A "no-win dilemma"
A model cluster development spearheaded by Dartmouth, a New Hampshire bank, and a forest preservation society made headlines a dozen years ago as a creative investment scheme and an ecologically-sensitive housing project. Today the Eastman project, located in Grantham, N.H., is making headlines again, but this time because of a bitter dispute among residents of the development - many of them alumni.
"A no-win dilemma for Dartmouth" was the title of a recent Boston Globe story about a flap which has the College between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Or between a lake and a wet place might be more apt, since the controversy centers on whether development will take place around the shores of a lake within the 3,500-acre Eastman community.
The members of an ad hoc citizens action committee maintain, according to the Globe article, that they were assured when they bought into the 2,189 lot development that there would be no construction along the lakeside. Controlled Environment Company, the development firm, and other residents, respond that the lakeside condos were part of early plans and were approved by the elected community association.
Dartmouth is not in a position either to decide the issue, since it owns only one-third of Controlled Environment, or to withdraw its investment. However, major donors to the College are among those on both sides of the dispute - and some have threatened to withhold contributions over the matter. "A fight has broken out between various esteemed members of our family," Vice President Paul Paganucci '53 was quoted in the Globe as saying. "It is a matter of grave concern to us. We have extremely big donors in both groups. We cannot take sides in a matter like this. We hope it can be resolved and that we can bring these people back into the fold."
Richard Eberhart '26 was honored recently at a symposium marking his 80thbirthday at his winter home at the University of Florida at Gainesville. Thisposter was one of the souvenirs of theoccasion which Eberhart brought backwith him when he returned to Hanoverfor the summer.
