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You know things aren’t looking bright when the lead-in to a project scoping meeting includes the Selectmen saying the only means of pursuing the project not up for discussion is throwing the towel in entirely, apparently fretting that some residents saw the project as an expensive boondoggle. This was followed up by Selectman John Roberts stating at the meeting that if Phase 2 of the Chocorua Village Project goes the way that Phase 1 did, there ought not be a Phase 3.

One might reasonably wonder what the upsides are to what sounds to be a veritable quagmire of pending lawsuits and contractor problems on a $3+ million dollar taxpayer funded project. Why, safety of course! Next time you take a drive through scenic and placid Chocorua Village, take note of the near bloodbath caused by vehicles careening around turns, 18-wheelers blazing through at 70 MPH, and little children getting mowed down by irresponsible leaf-peepers and town’s folk. The solution? Narrow the road, add twists and bends to make it wind all the more, and plant shrubbery so drivers can’t see around those new curves – this was seriously the focus of the safety improvements that came up at the meeting, with the stated goal of slowing down drivers. Make Chocorua Village a true safety hazard, drivers will fear for life and limb, and they’ll slow down. If speed is what’s causing the staggering body count piling up from traffic accidents in Chocorua, it would seem that one could splurge on quite a few radar guns and speed limit signs for a lot less money than three million dollars.

Sidewalks were also a hot topic of the safety discussion – here we have something that might actually help save pedestrians from the real-life game of Frogger apparently taking place in Chocorua Village. Except we won’t. Turns out that when the federal government takes your and your neighbor’s money via the income tax and redistributes it, it comes with strings attached. In this case, the caveat is that the town taxpayers are required to keep the sidewalks clear through winter. Seems that this is a bit of an expensive endeavor recurring year after year, involving collecting and trucking the snow off of the sidewalks. In defense of the Selectmen, they did state they don’t want to burden Tamworth’s residents with this cost. It’s still a question as to whether it’s 4 feet of snow (multiplied by approximately a mile of sidewalks) that would need to be tended to, or 16 feet of snow that the snowplows move off the road onto the sidewalks. The latest plan that the Selectmen and the State have decided to pursue is not having formal raised sidewalks, but rather surfacing the road shoulders with a different texture or material, hoping this will skirt the federal snow removal requirements, and still allow for “sidewalks”.

After a meeting with the State regarding the project, the Selectmen said it looks like it’s going to be the 2011 building season before any work actually gets done on the ground owing to the sheer volume of bureacracy between the local, state, and federal government that is involved in approving funding for the project – much to the horror of members of the Chocorua Community Association present at the meeting, who were interested in seeing work happen much sooner.

Seems like a mess.