Nashua’s “tag line,” nickname, whatever you want to call it, is the Gate City. Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic Mayor Jim Donchess has repurposed the word ‘gate’ to mean ‘locked,’ thereby turning welcome openness into locked, inaccessible territory. You can come spend money at the Mall or avoid taxes all over the city as a retail tourist (assuming you don’t buy anything, Massachusetts will tax you for it anyway), but if you want to get anything out of the municipal government, the message is ” f-off.
City Hall, and award-winning ‘Grok blogger Laurie Ortolano likes to remind us, that “Nashua City Hall is, for most practical purposes, a locked building.” In a twist on the mythology, the Vampires have to invite you in; otherwise, you are an uninvited guest whose access tops with the City Clerk. The aforementioned Donchess and his corporation counsel are less than hospitable gatekeepers, a habit adopted by the Board of Aldermen with respect to all manner of things, but in this context, public comment.
Read Laurie or Laura Colquhoun, Julie Smith, or Beth and Stephen Scaer (among others) for stories from the insurgency seeking redress from a militant local government unwilling to give quarter, state law, or the Constitution be damned.
I blame the majority Democrat leadership for poisoning the well (elections are non-partisan, but we know better).
They want you to sue them so they can bleed you dry, backed by the bottomless pockets of taxpayers who clearly aren’t paying attention to what is being done to them.
Or maybe not always. At the end of March, Julie Smith reported on a complaint filed against the City, in which a citizen alleged that their rights had been infringed. During Public comment, the board demands that you provide your name and street address, which tells everyone who disagrees with you where you live on the record, recorded, forever.
It hardly matters whose side you think is more on board with political violence (that’d be the left) to grasp the potential for retribution in the current political climate. Counsel advised the Board that they could make whatever rules they wanted, which some took to mean, screw them if they want to speak but don’t want to get doxxed. I’m convinced that’s what the mayor’s office wanted, and it fits their pattern of abuse.
The Board voted to change the rules anyway, in a manner favorable to public comment.
Those who give public comment at aldermanic meetings no longer have to state their address after the board on Tuesday passed O-26-006 with an amendment.
The legislation follows a First Amendment lawsuit filed on behalf of Simon Amaya Price who said he was advised not to provide his address, and was thus not allowed to speak during public comment at a meeting earlier this year.
The board amended the ordinance to add that speakers shall identify their town or city of residence or business.
You no longer need to give your street address doxxing yourself.
It is a change I’d expect to see spread to towns that do not already allow you to skip the street address part, which is not many. Some towns are so small you’d not need to bother; everyone knows where you live, but even in small towns, everyone will also likely know who did what to whom, so there’s that. Larger municipalities allow for some measure of anonymity if you were to decide that you disliked the guy who lived at xx street when he said this or that with which you disagreed vehemently.
Dropping the street address could encourage more public comment, which is another thing the progressives hate. They know they know better, and putting up with your input is a problem they’d do without if they could. They really don’t care what bugs you about anything, especially how they are running the government you pay for. That’s what makes this change so tectonic.
Democrats had to vote yea to approve it.
Don’t read too much into that. This is still Nashua, and as long as the king Donchess is in charge, the poison will continue to taint the well, no matter how deep you try to go.
Note: I wrote this two weeks ago, then completely forgot about it. Not as timely as I would have liked, but still relevant.
