By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

One Hooksett town councilor is accusing another of intentionally undermining the council and of scheming to subvert the will of voters, who gave the council approval in May to negotiate an $18 million bond to jumpstart the town’s new business district.

Councilor Michael DiBitetto has laid out an extensive case ­ based on e-mail correspondence and a newspaper letter to the editor written after the May 9 vote ­ against fellow councilor Pat Rueppel, and is calling for her District 1 seat to be vacated.

DiBitetto has accused Rueppel of participating in an organized effort to thwart the $18 million plan, which the council will be negotiating with Nebraska-based outdoor sports retail giant Cabela’s, for public and private infrastructure improvements to the Interstate 93 Exit 11 area.

“(Rueppel) should resign her council seat immediately,” DiBitetto stated in his case. “Her recent comments were neither the result of a youthful indiscretion nor naivety; they were clearly part of a well-thought-out plot to undermine the voters’ will.”

Rueppel’s comments outlined by DiBitetto all came after Rueppel was elected, and before she took her oath on July 3.

Rueppel, who was a town councilor for five years before resigning last October, described the charges as “bogus.”

“I will fight this, and I will not resign,” she said. “This is all political to muzzle me.”

The council held a special meeting on Tuesday, July 18, to discuss how to handle the call for Rueppel’s removal, but the meeting was quickly tabled after Rueppel refused to recuse herself.

DiBitetto made the motion to table the meeting, and suggested Rueppel shouldn’t be allowed a vote on business related to a council investigation of her affairs.

In the charges, DiBitetto points to leaked e-mail messages from Rueppel and others including David Ewald, the president of a Minnesota-based consulting firm working for Gander Mountain, a retailer and regular Cabela’s competitor.

Rueppel has admitted publicly to penning a May 26 message to Ewald, in which she wrote, “I hope we can stall this because if road blocks are put in Cabela’s way, they will bolt.”

In the message, Rueppel accuses DiBitetto of acting without other town council members to negotiate with Cabela’s.

Also in that message, as well as in a letter to the editor that appeared in the June 1 Hooksett Banner, Rueppel disclosed who was in attendance at a Sept. 28 nonpublic council session.

In his charges, DiBitetto claims the disclosure of such information should disqualify Rueppel from serving on the council.

Rueppel said, however, that the minutes of the Sept. 28 closed-door session were divulged by the council at its Jan. 11 meeting, though she said the nonpublic minutes don’t fully reflect what occurred in September.

“When the council divulges, they should divulge it all,” said Rueppel.

Rueppel said she was wary of the $18 million plan before the May vote, but as a councilor, she’s determined to honor the results. At the election, 61.7 percent of voters approved the controversial warrant article.

After much of the correspondence in DiBitetto’s charges were first provided to the Hooksett Banner in June, Rueppel said she’d changed her mind about any attempts to strictly prohibit the bond issue.

Instead, she said she’d been contacting government officials in towns that have previously brokered deals with Cabela’s to find out how Hooksett’s council should best protect its taxpayers.

The council, which is less than a month old, has its next regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday, July 26.