The magnificent small-government activists of Grafton, New Hampshire

[muzzled dogg]

The magnificent small-government activists of Grafton, New Hampshire
by Tim Condon

I have written and spoken in the past that because of the Free State Project, “New Hampshire is the luckiest state in the history of the United States.” (State Rep. Cynthia Chase—a statist transplant from statist Rhode Island—recently


The Town Seal of Grafton, NH
reinforced that view with her public outburst that “Free Staters are the single biggest threat New Hampshire is facing today”; after my Grokster buddy Steve MacDonald broke the story on GraniteGrok.com it went viral, resulting in priceless national publicity for the Free State Project).

The power of native New Hampshire activists joining with Freestater immigrants was demonstrated Monday night at the annual town meeting in the Free Town of Grafton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton,_New_Hampshire) where efforts to increase local spending and taxing were decisively defeated and reversed. An initial motion to reduce— instead of increase—the annual town spending budget by 20% failed by a single vote. A following motion to reduce the budget by 10% passed. Successive motions to reduce various spending warrant articles by 10% also passed. How could this happen? Easy….

The basic attitude at the town meeting was “The economy is awful, and lots of us have had to reduce our own family budgets by 10% or more…so why does town taxing and spending have to go up every year?” The message was greeted with repeated majority votes that cut proposed spending by the town. The votes were driven by people born and raised in Grafton, joined by long-time residents, joined by relative newcomers who have moved to the small town in recent years as part of the Free State Project migration. The results are a tribute to Grafton and its people: Cheers and kudos to you all!

Find out more about the Free Town of Grafton! (http://granitegrok.com/blog/2012/10/the-free-town-of-grafton-spread-your-wings-and-break-away-lloyd)



http://granitegrok.com/blog/2013/02/the-magnificent-small-government-activists-of-grafton-new-hampshire

[roho76]

Way to go. It's all a out the little battles.

[FSP-Rebel]

Yeah, they are a top notch bunch up there and have visited their quite a few times and even helped a dude from Illinois move there back in '06. But, I could never live in such a rural and desolate place with only one tiny store/gas station and terrible internet/phone service.

[Keith and stuff]

Yeah, they are a top notch bunch up there and have visited their quite a few times and even helped a dude from Illinois move there back in '06. But, I could never live in such a rural and desolate place with only one tiny store/gas station and terrible internet/phone service.

They now have high speed internet there. I hear it is quite good since so few people in the town have it and so few people live in the town. Depending on where you live in the town (it is quite large and there is a mountain with dirt roads that are hard to pass in the winter that separate part of town near the interstate with the main part of town), Grafton is 30 minutes from the top college (Dartmouth College) and top hospital (Darthmouth-Hitchcock) in Northern New England (NH, VT, ME) or 45 minutes from Concord (the center of NH government and 3rd largest city in NH). Much of Grafton is around an hour or so from Manchester (the largest city in NH).

There are even free private/public buses (provided by the companies in the area) from a couple towns over (10 minutes from town center) to the Lebanon/Hanover/Dartmouth area, the major population center in the area. That area also has 1 of the lowest unemployment rates in the Eastern US and the best food co-op in NH. It even has a commercial airport with flights to Boston and NYC and Amtrak which goes from Burlington (VT) to Washington DC with stops in all of the large cities along the way. The Lebanon/Hanover/Dartmouth area is also the center of the Greyhound/Peter Pan/bus system in NH. Buses leave for Burlington, VT, Boston, MA, Manchester, NH, NYC and so on. The 2nd major north/south interstate system in New England (I-95 is the most important) called I-91 also passes through that area. I-91 goes from the ocean in New Haven, CT to Canada. I-89 connects with I-91 a mile outside of Lebanon and goes from Canada to south of Concord, NH

http://www.dartmouth.edu/
http://www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org/
http://www.uppervalleyfood.coop/
http://flyleb.com/
http://www.amtrak.com/vermonter-train
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_91
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_89

[Keith and stuff]

Free Keene covered this news here http://freekeene.com/2013/02/14/free-staters-prevent-further-increases-make-cuts-in-budgets-in-keene-and-grafton/

Someone commented.

The original vote was to reduce the budget by 20%, and it lost by a small margin. Some other votes to reduce budget items or switch things to donation-only funding lost by less than six votes (some as few as a single vote). A few more voters present, and we could have made some major changes. We also had a lot of NIMBY socialists showing up this year due to the proposed wind farm, who do not normally attend. Next year could be very interesting, if we have a few more movers and a few less socialists.

Here is someone talking about it that I found on Facebook.

