Pittsfield Planning Board
Town Hall, 85 Main Street
Pittsfield, NH 03263
Minutes of Public Meeting

DATE: Thursday, February 5, 2015

AGENDA ITEM 1: Call to Order

Chair Clayton Wood called the meeting to order at 7:04 P.M.

AGENDA ITEM 2: Roll Call

Planning board members present:
Clayton Wood (CW), planning board member and chair;
Pat Heffernan (PH), planning board member and vice-chair;
Jim Pritchard (JP), planning board member and secretary;
Bill Miskoe (BM), planning board member;
Larry Konopka (LK), selectmen’s ex officio planning board member; and
Roland Carter (RC), alternate planning board member.

Planning board members absent:
Gerard LeDuc (GL), alternate for the selectmen’s ex officio planning board member.

Members of the public appearing before the planning board: Carole Dodge, Dan Greene, Paul Nickerson, and Daren Nielsen.

“Members of the public appearing before the planning board” includes only members of the public who spoke to the board. It does not include members of the public who were present but who did not speak to the board.

AGENDA ITEM 3: Agenda Review

CW said that he would schedule the Nickerson lot merger (agenda item 6) before the minutes approval.

CW asked board members who voted for the new rules of procedure (adopted January 1, 2015) to sign the new rules of procedure.

AGENDA ITEM 4: Public Input

Dan Greene asked for a copy of the recording secretary’s notes and a copy of the audio recording from tonight’s meeting “according to RSA.”

Carole Dodge said that the public meeting on January 26, 2015, “was to ask for questions from the public and answer the questions the public had, not to debate back and forth as a board on any of the questions in front of you. And I don’t believe that’s what happened. And after looking at the minutes, several pages worth, there was several pages worth of debate back and forth. That was supposed to have been settled before, when you all voted to move them forward to a public meeting.”

CW said that that was not his understanding. CW said that the board could not vote on the amendments until after a public hearing. CW said that the amendments had only been brought to a public hearing. CW said that the board must first vote on whether to bring the amendments to a public hearing, and then the board must vote on whether to approve the amendments at the public hearing. CW said that this was not the first time that the board had voted down an amendment at a public hearing.

Carole Dodge said, “I’ve never seen the level of debate that I saw at the last meeting. And I was very discouraged at the fact that several of the members had not done their homework, so they were not understanding of what was in front of them.”

AGENDA ITEM 6: Application for a Voluntary Lot Merger filed by Paul and Patricia Nickerson, 22 Norris Road, Pittsfield, NH 03263 of property located at 12 Norris Road (Tax Map R21, Lot 3) and Norris Road, (Tax Map R21, Lot 2-1) Pittsfield, NH 03262 located in the LIGHT INDUSTRIAL/COMMERCIAL Zone.

Paul Nickerson noted a typographical error: “22 Norris Road” should be “12 Norris Road.”

BM noted another typographical error: “03262” should be “03263.”

CW asked whether board members had any questions.

LK said that the merger would make in a better lot.

BM moved “to approve the application by the Nickersons to merge lots R21 3 and R21 2-1.”

PH seconded the motion.

Discussion: No further discussion.

Vote “to approve the application by the Nickersons to merge lots R21 3 and R21 2-1”: carried 5 – 0 – 0. Voting “yes”: JP, PH, CW, BM, and LK. Voting “no”: none. Abstaining: none.

AGENDA ITEM 5: Approvals of the Minutes of the November 6, 2014; November 20, 2014; January 8, 2015; and January 26, 2015 Meetings

LK moved to approve the January 6 rewrite of the minutes of November 6, 2014, on condition that the January 6 rewrite be called “more accurate minutes.”

CW seconded the motion.

Discussion:

LK said that the “more accurate minutes” were better than the original minutes from which the “more accurate minutes” had been condensed, but LK still had some problems. LK had many objections to the style that JP uses for all of his minutes, and LK asked JP to listen to the audio recording to verify certain passages of the “more accurate minutes.” LK acknowledged that the style was not wrong, but he still wanted it changed.

PH said, “We’re just picking the hell out of this. You know, I agree that some of these minutes are skewered, and I agree with some of your problems, but we’re going to be here until the cows come home nit-picking this sh[*]t. Let’s just, you know, It’s much ado about nothing.”

