Stone Farm Threatened With $275/day in Fines by Town Selectman; Charges Ultimately Dropped!

Stone Farm on Liberty Acres

Stone Farm on Liberty Acres

Stone Farm on Liberty Acres has provided hospitality to liberty lovers for a bitcoin donation since 2013. Visitors have been raving about the property and it has received coverage in the Keene Sentinel and Bitcoin Magazine for its acceptance of bitcoin, the international cryptocurrency.

Proprietors Katie McCall and Matt Roach were threatened last week by Fitzwilliam town selectman CJ Holman with $275 a day in fines if they continue to operate what Holman alleged is a “bed and breakfast” (a legal term that doesn’t apply to Stone Farm). Why all-of-a-sudden is Stone Farm on this politician’s radar?

It appears that there has recently been a dispute with the property’s landlord regarding an over-full septic tank due to a broken leach field that has on more than one occasion backed sewage up into the shower. Katie and Matt say the landlord has refused to fix the leach field or even pump the septic tank and seemed to not even realize the property has a septic tank. As a result of this disgusting issue, Stone Farm has been closed to visitors for weeks and the duo are planning a move to a new location.

Katie McCall and Matt Roach

Katie McCall and Matt Roach

Rather than do the right thing and fix the septic issue, the landlord apparently decided to contact the town gang and snitch on their tenants for running a bed-and-breakfast without a government permission slip. That’s why after two years of service and zero complaints, that Katie and Matt received a threat via certified mail last week. Katie also received an additional threat over her midwifery training business, which ended on its own a while back.

Katie and Matt sent a response to Holman’s threat demanding to know the section of ordinance that was allegedly being violated, as it was never mentioned in the supposed “violation” notice.

Ultimately the duo attended this week’s town selectmen meeting, where they were the only two townsfolk in attendance. According to Katie:

The one selectmen [CJ Holman] who spearheaded the aggression against Stone Farm failed to show and the two remaining selectmen oozed apologies for his inappropriate actions. Both violations were dropped…sometimes people feel comfortable being bullies when the person they are bullying is unknown to them. Putting a face to a name sometimes holds people accountable on its own merit.

Success! Stay tuned here to Free Keene for any further developments.

P.S. Stone Farm is moving to another location – please help them by donating to their fundraiser and get perks like a weeklong stay at the new location!

NH Senate defeats cannabis decrim

On June 4, 2015 the NH Senate voted on cannabis decriminalization for the first time. Similar legislation has passed the NH House 6 times in the past 8 years. After the Senate amended the bill, it was tabled. After spending 12+ hours watching the Senate, Matt Simon from the Marijuana Policy Project spent a few minutes to talk about the history of the cannabis decrim efforts in NH, and the future.

If you like this video, please consider a Bitcoin donation: 1DPxGsNzsdguLnS37grqrvjeCQ7qTpN6ee

More Ambush Interviews from Keene School Board Meeting

Dave Ridley continues his series of videos from the Keene School Board meeting last month.  As usual, his ambush-style interviews capture more ridiculous, unaccountable behavior from the school board members and school staff.

In this video, one school board member refuses to agree to support ANY kind of budget cap.  No amount of taxing is too much!

In this video, Ridley confronts school bureaucrats who do not want to answer questions about anything as well as another school board member who refuses to support a budget cap: (more…)

Shire Society Website & Forums Remodeled and Revamped!

Shire Society Emblem

The Shire Society

The Shire Society website has gotten a facelift! The site now has a responsive design so it will work on mobile browsers and desktop and still has all the features from before including the Shire Society Declaration that you can sign, the Shire map, immigration information, and useful tools and links. Drop in and declare your independence by signing the Shire Society Declaration today!

Perhaps more important is there is brand new software running the Shire Society Forum now. We’ve switched from SMF to the more-modern Vanilla Forum. That means a few major changes – now messages post instantly to a thread without having to reload the page – using the forum is a lot faster as a result. It’s also easier in general to compose a message, plus, there’s social networking sharing options on every thread.

While it’s true that a lot of activists are on Facebook, the Shire Society Forums have continued on despite the mass-exodus to Facebook. It’s important to keep alternate communications methods alive. The Shire Society Forum does that and has long been a destination for new people who are not on Facebook or don’t know where to find NH activists on Facebook. There are new people signing up every month at the Shire Society Forum, so please drop in and welcome them.

There is a world outside of Facebook and the new Shire Society Forum will help connect you with that world. If you’ve never been, come by and post an introduction to get full forum access.

Welcoming our First Seacoast Blogger, James Davis!

James Davis

James Davis

Since 2006 Free Keene has been providing an outlet for some of the best activists across the Shire to report on various goings-on. Recent additions have focused on increasing coverage in Manchester. Now, we expand further East to the Seacoast with the addition of James Davis as our newest blogger! Since getting settled in with his family in Dover, James has hit the streets during jury outreach and has had his writings published in the Concord Monitor and on Freecoast.org. Here’s his bio from the Bloggers page:

 

James Davis is an unschooling father of two and a liberty activist from New Jersey. After learning about the Free State Project from Free Talk Live, he and his family made the move to Dover, New Hampshire, in October of 2014 to find more liberty for themselves and others. James makes his living running an unschooling and liberty-based summer camp called the Stomping Ground, and speaking at camp conferences nationwide about the benefits of giving children more freedom. He also does Juror Outreach, and is a blogger at Freecoast.org.

NH Ends Prohibition of Narcan, the Heroin Overdose-Reversal Drug

State Rep Amanda Bouldin, UBER Customer

State Representative Amanda Bouldin

Free State Project early mover Amanda Bouldin was elected in Manchester in 2014 as a state representative and one of the first things she did was file a bill, HB 271, that ends prohibition on possession of Narcan.  Narcan is a trade name for Naloxone which can be administered to counter the effects of an opioid overdose – saving lives.  Until now, Narcan could only be possessed legally by EMS and police.  Now anyone who acts with “good faith and reasonable care” may store or administer the life-saving drug to a person in overdose with no criminal or civil liability.  It’s a major change that will likely result in saving the lives of multiple heroin and other opiate addicts in New Hampshire.

Bouldin is also known for her Shire Sharing organization that feeds poor families on Thanksgiving each year across the state.

Not only is the ending of Narcan prohibition a major success for a freshman legislator, it’s a big win for the Free State Project, and more proof that the 1500 early movers continue to have a significant impact.  If you love liberty and aren’t here yet, start planning your move and join the FSP!

That NH governor Maggie Hassan signed this harm-reducing legislation into law is a sign that there might be a glimmer of humanity inside her.  Now hopefully she’ll do the right thing on cannabis decriminalization if it gets passed by the senate this week.