As you may recall, last June the Keene Activist Center was raided by code enforcement and the fire department. They contend it was being operated as a “lodginghouse” or “tourist home” and cited claims posted online in early 2012 by former tenants to make their case to the judge to receive the search warrant. Despite having no evidence the current tenants at the time of the raid were doing the same things the previous tenants were, they issued a “NOTICE OF VIOLATION” in September. I challenged that notice by responding that the judge (Burke) is biased against Free State Project participants and should recused himself, invalidating his warrant.
Later in the year in December I received an “ORDINANCE VIOLATION” from the fire department. In it, they allege that I am in violation of the city’s smoke detector ordinance 2-2011-02. It appears the ridiculous ordinance in question requires all homes in Keene to have multiple smoke detectors, all hooked to AC power, and all interconnected (meaning if one goes off, they all go off).
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never lived in or heard of a home that has a system like that. I can see the benefit in having one smoke detector on each floor, and the KAC has that, but the rest of the ordinance is ludicrous and who knows what it would cost to have AC-powered interconnected detectors installed in a home. I suspect most homes in Keene do not have such a system. Does yours?
It’s pretty clear that I am being targeted because of my activism. Fred Parsells, one of the city’s code enforcers, has told me that he thinks I’m going to leave Keene. His continued campaign of harassment against me and my tenants is clearly designed to encourage me to leave through constant threats and court engagement.
I responded to their “ORDINANCE VIOLATION” and contested their violation to district court. I received a “SUMMONS” to come to court for an arraignment on a criminal town ordinance violation for the smoke detector issue. I showed up and a trial date was set for 5/29 at 10am. I then filed the following: (more…)
While heading out of town on Route 9 to testify at some state house committee hearings, David, Darryl and I were pulled over by Keene police Sgt. Jason Short. Short had noticed the yellow Shire license plate on the back of the peace cruiser, pulled us, and proceeded to pore over his book of NH RSAs to see with what he could charge me.
He really couldn’t find anything, since the car is legally registered in Wisconsin to a corporation, so he wrote me a ticket for allegedly being a “resident” and not getting a NH driver’s license (more…)
In August of last year, I received a parking ticket in Concord, NH. As part of my principles to never immediately pay a fine, I requested a hearing.
My court date was set for January 29, unfortunately I was unable to attend that trial due to new employment that I began that day. I attempted to have someone represent me as an “Attorney In Fact” which was denied by the court; though a continuance was granted.
Upon arriving at court this morning, the prosecutor told me that he would place my ticket on file without finding. The initial offer was 90 days on file, I negotiated that down to 60 days.
I had a very winnable case, as I was never notified of the witness to testify against me pursuant to Rule 2.10 (B), though Rule 1 of the court is that all rules may be waved at any time. It’s not a win, but the court spend time and resources that could have been put to better use going after real criminals with actual victims and I am satisfied with the outcome.
Posted hours ago to Vice News was an article connecting the zealous prosecutions of Aaron Schwartz and Bradley Manning. John Cornyn, a US senator from Texas authored a letter to current US attorney general Eric Holder inquiring as to whether Schwartz’s FOIA requests related to Manning’s treatment were a motivating factor for his own prosecution. See DJ Pangburn’s article Aaron Swartz and Bradley Manning: How the US Government Contains Those Who Would Free Information.
When Swartz walked into the MIT server room to liberate millions of academic papers (freeing knowledge in the process), he was unwittingly opening the door to his very own cell alongside Manning. One need not be in a tiny room to feel the walls closing in. The law does a great job of that—the shadow of America’s boot heel spreading all around, snuffing out the light. Defendants are forced to deal: plead guilty and serve a short sentence, or fight the system and serve much more time. Justice indeed.
Free Concord presents an illustrated excerpt from Lysander Spooner’s No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. Using footage captured while Robin Hooding in Keene, Garret Ean narrates an opening portion of the Boston anarchist’s 1870 treatise. The video is scored with Henry Purcell’s Funeral March of Mary II played on the cello and glass harp.
On February 7, the Election Law Committee of the NH House of Representatives heard testimony on HB521, a bill that proposes to establish a committee to examine all of New Hampshire’s election laws and see where there’s room for improvement.
Darryl Perry of the New Hampshire Liberty Party said “the perfect solution” to increase voter participation is “to create ballot access fairness.”
He said opponents claim that would create confusion. But, he said, “New Hampshire is actually very proud of the fact that they have a larger number of candidates running in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. So if ballot or voter confusion is not a problem for the primaries, why would it then all of a sudden become a problem for the general election?”
“The answer is: It’s not a problem,” he said.
The Election Law Committee will hold an Executive Session at some point in the near future (the date and time has not yet been added to the House calendar). During the Executive Session, the committee will decide whether or not to adopt the amendment I proposed and also vote on whether or not the bill should go before the full House.
![smokeDetector[1]](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/smokeDetector11-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150)
As you may recall, last June the Keene Activist Center was raided by code enforcement and the fire department. They contend it was being operated as a “lodginghouse” or “tourist home” and cited claims posted online in early 2012 by former tenants to make their case to the judge to receive the search warrant. Despite having no evidence the current tenants at the time of the raid were doing the same things the previous tenants were, they issued a “NOTICE OF VIOLATION” in September. I challenged that notice by responding that the judge (Burke) is biased against Free State Project participants and should recused himself, invalidating his warrant.
It’s pretty clear that I am being targeted because of my activism. Fred Parsells, one of the city’s code enforcers, has told me that he thinks I’m going to leave Keene. His continued campaign of harassment against me and my tenants is clearly designed to encourage me to leave through constant threats and court engagement.
