Whisper My Name by Ernest Hebert

Author:Ernest Hebert [Hebert, Ernest]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of New England
Published: 1984-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

SILENT NIGHT

By ROLAND LaCHANCE

Crier Staff Writer

DARBY, Dec. 5—The Darby Planning Board voted 5–0 last night to approve the site plan for a regional shopping mall in the town.

However, in an unprecedented action that bears no legal weight, members voted 3–2 to recommend that voters at the town meeting next March reject the current proposal for a mall and establish a mall study commission.

The board has been holding hearings since Magnus Mall Group Inc. announced plans to build a giant regional shopping mall in this small town on the Connecticut River.

“The mall’s site plan meets the Planning Board’s requirements,” said Zoe H. Cutter, Planning Board chairman. “We had no choice but to approve it. However, members felt the board should go on record regarding the mall.”

Mrs. Cutter, Franklin A. Bridges, and Theodore S. Du-haime opposed the mall, saying the present plan is too big in scale for Darby and that the Hillary farm on River Road, the proposed location for the mall, should remain farmland. They’ll ask voters at the town meeting next March to reject a plan to rezone the farmland but to elect a panel to study the impact that a mall would have on Darby.

Arthur J. Crabb, the selectmen’s representative on the board, and Marguerite Croteau favored the mall.

“Most of America already is mailed to death,” said Mrs. Cutter. “The people of Darby choose to live here because it is a quiet, pretty, countrified place that just happens to be close to urban amenities and culture. There is no reason to bring those amenities to Darby, since they already are available within easy driving distance. On the other hand, there is every reason to preserve the rural atmosphere, since when it is gone it will not be so available elsewhere.”

Crabb, a farmer and chairman of the three-man board of selectmen, thinks the planning board erred by making a recommendation on the mall.

“The planning board is supposed to plan, not tell the townspeople how to vote,” he said. “It’s obvious to anyone who understands where the tax dollars come from that a mall is going to do wonders for Darby.”

Crabb doesn’t think the mall will disrupt the rural atmosphere for the town.

“It’s going to move out one farm,” he said. “It’s not going to kick up the wildlands we have around here. They’ll be here, mall or no. But the wildlands aren’t going to pay to plow the roads in the winter or educate the children, not with the state’s current-use law the way it is. It’s going to take something like a mall to give us the tax base we need to keep the town afloat.”

The planning board’s proposal that townspeople appoint a study commission is pointless, according to Crabb.

“If they appoint a committee it won’t amount to anything, because while the committee is studying the idea the mall people will have gone somewhere else,” Crabb said. “The proposal should either pass at the town meeting or get beat, and die. That’s how we do things in New Hampshire.

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