GrokTV: NHListens / Granite State Future – Circle “BBBB” Parts 4 and 5 - Granite Grok

GrokTV: NHListens / Granite State Future – Circle “BBBB” Parts 4 and 5

Continuing on from Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the NHListens “visioning” meeting at the Meredith Plymouth Senior Center (NH).  Thus far, the important takeaways that I have observed thus far:

  • A strictly controlled meeting agenda of questions and issues
  • A division of the prospective audience / attendees into “circles” consisting of about 10 people (remember that number)
  • Paid “Facilitators” and “Scribes that are to guide the “conversations” and to “take notes” – in this case, paper easels
  • The “Enforcer” – tasked with being the person who would argue with anyone that was challenging the narrative.

and a new one to add:

  • The Enabler(s) – those folks that dribble in “talking points” during the discussion usually at the most opportune times to be “slick and smooth”

This seemed to emerge in Part 3 (2 minute mark) when Susan started in on talking about Smart Growth principles, caught herself, and started to label them as if they were traditional New Hamspshire ones (instead of being cooked up by “Planners” that know better then we how and where we should live – certainly NOT a Live Free or Die Sentiment, or a Liberty & Freedom one either).  So, let’s return to my phrase: “and remember that number 10!“.  Next up is Part 4 which starts to show another dynamic right off the bat – those that are perfectly fine with a forced collectivism concerning land use, community priorities, taxes, and services, and those that believe that the voters have things right:

At the end of Part 3, the discussion was on community centers and that there was a lack of them, especially in the smallest of towns and Part 4 starts that right up.  The comment was “I’d like a Cadillac too, but I can’t afford it” and immediately the retort by the Enforcer was one of misplaced priorities by the voters in these towns: “I mean, uh, all these town spend gobs of money on their fire departments or police departments…will they support the Youth center?  No…..That’s the choice of the townspeople, how they vote and how they spend their money but is it an informed choice?”.  And the Facilitor bolstered that with “…without going into whether the priorities are correct or wrong“.  Then Susan, the Enabler, said “well that goes under impact of choices and the choice of not having a community center ….more wild children out there doing things” and then  caught herself.

Like I said, it is hard to hear the speaking, but there was a tangent of “when I was young, I knew everyone in the neighborhood but now both parents work so who takes care of the children – which got translated onto the easel as “sense of community” – really, THAT was the abbreviated sense of that micro-conversation?  Just a tad ambiguous, eh?

Sidenote:  who needs a ‘community center’ when we have the largest one at our fingertips – the Internet?

Sidenote: I didn’t know that parts of NH gave out gas vouchers?

The subject moved to housing stock and “Marcia”, the reluctant Scribe, started to kvetch about the poor conditions that the poor had access to; this has to be one of the hyperbolic statements of the night: “It’s renting a place that you go through $900 of oil a month and the landlord isn’t going to fix it”.  The note on the easel didn’t much reflect that either: Poor Housing Stock – across the spectrum.  When somebody goes back to interpret that, what will that “across the spectrum” come out to be?

Part 5:

And then a bit of snark about what the poor had access to and what “the rich” have access to: the total inequality of the situation.  Now, one guy did point out the disparity of the tax payments of the rich who use the houses only a part of the year and the few usage of services (i.e., subsidizing everyone else in town).  So the Enforcer complained that not all towns had lakes to host those high priced homes – its unequal.

At 3:15, they start to talk about lack of Public Transportation.  One person said that it was not the purpose of Government to make sure someone could get to a doctor’s appointment nor that it was a town function to get someone to another city (I think that stunned the Enablers – “people are dying!”).

And with Part 6, we get to the meat of the Sustainable Communities Initiative / Granite State Future: who controls the natural resources and are they privately owned or a community resource?

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