The Coalition of NH Taxpayers has two specific, long running projects which are examples of how bad a municipal democracy can be; the towns are Windsor and Atkinson — so different yet so similar.
Windsor has no police department — Atkinson has an incompetent thug for a police chief. The police chief in Atkinson holds power through the use of a personal 501(c)3 tax deductible non-profit elderly taxi service he buys votes with. I followed the thug driving his Atkinson Elderly Affairs vehicle over 80 miles per hour, with a client/voter in the back seat, down Route 93 two years ago. The principal address for his personal nonprofit is an Atkinson town office. He has been caught using Atkinson police employees as office help. So in effect, he uses town funds to operate his own little scam.
In Windsor, the selectmen and tax collector have built a similar, almost generational empire through the trick of not taxing, no placing of liens, and not having interest or penalties added on delinquent taxes of friends and relatives. It is known as the “Windsor Friends and Family Program.”
You can guess what else these two municipal RICO violations have in common, right?
If you said vandalism and intimidation you are almost all the way there.
In Atkinson the thug police chief has tried to intimidate though his office any way he can. I went to the Atkinson Deliberative Session two years ago and one of the former selectmen, his name is Mommy’s Boy Sapia, tried to intimidate me, of all people. I referred to this bully as “Mommy’s Boy” to his face several times in front of a police officer and several other people when he tried to intimidate me and he seemed more shocked than offended — so I assume it is a fitting nickname.
Atkinson town has an endless list of lawsuits involving the police chief we need not detail here. But the thug has a new wrinkle regarding a town ethics violation against him I will write about in a separate article.
Atkinson has seen political opponents of the thug chief have their cars and home vandalized with scratches and paint — you know the sophomoric type of intimidation a coward uses to defend his pathetic self — that type of vandalism.
Now in Windsor we have a step up in intimidation and vandalism — as one would expect from cowards and thugs who are in a bit more trouble that the bumbling thug chief in Atkinson.
In Windsor, back in 2006, when CNHT helped a local group deal with the “Windsor Friends and Family Program” we won a pro se Right to Know case which spurred the instantaneous payment of about $150,000.00 in late property taxes — in this small community with a $150,000.00 municipal town budget. Since then the town has been ordered by the DRA (Thank YOU former Commissioner Philip Blatsos) to audit the books from 2000 – 2007.
An interesting bit of advice from the professional auditing firm in the audit was something to the effect that it should be handed over to the NH Attorney General’s office for investigation. (Where it sits.)
Separate from the financial aspects of Windsor’s little municipal criminal enterprise and the two valiant couples handling that is one J.J Valera — a CNHT member no less, who has had persistent problems in Windsor with threats, intimidation, trespassing (recently a criminal conviction for same) as well as property line problems with the “Windsor Friends and Family” members and their fellow travelers.
J.J. doesn’t back down from bullies and he holds his ground — that which he can see from his house.
You may have read about, or seen on TV, J.J.’s small cabin located about 1500 feet from his house — it burned to the ground, for no apparent reason at all, this Easter Morning about 3:30 AM., just after all the possible track bearing snow had disappeared.
In J.J.’s cabin were family photos and heirlooms, garden equipment, and other possessions he stored there. His camper and canoe parked nearby were also damaged.
So here we are back to what Atkinson and Windsor taxpayers, who want nothing but what they are entitled to from municipal government, and what else they both have in common.
To make it easy I will create a list:
1. There is no political solution for victims of municipal thugs who buy votes with municipal favors, gifts, bribes or threats.
2. Our taxpayer activists will not back down and the thugs will not let loose of their power.
3. All legal power abused by municipal thugs comes from one source — the State of New Hampshire, of which municipalities are a subdivision.
4. Like a ratchet, the legal pressure from lawsuits on the municipal thugs is increasing.
5. Predictably, the intimidation, vandalism, and what now may be arson, increases.
6. The NH AG’s Office has the power to put an end to this or at the very least abate most of it.
We will see.