Well then…where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about the Grafton town election we had last week.
Previous GraniteGrok postings explained what happened at the town deliberative meeting (see The Magnificent Small-Government Activists of Grafton, New Hampshire, and then Calvin Coolidge Comes to Grafton, Part One).
And then I left off in Part I at the eve of the election last Tuesday….
The choice and the struggle, as I said, boiled down into a battle between some who wanted Grafton’s annual budget to grow (to $954,523 from last year’s budget of $940,366)…and those of us who wanted the budget to decrease (unheard of, I know) to $825,966, a decrease of $114,410 from the previous year’s budget, and $128,567 less than what the local pols and budget committee (but I repeat myself) were asking for this year. In a small town of only about 1,350 people, those numbers are large, and they matter a great deal to the people who have to pay them. In the case of Grafton, however, what was astonishing—nearly unprecedented, in fact—was that people were finally challenging the local pols who always, but always, try to increase the town budget (the people of Grafton, to their credit, have a history of refusing to go along…but that’s another story). In addition, Free Stater hero Jeremy Olson (previously very active with the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance) was running in the three-way race for a seat on the board of selectmen.
So there we were on the day of the election one week ago: I was sitting near the voter check-in table as an authorized poll-checker, and one of the more hostile opponents of the frugal-government movement—a young fellow with a ponytail who has apparently drunk deeply of his generation’s Kool-Aid—came by to courteously greet me and offer a peaceful gesture: “Look,” he said, “you probably know I’m not a big fan of the Freestaters or what you guys are trying to do, but I hope we can keep it civil and nice even though we disagree.” “Absolutely!” I said. “I’ve no hard feelings at all; we can all disagree politically and still be friendly.” I thought it was really nice that he thought to come by and say that.
But thennnn…I found out that he had a big sign outside the firehouse where the voting was taking place. I hadn’t seen it, but when I did I thought…”hmmm, that’s neither friendly nor civil.” In fact, the sign was a typical Democrat smear-job (ironically, being used against Jeremy, a registered Democrat). Here’s a picture of it:
(Was that what the young fellow meant when he said “let’s be civil to one another?” Sheesh!) My friend Jeremy was facing the incumbent, a lawyer who works for the state of New Hampshire, and a local businessman and anti-wind farm activist (which was okay with us; the threatened wind farm is in the same federally-funded boondoggle category as Solyndra and other now-bankrupt “clean energy” scams that served only to enrich the FOO people…i.e. “Friends-Of-Obama”).
But I digress. When the smoke cleared that night, and the ballots had been counted, both Jeremy and the incumbent had lost, putting the third candidate on the board of selectmen (whether he will turn out to be hostile to frugal government and people who want to be left alone remains to be seen; we certainly hope not, and wish him nothing but the best if he turns out to be a good selectman).
But wait! Jeremy Olson (hero that he is) wasn’t the only race on the ballot, and the town budget wasn’t the only spending question either. There was also a bid—for the third time in the past five years—to pass a school bond issue of $21.8 million to gold-plate the district’s high school (as opposed to doing necessary repairs). As usual, the school lobby had larded the proposal up with things like a new auditorium, new roads, new cafeteria, new “music rooms,” etc. And the people of the district—led by a 60%-40% vote in Grafton—rejected it again.
So how do the journalistic geniuses in the local newspaper—The Valley News—play the results? Heh: The headline read “Free Stater Bid to Slash Budget rejected, Wind Farm Fails“. Of course, the story didn’t note that the comparatively few Free Staters in Grafton voted against the wind farm. Instead, the article started off like this: “Attempts by Free Staters and their allies to cut spending in Grafton failed yesterday, as voters rejected a budget that had been drastically slashed at last month’s deliberative session, and approved other spending articles.” (“Drastically slashed”? Why is every attempt at a slight reduction in bloated local government spending always referred to by the media as “a drastic slash”? Talk about “low information journalism”…).
The article went on to quote the losing selectman to the effect that “Grafton voters sent a clear message to the libertarian activists in town who have sought to scale back local government services. I’m seeing the town starting to push back on the Free Saters.” Now that’s interesting: There are no fewer than three falsehoods in those two small sentences. First, the “clear message” wasn’t so terribly “clear”; the town budget reduction failed by a vote of 270 to 256…that is, 14 votes out of 526 cast. That’s a “clear message”? Second, since there are only about 20 or 25 Free Staters living and voting in Grafton, it can hardly be said of the budget vote that “the town is pushing back.” On the contrary, it appears that all those Free Staters in Grafton joined one heck of a lot of natives and other long-time residents in voting to reduce the town budget. Third, the charge is made that the libertarian activists wanted to “scale back local government services”; that is simply false, but it is always heard when taxpayers try try to pare back constantly increasing government budgets. In fact, Jeremy Olson specifically explained how he would effectuate the little 10% cut, and none of his proposals touched police, fire, or welfare in the town (not that those couldn’t be reduced also).
Was Jeremy Olson—or any other Grafton resident who voted to reduce the town budget—consulted and quoted? Of course not! I must say, LOL. What else can you expect of newspapers and journalists today?
So it is true that the more desirable, lower town budget lost by 14 votes out of 526 cast; but it is also true that it didn’t go any higher over last year (the ratchet racket has been interrupted!). And Mr. Olson lost, but the federally funded wind farm boondoggle was voted against, and the bloated school bond issue was defeated too. Otherwise, some specific spending proposals were passed (some of which were worthy and needed), and a number of other town offices were filled (some by statists, others by people more friendly to the taxpayers, such as Grafton native Brian Fellers who was re-elected to the town planning board). But the most important things were these: The town’s taxpayers kept the budget from increasing, and they helped kill the school bond issue; those were great victories for the people who actually have to pay the bills, i.e. the town’s taxpayers.
All in all not a bad result. And the best thing of all is this: The good-government, low-tax fighters in Grafton aren’t going away. The business-as-usual pols can forget about that. The number of good guys is only going to increase…which is an exceedingly good thing for every taxpayer in Grafton, including even the big-spenders.
After all, someone has to get them off their taxing-and-spending addiction. In the town of Grafton, we’ll prove that it’s not impossible.
