A racist remark aimed at President Obama and reportedly made by an elected police official in Wolfeboro has residents calling for the official to step down. 
 
 The incident, allegedly involving police Commissioner Robert Copeland, happened in a local restaurant in early March, Jane O’Toole of Wolfeboro said. But only in recent days has it become an issue that’s drawing wider interest. 
 
 O’Toole said she plans to attend the Wolfeboro Police Commission meeting tonight and to call for Copeland to resign. She and others are also prepared to request a recall if he refuses to step down. Sixteen other people have committed – through a Facebook page organized around the meeting – to attend. 
 
 Copeland and another commissioner, Ron Goodgame, did not return calls seeking comment last night. But commission Chairman Joseph Balboni said he has no plans to ask Copeland to resign. 
 
 “I think it’s crazy. Bob is a very nice person, and he’s been very generous to the town of Wolfeboro,” Balboni said. 
 
 “He’s worked with a lot of blacks in his life. . . . He said some harsh words about Mr. Obama, and here we are. This woman, she’s blowing it all out of proportion.” 
 
 Balboni said he does plan to allow attendees at the meeting to speak their minds, unless the meeting becomes repetitive. 
 
 O’Toole said she had no intention of becoming involved in local politics when she moved to Wolfeboro in November. 
 
 “I vote, I’ve always voted, but I have no desire to run for any kind of office or get involved in politics,” O’Toole said yesterday. “I just happened to be at a restaurant at the wrong time.” 
 
 She said the incident happened at Nolan’s Brick Oven Bistro. It was March 6 – O’Toole said she remembers because it was the same day she had an appointment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, marking eight years as cancer-free. 
 
 While she was finishing up a celebratory dinner, a man sitting nearby at the bar said loudly that he hates watching television, because every time he turns it on, he sees “that f------ n-----.” 
 
 As she left the room, she asked him whether he was “throwing the n-word around,” O’Toole said. “He sort of swung around and puffed up his chest and said, ‘Yeah,’ and . . . I said, ‘Not good, not good at all.’ ” 
 
 She didn’t plan to do anything else about it. She didn’t know who he was until the next day when she went back to the restaurant. That’s when the staff told her his name and position in town. She later watched videos of the police commission’s meeting to see whether he was indeed the same man. 
 
 She said she didn’t know what to do, and so she didn’t do anything – for a while. When town elections rolled around the next week, she didn’t vote for him, though he ran unopposed and won a second term. 
 
 “At that point, it really started to bother me that this was an elected official, making these loud racist statements. But I talked to a few people in town and they said, ‘Just leave it, what good is it going to do?’ But talking to more people I knew, I got the impression this wasn’t the type of town that was going to be like that. It was going to be more supportive of me. No one sounded surprised,” O’Toole said. 
 
 So she wrote a letter of complaint to the town manager. He wrote back and said the town doesn’t oversee the commission, and said she would have to take her complaint there. 
 
 She wrote to Balboni and Goodgame. And when Copeland responded instead, she took the whole thing to the local weekly paper. 
 
 The Granite State News published a version of her letter to the town, and a response reportedly written by Copeland. 
 
 “While I believe the problems associated with minorities in this country are momentous, I am not phobic. My use of derogatory slang in reference to those among them undeserving of respect is no secret. It is the exercise of my 1st Amendment rights,” it read. “I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse (sic). For this I do not apologize – he meets and exceeds my criteria for such.” 
 
 While the board of selectmen can’t take action against a member of the police commission, Chairwoman Linda Murray said she will be at the meeting tonight. 
 
 “The laws give certain authority to the police commission, and I don’t want to step over those bounds. But I think the letter the board wrote says they don’t condone, they don’t want to hear that kind of language in any public official,” Murray said last night. “I feel Mrs. O’Toole did what was appropriate. She informed the public. There are people in the public who are coming out dismayed by the kind of language and disrespect for the president of the United States, and they are going to stand up.” 
 
 One of them is Brian Murphy, a former Concord police officer and retired head of security for St. Paul’s School. 
 
 He first heard about Copeland’s remarks on Facebook, and he has been trying to create momentum behind calls for the commissioner to resign. 
 
 “I don’t believe he has any place in town positions. I don’t think he represents the town, and he certainly doesn’t represent the town well. I hope he resigns, but I don’t have high hopes considering what he’s done so far, so I would like to pursue a recall if he doesn’t,” Murphy said. 
 
 Copeland’s comments about minorities are “out of order,” Murphy said. “Who knows what his thinking is on minorities in general? I don’t know if he dislikes Italians? Or Irishmen? Or if he just feels this way about blacks? It doesn’t seem that he’s a fair-minded person, but he’s on a commission making judgments, and I would think his thinking like this could influence those judgments.” 
 
 The duties of a police commission under New Hampshire law include hiring, firing and disciplining personnel, and setting their salaries. 
 
 O’Toole said she still has no plans to get more involved in town politics and is nervous about tonight’s meeting. She is bolstered, she said, by a positive response from people she doesn’t know. 
 
 “I do believe maybe some good will come out of it,” she said. “Maybe it will encourage people to speak up, to not just giggle if someone uses these terms, not shy away, but say it’s unacceptable. It’s not easy, but it’s important.” 
 
