On May 15, Lebanon Circuit Court judge Michael Mace found Hanover resident David Vincelette ’84 liable for civil stalking. Mace barred Vincelette from attending biweekly Selectboard meetings in person or contacting town manager Robert Houseman and all five members of the Hanover Selectboard until May 15, 2027.
Vincelette, a 69-year old veteran, also cannot come within 300 feet of Houseman, Selectboard chair Carey Callaghan ’83 and Selectboard members Jarett Berke, Jennie Chamberlain, Athos Rassias and Joanna Whitcomb for the next year. He is also required to relinquish all firearms in his possession to law enforcement and cannot purchase new ones during the effective period.
Mace’s ruling grants the six civil stalking petitions filed by the plaintiffs against Vincelette on March 16, after his comments at a Selectboard meeting on Feb. 23 “reached a proverbial boiling point.” In the six civil proceedings that followed, between March 23 to April 16, Vincelette represented himself.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Vincelette said the ruling came from “a misinterpretation of stalking” and maintained his innocence.
“I’ve been very careful never to threaten these people,” Vincelette said. “I’ve never said, ‘I’m going to do anything.’ Threatening, as far as I’m concerned, is saying you’re going to hurt somebody. I said they needed protection. I didn’t say [they needed protection] from me.”
He added that he intends to speak at Selectboard meetings virtually in the coming year and believes he has a “duty” to continue to do so.
“If I have to take a year off being there directly, it’s no big deal now that they set up the Zoom system,” Vincelette said. “It’s just sad that something as important as the violation of people’s civil rights isn’t important enough to make it onto the [Selectboard’s] agenda.”
“While the Court finds [Vincelette’s] right to seek redress at public meetings is constitutionally protected, the Court also finds the manner in which he chooses to do so is decidedly not,” Mace wrote in the court order. Vincelette “continues to enjoy the right to participate in local government as a town resident,” Mace wrote.
“The Court finds his conduct so egregious that the Court specifically orders that David [Vincelette] cannot attend in-person any Selectboard meeting while the orders remain in effect,” Mace wrote. Instead, the Court “expects” that the town will allow Vincelette to attend the meetings virtually on Zoom, on which meetings are broadcast for residents to attend from home.
Vincelette has spoken during public comment portions of Selectboard meetings since 2016, when he first alleged that the town “illegally” erected a fence across his driveway at 93 Lebanon St. He has also alleged that the town “polluted” Mink Brook on his property — which he said is his water supply in an April 24 interview with The Dartmouth. Vincelette described these actions as “violations” of his “constitutional rights” in an interview with The Dartmouth on May 27.
Mace wrote that Vincelette’s disputes with Hanover “have engendered significant amounts of litigation in Grafton County Superior Court” since they began, but have bore him no legal success thus far. In 2018, the county superior court held him in criminal contempt for “physically interfering” with town employees “acting pursuant to Superior Court orders” to erect the fence around his property.
“David has never successfully prosecuted any of his claims,” Mace wrote.
The town provided a recording of the Feb. 23 incident to the Court on April 16, which “depicts David becoming emotionally dysregulated as his testimony proceeded,” Mace wrote in the order.
“Look at your policeman,” Vincelette said at the meeting, gesturing at an officer sitting in the front row. “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.”
After Callaghan announced the five minutes allotted for each public comment was up, Vincelette replied, “Your time is up too, you just don’t know it.”
[Vincelette] “harbors a clear animus toward each plaintiff as members of a perceived cabal hellbent on violating his rights and otherwise harming him and other townsfolk,” Mace wrote with regards to Vincelette’s allegations of wrongdoing by the town.
Vincelette also implicated Dartmouth in the outcome of the case.
“That’s my dream, to see [the Selectboard] exposed what they were willing to do to conceal what’s been done by a kangaroo court of Dartmouth insiders,” Vincelette said in the interview. “Four members of the board have a Dartmouth connection. Something stinks.”
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Callaghan said that he had no further comments to share.
“The Court’s decision speaks for itself,” he wrote.
Houseman did not respond to comment. An automated reply wrote that he is out of office until May 31.
Max Hubbard '29 is a reporter from Boston, Mass., and is majoring in government and minoring in French. In his free time, he enjoys listening to music, running and watching movies.
