Late Night Civics Lesson

September 11th 2009

I never made it to a New England Town Hall discussion on health care reform, but may have found the next best thing last night by attending a five-hour Manchester Zoning Board discussion on Wal-Mart’s plan to build a super-store in the city. I was there to help present Derryfield’s proposal to light our Turf Field, which took about 30 minutes, except that we were in the queue after Wal-Mart - which took about four hours. Which, in some ways, worked to our advantage.

One of Mr. Zeller’s opening questions to his middle school students this year was “what is civics?” The answer played out last night in a New Hampshire brew of community theater and old school, Norman Rockwell-esque participatory democracy. After a ponderous, detailed, and ultimately confusing, 90+ minute opening statement by Wal-Mart’s attorney, land planner and traffic engineer, the chair of the Board invited anyone in the room who wanted to speak on behalf of the project to approach the microphone. About five people spoke, with the lead-off person being a former Wal-Mart employee who could not have been more chipper. Then the Chair asked anyone in the room who wanted to speak against the proposal to approach the microphone and the entire room seemed to rise up and move, prompting the chair to impose a three minute time limit on each speaker. A quick count showed we had more than two hours of concerns ahead.

After everyone in attendance spoke, the Board decided to continue this conversation at the October meeting and the entire event made the headlines in the Union Leader this morning. The room emptied out but for a few people when the Wal-Mart matter stopped and Derryfield got to present our lighting proposal to a supportive Board. No “abutters” (that is, people with contiguous property) spoke either for or against the proposal, which was affirming to my sense of our school as a good neighbor .

We continue to make progress in planning for this important enhancement to our Turf Field and I look forward to the day our students can finish their games in the chilly fall evenings “under the lights.”