GraniteGrok

UPDATE:  Big Oops.  Big Mea Culpa and apology in order. 

It turns out that the article below that was emailed to me was taken from another person's blog (with whom I have conversed with over some other posts and blogging / NH in general).  The blog's proprietor sent me an email asking why I had not linked it.  It took a couple of minutes, but then I put the connection together.  The actual Post is from a relatively new blog to me "a dog-eared town" run by Paul.  Varied posts on different topics - good place to land for something different. 

My apologies to Paul and I take full responsibility for this snafu for happening.

======================================================= 

Doug and I have been involved with some local politics in conjunction with the Moultonborough Citizens Alliance on open and transparency in local government (both in Moultonborough, NH and our home town of Gilford, NH).  Stories are over at our local blog, GilfordGrok.

I guess it won't stop as I received email from my friend Tom over in Epping - it sounds like their Town Fathers are playing favorites and dabbling in censorship (if you list one political site, you'd better allow them all - and they are NOT!).  His group's site is here.

So, a bit of a flashlight help from his friends at the 'Grok!  And remember:  if it happens (in various guises) here in little 'ole NH, it can happen in your town too!

See the writeup from the Manchester Leader after the jump...

SMALL TOWN NEW HAMPSHIRE POLITICS by Paul

It’s these sorts of games that selectmen play, that drives people nuts about small town NH politics.

A proposal by Epping Residents for Principled Government to have the town put a link to its Web site off the town’s official Web site got a cool reception last night.

So one town group wants to get on the towns website, which is horribly designed btw, because there’s another group already on the site. Ok. Regardless of the content of either website we have the following demands placed on the new group by a selectman.

Chairman Jeffrey Harris said before anything is approved, he would like to see a mission and a purpose statement for the group as well as a list of all of the members and how others can join the organization. A financial statement for the group would also be necessary, he said.

So I went to the “Speak up Epping” group listed on the towns website. Nothing on their website about a mission or purpose statement. Nothing about a financial statement. But they do list telephone numbers and ask people to join, which is nice.The website is quite bare, just a listing about something that happened in April and list of telephone numbers for people in this group.

There is a blip about the group and it is some how related to UNH, though it doesn’t say how. The who is records list a California company. I see the dns servers are yahoo so I’m guessing the domain was purchased via yahoo, though it doesn’t say and there is no real contact info. So there’s not much information about the group that is listed on the town’s website.

Now this other group has a bunch of hoops that the selectmen want them to jump thru. These sorts of things are the bane of small town NH politics. They make one un-favored group jump thru hoops and their favored group doesn’t. I’m sure it’s the same way in other states but it is not fair. It should not happen. If you allow one group on the towns website then you have to allow others. And there has to be uniform rules too. You just can’t make it up as you go along in order to make it tougher.

Whether or not either group deserves to be on the town’s website is irrelevant. The manner in which groups are allowed to be on the towns website is the issue. Uniform easy to understand rules is what should happen. Is that too much to ask?