I’ve been pretty testy about the Executive Orders issued by Chris Sununu over the past year, but legislators I work with assured me that these orders would end by March. Then I was told, it would be the end of March. And yet, here we are, March 26, 2021, and Sununu has once again extended his “Emergency Orders”.
More than a year has passed since the NH Superior Court said that “because the Court finds that Governor Sununu has the authority to suspend or limit fundamental rights during a state of emergency, and because EO #2 constitutes a reasonable time, place and manner restriction” meaning that the “emergency order” needed to be SHORT and LIMITED in scope to pass Constitutional muster. One year is NOT short and limited in scope.
Last year today, I jokingly suggested we should consider a tax revolt, meaning that “nonessential” Granite State taxpayers should consider whether they think they’ve been treated in a way that makes them amenable to continuing to pay their property taxes at the full rate.
When you consider most of our property taxes go to support government-run schools, which have been closed for most of the past year (private schools have been open the whole time without negative health outcomes), and that teachers have been staging what amounts to “sick-outs,” and that our own Governor destroyed the economy, put thousands of people out of work, destroyed businesses, and implemented an unnecessary mask mandate, perhaps the time has come reconsider whether we’re getting what we bargained for with regard to our property taxes… I mean, they clearly, unambiguously told us they thought we were NONESSENTIAL. Perhaps it’s time to show them how “nonessential” we are!