Background:
Well, Monday night was supposed to be THE night that the Belknap County Delegation (made up of all the NH State Representatives from Belknap County) to finalize the Belknap County budget for the next year. The “Biz” items on the Agenda:
- Approve Budget Review Committee Minutes of February 15, 2023
- Presentation of Review Committee’s Recommendation – Rep. Bogert
- Discussion & Vote of 2023 Budget (expenditures, revenues, total to be raised by taxes)
- Consideration of Cost Items – Sheriff’s Unit CBA
- Public Input
- Other Business
- Adjournment
NH State Rep. Harry Bean, as Delegation Chair, has the ultimate responsibility for initiating, for over-watch, and for finalizing the process of determining the budget for the entire county. That means that he is responsible for the process for arriving at “The Bottom Line Number” starting with the Belknap County Commissioners’ proposed budget and ending up with that Bottom Line Number.
That Number determines how many dollars are going to get grabbed out of our wallets as one part of the four parts of our property taxes
- Town budget (most local and “controllable”)
- School District budget (most local and “controllable”)
- County budget (The “next level up” and citizens having less control over its size)
- The State Education component (over which citizens have no control at all)
Of prime importance to taxpayers is that unless the Delegation members, under the “leadership” of Harry Bean, do their job right and get a number for THEIR budget by the end of March, the Belknap County Commissioners (Peter Spanos (former NH State Rep), Glen Waring (former Gilford Financial Director), and Stephen Hodges (former Belknap Sheriff) ) proposed budget will go into effect by default. Their budget calls for a total raised by taxation (that’s you and me, boys and girls) will rise a whopping 35.4%.
Thus, keep two three things in mind after reading that last line along with this one: this sordid story of proving that the Peter Principle (that people rise to their level of incompetence) still runs amok here in the County.
- Harry Bean is ultimately in charge and therefore any outcome (or lack thereof) is on his shoulders. He owns “the process”
- The majority of the Reps in the Delegation were endorsed by the Democrat Political Action Committee Citizens for Belknap. As these serialized posts will show, this is the level of Representation that you get from just a PR standpoint. Yes, two of them, both Democrats, motioned and seconded to throw out their budget process (more on that in a bit) and just accept the Commissioner budget as is with a 35.4% rise in your taxes. Were they thinking more highly about YOUR wallets and YOUR money or how to take that money to give to Government’s?
- The Reps that are being scapegoated by Harry Bean are Reps that have experience in doing these budgets. They also know the Law better than he does. And they have no problem in calling out lapses in Follow the Law and/or mistakes
Sidenote: YES, I saw SO many things wrong, I can’t contain them in just one post. But I shall talk about them all over some amount of time.
Back to the Agenda. Remember these as you read through (and PLEASE read this post!) as they play a part in this recounting:
- Good Government is open and transparent. At each and every turn, a citizen should know what the process is (yes, a bit of homework is needed) and actions need to be done in the open for all to see (i.e., no backroom deals or deals done in private).
- County Delegations are proscribed by Law to follow RSA24 (which controls Delegations construction and actions) and RSA 91-A (Public Meetings and Governmental Records). Some of the Reps know something about them. Others know nothing, and a couple believe they know everything (but their words show they know nothing).
- Politics is often about “feelings” – the Law is unemotional. The Delegation doesn’t seem to understand the difference and conflating them.
Open Meetings. Or rather, the lack thereof by the Delegation for Budget Meetings
My tutorial on the Open Meetings of RSA 91-A is here. However, for this post, it’s more than a bit chopped up to let me quote it and bold the important bits that pertain to the rest of this post. Starting with that if a Public Meeting by a Governmental Body isn’t properly noticed (re: publicized), is it really a public meeting? Emphasis mine
Except in an emergency or when there is a meeting of a legislative committee, a notice of the time and place of each such meeting, including a nonpublic session, shall be posted in 2 appropriate places one of which may be the public body’s Internet website, if such exists, or shall be printed in a newspaper of general circulation in the city or town at least 24 hours, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, prior to such meetings.
So NH State Rep Stephen Bogert, a brand new Rep, was made the subcommittee chair by Chair Harry Bean who, himself, had never chaired a governmental body until this year. However, Harry served a number of years on the Gilford Budget Committee and we ran ALL meetings extremely by the book. Harry should know the “public meeting and notice” drill by heart as he was a part of it for so long.
There were supposed to be meetings during February to prep the Delegation’s budget. When it became the time, after the Nov election, for it to start, I started watching for the notice on the Delegation website (see above). Was there?
