This weekend KPD’s prosecutor “served” Jesse with papers demanding he show up at Chez Westmoreland for a reduced sentence. Jesse thought it had been dropped entirely, but it had only been reduced to a $100 fine down from $150, so that will mean he’d spend two days in jail. Since Jesse has no transportation to the jail, he calls KPD to inform them. Rivera tells him he needs to visit the court and tell them. Rather than jump through a bunch of hoops, Jesse opts to not bother continue voluntarily cooperating with their caging of him. His call to Rivera was broadcast live:
Will they come to his home, force him to take a ride to the jail, then charge him with more “crimes against the state”, like “failure to appear” or “contempt of court”? Perhaps they’ll just wait until they see him in the street? Only time will tell. This is the first time an activist has refused to cooperate by not showing up for their caging demands.
We’ll keep you informed as this situation develops.
On last week’s “Talkback” on WKBK, liberty activists called to talk about court security, speeding, open carry, cannabis, and the city clerk preventing me from running for mayor in Keene.
Please join us for our weekly listening, chat, and calling sessions on Saturday mornings from 9a-12p in the Free Keene Chat room. If you’re online, you can listen to Talkback streamed live via the Liberty Radio Network and if you’re in the Keene area you can tune in to WKBK 1290 AM or 104.1 FM. The Talkback discussion thread is here on the Free Keene Forum.
Free Keene has just uncovered an exclusive internal draft of a recent KPD press release related to an upcoming CALEA accreditation:
Public Notice
The Keene Police Department is scheduled for an on-site assessment September 13-15, 2009, as part of a program to achieve recognition by verifying that it meets professional standards. The recognition program requires agencies comply with state-of-the-art standards in four basic areas: Customer Satisfaction, Responsiveness to Citizen Requests, Solution Oriented Focus Addressing Root Causes, and Victim Restitution.
The public is encouraged to provide feedback ensuring our assessors get a complete picture of how this agency is impacting the community. Refreshments will be provided to visitors who may meet with our team during business hours this week, during the Saturday/Sunday sessions or other times by appointment. We look forward to hearing from you.
Janice Hartman, CALEA Team Lead
Okay, as you may have guessed, this is not a genuine draft of the press release. I wrote it to get you thinking about how police may be a bit hypocritical and even delusional in their claim to protect and serve the interests of the public.
In Reality, if you want to “offer comments” you’ll need to . . . (more…)
Last week I had a chat with Keene’s city clerks Patti Little, Bill Dow, and the assistant city attorney about their challenge to my voter’s registration. The episode, some highlights of which you can see in the Ridley Report below, turned into a perfect example of how even if you think you know what their rules say, it’s only their interpretation that matters.
I filed for my candidacy for mayor as Ian “Nobody” Bernard. That’s my slave name with a nickname of “Nobody” added to the middle. The publicly announced purpose of this campaign was to give voters the first opportunity ever to actually choose Nobody, rather than the lesser of two evils. (As I would not take the oath of office or attend council meetings.) Clearly, the establishment did not appreciate this and immediately set to disqualifying me from the ballot. They decided on attacking my voter registration, which hadn’t seemed to be a problem before. (more…)
City Council has little effect on state laws, but the Municipal Services, Facilities and Infrastructure Committee voted to recommend that the City Council draft resolutions related to marijuana use for submission to State offices in Concord.
Wednesday evening, the Municipal Services, Facilities and Infrastructure Committee of the Keene City Council voted 4-1 to recommend the full council support medical marijuana legalization AND 3-2 to recommend the support of decriminalization of personal amounts of marijuana. The most vocal detractor, Mr. Greenwald, made it clear that he was voting “no” because he didn’t feel the issue to be something the City Council should be handling, and not because he disagreed with the idea. The committee acted on this due to the pushing from a seemingly unlikely source. Former KPD detective Fred Parsells submitted the letter at the bottom of this post to the Mayor and City Council, as well as spoke to the committee.
In favor of the resolution for medical marijuana: Arnold Bailey, Pamela Slack, Charles Redfern, and Ruth Venezia. Bailey opposed the decrim resolution.
If adopted, this decision still has no legal effect, but means that the City Council will draft a resolution and submit to Concord in support of these marijuana freedoms. The full council will be voting on these issues at the next meeting, September 17, 2009.
An incumbent city councilor was recently asked by an individual representing a particular point of view if said councilor would be willing to propose language to the full council which would, in so many words, direct the Keene Police Department to make enforcement of minimal marijuana possession laws its lowest enforcement priority. Even if it had the mind to do so, I do not believe that the council has the legal right to dictate such a policy. That said, the idea did prompt the councilor and me to engage in conversation regarding medical marijuana and the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal consumption.
On last week’s “Talkback” on WKBK, liberty activists called to talk about court security, speeding, open carry, cannabis, and the city clerk preventing me from running for mayor in Keene.
Last week I had a chat with Keene’s city clerks Patti Little, Bill Dow, and the assistant city attorney about their challenge to my voter’s registration. The episode, some highlights of which you can see in the 
The publicly announced purpose of this campaign was to give voters the first opportunity ever to actually choose Nobody, rather than the lesser of two evils. (As I would not take the oath of office or attend council meetings.) Clearly, the establishment did not appreciate this and immediately set to disqualifying me from the ballot. They decided on attacking my voter registration, which hadn’t seemed to be a problem before. 
