The pressure to build town-funded bathrooms in North Conway emphasizes the desire of the Chamber of Commerce to saddle taxpayers with the cost of solving a problem created by the Chamber's own success — if that problem really exists at all. Through a shamefully low voter turnout and a recount petitioned by citizens who didn't vote, that initiative has achieved a momentary triumph, reviving the old war between those who thrive on tourism and those who don't. I foresee great column potential in that conflict (alternating perhaps with deteriorating public education).

For those of us who don't make our livings hawking trinkets and short-term rentals, spending public funds to provide customer amenities for North Conway shopkeepers is as obnoxious in Janice Crawford's Emerald City as it is in Disney's Magic Kingdom. In fact, that analogy may suggest the underlying ambition behind the toilet tempest.

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