To the editor:
I believe my last letter to the editors was a bit overdone, at least when I compared a town without a Planning Board to Nazi Germany before World War II. I find it hard to control myself and sometimes overstate things. What I really meant is that I think we need a Planning Board — I’ve been here since 1935 and have seen our town changing, and the way it is today—a real town, not just a collection of shopping malls – is thanks to town planning. I well remember one of the earlier PB chairmen, Dick Fernald. I went to several PB meetings, and greatly admired his insight and reasoning. Thanks to him and people like him, we preserve what we like about Peterborough while still going forward, keeping up with the times to an acceptable degree.
Without town planning we could make ourselves some nightmares. What if dozens of houses appeared close together in the rural zone beyond where town sewer and water reaches them. The residents would need private wells which soon would fill with the sewage of their neighbors. That this doesn’t happened, or not often, is thanks to town planning. And that’s just one example. I could go on and on. We’d be like Nazi Germany after World War II.
Liz Thomas
Peterborough