– For those of you who have not heard, voting this year will be Tuesday the 10th of March from 1PM till 7PM. Also, when you check out the warrant articles, notice amendment 3 defining family. Excluded as a family unit is the now legally recognized in New Hampshire, Civil Union. How many discrimination lawsuits do the Selectman want at once??? I for one, am sick of paying for them! (Bruce)

– Well, here we are a year later. Our selectboard has spent $30,000 of our money to close AIDS Services only to be laughed at in arbitration. Our town clerk / tax collector is once again suffering from bodily damages related to her and her husbands alcohol abuse. Fortunately they did not injure any innocent bystanders this time. Now we hear that although she can’t walk or drive, and is in rehab up north, she made it to town to sign up to run for her next term? Unforetunately no one but Bill Hasbrouck saw her sign up. Oh please! Come on people, this is our year to clean up the mess we have allowed to continue to go unchecked. Let’s support the new candidates for our town offices. If we ever needed change it is NOW! Stay tuned for updates! (Scott)

– A petition signed by residents of Gilsum was presented to the Selectmen one week ago asking for job descriptions for town clerk, tax collector as well as pay for these positions and the amount we pay for the health benefits for tax collector / town clerk. Tonight the selectmen infomed us that the town clerk.tax collector makes 20,000 a year. The town administration assistant ( Robin) also makes an additional 16,000 a year! The selectmen refused to devulge what is spent on the health benefit saying it was the advise of the town attorney that they not release the figure.They also did not have an amount for what we taxpayers are paying towards her retirement. So Robin is making 36,000 a year with benefits. Time for some changes here!! We also heard from the town officials that if Robin loses the election, they will boost her assistants position to cover the missing pay AND benefits!!    (Scott, Feb 8 2010)

And where is this published? In the Sentinel? Nope. The Shopper? Nope. Has there been a notice sent out to local residents to alert us to the change? Nope … but we’ve heard that a written request has been submitted to the selectmen to that end. For some folks who have already made work or family schedules, though, it will come too late, if it comes at all.

We’ve also noticed that on NHPR’s interactive Town Election map, with information on the elections and Town Meetings of hundreds of NH communities large and small – there’s nothing for Gilsum. Nothing at all. NHPR claims that they requested info from ALL communities via email, but apparently at least one community chose not to respond.

Well, you might say, all a local resident needs to do is check the town website for updated information, right?  Oops — there IS no official town website. And our unofficial Community website, while admirably created and maintained by volunteer citizens, doesn’t have any information listed about the upcoming election or Town Meeting.

(what’s that you’re muttering about transparency? accountability? communication?)

Guess there’ll be a number of folks showing up on Tuesday evening, all dressed up and nowhere to go …

Sunday update: the Sentinel has published the Town Meeting date and time as part of a story on various TMs in the area.

Will we just continue with the status quo?

Gilsum’s 2007 Town Report lists Legal Expenditures by the town as $1200, with $1000 budgeted for 2008.

However, we know that the town has incurred legal expenses of at least $7000 (by Mr. Hasbrouck’s estimate), and more likely as much as $10,000 or more, fighting the Cleve Jones Wellness House since 2006. And the bill is climbing all the time, as the latest lawsuit and counter-suit wind their way through the court system.

So where is this money coming from? Where does it show up in the budget? Clearly our selectboard knew that it was incurring these expenses when the 2008 Budget was prepared. Clearly this considerable legal expense was not laid out for the public to see, to question, to vote on.

At what point do you think the selectboard was going to reveal how much their personal crusade is costing we the taxpayers? And how high do you think the final bill will be? Maybe we should have some sort of grim contest, to see whose guess is closest.

Some will say that the selectboard is hoping that they will prevail in the courts, and that ASMR will be required to pay Gilsum’s legal tab. There are two major flaws in this line of thought: first, that two judges have already ruled against Gilsum’s prior attempts to bring charges against ASMR (see previous post about this issue); and second, even if Gilsum somehow prevailed, ASMR is a non-profit agency without substantial financial resources. Can’t get blood from a stone. So, essentially, the selectboard is gambling, and we may well be left holding the bag.

U.S. President:   Obama 234, McCain 195

N.H. Governor:   Lynch 282, Kenney 127

U.S. Senate:   Shaheen 229, Sununu 185                   

N.H. 2nd District:    Hodes 233, Horn 178

Percentage of registered voters turning out: 75.6

Maybe Gilsum is a tiny microcosm of what’s going on nationwide — ordinary citizens paying attention, getting involved, speaking out when they see that elected officials need to do their job better. Maybe we get the government we deserve on this level too.

Get out and vote tomorrow!!

11/7/08 Update … well, no inspectors were noticed at the polls, other than an Obama campaign worker who spent the day there. And we’ve learned that only one resident, other than election officials, observed the entire count.

