On Sunday at 11am, a candlight vigil will be held at the scene of the slaughter of five ducks and the serious injuring of many more after state representative David Campbell drunkenly careened into the flock of waterfowl on December 23. The event scheduled for the two-month anniversary of the deaths will feature a moment of silence, presentations from the audience, a reminder of the dangers of combining alcohol consumption and driving, and an update on the situation. Since the incident dubbed #duckgate, Nashua police commissioner Tom Pappas, who assisted David Campbell in evading police interaction until the following morning, has resigned from his post amid calls for both he and Campbell to do so. Though he issued an apology and pled guilty to hunting ducks out of season, David Campbell has ignored all calls for his resignation. The Concord-NH Patch ran an announcement after a facebook event was created to coincide with the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. Check back for video from the scene to follow. (more…)
Amendments to Keene School District petition articles called illegal, suit filed
A lawsuit filed against the Keene School District argues amendments made to seven warrant articles at the district’s deliberative session earlier this month were illegal and deprived residents of the opportunity to vote.
The petitioners — Conan Salada, Darryl W. Perry, David Crawford and Eric LaRoche — requested an injunction and an expedited hearing, so the issue can be sorted out before town and school district elections on March 11.
The document states the amendments to the petitioned articles were a “creative and surreptitious attempt” to eliminate the subject matter.
In January, Salada submitted seven petition articles to the school district. Three sought to replace the school district’s proposed budget with smaller budgets, two would have reduced the school board’s power to keep and use surplus money, one aimed to take away the board’s power to state support of warrant articles on the ballot and one aimed to remove the board’s authority to appoint members to fill empty seats. (more…)
Did you miss the excruciatingly painful 6 hour deliberative session dealing with the school budget and warrant articles that will appear on the March ballot here in Keene? No problem. I cut the bulk of it down to an hour and have selected choice footage from that event highlighting the extreme lengths these bureaucrats stooped to in order to protect their ‘doomed to collapse’ 63millon dollar a year industry from any opposition.
Before the Deliberative Session, Conan Salada collected signatures on 7 warrant articles to be placed on the official ballot before voters in the upcoming Keene School District election.
During the Deliberative Session, all 7 warrant articles were amended in a manner that eliminated the subject. These amendments were challenged as out of order, however the moderator over-ruled those motions, and the majority of voters in attendance agreed with the moderator. The Keene Sentinel described these changes as “Machiavellian legal maneuvering… to avoid letting voters decide the merits of the articles“.
After the Deliberative Session, Darryl W. Perry, was directed to the 2011 Rockingham Superior Court decision in the case of Bailey v. Town of Exeter. In Bailey, the Court ruled, “the Court finds and rules the only way the phrase ‘no warrant article shall be amended to eliminate the subject matter of the article’ can logically be read is to conclude that any amendment that made the subject matter of the article a nullity was forbidden,” adding that “[m]erely because the majority of the voters were more clever in the way the amendment was worded to create the nullity does not mean their action was not a violation of the statute.”
Perry, Salada and two other voters (David Crawford and Eric LaRoche) have filed suit against the School District due to the illegal actions at the Deliberative Session that have disenfranchised the voters of Keene, including petitioners.
The filing can be read here. A court date has been set for Friday, February 28 at 11am.
Thursday’s Keene Sentinel featured an update on the Robin Hood saga penned by Kyle Jarvis. The article overviews how the case is being prepped for presentation to the New Hampshire supreme court, where before being scheduled requires both parties to consider the possibility of mandatory mediation. The mediation process would involve a closed-door meeting between both parties to agree on a legal compromise. Mediation is certainly a fitting alternative to the courts for conflict resolution when a conflict exists, but as is uniquely the case in Keene, city officials can’t cite a single grievance against the Robin Hooders collectively beyond expressing a desire that they do not be in the proximity of or communicate with parking enforcers. For some individual Robin Hooders, no specific issues have been raised at all, and considering that Pete Eyre is still named in the suit when he has at no time been associated with Robin Hood of Keene demonstrates the indiscriminate nature of the city’s straw-grasping lawsuit. Early in the suit, the city requested the ability to add defendants to the case at will, but apparently ceased its hunt for the underground Robin Hooders after at least two individuals officially requested attachment to the suit and were denied, despite one presenting evidence of longtime participation in the activity.
While the ruling from judge John Kissinger was reasonable, a further contemplation of the case may have demonstrated the need for a less traditional ruling, which may have alleviated some of the issues that the legal department of “city of Keene” continues to press today. Though the judge never authorized “harassment and intimidation”, the ruling states only that the facts presented did not constitute any actionable activity. Yet the city’s attorney asserted this about the ruling: “The Order holds that the individual protesters have no duty to be reasonable in their actions and conduct directed toward public employees while doing their jobs … that the individual protesters are allowed to interfere, harass, and intimidate public employees while doing their jobs … (and) that the individual protesters may engage in inappropriate and unreasonable actions and conduct directed at public employees while doing their jobs.” Not only is it unkind to mischaracterize constitutionally protected speech as “harassment and intimidation,” but it is also a distortion of the actual text of the ruling. Perhaps mediation would have been most pertinent prior to the many hours spent in court, where it could have been cleared up ahead of time that Robin Hooders do not engage in harassment and intimidation. Of course, when myself I tried mediate with the city’s attorney prior to court, my camera was stolen for two months under the guise of “illegal wiretapping”. (more…)
At this point it should be of no surprise that even when people are taking oaths they’re breaking them within minutes. During the inauguration of the new city council in Keene there was not one but two sectarian prayers which completely disenfranchise the people in the city who don’t believe in a god or don’t believe in that particular god. Of course government endorsement of religion is also against the law. Using phrases such as “Gracious and holy one.” “May God give you courage.” “We pray in your most holy name.” obviously flies in the face of the law as well as the people who live in Keene.
serious injuring of many more after state representative David Campbell drunkenly careened into the flock of waterfowl on December 23. The event scheduled for the two-month anniversary of the deaths will feature a moment of silence, presentations from the audience, a reminder of the dangers of combining alcohol consumption and driving, and an update on the situation. Since the incident dubbed #duckgate, Nashua police commissioner Tom Pappas, who assisted David Campbell in evading police interaction until the following morning, has resigned from his post amid calls for both he and Campbell to do so. Though he issued an apology and pled guilty to hunting ducks out of season, David Campbell has ignored all calls for his resignation. The Concord-NH Patch ran an announcement after a facebook event was created to coincide with the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. Check back for video from the scene to follow. (more…)
