by Ed Naile
Lee New Hampshire is a small town next to Durham and it is loaded with college and other public employees, and who, if they are like most liberals, enjoy getting their own way with other peoples property and money.
Democracy just snuck up on them.
Lee voters approved ballot voting and switched to RSA 40:13, or SB2 style meetings with the mandated 60% plus supermajority required by law.
Here is a Foster’s story about the whiners who lost the vote to switch:
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110312/GJNEWS_01/703129926&template=GreatBayRegion
They even go so far as to cry about the tricky wording in the warrant article – which is mandated wording included in the statute.
It begs the question: If some people are so enamored with so-called traditional town meetings, how come they don’t enjoy the spectacle of the people sitting around them voting to adopt SB2?
The old argument that goes: “Only informed voters should vote and you can only do that at a so-called traditional meeting.” flies in the face of the reality that a super-majority of those same voters want the old-fashioned “biggest liar wins” format changed to a secret ballot.
I love this argument:
“I’m disappointed the vote went the way it did,” said Lee resident Dawn Genes. “It was unexpected, and I think a lot of people that voted (Tuesday) didn’t know what they were voting for.” (A lot means 60% in this case.)
There go those “informed” voters voting for something they didn’t understand.
But what anti-secret ballot voters are really afraid of is that once SB2 is adopted people tend to never want to switch back.
Take the nearby town of Rye and its recent attempt to rescind SB2. 752 – 291 was the vote to keep SB2.
So maybe Bambi Miller, the public employee activist who opposes SB2 and is spearheading an effort to rescind it isn’t really so much in favor of so-called traditional town meeting as she is simply getting her way.
Same thing for Dawn Genes environmental activist/land grabber.
And there is the reason SB2 was created in the first place – progressive malcontents.