Local hater group, “STOP FREE KEENE!!!” received press today from the Sentinel and rather than speak to reporter Kyle Jarvis they released the following statement, according to a comment on the Sentinel’s site by group founder Andrea Parkhurst Whitcomb. In this article, I respond to their statement which appears in-full, in the block quotes below:
“Stop Free Keene is a loosely organized group or 200+ Keene/Monadnock residents who are concerned and alarmed by the goals and tactics of Free Keene and it’s affiliate organizations. This includes the desire for the abolishment or privatization of all government agencies and services like police, fire, and judicial systems as well as the complete dismantling of public education and regulatory oversight of food, medicine, and the environment.
Free Keene is a website – it has no tactics as it’s only a wordpress site. The purpose of the site is to share news, activism, and opinion in the hopes of advancing society to a consensual order rather than one based on institutionalized coercion. Please see our “About” page for details. Each person that blogs for Free Keene has their own tactics and they may not all agree on the best way to go about achieving their goals. Personally, I don’t support privatizing police, fire, and justice. I just want the markets open to competition and have the state agencies no longer funded by the threat of force. I support education, good food, health care, and a clean environment. I just don’t think a monopoly is the best way to provide those services. If you want to know what other Free Keene bloggers think, feel free to ask them.
Free Keene and its affiliates have made it a priority to harass, intimidate, or otherwise silence their critics and those they perceive as “enemies of liberty”.
This morning’s “Sound Off” on WKBK featured a detailed discussion of the proposed parking rate increase. I listened for the bulk of an hour and the discussion and calls leaned against the proposal by the new “parking czar” to double parking fines and dramatically increase rates. Here’s the part of the hour I was able to record, which includes calls from me, James “Robin Hood” Cleaveland, and city code enforcer Fred Parsells:
Also, here’s another call from two weeks prior where I called to agree with the “Sound Off” hosts about cannabis decrim and the death penalty. Then I ask Chris Coates if he agrees that the school board deliberative session is mostly attended by school staff. He agrees: (more…)
Deborah Butler, a downtown part-time worker, wrote this letter to the Sentinel pointing out that if the parking rates increase as the city proposes, she’ll have to pay nearly twice as much to park, just to go to her job! She also rightfully points out that the parking fees are a deterrent to shoppers as well:
After reading the Sentinel’s article concerning raising the parking fees in downtown meters, I couldn’t help but wonder why the Keene City Council is determined to make downtown Keene as unattractive as possible to visitors and workers alike.
Reducing the amount of time each quarter buys means that shoppers will spend less time in the stores along Main Street. Visitors to the area, who may park on Main Street to see what the merchants in Keene have to offer, will not know that they should have brought along a pocketful of change in order to park for any reasonable shopping time. They will probably cut their shopping trips short in order to avoid having to pay a parking ticket.
Like many of the people who work in the downtown establishments, I am a part-time employee. Right now, it costs me $5.50 a week to park for the part of the day that I am at work. With the proposed change to the parking fees, it will cost me over $9.
The more difficult and costly it is to park and shop downtown, the more people will avoid coming here. Kris Roberts is quoted as saying, “…people who don’t use parking spots will have to come up with money to subsidize the parking fund …” Well, I don’t have any children in the school system, but I ‘subsidize’ that; it’s the same principle. Does the City Council want happy shoppers spending money in a thriving downtown business district? I would like to suggest that the Keene City Council not be “Penny wise, pound foolish.”
Towards the end of last week’s Saturday morning episode of the live local call-in radio program SoundOff, a listener raised the issue of Keene parking rate and fine increases. The caller expressed discontent that parking would become more expensive and from his perspective, the rate hikes were enough to disincentivize him from choosing to frequent downtown businesses. The necessity of the rate hike is kicked around for several minutes by host Chris Cotes and guest host Dale Pregent, and the efforts of Robin Hood of Keene are mentioned in passing. Towards the end of the segment, Dale makes an underhanded comment about the parking enforcers, referring to one of the workers as a ‘parking maid’ while suggesting that there previously had been allegations of harassment of city employees by city officials. The audio has been specially set to b-roll footage of the AKPF van occupying various parking spaces throughout the city.
Another exemplary installment of the AKPF #1 series this week features more quality content from the 2014 New Hampshire Liberty Forum. Opening with a well produced interview compilation captured by recent Chicago-area transplant Rob Mathias, we get insight into the passions and motivations of various activists around New Hampshire and beyond. The segment is followed up by a freshly cut edition of the Nashua duck vigil held on the morning of Sunday, February 23. Finishing out the show are excerpts from a public declaration by Garret Ean at the DPRK Central sub-Committee hearing on a proposal to increase AKPF rates, fees, and fines by hefty portions. Another locally produced CheshireTV program, Black Sheep Rising, discusses the increase proposals, as well as reactive response in a portion of their most recent episode.
1. 00:10 Declaration of the people (Liberty Forum compilation)
2. 15:46 Nashua Lost Ducks Candlelight Vigil Memorial Service
3. 27:20 Questioning the parking commissioner on proposed increases against DPRK civilians (taxation/penalization/criminalization/victimization)
On the most recently released episode of the the after-hours local access program Black Sheep Rising, changes to the schedules of parking fees and fines for the city of Keene were addressed in the first hour. Extracted for the AKPF audience and published to the Aqua Keene channel, in this under five minute segment, viewers learn of proposed changes to boost short term rates by fifty percent. The figures were inaccurately represented in the initial broadcast as not having been divisible except via quarter dollars, but this specially edited excerpt corrects the mathematical errors. To see the full episode, check out the uncensored installment at BlackSheepRising.com.
