Before the 2017 Legislative Session began, Liberty Lobby LLC CEO Darryl W Perry began identifying bills of interest. This was initially done based solely on the titles of the Legislative Service Requests (LSRs), which are made public shortly after being filed. The text of the LSRs are then made available once the wording is finalized and has a signature from the sponsor. Not every LSR gets a bill number; a Representative or Senator can ask to withdraw the LSR. This often happens if there are multiple LSRs on the same topic with the same objective, or if the sponsor learns there is little chance of passage.
Of the LSRs marked as “of interest” by Liberty Lobby LLC, 39 were withdrawn before the text became available. Another 3 were withdrawn after the bill text became available, but before being assigned to a committee. Once committee hearing began in January, bills could not be withdrawn. However, the sponsor of SB82 (relative to labeling for maple syrup) requested the bill be deemed “Inexpedient to Legislate,” and the public hearing lasted less than one minute.
Over the past two weeks, I provided 16 hours of availability for the 20 candidates for city council (10 At-Large and 2 from each of the 5 Wards) to come to the Cheshire TV studios to record a 5 minute segment for Candidates’ Spotlight. I’d like to thank the candidates who made the effort to come to Cheshire TV to record a segment for Candidates’ Spotlight.
Click on a candidate’s name to watch their segment:
After organizing and hosting the recent Mayoral Debate that aired live on Cheshire TV, I was encouraged to do something for City Council candidates. Because of the difficulty of coordinating 20 people into a single event, I decided to give candidates an opportunity to record a segment to air on Cheshire TV, and thus Candidates’ Spotlight was born. Candidates’ Spotlight will give local candidates a platform to speak to the community about the issues they find important during upcoming municipal, school board and state rep elections.
In order to give ample opportunity for candidates to record their 5 minute segment, I set aside 16 hours over the course of two weeks, (4 hours each Tuesday and Thursday, last week & this) for candidates to record their segment presenting their ideas to the public. The video segments are airing on Cheshire TV as filler content, and will be compiled into a long-form program also to air on CTV.
Democracy: Two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner!
That’s exactly what went down at last Saturday’s deliberative session, where a small group of fiscally responsible residents went head-to-head with the tax hungry education industry.
As was expected, they were completely outnumbered, ridiculed and ultimately silenced. School board member Susan Hay summed up the proceedings perfectly, “We don’t need a very small minority of people in this community — that do not in any way represent the will of the people — telling us how to do our job.”
This brings up a very important question. Who, then, represents me? If I have no voice because the powers that be disagree or outright refuse to hear me, why then should I be forced to pay into such an institution. What happened to deriving their powers from the consent of the governed? Well, I officially renounce the consent I never swore to in the first place.
Keene held municipal elections on November 5, 2013. There were 10 candidates for At-Large City Council, with 4 of the 5 winners being current or former Councilors. Emily Hague is the only At-Large Councilor who is new to the Council. Kris Roberts received the most votes for At-Large City Council, and David Curran finished just 4 votes behind David Meader for the fifth At-Large spot. (more…)
