Bow’s planning board meeting was more than just a hearing on a single house development with blueprints and building lines.
It turned into a tense exchange that exposed sharp words, lingering resentment, and deeper questions about civility in public debate.
Eli and Raquel Lehrmann have repeatedly appeared before the town planning board to build a four-bedroom house on their nearly 25-acre lot at South Bow and Woodhill roads.
But a condition placed on the lot by a previous planning board in 2005 prevents them from building at the back of the property — the location they consider ideal.
The dispute has recently escalated online, with social media posts targeting planning board members and residents concerned about the house’s impact on wetlands.
Before the meeting began, Don Berube Jr., chair of the planning board, said it was wrong to degrade members of Bow’s volunteer government who serve without pay.
“If you want to make an impact on what happens in this town, get on the board. That’s what I did,” he said. “This stuff of high school games playing is not good, and it really needs to stop.”
One post even included a photo of the five-year-old son of Kip McDaniel, the select board chair and planning board member.
McDaniel condemned the attacks and called for an end to online posts.
“Because someone in this room is doing it, or someone listening, I think you have to have the decency of a human being,” he said. “Attack me as an elected official, but to bring a five-year-old boy into your photos is a stain on this community.”
Eli Lehrmann said neither he nor his wife was responsible for the posts, but he has spoken to roughly 200 people about the issue — including the Bow Pioneers Snowmobile Club and state lawmakers — and said the sentiment toward the planning board members has been largely negative.
“You don’t have a big fan club in Bow,” Eli Lehrmann said to Sandra Crystall, vice chair of the planning board. She is also the chair of the town’s Conservation Commission.
All of this unfolded just after the planning board voted to remove the condition that had restricted the Lehrmanns to building a house only at the front of their property.
Last year, the board rejected lifting the restriction, which led the Lehrmanns to spend on legal fees and hire land experts.
“You have no idea how much money we’ve spent,” Raquel Lehrmann said. “You have no idea the impact on our family.”
Information presented by experts at Thursday night’s meeting, including wetland scientists and land surveyors, who determined that the front of the lot was “not buildable,” led the board to change its mind.
“I wish I had a lot of this information last year,” said McDaniel. “We are not in the business of getting people not to build on their land. We are in the business of making sure they follow the rules.”
Restrictive rules
Apart from all the scientific and wetland-related testimony, Jonathan Woetzel, who grew up on the very lot from second grade through middle school, spoke about why it’s important to remove conditions like those on the Lehrmanns’ property for the benefit of younger generations.
“People like to blame greedy corporations, but one of the largest contributing factors to this is overly restrictive zoning that blocks the needed homes from construction,” said Woetzel, a Bow homeowner in his twenties who was at the Thursday meeting with his wife. “We think that this town has a chance tonight and in the future to give this next generation some hope.”
He remembered skating at the little pond on the property and catching crawfish in the summer from the creek that runs through it. He said that if the Lehrmanns’ development were going to destroy the land, he would have been the first to oppose it.
Now that the restriction on where the Lehrmanns can build has been lifted, their next step is to apply for town permits to construct a driveway to the back of the property. The driveway would cross three wetlands, so they must submit a plan to minimize its environmental impact.
Even as the meeting ended and people began to leave, tensions in the room didn’t simmer down.
As Eli Lehrmann put on his jacket and walked out, he threw a parting shot at those opposed to his project: “Good job, idiots.”
The planning board had anticipated the friction and arranged for police to be nearby, with a cruiser parked in the municipal building lot as people filed out.
“You want to be friends with your neighbors,” said Crystall as she watched the Lehrmanns leave the room.