On March 16, all five members of the Hanover Selectboard and town manager Robert Houseman filed civil stalking petitions against Hanover resident David Vincelette ’84 for comments he made at a Selectboard meeting on Feb. 23.
The trial, which covers civil stalking petitions filed separately by Houseman and Selectboard members Jarett Berke, Carey Callaghan, Jennie Chamberlain, Athos Rassias and Joanna Whitcomb, will be considered by the Lebanon District Judge and determine whether Vincelette receives a year-long restraining order from the town officials. Trials for Houseman’s, Callaghan’s and Chamberlain’s petitions took place on April 16. Selectboard member Joannah Whitcomb’s petition’s trial was on April 3. Berke and Rassias’s were heard on March 23.
The verdict, which will be announced when the judge comes to a decision, will determine whether Vincelette will be banned from attending Selectboard meetings for up to a year. If found liable, he would also be ordered not to go within 300 feet of the plaintiffs or contact them in any way.
This trial is part of a larger conflict between the Selectboard and Vincelette. In public comments at Selectboard and other Town meetings since 2016, Vincelette has repeatedly accused members of the Selectboard of “violating” his “constitutional rights,” claiming that the Town of Hanover “poisoned” his water supply and “illegally” erected a fence across his driveway.
Vincelette, a 69-year old veteran and Hanover resident, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that his feud with the town began on Nov. 9, 2016, when his driveway at 93 Lebanon Street was fenced off from the road.
When Vincelette — who represented himself at the trials — cross-examined Houseman about the fence, Houseman explained that it was erected to limit the spillover of rubbish onto town property.
Vincelette told The Dartmouth that the fence caused him significant stress by limiting his ability to drive and work.
“It’s been challenging, I’ll tell you,” he said. “At one point while we were being held, I hurt my back, coming up and down the driveway because I couldn’t drive. I was at the end of my wits. I had been living down in the forest with no water, no electricity, drinking pond water and I hurt my back now.”
A separate property on 91 Lebanon Street, where Vincelette ran a homeless shelter, was seized by the town in 2017 for failure to pay taxes.
“Twelve people were abused or restrained at my property because I was running a homeless shelter,” Vincelette told the judge at the April 16 trial.
During the public comment period of a Selectboard meeting on Feb. 23, he made a “direct threat” to the Selectboard members, Houseman alleged in his petition.
“Look at your policeman,” Vincelette said at the Feb. 23 meeting. “You’ve got an armed man here sitting with a gun, because you need protection. You’re right, you do need protection … At some point, a human being has to act when they’re being illegally oppressed. You’re going down.”
After Selectboard chair Carey Callaghan announced the five minutes allotted for each public comment was up, Vincelette added that “Your time is up too, you just don’t know it.”
During the trial on April 16, Houseman described an incident in which Vincelette visited him at his office on Sept. 9, 2025, and later recorded and uploaded the interaction to Facebook.
“This is stressful for me,” Houseman testified during the trial. “I work at Town Hall, and these confrontations put myself [and] everybody at Town Hall … at risk. I’ve changed the way I live my life. I never locked my door before; I now lock my door at my house.”
Vincelette told The Dartmouth that he has “no intention of hurting anybody.”
“They need protection because they’ve committed federal crimes,” he said.
Vincelette said he believes he has a “duty” to attend Selectboard meetings.
“I know these people have committed violations of the Constitution,” Vincelette said. “So if you relieve me from that responsibility, that would be great but until I stop breathing, I have a duty to go to them. And it’s my First Amendment right to do so.”
In Chamberlain’s filed petition, she wrote that “these hostilities and erratic outbursts have developed into a pattern — repeated, intentional and directed specifically at the Selectboard and Town Staff.”
“The uncertainty of not having a protective order forces me and town officials into a reactive posture,” Chamberlain wrote. “We can only respond after something happens, rather than having the legal framework in place to prevent it. For a room full of community members attending a public meeting, reactive is not good enough.”
In 2014, Vincelette was charged with assaulting then-Safety and Security director Harry Kinne after causing a disturbance in the reception area of former College President Phil Hanlon’s office.
Vincelette added that if the civil stalking petitions are upheld, he will shift to a legal strategy and sue the town instead of attending meetings.
Houseman and the Selectboard declined to comment on the pending case.
