After seven months the verdict is in: Stoddard's Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) voted on May 25 to grant AT&T a Special Exception to build a cell tower on Melville Hill.
To say it's a disappointment is a major understatement. In fact, it's taken some time even to write about what happened.
For the last seven months we've sat through a long series of hearings to determine whether AT&T should be granted a Special Exception in a Rural Area to build the proposed cell tower. As word got out, area protests grew in size and strength and outrage, as the cell tower would loom over Granite Lake, one of the jewels of the Monadnock region. The townships of both Stoddard and Nelson were affected as well not only by the visual desecration of the landscape but by the property devaluations that would follow and the summer rental businesses that would be hurt.