A Page 3 article in the October 7 Sentinel (available online only to subscribers) runs the length of the printed page, one-column. So here’s a summary, if you haven’t seen it yourself:

A Gilsum voter, April L. Frazier, was barred from voting on the Monadnock Regional School District’s special election on September 9 because she refused to declare herself a Republican or Democrat; she is an undeclared voter. She said her husband was not allowed to vote either for the same reason.

Yet here’s the rub: New Hampshire state election law requires voters to declare a political party to vote ONLY in partisan elections. Assistant Attorney General James W. Kennedy said that since the MRSD special election is non-partisan, the Fraziers should have been able to vote without declaring a party. Deputy of State David M. Scanlan agreed: “If you’re voting in a school district or a town election, then party affiliation does not matter,” he said.

Apparently, because there was also a state primary on the same day, voting in which did require voters to have a party affiliation, Cantara dropped the ball. Again, the Sentinel: ” … unlike other town officials in the MRSD — which covers Fitzwilliam, Gilsum, Richmond, Roxbury, Sullivan, Swanzey, and Troy — Cantara said Gilsum didn’t have any mechanism set up to treat the primary and school district elections differently.” She said “it would have messed up the town’s record-keeping for the primary.”

Yet town clerks in Swanzey, Sullivan, and Richmond manage to handle these kinds of situations. In fact, Swanzey recorded MRSD voters separately. Richmond saw 16 voters choose only to participate in the school district election, with the clerk using a separate checklist for them. And in Sullivan, the town clerk herself was one of the undeclared voters who voted exclusively on the teacher’s contract.

MRSD Superintendent calls the situation in Gilsum “unfortunate,” and points out that Unit 38 officials could have been called during the election if the town clerk had any questions. As of yesterday, Frazier was undecided about whether she’d file a complaint with the state.

So what’s the score on this election? How well has Cantara performed her duties and served the citizens of Gilsum? Faulty reporting of votes, left uncorrected for over a week despite numerous requests and complaints; denying two citizens their right to vote in a non-partisan election; and a seeming inability to construct a system for record-keeping of two separate elections on the same day, which other area town clerks apparently have been able to do quite easily. And let’s not forget that complaints were filed with the State Attorney General in the first case, and perhaps will be in the second case as well.

Gilsum’s tally so far: 120 Democrats (an increase of 3 since 2004), 128 Republicans (down 9 since 2004), and 296 Undeclared (44 more than 2004). That is, of course, if the numbers were reported correctly.

Make of it what you will. But clearly, the biggest challenge — particular in town elections — is just getting people to come out and vote.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/FRONTPAGE/809280332

Read it yourself for an overview of events to date. Or try this story from Personal Injury Law News:

http://www.personalinjurylawnews.com/hivaids-services-agency-sues-new-hampshire-town-for-restricting-access-to-group-home-medical-news-today/

Or this one, from WCAX-TV in Burlington: http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9066762&nav=menu183_17_14?fromrss=1

Or this one, from News-Medical.net: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=41711

Quite a bit of notoriety for our little town, isn’t it?

Here’s one of the things I find alarming: so far, the Town of Gilsum has spent a minimum of $7000 on legal fees on their lawsuit against AIDS Services … and that’s just the beginning. That’s our tax money, folks, and it’s going to be many thousands more before the dust settles.

And WHY is the town bringing suit? They claim previous violations of the regulations … but everyone seems to agree that the Wellness House is now in compliance with the regulations (the legality of which, of course, is the subject of the suit against the town. More legal fees, thank you).

Now get this: in January of 2008, a letter from the Selectboard of Gilsum (minus Louise Cook, who did not sign), written by the town’s attorney, asked the Sheriff and County Attorney to investigate bringing criminial charges against AIDS Services of the Monadnock Region for violating the zoning variance at the Wellness House.

In March, after investigating, the County Attorney deemed there was NO evidence to support a criminal case against ASMR.

In April, the frustrated Selectboard then brought a civil lawsuit against ASMR, requesting an expedited hearing and damages because of the “danger” to the town. A hearing was held on June 13. The judge’s decision was rendered on July 2 — ASMR is NOT considered a menace, and no reason is found to bring punitive measures in advance of the civil trial.

So, if after two investigations and two legal decisions showing that there is no basis for criminal complaint or evidence of danger to the town — WHY is the Board of Selectmen spending our tax dollars to continue to fight and punish ASMR?

There are lots of other threads to tease out of this situation.

It’s clear that opposition to the Wellness House was spearheaded from the start by our present Selectman Ray Britton and his wife Alison. According to the Monitor article, they immediately began circulating a petition as soon as they learned of the agency’s interest in purchasing the property. And Alison Britton has been served with a “Notice of No Trespassing” — on file at the Sheriff’s office — citing her “ongoing threatening, verbally assaulting, inappropriate behavior as exhibited toward this agency and its staff, clients and Board members, including residents of Wellness House.”

