the money goes after that is beside the point,” he added.
Bills said he had “no insight” into why one of his board members allegedly reached out to Boucher to discuss his purchase offer.
“It certainly wasn't because of any concern of the Listers Office,” he said.