Thanks to Martha Shanahan at the Keene Sentinel for her front page feature piece focusing on the Shire Free Church’s appeal of the City of Keene’s denial of tax exempt status for our Keene parsonage. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on this case. Here’s the Sentinel story, for which city attorney Thom Mullins refused to comment:
Members of a local activist group have appealed a city board’s rejection of their application for tax-exempt status on a Keene duplex.
Jay Denonville, Mark Edgington, Ian B. Freeman and Darryl W. Perry, who identify themselves in the appeal as ministers of the Shire Free Church: Monadnock, say the city’s Board of Assessors should reverse its June decision and allow the group to claim tax-exempt status on the property as the parsonage of a religious organization. The appeal was filed Aug. 28 in Cheshire County Superior Court.
Freeman and Perry, both members of the loosely organized group of bloggers known as Free Keene, filed the application for tax-exempt status at the group’s Leverett Street property in March.
Freeman told The Sentinel he co-founded the Shire Free Church, which has branches and ministers in other parts of New Hampshire and outside of the state, in 2010. (more…)
A few tweaks have been made to the know-your-rights flyer Keene Cop Block has been handing out on the streets of Keene for years. They contain simple, solid info about your rights when encountering police. Even if you think you already know your rights, it doesn’t hurt to review. Please share! Click the graphics for the full-size versions or click: (front, back):
On September 4, the Keene, NH City Council heard a communication from Councilor Terry Clark. Clark, who had been vocally opposed to Keene’s acceptance of the Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter-Attack Truck, wrote a correspondence to the mayor and council asking “the City of Keene (to) withdraw from the Homeland Security Grant” and return the “BearCat, to the appropriate government agency.”
During the council meeting, Mayor Kendall Lane suggested that the council take the correspondence as informational. The vote to override this motion was only supported by Councilors Chadbourne, Clark and Hague.
On Wednesday, September 03, a monumentous occasion occurred as the one and only governor Maggie Hassan visited Keene State College. On her foot voyage from the SUV to the front doors of the library, she was met with the usual escorts, but also including Free Keene blogger Derrick J. He steadily pitched hardball questions to New Hampshire’s highest politician, who consistently ignored him by miming casual conversation with others around her.
On the brief walkway preceding the entrance to the library doors, I encountered the scene of the governor’s entourage being led by Derrick. Approaching the governor, I inquired, “Governor Hassan, would you be able to sign my collectable decanter?,” referring to the vodka receptacle. Graciously, the high candidate obliged, “Sure,” taking and signing the ceramic canteen. With a signature striking similar to, “Messiah,” I was overjoyed to witness the hypocrisy of an anti-cannabis politician who is proud of their legal contributions to the state’s vodka industry. After the hilarious commercial the governor appeared in for the special edition NH state vodka bottle, I can imagine their value could only have skyrocketed. How far are we from the day when a New Hampshire governor autographs their personal strain of recreational cannabis? As boldly stated on the face of our nation’s official liquor decanter, “Live Free or Die”.
While out doing election day outreach at Keene State College, parking enforcer Linda comes along to issue some threats to peaceful motorists. I grab my Robin Hooding supplies and begin saving people from parking tickets. She begins behaving erratically as we approach an intersection, acting like she is going to cross and then turning around, then turning around again and so on. It was probably very frustrating for the poor people who had stopped to wait for her at the crosswalk while she played childish games with Matt and I.
After this encounter, I pulled out my video camera and continued to feed meters while holding her accountable for her actions. As soon as I approached with the camera she began her erratic behavior again, turning around a total of eighteen times within two minutes. She also accuses me of harassment and interfering, which we know are untrue – Robin Hooding is legal in New Hampshire and talking to government workers is not harassment. Eventually, she leaves the area, having failed at writing further tickets.
Of the seven races they were watching, four were wins for the liberty activists, including two democrat incumbents, Tim O’Flaherty and Michael Garcia. In his race for Manchester state rep for Wards 4-7, incumbent democrat Tim O’Flaherty received a solid third place out of five contenders. The first and second placed opponents only got 26% each compared to O’Flaherty’s 24%. O’Flaherty says that local haters spent a fair amount of money to mail flyers to all registered dems, promoting three other candidates. However, O’Flaherty says that what happened to him was nothing compared to the all-out-attack on Michael Garcia.
Michael Garcia (no relation to US Senate candidate Marilinda Garcia) is a Keeniac-moved-to-Nashua, who, like O’Flaherty won his state rep seat originally in 2012 in Nashua’s Ward 7. Local haters were caught by surprise in 2012 and this year mobilized against him with large signs calling the democrat liberty activist who moved several years ago from Florida, a “phony”. Plus, they were distributing an attack flier at the polling site. Despite the desperate push against him, Garcia prevailed, beating the last place contender by 30 votes. Garcia received 16% putting him in third place out of four, with the fourth place person receiving 12%.
The other races that Miscellany Blue were watching included Elizabeth Edwards who received a solid first place finish in Manchester’s Ward 4! She scored 41% of the vote compared to the second place finisher’s 34%. Manchester’s Amanda Bouldin (the founder of Shire Sharing) also made it through in a close race for state rep in Ward 5 where she finished second with 25% – the runner-up had 22%.
In Keene, despite valiant efforts, James “Robin Hood” Cleaveland lost his race for state rep to political newcomer William Pearson, who in a Keene Sentinel interview claimed to be a “real democrat”, whatever that means. Pearson received 102 votes in Keene’s Ward 1 compared to Cleaveland’s 30 votes (23%). The good news out of this race is that turnout in Ward 1 was down from 9% in 2012 to 7% in 2014, meaning that either Cleaveland’s opposition did nothing to try to stop him, or if they did, any efforts they made to try to turn out the vote were total failures. (more…)
Thanks to Martha Shanahan at the Keene Sentinel for her front page feature piece focusing on the Shire Free Church’s appeal of the City of Keene’s denial of tax exempt status for our Keene parsonage. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on this case. Here’s the Sentinel story, for which city attorney Thom Mullins refused to comment:
