Sunday, February 09, 2014

Making Friends and Keenely Influencing Politics




It's that time of year in New Hampshire - the time when we move toward town meeting, and the cities and towns that adopted SB 2 have their deliberative sessions. 

One such session took place in Keene yesterday - the deliberative session for the school budget. 

From the Keene Sentinel 

A majority of Keene voters had a clear message Saturday for a small group that sought to slash the budget and reduce some of the school board’s powers:
No, thank you.

Most voters showed their disdain for the ideas, amending each of seven warrant articles and describing most of them as a waste of time or irresponsible
Who was this small group?  It was future POTUS  Darryl W. Perry  Conan Salada, and Ian Freeman of the Keene branch of the Free State Project. 
Freeman tried to reduce the budget by $5 million, saying that rising taxes are driving people from Keene. His motion failed 75-15.
And
Some wondered aloud why, if taxes in Keene are so high, they haven’t driven out Freeman or Perry. Others groaned at their proposals or laughed at some defeated amendments.

When the Free Staters started moving to NH, they waxed on  about how much they loved town meeting as a form of government. It's listed as one of their 101 reasons to move to NH. I'm sure that from a theoretical standpoint, it seemed like the bestest thing ever. 
Town meeting is the bestest thing ever. Most of the time ridiculousness gets a sound thrashing, as Messrs. Perry, Salada, and Freeman experienced on Saturday.

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