Why Vote Yes?

Imagine if the Town's Select Board decided that the Town was going to stop maintaining the road that leads to your home - despite the fact that the Town has been maintaining that road for decades. Imagine also that the Select Board also established new rules for the Town's Planning Board regarding accepting new roads in the town - rules specifically designed to prevent the Planning Board from ever accepting, reconstructing, or relocating the road that leads to your home.

For over 300 Nottingham families, this nightmare is a reality. The Nottingham Select Board, by a slim one-vote majority, has decided that the Town should take this callous action against its own citizens in disregard to decades of established practice, against the safety and welfare of the Town's citizens, and against established New Hampshire legal precedents regarding implied acceptance of roads that have been in use since before modern municipal planning standards were established.

The Select Board's bad decision has subjected the Town to a class-action law suit. The Select Board has already spent tens of thousands of tax payer's dollars defending itself in court. So far, the Select Board appears to be losing, but they're likely to need to spend over $100,000 more of tax payer's money to finish defending their decision in court.

At the Town's April 2021 Deliberative Session voters overwhelmingly approved putting Warrant Articles #19 and #20 on the ballot to enable the citizens of Nottingham to permanently end to the Select Board's mismanagement of this issue. By voting YES on Warrant Articles #19 and #20 Nottingham citizens can prevent the further waste of tax payer's money on a losing law suit, correct the Select Board's bad decision, and put an end to further conflict about these old Nottingham roads that are variously called "Emergency Lanes" or "camp roads."

The Moral Argument

How would you feel about this happening to you? Or someone you loved? Or your neighbor? Or someone who you just thought should be treated fairly by their government?

All your fellow citizens are asking for is that the Town continue to treat them as the Town has done for decades and to not discriminate against them because they own homes on roads that long pre-date the Town's standards for roads for sub-developments.

Voting YES on Articles #19 and #20 will over-ride the Select Board's plan for treating citizens unfairly and inequitably and will restore just government.

Why the Town Will Likely Lose in Court

• In 2003 citizens on private "camp" roads in Rainbow Lake won a similar case in Rockingham Superior Court against the Town of Derry.
• The New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled that municipalities have given implicit public acceptance of a road if the road meets any of the following conditions. The roads covered by the lawsuit and the Warrant Articles all meet at least two of these conditions and most meet all four of them.
• Roads such as these which have been in public use during the 20 years prior to 1968 are implicitly accepted as public roads. (Hersh v. Plonski, 938 A. 2d 98 - NH: Supreme Court 2007 "A public highway may be created: (1) through the taking of land by eminent domain and the laying out of a highway by some governmental authority; (2) through the construction of a road on public land; (3) through twenty years of use by the public before 1968; or (4) by dedication and acceptance.")
• Roads that are part of a subdivision development approved for building by the Town are implicitly accepted to be for public use. (Hersh v. Plonski, 938 A. 2d 98 - NH: Supreme Court 2007 "Under New Hampshire law, conveying lots by reference to a recorded plan that shows the subdivision of a tract with proposed streets is one way to offer to dedicate a street to public use.")
• Roads that have been regularly maintained by the Town are implicitly accepted as public roads. (Hersh v. Plonski, 938 A. 2d 98 - NH: Supreme Court 2007 "acceptance may be by express acts that include adopting an offer of dedication by ordinance or formal resolution, or implied by acts such as opening up or improving a street, repairing it, removing snow from it, or assigning police patrols to it.")
• Roads that have been included in deeds indicates usage by people other than the owners of the land on which the road is located (Catherine Mahoney v. Town of Canterbury, NH Supreme Court 2003 "The inclusion of the road in these deeds indicates use by people other than the owners of the land through which the road runs."

What Will Happen If the Select Board Loses In Court?

If the Select Board loses, the roads officially become public roads - the same thing as will happen if voters approve Warrant Articles #19 and #20. If either of these happens, then the issue is permanently settled.

What Will Happen If the Select Board Wins In Court?

If the Select Board wins then the issue still won't be resolved. Nottingham can look forward to having hundreds of voters who will forever be petitioning to have their roads accepted as public roads or to have their taxes reduced because they are denied public roads.

What Will Happen If Articles #19 and #20 Pass?

Voting YES on Articles #19 and #20 will stop wasting taxpayers' money on a losing lawsuit, restore how the Town has managed these roads for decades, and permanently settle the dispute.

The Long-Term Financial Argument

It is astonishingly rare for towns to abandon heavily populated roads - so rare that we do not know of cases of towns that have successfully done such a thing! Derry, NH tried to do this, but the court overtuned the Town's decision. The Select Board's decision has put the Town into a risky position that has some potentially dire consequences.

Insurance companies may determine that the homes on these roads are uninsurable, as the Town has abandoned its responsibility for ensuring that firetrucks and ambulances can reach these homes. If owners of these homes cannot get insurance, that means that buyers of these homes cannot get mortgages. That would mean that the value of these homes could collapse. If that happens, then the Town would have to greatly lower the assessed value of these homes. That could cause the Town to lose a large portion of its tax base, requiring property tax rates to need to be increased for everyone.

Voting YES on Articles #19 and #20 will prevent the Select Board from exposing the Town to long-term risk of losing a major portion of the Town's tax base.