Last year most conservation land purchases were voted down, and that’s a good thing.
Most of these purchases were going to allow the land to be handed directly over to private entities… after being paid for with taxpayer dollars. In Raymond, the ConComm ignored the voters and now there is a lawsuit against them due to the fact that their article was binding…
Now we see HB 1142 has been filed by two Amherst Reps and its purpose revealed…
This bill is all about making it more difficult for Amherst taxpayers to stop these land purchases. Town treasurer Liz Overholt basically said so in a public meeting of the Board of Selectmen:
“Rich Hart, Conservation Commission member, indicated he had been thinking about the issue of 25 people to sign a petition to potentially take the matter to Town Meeting. This town has gotten big enough to find 25 people to sign just about anything. He thought it would be better to make a decision and set a limit. The other option, other than 25 people, they would make it some number of people that would have better participation – perhaps 2%. Mr. O’Mara noted that 2% don’t even go to the polls.
Bill Birchard, member of the Amherst Land Trust urged the Selectmen to re-authorize the warrant article and act favorably for OSAC.
Liz Overholt assumed the wording for the petition warrant article was taken from the current RSA in the State which is 25. She has talked to Rep. Shannon Chandley (D-Amherst) who has asked that it be changed to 2% and is supposed to be considered in January.”
Rep. Chandley had previously asserted in the Sunday News that there was no specific issue this bill was filed to address.
Rep. Peter Bergin (R-Amherst) was contacted and asked if and why he would support this bill. His response indicated that he was simply filing it on behalf of a constituent as his service to them.
Also, a petition will be submitted to revoke SB2 in Amherst. It would be interesting to know how many signatures they collected and whether it would meet the 2% threshold.
Both of these intiatives would be bad for Amherst and bad for all towns that use SB2.