Nope:
None in January -just the main Delegation meetings on Jan 10th and 18th. Sure, they jabbered a bit but got nothing done on the budget (what a surprise). But they DID have Budget Committee meetings – I have downloaded the video files that were recorded for 2/1/23, 2/8/23, and 2/15/23 meeting. Mysteriously, they now show up on the main County page schedule for Feb but none for January.
In violation of RSA 91-A. Not, not that they were recorded but that they didn’t tell the Public that they were going to happen. And according to RSA 24:9-D, they had to have to give seven day notices for each of those meetings.
And didn’t.
And here is where the Delegation has gotten themselves into really hot water to the point where they “conveniently” forgot to properly notice that the meetings were to occur on those dates.
During the meeting there was a lot of fingerpointing going on with some of the “CoB” Reps saying that the meetings HAD been noticed, I was waiting for the Public Input to state that they HADN’T been noticed, NH State Rep Barbara Comtois, during the meeting brought up that NONE of the meetings had been PROPERLY noticed (but got a lot of push back for it (re: one of Harry’s “scapegoats” that DOES know more than he does about the process), and then Harry and Debbie Schakett (County Administrator started a back and forth that told me, via word and body language, they both knew that the jig was up and that they had to go into CYA mode about not properly noticing the meetings.
Why? Any results, work, or decisions made during improperly noticed meetings have to be thrown out and thrown away. Everything has to be redone. So this is the SECOND TIME that Harry Bean has decided to “lead” by ignoring the proper laws because “we have to get something done!” even as I and others have told him what he MUST do. Yet he’s well steamed up over others telling him that instead of admitting he was wrong.
I’ve got the video but haven’t had the chance yet to clip out the good bits but here’s the Zoom meeting on the Lakes Region Public Access site: click on Belknap County Delegation 3-6-23. Once I edit / clip out the relevant parts, I’ll either update this post or put up new posts.
Leadership, anyone?
So rather than relying on just what said during meeting, I decided to find out for myself so I did two things:
- Put in an Right To Know to the County with a “payload” of
Pursuant to the Right to Know Law (RSA. 91-A:4 (I) ), I am demanding access, within 5 business days, to the below enumerated governmental records during the period starting December 1, 2022 to March7, 2023 inclusive…This request concerns the proper noticing for any meeting, be it the full Belknap County Delegation or any subcommittee thereof per RSA 91-A:2, II (excerpted, emphasis mine):
I am demanding that the Belknap Delegation / Belknap County Administration provide:
Financial Records
- The expenditure transaction history from any and all General Ledger accounts, during the stated period (above), used to pay for noticing meetings in the Laconia Daily Sun or other media outlets
- Any and all Invoices from the Laconia Daily Sun or other media outlets for such services
- Any and all remittances from the Delegation / Belknap County paying those invoices
Creative / Advertising documents:
- Copies of any and all ads created by the Delegation / Belknap County for placement in those media outlets
- If the above is not provided, and emails / voice mails / other correspondence by the Delegation / Belknap County outlining the information for such noticing to be used by the media outlets for their ad creation.
- Asked the Daily Sun if they would send me the notices appearing in their paper.
So here is what Deb Schakett send to me for the “creatives” (think ads/notices):
Note the bottom line with the 35.4% rise in taxation that the Commissioners think is appropriate for Belknap County residents to fork over. But the notice IS for the 12/12/23 meeting. And if the Delegation doesn’t get its act together NOW, it will be THEM that are responsible for it and Spanos will be grinning ear to ear that he pulled a fast one over Harry Bean and the other CoB endorsed Reps (remember, the “scapegoats” are all people that the CoB were going after to get rid of them).
And the next one
So that was what Schakett sent. Note that NEITHER OF THEM cover any of the subcommittee meetings (just one Delegation meeting to talk about the process – and they didn’t really get anything accomplished during that meeting either).
Here’s the Purchase Orders from the County and the Invoices from the Daily Sun:
asdfBelknap County Deb Schakett Daily Sun Invoice PO Scans_20230307_130428
And the two ads sent to me by the Daily Sun:
The dates by the Daily Sun were 12/29/2022 and 2/22/23 for placement.
Look at all that time WASTED! Nothing in November, nothing in December, and only unnoticed meetings during February. And STILL no budget ready.
Way to go, Harry & Company!
So, what’s the upshot of all this:
- Your Delegation doesn’t care about the Laws they are supposed to follow.
- THANKS, Citizens for Belknap, for “electing” this incompetents (they have ONE main County job to do and they can’t do that properly)
Oh, and there’s more coming! I originally wasn’t going to go to the meeting, but something that TMEW said to me that told me “Go”, so I did. But this post is long, once again.
To Be Continued…
