I didn’t mention that there was a leaflet  passed out at the door by some citizens concerning zoning article 10 – Group Home Overlay District.  By statute, we don’t discuss the zoning articles at the Deliberative Session, but these folks want to step up awareness and action on this issue.

Their action item was to make a motion to reallocate $25,000 in the budget for, if I get this right, use by the planning board to study the implications of the way we allow group homes in our zoning ordinances.

Now I’ve seen this issue brought up at BOS meetings in the past, and there have been some articles in the paper that I confess I haven’t paid great attention to.  My knee jerk reaction to their motion was that this is a NIMBY issue and that the last thing we want to do is start controlling the zoning effort through the budget process and possibly get ourselves into yet another legal quagmire.

The measure was defeated, but afterward some of the proponents approached me to make their case.  They believe this is an issue that should be of concern to all Wolfeboro citizens, and, once again if I get this right, that the ordinance that was put forth by the planning board is flawed and opens the door to a larger problem.

Since they took the time to rationally approach me, I’m going to pay more attention to this going forward.  I encouraged them to find a simple direct way to make their case with the public.  For my part, I’m skeptical about zoning changes, and typically don’t give the planning board the benefit of the doubt.  So even though I resisted funding planning board activity on this, I probably will vote no on Article 10.

Feel free to use the comment capability of this blog entry to make points for or against the Article and group-homes in general.