Taxpayer Funded Groups Use YOUR Money to Lobby Against YOU
Like the Regional Planning Commissions, the NH Municipal Association is a group that uses your tax dollars to lobby against you.
Bills such as those that would make town officials appointed rather than elected, or that would take zoning out of the hands of the voters as they are trying to do in Bedford, would be a detriment to local control and a sure benefit to groups like this and the Regional Planning Commissions who could then further the process of bypassing the electorate to insure programs like Granite State Future are imposed on the towns, by the mere act of convincing a few council or planning board members to go along with it. N
Remember, the stated goal of regionalism to subsume local control!
We need to do all we can to support Emily’s Sandblade’s bill HB 1560.
And hope more will opt out of NHMA and their RPC.
Hampton residents vote to leave N.H. Municipal Association
HAMPTON — Called upon to send a message to the New Hampshire Municipal Association that “enough is enough,” Hampton voters decided to no longer have the town be a member of the organization.
Voters at the deliberative session on Saturday overwhelming approved a motion to reduce the town’s proposed $26 million operating budget by $15,600, representing three accounts used to pay dues to the NHMA.
Dave Lang made the motion to do so. Lang’s series of Right to Know requests to open of the books of the then-called Local Government Center led to a court order forcing the organization to refund $52 million it overcharged for insurance to public/retired employees and communities that bought the group’s health and/or property liability plans. He is a former Hampton firefighter and president of the Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire,
“They spent millions and millions of taxpayer dollars fighting litigation, ignoring the law and ignoring the courts,” Lang said.
Selectmen Chairman Richard Nichols spoke against defunding the dues, saying the New Hampshire Municipal Association is a different arm than the insurance program and is focused on legislative advocacy. “(Their) lobbyist to benefit cities and towns,” he said.