CW moved to approve the January 6 rewrite of the minutes of November 6, 2014.

PH seconded the motion.

Discussion: No further discussion.

Vote to approve the January 6 rewrite of the minutes of November 6, 2014: carried 3 – 2 – 0. Voting “yes”: JP, PH, and CW. Voting “no”: BM and LK. Abstaining: none.

CW moved to approve the January 6 rewrite of the minutes of November 20, 2014.

LK seconded the motion.

Discussion:

The board agreed to defer consideration of the minutes of November 20, 2014, because board members did not have complete sets of the January 6 rewrite of the minutes of November 20, 2014.

CW moved to approve the minutes of January 8, 2015, as written in draft.

LK seconded the motion.

Discussion:

LK said that he had not reviewed the draft minutes of January 8, 2015.

No board member stated any problems in the draft minutes.

Vote to approve the minutes of January 8, 2015, as written in draft: carried 3 – 1 – 1. Voting “yes”: JP, PH, and CW. Voting “no”: BM. Abstaining: LK.

After the meeting, recording secretary JP noticed that Daren Nielsen’s name was misspelled “Darren Nielsen” in agenda item 9, page 8. JP corrected the error.

CW moved to approve the minutes of January 26, 2015, as written in draft.

PH seconded the motion.

Discussion:

No board member stated any problems in the draft minutes.

Vote to approve the minutes of January 26, 2015, as written in draft: carried 4 – 1 – 0. Voting “yes”: JP, PH, CW, and LK. Voting “no”: BM. Abstaining: none.

AGENDA ITEM 7: Selectman’s Report – Larry Konopka, Selectman Ex Officio – Gerard LeDuc, Alternate

LK said that most of the warrant articles were taken care of and that the budget was all done.

AGENDA ITEM 8: Members Concerns

No board member stated any concerns.

AGENDA ITEM 9: Public Input

Daren Nielsen asked whether the RSA annotations were “to strengthen the board members’ position or decision with regard to that particular action.”

CW said that the annotations are to help people reading the minutes.

JP said that the annotation practice originated four years ago after the town meeting had adopted parking regulations that no board member except JP and Fred Hast understood, and JP and Fred Hast understood the parking regulations only because JP and Fred Hast knew what the regulations were supposed to mean, not because of what was written. This problem led the board to try to create a legacy that would explain to people reading the board’s work in the future what the board had done and why the board had done it. JP said that this reason relates to the minutes’ being a description of the subject matter discussed; the minutes are not a transcript of what people said.

The board and the public discussed styling for annotations.

Carole Dodge said, “According to the RSAs that are quoted in here and put behind whatever someone says, how many other boards, not only in this town but other towns, how many of those board secretaries do that of their own accord without the member stating that they want this RSA reference behind this.”

CW did not know. CW said that the annotations were not of JP’s own accord. CW said that the Pittsfield Planning Board had decided four years ago to use annotations.

Paul Nickerson referred Carole Dodge to the newspaper for citation examples and said that the board must support what it says with citations. Paul Nickerson suggested a style “—ref. citation.” Paul Nickerson said that all notices in the newspaper cite RSA statutes.

JP said that he did not want to adopt an ad hoc citation style right now. JP said that he would take a hint from tonight’s discussion and not annotate tonight’s minutes.

AGENDA ITEM 10: Adjournment

BM moved to adjourn the meeting.

LK seconded the motion.

Vote to adjourn the planning board meeting of February 5, 2015: carried 5 – 0 – 0. Voting “yes”: JP, PH, CW, BM, and LK. Voting “no”: none. Abstaining: none. The planning board meeting of February 5, 2015, is adjourned at 8:00 P.M.

Minutes approved: May 7, 2015

______________________________ _____________________
Clayton Wood, Chairman Date

I transcribed these minutes (not verbatim) on February 7, 2015, from notes that I made during the planning board meeting on February 5, 2015, and from a copy that Chairman Clayton Wood made on February 6, 2015, of the town’s digital recording of the meeting.

____________________________________________
Jim Pritchard, planning board recorder and secretary