By DOMENIC POLI / Reformer Staff
Posted: 08/06/2013 03:00:00 AM EDT |
Updated: about 10 hours ago
Tuesday August 6, 2013
HINSDALE, N.H. -- A local man
familiar to area residents for his public demonstrations against the two
bridges linking the town to Vermont was cited for allegedly causing damage to
the pedestrian portion of one of them Friday.
Michael Mulligan, 60, was cited with
reckless conduct, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief and littering,
according to Hinsdale Police Lt. David Eldridge. Reckless conduct is a felony.
Mulligan was released on $5,000
personal recognizance and is scheduled to be arraigned in 8th Circuit Court
District Division in Keene on Thursday, Oct. 3.
Eldridge said part of Mulligan's
bail conditions mandate that he not walk within a mile of either side of the
Charles Dana Bridge or stop any vehicle within 100 yards of it. The lieutenant
said witnesses saw Mulligan pulling up some of the bridge's boards.
Mulligan's arrest came one day after
he appeared at a public meeting hosted by the Federal Highway Administration,
the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and the Vermont Agency of
Transportation. The meeting, held in the Brattleboro Union High School
Multipurpose Room, was held to discuss the draft environmental assessment that
had been released and was used to gauge local support for a project to
rehabilitate the Charles Dana and Anna Hunt Marsh bridges and construct a new
one to span over the nearby railroad tracks in Brattleboro and touch down near
the stop light at the former Walmart location.
Mulligan, who brought with him
pieces of rust he had chipped off the bridges, said he feels the environmental
assessment contains gross inaccuracies and said he fears the bridges are in
danger of collapsing. He said the assessment overestimates "by many
magnitudes" the bridge's integrity, even though those who put together the
assessment consider it "functionally obsolete."
Mulligan, wearing a homemade halo,
also referenced movies in which an angel lurks near a bridge before it
collapses and said he is that angel for the Charles Dana and Anna Hunt Marsh
bridges.
Domenic Poli can be reached at dpoli@reformer.com, or 802-254-2311, ext. 277.
You can follow him on Twitter @dpoli_reformer.
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