Most importantly, we were able to cut the overall town budget back to 90% of FY2012's budget, for a total of $825,956.00. This is in line with that warrant article passed several years ago instructing the Selectmen to reduce the budget by 10% each year. When that passed, the town lawyer said it was "advisory," non-binding... but Monday's vote sure wasn't.

Chances are, with a few more people, they will be able to cut the budget by another 10% next year. They need your help to keep Grafton's reputation as the freest town in the developed world.

[sailingaway]

Go, Grafton!!

[Keith and stuff]

The Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers also covered this news.

Grafton Cuts Budget by 10%
By CNHT | February 12, 2013
http://www.cnht.org/news/2013/02/12/grafton-cuts-budget-by-10/


Taxpayers who attended their town meeting were able to cut Grafton’s budget by 10% at the deliberative session.

A vote to cut it by 20% failed by one vote.

The full vote will be taken at the regular town meeting in March.

This underscores the importance of attending your town’s deliberative sessions and town meetings/votes in New Hampshire.

On another note, Grafton has one of the two of the ten NH sheriffs who have pledged to stand by the citizens right to keep and bear arms in the face of federal gun control laws or confiscation schemes.

[Keith and stuff]

The 10% budget cut lost in the town election by 14 votes. Still, 256 voters supported it. I beleive that if the decrease was more reasonable, like 3%, it would have passed. Part of the problem was that the way it was written, the people in the town didn't have control over what would have been cut. The government folks in charge of that scared some people into thinking that important programs and services would be cut. So, even some liberty folks didn't support it. I think it is a good lesson to learn.

Don't worry though, since the proposed budget failed, the default budget passed. In this case, that means the town has the same budget as last year, which, if it happened in pretty much any other town, would be looked at as a major victory.

Some good people won in elections in Grafton, though. Some good articles passed and some bad articles failed. Then again, the opposite is also true. Grafton isn't utopia.

[Keith and stuff]

More good news. Grafton shares a school district with several other towns. 1 of the towns (Enfield) is close to Hanover (a statist college town) so the voters there tend to be more statist than the voters in Grafton. Some people wanted to pass a $24 million school bond to "fix up" some of the schools or something. It was defeated.

$24M School Bond Defeated by 22 Votes
Wed, 2013-03-13 15:05 +0000 — MVTU Staff
http://mvtu.eprci.com/stories/2013/bond_defeated_by_22_votes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


Grafton, New Hampshire – March 13, 2012 – The Mascoma Valley Taxpayer Union welcomed the news Wednesday morning that the $24M school bond had been rejected by voters once again. The vote totals were 1,807 in favor and 1,240 opposed. A three-fifths majority of voters was required to pass the bond, but only 59.3% had voted in favor.

In the week before the election, MVTU distributed a flyer to every household in the five towns of the Mascoma Valley Regional School District, notifying voters of the enormous tax impact this bond would have on them—property owners and renters alike—and urging them to vote against the bond. The flyer also reminded them of the brazen “scare tactics” that have been used to support the project over the past two years, and informed them of some extremely distasteful comments against local businesses made by one of the school proponents at a public meeting.

MVTU would like to thank all the voters who came out on Tuesday to oppose the bond, in particular, the residents of Dorchester, Grafton, and Orange, who voted most strongly against the bond. Had only a handful of them stayed home on Tuesday, this $24M boondoggle would have passed.

Dorchester voted most strongly against the bond, at 49–91, followed by Grafton at 215–304, Orange at 68–73, and Canaan at 624–440. Only Enfield achieved the necessary majority, at 851–332, which was 72% in favor.

In Dorchester, MVTU distributed their flier by hand rather than relying on the post office, ensuring that the flier got to residents on time. MVTU had received reports that several residents in Enfield did not receive the flier immediately, despite delivering them to the Enfield, Canaan/Orange, and Grafton post offices on Friday, March 8 and being ensured the fliers would go out in the mail that same afternoon.

One voter in Grafton suggested that if the users of the Mascoma Valley Regional School District really wanted this project, there is nothing stopping them from trying to raise the money voluntarily—or contributing it themselves.

MVTU had endorsed candidate Robert Constantine for the Grafton slot on the School Board, who had also made the concept of voluntary funding a central theme of his campaign. As a personal example, he refused to accept any of the taxpayer-funded compensation for serving on the School Board.

The Mascoma Valley Taxpayers Union (MVTU) is an organization set up by concerned citizens of the Mascoma Valley region of New Hampshire, in response to the ever-growing size of our local, school, and county budgets—and our ever-increasing property tax bills that result from this. Our mission is to oppose spending and tax increases in the Mascoma Valley, inform residents about anything that will result in higher taxes, and educate other concerned citizens on how to effectively fight these increases.