Much fun at Keene polls!

[Dave Ridley]

I got the chance to hold a sign in front of a Keene polling place today as the warrant articles came up for vote.  Varrin, Kat and Russell did the same.   We are were mainly out there in support of the control-spending minority on the Keene school board.  The minority is backing a warrant article to sell a rotting and underused building , as well as another article which would give the money to taxypaers.

All of us realized we were fighting for a good cause when about 10% of the voters got really angry with us!   Also everyone I talked to at the polls who works for the district in some way seems to oppose the sale of that building.     

I never expected folks would be so emotional about a simple building sale and neither did the board member who proposed the sale.   But it felt really good to get sniped at by people who were obviously angry I was there and wanted me to go away!

The worse the weather got, the less criticism I took....and by 7PM everyone seemed to be so flabbergasted that I was out there...most of the comments I got included the word "brave."  That's not true, but I was cold!   

One person said he voted my way just because I'd been standing there for 5 hours. 

Unfortunately, even if this article passes, which I doubt it will, there are many many other ways the power that be seem bent on wasting our money.   Most of the people who were angry with me told me essensially "well if we sell this building than such and such is going to happen that will result in more spending."  Some of them probably are hoping to help monkey wrench any savings that would result,and the board may try to do the same.  One of the educrats even told russell that the district will spend 60 grand to move its t1 lines to the building.   Why does a 20-person administrative office need T1 lines?  Or 17,000 sq feet of space?   Anything will be defended in this turf battle. 

Oh another thing...I used to think educrats were nice people fighting for the wrong cause.  Now after seeing so many of them behave this way in reaction to a sign that says

$ for kids, not buildings
sell 34 west

I am starting to think most of them really *are* evil.

[Dave Ridley]

Oh also one of the spending-controller school board members came by toward the end of the day and was grinning ear to ear to see me out there with my battered sign!

[Kat Kanning]

Here are the results:

Article 1 Yes
Article 2 Yes
Article 3 Yes
Article 4 Yes
Article 5 No

The school budget passed, unfortunately.  But article 4 also passed.  Apparently the school board cannot now do anything with the money from the sale of 34 West, since busybodies amended article 5.  They said on the radio that there was now some legal question about what would happen with the money.  The way the new article 5 was worded "shall the board of directors use the money as they see fit" (or something like that) makes it sound like they could legally pocket the money!

[Russell Kanning]

We got what we were campaigning for....just don't know if we had any effect. Maybe we should have tried to defeat the 1st 3 articles as well.

The bureaucrat said they had 3 T1 lines in that building....I should have asked him what they used them for.