Editorial: Disc golf, democracy, and the never-ending loop

Disc golf — the sport involving airborne plastic discs and people who have strong feelings about their trajectories — has once again completed its predictable orbit around Portsmouth Town Hall. And this time, on Monday, the town council finally did what many suspected it might do all along: by a 4-3 vote, it rescinded its own previous 4-3 vote approving a two-year trial course at Glen Park. Democracy in Portsmouth continues to function a bit like a washing machine stuck on repeat cycle.

At this point, disc golf has joined our town’s small collection of recurring civic melodramas — offshore wind, traffic rotaries, curbside collection, the concept of free senior centers — which for reasons still unclear can send certain residents into absolute fits. Add disc golf to the list of Things Portsmouth Naysayers Do Not Like, and the picture becomes complete.

The sequence is now so familiar that longtime observers no longer need the agenda; they can simply sense it in the air. The council votes. A few weeks pass. Someone doesn’t like the result. A council member’s ear is caught in a well-timed whisper. And suddenly, a “reconsideration” appears, as reliable as sunrise. If you’re unhappy with a decision in Portsmouth, history shows there’s no need for petitions, public comment, or cosmic alignment — just find an elected official’s ear, request a do-over, and voilà: the People’s Business returns for another spin.

Opponents of the Glen Park course warn of dangers both real and fantastical: spooked dogs, damaged wetlands, traffic surges, the permanent loss of quiet, and perhaps the collapse of civilization’s last fragile threads. Supporters counter with the basics — the course is simple, removable, non-intrusive, and might even raise enough money to repair the bathrooms, which in New England is considered a major public benefit.

But let’s speak plainly: the loudest voices against the course almost exclusively came from residents who live closest to Glen Park. Their concerns are sincere. Their anxieties are real. But the park is not theirs alone. Glen Park is a public space meant for the entire community — not a private backyard, not a personal greenbelt, not a preserve for the geographically fortunate. Communities share things. That’s the point of having them.

Into this endless loop stepped Christine Stenning of the League of Women Voters, a Portsmouth resident with the weary clarity of someone who has witnessed a few too many municipal reboots. She warned — gently, diplomatically — that democracy cannot survive if every vote is treated as a suggestion, every decision as provisional, every outcome as a draft awaiting another round of markup. Her message was simple: if nothing is final, then nothing means anything.

The council’s reversal now raises a larger question: is this how we want public decisions to work? Do we want a town where any vote can be undone the moment a handful of neighbors — some of whom didn’t even bother to attend the earlier meetings — object? Where every issue — wind turbines, rotaries, curbside collection, senior centers, disc golf — becomes a never-ending series of sequels, each less productive than the last?

Disc golf may or may not belong at Glen Park. Reasonable people can disagree. But one thing is certain: until Portsmouth figures out how to let a decision stand long enough for the ink to dry, even a sport built on gentle arcs and quiet landings will continue to fly in a looping, endless pattern over Town Hall.

And at this point, the discs aren’t the only things that never seem to come down.