Hmmmm. More later.

“Gilsum Write-in Votes Were Missing, Finally Tallied

by Anika Clark, Sentinel Staff

GILSUM — Westmoreland resident Marjorie Merena received well more than the 35 votes she needed to appear as a write-in candidate for state representative on this November’s ballot.

But it took more than a week for 14 of those votes to be counted.

The unreported tallies were from Gilsum, one of three towns in Cheshire County House District 1 — which also includes Surry and Westmoreland — and represented nearly 13 percent of Merena’s 112 write-in votes.

‘To have numbers missing is not uncommon,’ said Deputy Secretary of State David M. Scanlan. ‘Often times these things are being recorded at the end of a very long day … and sometimes things are overlooked.’

In Gilsum’s case, Scanlan said, the unrecorded votes resulted from faulty reporting by the town after the Sept. 9 election.

For just more than a week, the Secretary of State’s Web site consequently listed that Merena hadn’t received a single vote from Gilsum — a hole Westmoreland Democrats Chairman Ellen R. Clement said she was surprised to see, since she said numerous Gilsum residents had told her they’d be voting Merena’s way.

‘I was involved because I had talked to people in Gilsum and Surry about voting write-ins for Marjorie Merena,’ Clement said. ‘I knew there were going to be write-ins. However, when the reports came out, there were no reported write-ins from Gilsum.’

Town Clerk Robin L. Cantara said she has ‘no idea’ why the votes weren’t originally recorded.

But, in the days after the election, she spoke with someone at the Secretary of State’s office — whose name she doesn’t remembver –who acknowledged receiving the 14 votes, Cantara said.

Later, after a Gilsum resident complained to her about the unrecorded votes, she said she was told by someone at the Secretary of State’s office that the write-in votes were missing.

‘The person I spoke with then said, “No, it wasn’t there,” Cantara said. ‘So I sent in what they’re calling “an amended form.”‘

Cantara said she has a correctly-tallied handwritten copy of what she’d originally sent to the Secretary of State’s office.

‘It was on my form, and this is baloney,‘ she said, but later said she could have made a mistake on the first form she sent to the Secretary of State.

On Thursday, Scanlan provided to the Sentinel a vote tally sheet he said represents Gilsum’s original reporting to the Secretary of State of its Democratic write-in candidates.

The sheet was signed by Town Clerk Robin L. Cantara and lists no Democratic write-in results for state senator or state representative. Vote results faxed to the Sentinel from Cantara on Sept. 9 similarly listed no votes cast for Merena.

An amended sheet, signed by Cantara an sent to the Secretary of State’s office Sept. 17 lists 14 write-in votes for Merena.

Alo recorded on this tally sheet were previously omitted write-in votes for two other candidates — a single write-in vote for Bob Odell and one vote for a candidate listed as ‘Jack St. Laurent.’

Republican candidate John J. ‘Jack’ Laurent is listed on the Secretary of State’s Web site as earning 166 votes in Cheshire County House District 1 on the Republican ballot and eight as a write-in on the Democratic ticket.

Incumbent state Sen. Robert P. ‘Bob’ Odell Jr., R-Lempster, received 2,540 votes on the Republican ballot and 37 as a Democratic write-in.

This morning, Scanlan said he isn’t sure why Laurent and Odell’s Gilsum write-in votes have yet to appear on the Secretary of State’sWeb sit, but it could be the result of the busy state office handling more-pressing issues.

Scanlan said he’s informed the Attorney General’s Office about the situation, but isn’t pursuing any further investigation into the matter.”

So let’s summarize:

According to the Secretary of State’s office, and the vote tally sheet provided by that office to the Sentinel, Cantara did not originally report any of the 14 write-in votes for Merena. Nor did she report them to the Sentinel. Yet she claimed that she has “no idea” why they were not recorded. At the same time, she claimed that someone at the SOS office “acknowledged” receiving the votes. Nobody at the SOS office can verify that.

And Cantara claims that she has a correctly-tallied handwritten copy of what she originally sent to the SOS office. Yet the SOS office has provided to the Sentinel, and to some Gilsum residents, clear photocopies of the vote tally sheets originally sent in, signed by Cantara, with no votes listed for Merena.

Cantara’s take? “This is baloney.” And later said she “could have made a mistake.”

Someone is not telling the truth. Or, at the very least, someone resisted numerous queries to her office about the votes, insisting over and over again that she had made no mistake, until complaints were filed with the SOS and the Attorney General. And then somehow those votes mysteriously showed up on her “original” tally sheet. One wonders if those votes would EVER have been properly recorded and reported had there not been so many people asking questions repeatedly and following through when they were stonewalled.

Does this sound like falsifying official records to you? Like a town official not telling the truth?

Do you think it’s important that your vote be properly recorded and reported?

Seems to me that we’d better keep a close eye on these kinds of things.