To the editor:

Contrary to some suspicions voiced over the years, government, whether national state or local, attempts to do what the elected people ask them to do. (This is not always a good thing.) 

They attempt to live within whatever financial constraints that the governing body has set. This is as it should be. For the Town of Portsmouth, I may have made different decisions than the current council, but the town administration will attempt arduously to live within them and provide the services that the people of the town expect. This is sometimes made more difficult when elected people, sometimes for understandable reasons, set about to address concerns that really are outside the authority of the town. 

Many people are upset by the vulgar signage, etc., on the property on East Main Road that used to be the Citgo gas station. The town at one point sought to eliminate what it perceived as an eyesore and a violation of the town’s ordinances. A federal court determined that the eyesore was protected free speech. This may not have been the satisfactory resolution for the people of town, but I think it was in fact an accurate one. 

I would like to suggest to people that rather than explore a way of attempting to reign in this expression, that everyone uses it as what we used to call a “teaching moment.” I think specifically if you are driving on a Sunday with your children in the car and they point out the offending area, you might say to them that this gentleman’s ability to put all those various implements out there is protected in the same manner as our ability to practice religion as we desire and to make the statements that we may want to make about our government. 

In this way the offending property becomes not an offense, but a celebration of who we are as a community and as a people who recognize our great variety. I would note that almost all adherence to our laws and ordinances is by voluntary compliance. Not that necessarily people agree with the law or ordinance, but that they agree that to live within a community, to advanced that community, you should strive to act within the rules of the community. 

There are times when a rule of the community may be so offensive that you cannot in good conscience adhere to it. But that is not the circumstance with the East Main Road property.

Chuck Levesque

Portsmouth