by Ed Naile
You mean Palm Beach Florida takes theft of municipal services seriously?
Man, if you are a Windsor New Hampshire official you better steer clear of setting up shop down there when you retire.
Here is the story from Florida
Now look at the tiny blight on the New Hampshire map known as Windsor.
For several court cases The Coalition of NH Taxpayers had to help citizens win the right to: videotape town meetings, get a look at a Town Clerk/Tax Collectors Report, copy any and almost every public document in Windsor normally handed over by any other town, city, or county in this state.
This Palm Beach traffic clerk helped a few friends and relatives out of about $5,300 measly dollars over a two year period – and was arrested.
In Windsor on the other hand, their tax collector stole $8,000 outright and over a ten year period left 22 of her friends and relatives out of paying over $100,000 in property taxes and late penalties.
What, no arrest for a NH clerk?
Well no. Because of our NH good-old-boy Superior Court system, taxpayers in Windsor can’t even get a court date to take civil, let alone criminal action.
In fact, the NH Dept of Revenue winked and nodded the whole time Windsor was unable to supply balanced books.
(Let’s let former DRA Commissioner Phil Blatsos off the hook here because he did help by ordering an audit of the crooked little town – the audit which recommended criminal action.)
Yep, you gotta look to other states some times when it comes to thieving public officials getting what’s coming to them.
Here in NH the powers that be are reluctant to tip up the municipal rock and have a look at the worms.
That doesn’t mean I can’t.
This sad little tale will make interesting reading when it is all compiled into a documentary built on public records, audits, statutes and a dizzying array of real, live, one-of-a-kind NH characters.
It will be like Peyton Place, only, non-fiction.