 (Sarah Palermo can be reached at 369-3322 or spalermo@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @SPalermoNews.) ||||| WOLFEBORO, N.H. (AP) — A police commissioner in a predominantly white New Hampshire town says he won't apologize for calling President Barack Obama the N-word, and he sat with his arms crossed while angry residents at a meeting called for his resignation on Thursday. 
 
 Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland listens Thursday, May 15, 2014 in Wolfeboro, N.H. as town residents ask for his resignation after being overheard calling President Barack Obama the N-word... (Associated Press) 
 
 Town resident Jane O'Toole who says she heard a police commissioner in her town, Robert Copeland, called used a raciest slur refering to President Obama, asks for his resignation at a meeting. Thursday... (Associated Press) 
 
 Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland listens Thursday May 15, 2014 in Wolfeboro, N.H. as town residents ask for his resignation after being overheard calling President Barack Obama the N-word... (Associated Press) 
 
 Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland is confronted by Whitney White, right, and Elizabeth Smith after a meeting Thursday May 15, 2014 in Wolfeboro, N.H. as town residents ask for his resignation... (Associated Press) 
 
 Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland is confronted by Whitney White, right, and Elizabeth Smith after a meeting Thursday May 15, 2014 in Wolfeboro, N.H. as town residents ask for his resignation... (Associated Press) 
 
 Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland, who's 82 and white, has acknowledged in an email to his fellow police commissioners he used the racial slur in describing Obama. 
 
 Town resident Jane O'Toole, who moved to Wolfeboro four months ago, said she overheard Copeland say the slur at a restaurant in March and wrote to the town manager about it. Copeland, in an email to her, acknowledged using the slur in referring to the president and said he will not apologize. 
 
 "I believe I did use the 'N' word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse," Copeland said in the email to his fellow police commissioners, part of which he forwarded to O'Toole. "For this, I do not apologize — he meets and exceeds my criteria for such." 
 
 Copeland, who has declined to be interviewed, is one of three members of the police commission, which hires, fires and disciplines officers and sets their salaries. He ran unopposed for re-election and secured another three-year term on March 11. 
 
 About 20 black people live in Wolfeboro, a town of 6,300 residents in the scenic Lakes Region, in the central part of New Hampshire, a state that's 94 percent white and 1 percent black. None of the town police department's 12 full-time officers is black or a member of another minority. 
 
 Carroll County Deputy Sheriff Paul Bois, who's black, is one of two officers the town employs part time during the summer to deal with tourists. When asked to comment outside the meeting, he said, "I'd love to, but I can't." 
 
 Town Manager David Owen said Thursday that while he finds Copeland's comment "reprehensible," he and the board of selectmen have no authority to remove an elected official. He said he expected a large number of residents would call for Copeland's resignation at the police commission meeting, and they did. 
 
 More than 100 people packed into the meeting room at the Wolfeboro Public Library, where librarian Joyce Davis said she can't remember an issue in 40 years that has sparked so much emotion and outcry. Many of the people wore on their shirts handmade stickers saying, "Resign," directed at Copeland. 
 
 "Comments like these, especially coming from a public official, are not only inexcusable but also terribly, unfortunately, reflects poorly on our town," said O'Toole, who was met with resounding applause. 
 
 Commissioner Ron Goodgame, in response to a challenge from O'Toole about whether he and Commission Chairman Joseph Balboni Jr. endorse Copeland's comments, said, "It's neither my view or Commissioner Balboni's view that the remarks are condoned." 
 
 Balboni told the Concord Monitor he didn't plan to ask Copeland to resign. He said after the meeting the three commissioners would meet privately soon to "solve the matter" before making an announcement. 
 
 Nearly two dozen speakers at Thursday's meeting called on Copeland to quit, and two spoke in his defense. Resident Frank Bader mocked those who took offense at Copeland's comments in a state that prizes freedom. 
 
 "All this man did was express his displeasure with the man who's in office," Bader said. 
 
 After Balboni closed the meeting's public comment session, many people in the audience descended on Copeland, who remained seated at the commissioners' table and staunchly refused to engage them. 
 
 "I want to think about what's going on and decide," he said.
– Amid calls for his resignation, a New Hampshire police commissioner is refusing to even apologize for using a racist slur to describe President Obama. After a resident of the small and almost entirely white town of Wolfeboro overheard Robert Copeland in a restaurant loudly using the n-word to describe the president, she complained to the town manager, the AP reports. Copeland, 82, then emailed his fellow commissioners saying, "I believe I did use the 'n' word in reference to the current occupant of the White House. For this, I do not apologize—he meets and exceeds my criteria for such." "While I believe the problems associated with minorities in this country are momentous, I am not phobic," Copeland said, as per the Concord Monitor. "My use of derogatory slang in reference to those among them undeserving of respect is no secret." The town manager says that while he finds Copeland's remarks "reprehensible," the commissioner is an elected official and the town's board of selectmen has no power to remove him. At a town meeting yesterday, Copeland appeared defiant as nearly two dozen speakers called on him to step down. Two spoke in his defense.