LEBANON — The City Council opted 8-1 to repeal a policy prohibiting its law enforcement and city staff from participating in immigration and customs enforcement.
Meanwhile, Hanover will devote more time to reconsidering its own similar policy.
Lebanon’s Welcoming Ordinance and Hanover’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy have each been on the books since 2020. Both prohibit municipal law enforcement (and in the case of Lebanon, other city staff and volunteers) from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
State laws passed in May bar municipalities from crafting such policies. Now, both communities — the only two municipalities with such rules in New Hampshire — have chosen to reevaluate the policies ahead of the new year, when they could be fined for being in violation of the new laws.
Failure to comply with state law could result in Lebanon and Hanover losing up to 25% of their state funding.
At a public hearing Wednesday, Lebanon City Councilor Laurel Stavis, a Democrat who also represents the city in the state House of Representatives, said in her experience in the Legislature, cities “tend to get punished more than towns do.”
Assistant Mayor Devin Wilkie warned that keeping Lebanon’s policy in place would likely only hurt the people it is designed to protect by impacting social services. He recommended that the council repeal the policy and create a task force to put something new in place.
Councilor George Sykes cast the lone no vote against repealing the policy.
“I understand why we have to take action, but I am not in support of a repeal and then we’ll get something else in place later,” Sykes said. “I understand why maybe that is the prudent thing to do. Maybe that is the correct way to do that. But as a matter of conscience, I can’t support it.”
Mayor Doug Whittlesey, who last month crafted new language to bring the policy in line with state law, said Wednesday that he was no longer recommending the option. His draft would have to be amended further and given time constraints with the city budget process, the council couldn’t do the work before the end of year.
At Wednesday’s hearing that was attended by about 15 people, Lebanon residents expressed mixed opinions about the future of the ordinance. About half of those who spoke encouraged the council to keep the policy in place and take a moral stand, while others warned that the city can’t afford financial penalties.
Members of the group Upper Valley Equity and Anti-Racism, which has been holding listening sessions for people of color and immigrants in the Upper Valley since June, encouraged the council to keep the policy in place through January and create a task force to write a new policy that “preserves the spirit and intention” of the welcoming ordinance.
“Our community needs time, clarity and reassurance,” group leaders Angy Zhang and Bise Wood Saint Eugene wrote in a prepared statement read by another community member.
The ordinance was originally written in 2020 to make clear the city’s policy regarding residents’ immigration status and affirm how the city would protect its residents regardless of their background.
Another resident, Rachel Kent, encouraged the council to “be brave and not back down in the face of really evident injustice and unlawfulness” and questioned whether Lebanon might be able to join forces with Hanover to stand up to the law together.
For his part, Wilkie, the assistant mayor, said he had spoken with members of the Hanover Selectboard and would continue to talk with them about the issue.
But Stavis said she feared that Lebanon would be treated differently than Hanover even if they were to take the same stand.
“I think finding common cause with Hanover may not be a position of strength for us, as much as we all hate this,” she said.
Other residents said it would be irresponsible for the city to keep the law in place and face a penalty that city officials said would be at least $500,000, but could be much higher.
Resident Lori Key likened keeping the policy in place to playing financial Russian roulette.
“We have to think, we have to be practical as well and people are putting for sale signs up on their houses and can’t afford to live here,” Key, who ran an unsuccessful bid for City Council this year on a platform of curbing spending and lowering property taxes, said.
Another resident, Henry Mossel, said the city can’t accept the penalty on top of “massive budget problems.”
Last week, City Manager Andrew Hosmer revealed a $78 million proposed budget for next year that is expected to increase municipal property taxes by about 4%.
Mossel also noted, in response to another resident’s concerns, that the city’s policy does not keep immigration officers out of Lebanon. It only bars Lebanon police from questioning people about immigration status themselves and from assisting federal immigration authorities.
In at least the last five years, Lebanon police have never received a request to assist federal immigration authorities, Police Chief Phil Roberts told the Valley News last month.
On Wednesday, Wilkie said the state law does not require police to ask about immigration status and he believes the city could still craft a policy that prohibits this.
Hanover holds off
In Hanover, which has a July to June fiscal year, the Selectboard has more flexibility to continue looking at their Fair and Impartial Policing policy until the end of the year.
Most Hanover residents who attended Monday’s Selectboard meeting encouraged the board to keep the policy on the books. They also opposed the board’s proposed solution to remove some language from the policy. Several attendees encouraged the board to accept the financial penalty, which in Hanover would amount to $354,000.
Resident Sharon Racusin called the proposed changes “wordsmithing.”
“Cooperation with an unjust policy, essentially appeasement, enables authoritarianism and if our trusted institutions don’t stand against this injustice, who’s going to protect us?” Racusin asked the board.
Susan Blum encouraged the board to look beyond the price tag and consider that the matter is a “moral issue. It’s not a fiscal issue.”
“What’s the price?” Blum asked. “If it was only $200,000, we should say okay? If it was a dollar we should say no. I think as a town we have to get a backbone and say no.”
Unlike in Lebanon, Hanover Resident Bear Barnes suggested that the town might be in a position to “weather” the penalty. Doing so might “encourage” other towns to do the same.
“Consider that most towns couldn’t even have this discussion because they just couldn’t afford to lose the $350,000,” Barnes said.
Only one Hanover resident, Will Carney, encouraged the board to amend the policy in line with state law so they could quickly move on to other issues such as affordable housing.
Though Carney said he agrees “with all the larger moral sentiments” being made, he warned that Monday’s debate felt like a form of “liberal theater” similar to “lawn signs. But it’s not action.”
Carney pointed out that the policy does not apply to Hanover policing in practice and said the town had already become unwelcoming and exclusionary (which the policy aims to prevent) because it is unaffordable for many people.
“This town is already everything that we fear it will become, and we don’t need ICE’s help. We don’t need Trump’s help. This is all our own doing,” Carney said.
After about an hour of public comment, the Selectboard opted to take more time to review its policy and find a path forward.
“We’ve not had any public input until today, so to act right now I think would be inappropriate,” Selectboard member Athos Rassias said.
