To the Editor:
What follows is a true New Hampshire story. It’s relevant if you live up north in Pittsburg, down south in Hollis, west in Claremont or east in Rye.
Last night the Selectmen of Loudon, NH asked me to come to one of their regular meetings. I don’t live in Loudon.
Months ago I authored a pamphlet titled Granite State Future – The Real Facts. It was given to the Loudon Selectmen a month ago and they wanted to know more about the topic. You can read the pamphlet here: http://go.timcarter.com/GSF
I walked into the meeting room and just three men were sitting at a standard folding cafeteria table passing letters to one another and then depositing them into a large plastic bin. It was a bureaucratic conveyor belt.
No one else was there, even though there were 40 soft chairs to sit in. No one. Not one Loudon citizen was in the room watching decisions being made. Not one citizen was there participating. Are you one of these people in your town?
After fifteen minutes, Mr. Krieger cordially asked me to approach the folding table and introduce myself for the record. They asked me to tell them about the Granite State Future. I did.
“Are you telling me you’ve not been contacted by Michael Tardiff, the executive director of the Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission about the Granite State Future,” I said.
“No we haven’t. We have NO CLUE what the Granite State Future is about.”
“Well, for starters you should go to GraniteStateFutures.org,” I suggested.
Wow. I almost fell over I was so shocked. I shouldn’t have been, because this is the same thing I’m encountering all over the state. Selectmen in countless NH towns have not heard about the Granite State Future, even though it’s been in motion since February, 2012.
On that dark day the nine NH regional planning commissions signed a legally binding contract with the Federal government mandating NH zoning and planning mirror what the Federal government wants, not what you or your Selectmen want.
Why didn’t Mr. Tardiff come to Loudon months ago before I showed up last night? That’s easy. The nine NH regional planning commissions don’t want you or your Selectmen to know what’s going on. They don’t want you to know they control every aspect of your life here in NH. They don’t want to remind any elected officials that they, the RPCs, are filled with unelected bureaucrats making critical decisions about every aspect of your life. It’s time for you to wake up.
Tim Carter