{"id":1698,"date":"2011-07-07T08:42:40","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T13:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2017-12-18T16:17:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:17:26","slug":"exeter-sues-over-violation-of-hb-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/2011\/07\/07\/exeter-sues-over-violation-of-hb-77\/","title":{"rendered":"Exeter Sues Over Violation of HB 77"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update: Latest Update on Lawsuit for 7\/6\/2011<\/a>
\n
\nJudge McHugh: It\u2019s too late to reprint ballots<\/strong><\/p>\n

EXETER \u2014 Two amended citizen petition warrant articles pertaining to the creation of a municipal budget committee will remain on today\u2019s ballot as amended and their legality will be argued another day.<\/p>\n

Exeter resident James Knight and 10 other residents claim the amendments made at the Feb. 5 deliberative session were illegal and sought immediate injunctive relief to get the amended articles off the ballot.<\/em><\/p>\n

Update: Soltani Will Appeal<\/a><\/p>\n

Governor Lynch signed HB 77<\/a> into law but apparently the folks in Exeter just didn’t get it.<\/p>\n


\nExeter voters have filed a lawsuit over what they feel is a violation of that law.<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, I Don’t Want To Vote Yes To Not Do Something<\/strong>
\nby Ed Naile<\/em>
\nLet\u2019s treat this article like a statute!<\/p>\n

Intent of article is to show readers how sneaky public officials work hand in glove to the taxpayer\u2019s detriment \u2013 if you let them.<\/p>\n

Definitions<\/p>\n

1. SB2 \u2013 Ballot voting in municipality created to avoid intimidation of the non-aligned.<\/p>\n

2. HB 77 – New 2011 bill passed to stop abuse of citizen petitions.<\/p>\n

3. Superior Court \u2013 Place in NH where all reason goes to die.<\/p>\n

4. Moderator \u2013 Often a bully in traditional meetings, likewise with SB2 to a lesser degree.<\/p>\n

5. RSA 32 \u2013 Creates a real budget committee \u2013 not a castrated advisory finance committee. It is also enabling legislation a municipality can adopt or rescind.<\/p>\n

6. D.S. \u2013 Deliberative Session, A preliminary deliberative meeting to review and destroy citizen involvement in creating a ballot for the annual meeting. Mostly packed with public employees.<\/p>\n

Let it be known:<\/p>\n

No sooner had HB 77, the bill to stop the \u201cTo see..\u201d abuse of citizen petitioned warrant articles passed the Legislature and been signed by Governor Lynch, than a scheme to try to drag it back before another confused NH Superior Court judge began. This time Exeter was the location.<\/p>\n

A citizen petition to adopt the provisions of RSA 32 was amended to – NOT adopt RSA 32.<\/p>\n

Key points:<\/p>\n

RSA 32 is a very scary statute (be you a tax and spender) because it forms a Budget Committee with statutory powers to set the budget of a municipality. So long, elite minority running the place, new sheriffs have come to town.<\/p>\n

Several years ago in Barrington some uppity taxpayers started becoming \u201cinformed\u201d and put petitioned warrant articles up for a vote at the Deliberative Session of their SB2 town. The \u201cspenders that be\u201d had enough votes at the D.S. to render the petitioned warrant articles to say \u201cTo see\u2026\u201d and nothing else. Now the voters who come to Town Meeting get to vote on a ballot that says, Article 6. \u201cTo see\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And a NH Superior Court judge thought that was just dandy, a real tribute to public involvement.<\/p>\n

Enter the new Republican Legislature and HB 77 to keep that from happening again. The DRA has a rule that warrant articles can not be amended to change the INTENT of the article.<\/p>\n

(So changing the petition taxpayers signed to adopt RSA 32 to NOT adopt RSA 32 was the INTENT of the citizen petition?)<\/p>\n

Oh but at a D.S., tax and spenders in Exeter had to prevent ballot voters, who turn out in huge numbers, from even getting a chance to vote on RSA 32. Judges know that.<\/p>\n

And how about all the people opposed to SB2 who claim voters are not informed enough to vote? This is fine with them – same crowd.<\/p>\n

My suspicion in Exeter is that the lawyer\/Moderator, who knew full well about HB 77 being law during his D.S., allowed this to happen to doom any chance of a Budget Committee being approved by voters. He might be looking for another shot at getting to court over the matter so we can have another judge limit citizen petitioned warrant articles again.<\/p>\n

Enter, let\u2019s call it, Citizens v. Exeter, with Epsom Attorney Tony Soltani for the Plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

In short, some well seasoned Exeter residents who have been up against this burg before are asking the court for injunctive relief to put the original, legal, adoption of enabling legislation, citizen warrant article, BACK ON THE BALLOT as was intended by the petitioners, DRA policy, the law, and the Legislature (again).<\/p>\n

Wish them luck.<\/p>\n

My solution:<\/p>\n

Another new law to prevent any amendment of a citizen petition warrant article, as SB 2 intended back in 1995. Hey, we have the votes in the Legsislature.<\/p>\n

And while we are at it, since Exeter and Barrington can not be trusted with them \u2013 eliminate Deliberative Sessions altogether from SB2, also known as RSA 40:13. We don\u2019t need them. Just have a Budget Hearing like in traditional town meetings and be done with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: Latest Update on Lawsuit for 7\/6\/2011 Judge McHugh: It\u2019s too late to reprint ballots EXETER \u2014 Two amended citizen petition warrant articles pertaining to the creation of a municipal budget committee will remain on today\u2019s ballot as amended and their legality will be argued another day. Exeter resident James Knight and 10 other residents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,71,51,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sb2","category-governor-watch","category-town-government","category-warrant-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6007,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions\/6007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}