Originally published at freeconcord.org:
Thanks to Kyle Jarvis for penning a decent Keene Sentinel article, and Michael Moore for snapping photos for a front page story on Robin Hood of Keene and the Merry Men. Robin Hooding has been the interest of local media outlets recently as the city expended over $1,300 to pay for under 50 hours of amateur videography performed by former KPD detective Peter Thomas.
The article is almost completely accurate, though it misstates that this activity has been occurring for weeks. Robin Hooding has been a daily activity in Keene for months, since the beginning of the new year. And while the feature talks in great deal about the city’s expenditure on video few have yet to see, it neglects to mentions the dozens of hours of raw and edited footage produced by the Merry Men and uploaded for public consumption. You can see raw content from time spent filling meters at Fr33manTVraw, and edited pieces both on FreeConcordTV as well as the Aqua Keene Parking Force youtube channel.
It’s worth noting that none of the claims of alleged harassment seem to be coming from the parking enforcers. The article even suggests that city employees uninvolved in parking enforcement are concerned about themselves becoming the subject of a local activist’s lens.
[Keene Human Resources Director William] Prokop said that he’s received several emails from citizens asking what city officials would do about this, and that city employees other than parking officers have also expressed concerns. “They considered this harassment and questioned whether it could spill over into their jobs, in addition to employees themselves who were feeling they were being harassed,” he said.
While all public officials in New Hampshire are required to be at all times accountable per part first, article 8 of the NH constitution, the parking enforcers are open to a particularly higher degree of publicity, because they work in Keene police uniforms and wear a Keene police department badge. The normal course of their duties also require themselves to be able to attest for what they are doing constantly, as the documentation of violations is an outwardly public process.
Another response to the Sentinel feature was earlier posted to Free Keene.
