Rebuttal to Selectman Dumas 3rd Statement

On June 6 Selectman Dumas published on Facebook another lengthy defense of his actions as Selectman for discontinuing maintenance of a large number of Nottingham's roads. In his defense Selectman Dumas engages in scare tactics, repeatedly contradicts himself, presents factual errors, distracts readers with irrelevant issues, attributes claims to anonymous sources, and - above all - fails to address the central issue.

Let's start with the central issue.

Selectman Dumas said, "They would have you believe that the ELs are already town roads by "implied acceptance" as if that was already a proven fact. In reality, it is one of the questions that the lawsuit has asked the Court to decide upon and has not been determined either. "

None of Selectman Dumas' three public statements about the warrant articles makes any attempt to refute that these roads meet the legal criteria for implied acceptance.

Why? Because he can't!

Even with the tens of thousands of taxpayer's dollars of taxpayers' money that Selectman Dumas has already spent on lawyers he has nothing to give to the voters except the lame excuse that the matter has yet to be determined by a court. Yet, he pleads with the voters to let him waste tens of thousands more!

Voting yes on Warrant Articles #19 & #20 will put an end to Selectman Dumas' waste of taxpayers' money.

Selectman Dumas said, "They would have you believe that they only want plowing and grading, even though the lawsuit demands full acceptance by the Town and the warrant articles specify that the Town take the roads "as-is"."

Selectman Dumas here fails to acknowledge he is to blame for this. The residents were satisfied with the plowing and grading they'd been getting for the last half century, but it was Selectman Dumas who acted to deprive the residents of this, insisting that the Town had for the last half century been plowing and grading illegally - and that he knew things better than decades of prior voters and selectmen who approved these expenditures. By inflicting this error on the Town, Selectman Dumas forced the residents to address the question of the roads' legal status.

Selectman Dumas said, "They would have you believe that taxes will not go up if the warrant articles are passed, despite the fact that it will take millions of dollars to get all of the roads up to par. They would have you believe that rescinding our Town Road Standards is also a necessary part of their solution, when in fact it opens up developers to do whatever they want when a neighborhood is created. If they only want plowing and grading as they have stated, why should the road standards matter?"

Selectman Dumas fails to mention that the Town Road Standards he is referring to were created just six months ago in an attempt to wildly inflate the cost of bringing the roads up to the Town's standards. He misleads readers into thinking that Warrant Article #20 rescinds all of the Town's road standards now and forever and "opens up developers to do whatever they want." It doesn't. Claiming that it does is a factual error.

All Warrant Article #20 does is to rescind the standards adopted on December 7, 2020. It does not rescind any standards the Town has for new developments. It does not rescind any standards the Town had before December 7, 2020. It does not prevent the Town from creating new standards after the election. What Warrant Article #20 does is it prevents the Board of Selectmen from wasting millions of taxpayers' money on unneeded and unwanted road improvements due to standards fabricated to allow Selectman Dumas to engage in the scare tactic he is employing here.

Furthermore, Warrant Article #19 says that the will of the voters is to accept the roads as is. By this the voters are telling the Board of Selectmen that they do not want new standards created for these roads such as the ones the Board of Selectmen created on December 7, 2020.

Selectman Dumas claims "...in no way have I ever wanted to abandon the EL residents to their own devices." This contradicts his statement on May 31 saying that the residents need to "...band together to form road associations to take care of necessary road maintenance." It also contradicts what he has said at Board meetings "we have to get out from under..." and if the Town keeps maintaining and repairing camp roads, "where's our out?"

Selectman Dumas presents voters with six questions:

"1) Do you feel it is important to spend taxpayer money on private property, even though it is illegal?"

Does Selectman Dumas not understand that what Warrant Article #19 does is that it firmly establishes that these are public roads that the Town is obligated to maintain, making his question irrelevant? Is he just trying to confuse voters? Is this a scare tactic?

Does Selectman Dumas not understand that by his own admission that he had the Town engage in an action that he believed was illegal? ("I strongly supported repairing the Meindl Road bridge in Raymond when it washed out a couple of years back, even though it was clearly on private property and not even in our own Town")

Does this kind of contradiction not look like it might be based on standards that arbitrary, unreasonable, or capricious? Do Nottingham's voters want their selectmen to make arbitrary, unreasonable, or capricious decisions?

When the Town of Derry decided to stop maintaining some of its roads, claiming that the roads were "private" - the same thing Selectman Dumas has led Nottingham to do - Rockingham Superior Court said:

"The Court determines that the Derry Town Council's decision that the roads are private is a decision "as lacking in reason as to be arbitrary, unreasonable or capricious." Accordingly, the plaintiff Association is entitled to have the Town maintain these roads."

Do Nottingham's voters want to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to have Rockingham Superior Court tell the Town the same thing it told Derry, or do the voters want to save that money by voting yes on Warrant Articles #19 and #20?

"2) Do you feel that private landowners should maintain their own property consistent with RSA 231:81-a?"

Again, does Selectman Dumas not understand that he is asking voters an irrelevant question? Warrant Article #19 firmly establishes that these are public roads that the Town is obligated to maintain. Or is he just engaged in a scare tactic?

"3) Do you accept the costs of maintaining and/or improving 10-ish miles of private roads to safe standards?"

Does Selectman Dumas not realize that the Town has been doing this for over half a century? Or is he just engaged in a scare tactic?

"4) Do you accept the costs of using eminent domain in order to get the land necessary to properly widen the roads in some places? And the litigation that will likely result from trying to do so?"

Does Selectman Dumas not understand that these public roads are easements - not Town property - and that eminent domain is unnecessary and irrelevant? Does he not realize that Warrant Article #19 says to accept the roads as is and that it does not call for widening the roads? Or is he just engaged in a scare tactic?

"5) Do you accept the additional liability to the Town of being responsible for injuries or deaths related to substandard road conditions?"

Does Selectman Dumas not realize that as the Town has maintained these roads for half a century the Town has always had liability for its actions? Does he not realize that even if Warrant Articles #19 & #20 are not passed the same arguments the plaintiffs are using in the current lawsuit against the Town could be used by anyone to establish that the Town has always had this liability? Or is he just engaged in a scare tactic?

"6) Do you accept opening up of additional land to development, that currently has no public road access but will if Article 19 passes?"

Does Selectman Dumas not realize that he contradicts himself by claiming that the lake developments are on private roads yet here he claims that land can only be developed if it has public roads? By contradicting himself like this, doesn't it look like he's just engaging in a scare tactic? Or that he doesn't understand the law?

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On June 8 Nottingham's voters have an opportunity to save the Town from the disastrous course of action Selectman Dumas has led the Town into. He has created an issue that is divisive for our Town. He has demonstrated that he does not understand NH state law. He constantly contradicts himself and errs about the facts. He confuses the voters with irrelevant issues and scare tactics. He doesn't even give the voters a single argument about the central issue that they're being asked to vote on: that these roads long ago met the State's criteria for implied acceptance and that the voters will save money by formally acknowledging this rather than wasting taxpayers' money on lawyers to have Rockingham Superior Court do it for us.

Vote YES on Warrant Articles #19 & #20.

Selectman Dumas' Statement: