THERE ARE RADICALS AND THERE ARE NUTS!!!

I believe it is becoming clear that the Republican political fabric is torn.  Matt and I saw this a few years ago when we decided to run for State Rep as independent Republicans.  People would ask us what an independent Republican was and it was easy to explain; that is someone who subscribes to less government, less spending and to keep your nose out of people’s personal business. 

It is a Republican who serves his constituents and not the ever changing political agenda, motivations, and elitist power brokers who want to control the party and their own agenda.  Republicans who believe that people come first and the party agenda comes second (or third or fourth).

Just recently Free State supporters in Belknap County want to have another Republican Party made up of just conservatives, who defines conservatives, they do.  That is not as bad as the Free State group that wants NH to secede from the Union.

In Auburn there is a Republican State Rep who just posted on line that she believes that the bombing in Boston was actually done by the US Government; if you remember there were Democrats that argued that George Bush was behind the planes flying into the towers, so both parties have them.

Exeter has not been spared in this contagion of craziness.  The town is wrapped up in a fight over should we have a receptionist or do we want to be more efficient in making it easier for you, the taxpayers, to have easy access to the town departments.  Personally I don’t like recordings or push 1 or push two; but, at least everything is still in English.  Do I like these systems, no; but, I think in financially tough times it is probably cheaper than paying the equivalent of a Wal-Mart greeter about $60,000 a year with benefits to guide us through the town office building, when we have easy to read signs that seem to be working well.

This issue will not go away easily because it is being pushed as a political issue being used to beat on four of the Selectmen by a fifth selectman who claims the other board members either don’t listen to him or don’t respect him; I can sympathize with him because Rodney Dangerfield had the same issues.

For those of us who use to be main stream Republicans, what is the difference between a radical, a nut or a main stream public servant?  That will be defined well before the next election.

POLL QUESTIONS TO SEE IF YOU SUPPORT EXPANDED GAMBELING!!!

       1.    Would you rather have expanded gambling or an income tax?

       2.     Would you rather have expanded gambling or sales tax?

       3.     Would you rather have a root canal without Novocain or      expanded gambling? 

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then you are definitely in favor of expanded gambling.

John Lynch did not support expanded gambling because he knew that the money pushing it forward in NH would eventually control the political process in NH to the detriment of the voters.  In this respect Governor Lynch was truly looking out for the people of NH.  The above questions, although facetious in nature are similar to the type used to see if NH wants expanded gambling as used in a statewide poll.

I have never supported expanded gambling and after seeing what is happening in NH with the gambling money being spread around I can definitely agree with Governor Lynch’s concerns.

Contact your local State Reps and Senator and let your feelings be known.

IF YOU ARE FEELING CRANKY, I'LL GET YOU A HANKY!!!

I just read a letter to the editors from one of Exeter’s fringe claiming there was no leadership on the BOS and Matt always did what the Town Manager told him to do.  After I read this delusional rant I stepped back and understood how little Dennis Brady and Frank Ferraro know about what was happening in Exeter this past year.

Anyone who watched the selectman’s meetings on channel 22 could see how well the four members of the board interacted and worked together with the town manager and department heads.  The issues Exeter is facing just in infrastructure, is monumental and need the full cooperation of the board and departments.  If you had two board members who were hell bent on pushing to fire the town manager when there is no cause, there would be chaos in Exeter and a sizable lawsuit to boot; thankfully the voters saw that and decided to keep everyone in place.  Make no mistake getting rid of The Town Manager is exactly what they want. There are two things preventing this from happening, first they need three votes on the board, secondly the Town Manager has to do a fire able offense.

It is obvious that the next selectman’s race started when the loonies lost the last one a couple of weeks ago and Matt is once again the target; if he wants to run for his Selectman’s seat it will be in the next election.

Dennis Brady, who claims to have graduated from the Coast Guard Academy, obviously didn’t pay attention to his leadership classes because he thinks the definition of no leadership is when he thought Matt, didn’t show any leadership because he worked with the town manager, other selectman and department heads to continue to move Exeter forward while trying to keep the taxes down. Matt’s definition of leadership is similar to mine, “leadership is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way as to make them look forward to the trip”; hey Dennis, have a nice trip.

I CALLED THEY ANSWERED WHAT IS THE PROBLEM???

We had an old saying in the Probation/Parole Department, “when in doubt, scream and shout”.  This has to do with the warrant article to have a receptionist answer the phones at the Town Offices.

I haven’t found anyone who likes answering machines or answering services, me included.

With cooperative management the Town has a new and I think a better system than they had.  If you remember the group in Town that is out of control in their attacks on the selectman and Town Manager, were attacking on financial audits that needed to be upgraded for quality and timeliness.  The Town Manager made a case that he needed additional staffing and the receptionist’s position was transferred into the finance office.  From what I have heard that move has taken care of much of the problems in that section of the town administration.  Then the Town automated their phone system explaining how to access the various town departments with a live person, Town Manager’s Secretary, on the end of the line if you need help.  I called the Town Offices just to see how the system worked and ended up on the line to talk to a real person and I did, the system works very efficiently.  If the new catch phrase is innovation, then it has been achieved; the number to the Town Offices is 778-0591 for anyone who wants to check this out for themselves.

MY MY!!!

          

We have to switch gears from the local loonies to the state level loonies.  The latest going around with the remnants of the once respected House Republican Alliance is that they are circulating a letter for signatures, to Gene Chandler; the minority Republican Leader, requesting that he removes Shawn Jasper from his Republican leadership post. It was always my personal opinion that in any dealings I had with Jasper I always felt he was untrustworthy and should never be put in any republican leadership positions.  I thought Gene learned his lesson the last time.

Evidently Jasper offended the Free Staters who have taken control of the HRA and they want him removed.  What Chandler isn’t aware of is HRA is supposedly going to make a move of removing him from his position and replacing him with none other than Bully O’Brien.  If you remember Bully is the former speaker that brought down the whole Republican agenda in NH, put the Republicans once again in the minority and to add insult to injury threatened to finish off the Republican survivors of the past election if they didn’t do exactly what he says.  Again, my opinion is this will be a touch and go situation because I don’t think Gene has as many old guard Republicans in the House to back his play or defense against the Free Staters.

Has anyone heard how the little band of jolly Free Staters are doing about getting NH to secede from the union?  You just can’t make this stuff up.

WOW boys and girls isn’t this what every Howdy Doody fan wants running their agenda and state.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, Concord is no longer about good representation it is about, money, control and power.

WHERE ARE YOUR PAPERS???

As a fledging Probation Officer in Merrimack County in the early 70’s I dealt with a number of people coming out of the State Hospital on Probation.  As a matter of policy we would ask to see their discharge papers, make a copy and put it in their file.  On more than one occasion the person would say, “I just showed you my papers that say I’m not crazy, can I see yours?”  You know what, I could never produce mine and I always got a big chuckle when that happened.

The last Exeter Selectman’s meeting made me think of this when, in my opinion, the local chapter of the lunatic fringe, didn’t have their papers checked at the door.  The anger could be felt on TV and the attacks were way over the top.  If they acted this way at a hearing in the legislature, security would have been called and they would probably be removed while the hearing was recessed.

The direction of the attacks was the allegation that the Board of Selectman was trying to disenfranchise the voters on the budget committee warrant article.  If I remember right, and I could be corrected, the issues the angries were attacking the Board on were actually under the control of the Town Clerk.  What I saw was this situation has never happened in the Town in the past and the Town Clerk, who I have, a lot of respect for, and the Board of Selectman were trying to work to straighten this out, which did get straightened out, so what is the problem.  I know it was just another excuse to attack the Board or the Town Manager; this was all amplified by a full moon.

There was a funny side to last night and that was when Frank Ferraro was complaining that no one listens to him.  Well Frank, if that is the situation, maybe you should talk to the Board to see what they think of your credibility.  If you talk behind other selectman’s backs, if you do that, if you hang out with people who some have the opinion are a little different, and you actively campaign as a selectman against other selectmen’s campaigns, if that is the case; I might have an idea why people do not listen to you, if they don’t.

I met Dennis Brady and he is a likable person; but, he showed up at last night’s meeting with a display of anger that seemed to be choreographed with the angries.  I was disappointed with Dennis on this and it showed who his support group is and do not have the best interests of the town at heart.

Although I think the Board and Town Manager collectively could have explained this issue better, as to what the issue was, the problems surrounding it and more clearly state how they worked with the Town Clerk to resolve, they should all be congratulated(except for Frank) on how well they handled themselves in maintaining their cool.  They showed good leadership and deportment in how they maintained themselves and I was proud of Matt, Don, Julie and Russ.

My advice is, if you don’t have your papers don’t go before the Board and attack them if you don’t have all the facts.

The above is my opinion on what I observed.

WHEN IS DUMB REALLY DUMB???

 

Dumb is really dumb when a state rep goes before the Exeter Board of Selectman to do a legislative update and does not know about the legislation that they are supposed to be briefing on. 

Now really dumb is going before a legislative committee and make comments on how she isn’t sorry that other state reps didn’t win their elections.  What part of any legislative testimony is that?

The person that told me about this asked if there was any way we could give our Democrat State Reps an IQ test before we elected them to weed out the dumb ones.  I explained that would happen the same time we gave our Republican State Rep candidates a psychological test to make sure they weren’t nuts.

DID GOVERNOR MAGGIE WANT SPEAKER TERRY AS SPEAKER???

During the last speaker’s race there were a number of democrats loyal to Terry and friendly to Maggie that claimed they were not going to vote for Terry for speaker.  In my opinion, and knowing how the inside politics is played, it does not look like Maggie wanted Terry.

Dave Campbell got about 70 votes for speaker, which is about 30 or so more than most expectations.  It would have taken a little horse power to push more democrats into his camp; this certainly is an interesting discussion.

WHAT AN EMBARRASSMENT!!!

The recent deliberative session for the Town of Exeter is usually an informative cordial event; but this past Saturday it was anything but.  We have seen, over the past few years, a subterranean political agenda in Exeter; but, this last meeting not only proved it and showed who is behind it.

I ask everyone to go to the town website and review the meeting to get a flavor of the brain trust that is causing the turmoil and the behind the scenes back room politics/antics that spilled out at a public meeting.

They appear to be the self proclaimed Republican leadership for Exeter; but, after talking to some Republicans that were there it was agreed upon that don’t represent any Republicans that we know.

This group of political misfits added about 2-3 hours of debate that need not happen and angered a lot of people.  As Dorie and I were leaving someone asked me “what is wrong with those people” and the only answer I could give was, “I don’t think the psychology books have found a name for it yet”.

The crowning touch of this meeting was when a selectman, Frank Ferraro, got into a verbal argument with Fire Chief Brian Comeau about the ladder truck that is on this year’s warrant; I don’t know how I am going to vote on this issue, but it won’t be based on Frank’s argument.  It seemed to boil down to an issue of credibility between the two.  It is certainly my opinion that in a credibility issue, Frank and his little band of merry men are going to lose every time and I think they did.  Congratulations to the chief for maintaining his cool.