It’s just about twenty miles as the crow flies from where my family settled on “Goshen Road” and where I live now in the Northeast corner. I’ve always lived in a small town: Vermont hamlets with dirt backroads that lead to another wide place in the road, a sadly diminished manufacturing village where you could shout to your neighbor across the street and get the sidewalks shoveled together with a smile in time to get to work.
Politics were pretty much the same, too. Generally congenial: town meetings started with contentious school board budgets and then we took a break for lunch. After sharing some good natured communications (catching up from winter, family news, etc.), and homemade potluck vittles, we could agree to disagree, have a vote and head back home to plant seeds for our spring gardens.
Sadly, times have changed since we could leave our attentive (and sometimes argumentative) parents at the Town meeting on the grammar school playground and run through neighbors’ fields to a friend’s house. It used to be you got your news from the Town gas station and garage, after church at coffee hour, and the porch of the General Store.
And then suddenly, we got a newspaper. The Hampton Gazette. Some nice folks said, hey, let’s share the wonderful things that happen here with each other. Stories about our travels, a monthly calendar, how to be better stewards for our earth, and a whole lot more. It’s grown and included harder news: articles that detailed meetings, election events, and things that people said or did that could be construed as unethical, illegal, or just downright unpleasant. I admit there were times I was not happy with some of the information that was published and how it was presented. No one has been exempt from scrutiny, including yours truly, who years ago, failed to notice a meeting and got called on it by the Gazette.
And then, we got another newspaper. The Hampton Highroad was “an unaffiliated, non-political publication…dedicated to publishing material that” informs “while promoting goodwill, tolerance, and Hampton’s sense of community”. It was a lively little alternative to the Gazette, not as startling an option as say, Redbook for the Atlantic Monthly, but many, including myself, found it comforting, and miss its heartwarming spirit.
In a town as small as Hampton, one would have thought two periodicals were enough. But, we are, apparently, to borrow a phrase from Selectman Bob Grindle, “Hamptoncentric”. Which brings us to the real crux of our situation here: The Town will be sponsoring its own newsletter on the Town website.
For forty-five years, our little town journal has been a harbinger of news, all news, and opinion. And for better or worse, it has, as all independent newspapers do in some fashion, provide a conscience for their community. Not everyone likes to have their conscience pricked, let alone be called out on their decisions.
A little recent history:
Two and a half years ago, following the defeat of a referendum proposal to dissolve an ordinance that created the Board of Finance, the Selectmen voted to remove the link to the Gazette. Seemingly, this action was spurred by a special edition of the Gazette that alerted residents to a referendum vote and the issues surrounding it. Sadly, the First Selectman’s displeasure decidedly censored the only critical outlet for community offerings devoted to our Town.
At the beginning of this year, with a new administration, Gazette chair Juan Arriola requested the Gazette link be reinstated to the Town website. The Selectmen refused, with Mr. Grindle stating that the Gazette is “uninformative, uninsightful, and a missed opportunity”. At the next Selectmen’s meeting, Gazette editor Dayna McDermott-Arriola asked the Board to consider listing the Gazette under other “Community Organizations”. Again, they refused. Selectman John Tillinghast commented that no other area towns links or lists their town newspapers on their town websites. The Gazette’s editor returned to inform them that all area towns that actually have a town newspaper list them on their town’s website and provide a link. While Mr. Tillinghast graciously acknowledged his error, other citizens in attendance at that same gathering agreed that a not-for-profit news outlet committed to town information should be listed, as other area communities do, especially for newcomers, on hamptonct.org
I find it strange that the Town leaders would choose this time to vote for adding a budget line of $2,500 for “selectmen’s communications”, to inform the public of “dog licensing, transfer station stickers, re-val information” all of which the Gazette publishes, and has published for 45 years, for free to the public. To date, no one has spoken publicly against this, except the Selectmen, though admittedly, the First Selectman stated that – “a lot of (anonymous) people” spoke to him privately.
The Hampton Gazette has so much to offer in addition to news and opinion: poetry, art, our local library offerings, our helpful safety organizations and communities of faith, and how to find the tranquil places for hiking, or just for a sit and think. The best, I believe, is how we continue to thoughtfully document our own histories…of barns and horses and lifelong friendships, our schoolhouses, our learnings, and the cherished elders that have defined the adage, “it takes a village”.
“Uninformative, uninsightful…a missed opportunity”? Perhaps, the Selectmen would like to add an offering for next month’s food corner: a recipe for crow?
Mary Louise Oliver