House Rep. Betsey Patten: January 2009 Archives
January 29, 2009
To the Editor:
On Jan. 14, we attended some hearings on proposed House bills that were sponsored by our State Representative Betsy Patten. Observing and participating in the hearings was certainly a learning experience and well worth the trip to
20 is very difficult to comprehend. A 1000 percent increase did not strike her as a bit over the top? But wait, there’s more. Oops, she did it again with HB71. This one will increase from $100,000 to $1,000,000 municipal bonds that would require a public hearing, another tenfold increase. For example, a bond of $950,000 would not require a public hearing. Outrageous, but at least she’s consistent. To me $950,000 is one fantastic pile of money. Rep. Patten introduced the house bill and said the $1,000,000 is a number she selected and it would be okay for the committee to drop it to $200,000 or what ever they wanted. See what I mean about consistency? Seems she puts out a very high numbermand hopes she gets at least something lower. Something is wrong with that method of proposing House Bills. We are hopeful both bills will be killed in committee.
On the last bill sponsored by Betsey Patten, HB114, she smartly threw in the towel and withdrew it.HB114 was an effort to weaken SB2 by eliminating the deliberative session. SB2 by the way is the way more than half the townspeople in
Jim Leiterman
Moultonboro
Editor, The Citizen: January 20, 2009
The Moultonborough Selectboard met 1-8-2009 and their published minutes under the section Legislative Update states Rep. Betsey Patten (Selectmen and also State Rep.) "added that she is proposing a bill to increase the number of voters required to request a secret ballot during the Town Meeting. Presently, only five registered voters must request a secret ballot and are not required to be present at Town Meeting. Her bill would set the number required based on the municipalities population. The (Moultonborough) Selectmen expressed their support of Betsey's proposed bill and asked Carter (Terenzini, Town Administrator) to draft a letter of support. Hollis Austin asked the purpose of the bill. She replied that presently only five people can request a secret ballot and not have to be present during the secret ballot, in an effort to make the Town Meeting unnecessarily lengthy."
The above portion in quotation marks is per the Moultonborough Selectboard minutes of 1-8-2009. However our video of that meeting stated 50 voters and that was neglected in the above minutes but the number 50 appears on HB72. Chapter 40 Government of Town Meeting, Section 40:4-a states "5 voters who are present may make a request in writing prior to a vote by voice vote or division vote that the vote be taken by secret written ballot." In essence, it says the five voters must be present and that contradicts a portion of what is stated in paragraph one.
I vigorously state that the voters that submitted petitions did not intentionally delay the voting as implied in paragraph one. Also Moultonboro Citizens Alliance did not submit all the petitions that were presented to the moderator prior to the start of that Town Meeting. Other citizens, who are not members of MCA or proponents of it, collected signatures and signed them as well as they wanted the secret ballots for expenditures over $100,000 which makes sense to me.
The information we received at the 1-8-2009 Selectboard meeting prompted us to attend those house hearings in
On the evening of 1-15-2009, some MCA members attended the Selectboard meeting and were verbally criticized because we did not discuss our differences with Rep. Patten before voicing our opinion in
Rep. Patten, you have it backwards! You submitted HB0072 in June 2008 you waited until 1-8-2009, at the legislative update portion of the selectmen meeting, to let Moultonborough know you had submitted that bill. In true transparency you should have notified local voters you intended to submit a bill on this subject and ask for public input. Or at least notify your constituents after you submitted HB72 in June 2008. Instead you waited less than one week before the hearing in
Rep. Patten, why should we contact you when you are not fulfilling your responsibility to inform and represent those that have put their trust in you?
Jim Leiterman
Moultonborough
Editor, The Citizen: January 24, 2009
The arrogance of some members of the Moultonborough Board of Selectmen never ceases to amaze me. I often feel guilty not having to pay for such incredible entertainment.
On Wednesday January 14th there were hearings in Concord regarding the very bad legislation that Rep. Betsey Patten put forth months ago but was not brought to light until a very few days before the hearings. I have written about that legislation in previous missives so I won't bore you here with redundancy… just understand that these bills were poorly thought out, poorly written and vengeful in the motivation behind them. Little or no thought was given to what anyone in the "law making business" ought to know; research and re-research before putting forth a bill… consider "unintended consequences". Rep. Patten was only thinking about the town in which she sits on the Select board.
But beyond that (and this is where it gets entertaining) Thursday January 15th (the very next day) was the Moultonborough Board of Selectmen's meeting. As there were folks there that had testified at the above mentioned hearings against the legislation, as well as Representative Patten, "Selectman" Patten decided it was a good time to call out and lecture those citizens that had exercised their right to be heard at the Concord hearings.
Wait a minute … let's see … she wrote these bills in June; she waited until less than a week from the hearings before she revealed any information about one of the bills, and forgot to mention anything about the other two. And she expects the citizenry that has a problem with this, speak to her in private, as a courtesy, rather than at a public hearing as is their right. I am sorry.
I have voted for Ms. Patten from the get go and, in the past found her tolerable and sufficient in
Last March 56% and 58% respectively voted for SB2 for the town and the school district in Moultonborough. While SB2 needs 60% to pass, it was enough to threaten the comfort zone of those in opposition of SB2. If over half of the voters want an issue to pass, wouldn't you think their Representative would find better ways to spend her time than trying her level best to derail it? This is not open and transparent government. Watching these shenanigans is entertaining, yes but not at the voters and taxpayers' expense.
Rick Heath
Moultonborough
