Carla from Porcupine Real Estate and Brittany of @ledgeviewcommercial take a closer look at one of the properties in our investment newsletter this week. This week’s pick is in Manchester and provides a unique opportunity you’ll want to hear about!. Sign up for our weekly investment picks HERE.
We’re on fire! Turns out, much of what we have been saying all along, was… accurate! The Dpt of Energy and the FBI now admit a lab leak from Wuhan is likely. We also cover the “choo-choo boondoggle” and Manchester’s school budget, which just keeps going up and up while student enrollment declines. Make it make sense!
Listen to the audio-only podcast:
Reminder! There is a meeting scheduled tonight 5-7PM at Parkside Middle to express your concerns.
There was an article in today’s Union Leader about it. See below.
According to the article, you will be able to speak for 3 minutes or write your concerns on cards provided and they will be read out.
I’ve asked Manchester Public Television to attend and record the session.
For me, the types of questions I have, are:
Why was the standard City procedure of requesting an RFP not followed? Under what basis of law was this exception made to sell public parkland to a private entity?
The letters submitted in support of selling the public land were solely submitted by state actors or people involved in the project (conflict of interest?) and simply state the park is “surplus” and “not in use” without any substantiating evidence. We all know the opposite is true and the park is, in fact, a robust community garden. How can you use these letters in support of your actions when all of us can see with our very own eyes it is a lie?
What other sites were considered? Where, in relation to these sites, do the sitting aldermen and people involved with the project live?
How many children on the West Side currently attend the Boys & Girls Club on the East Side? How many neighbors and gardeners will be affected by changing this park into a giant building?
What is the distance between the proposed site and the current Boys & Girls Club? How long does it take to drive or walk there?
Is it true that one of the reasons the destruction of the park is being proposed is because there is a bus driver shortage?
Do the nonprofits being proposed for this site have any data on how much crime increases and property prices drop when they open up in a neighborhood? If not, why not? This seems important to assessing all aspects of impact to an area, not simply measuring the criteria you want and ignoring the data you don’t want to consider.
Please provide substantiating data for claims of “extreme poverty” on the West Side.
Will this property be tax-free? If so, the costs will eventually be downshifted to the neighbors living there. So you are asking neighbors to lose green space in return for higher crime and higher property taxes, is this correct?
Can you explain all the funding sources for this project? Initially, it was claimed that all the funding was private. Since then, it has been exposed that there is both private and public funds being used, including federal grants. Can you shed light on this public/private funding. Can you shed light on the ARP grants (and where we can get copies). Can you breakdown where the “$17 million” is coming from?
Who was the “generous donor” for the under-market, unaudited sales price of $600,000 for the “property sale”?
According to its website, Amoskeag Health provides transgender affirmation services and chemical abortions. What will parental rights be like at this clinic next to a school that is being included in something called “wrap around services”? What is “wrap around services” and what grants relate to this?
What does “consent of the governed” mean to you?
I understand these questions make me seem like a curmudgeon, but they are important in order for us all to make an informed decision, taking into account ALL NECESSARY DATA, not just the cherry-picked data from one side of the equation.
In the end, the City has NOT acted ethically, and while I don’t want to bad mouth the private interests promoting this, they are now willfully associating with what can only be described as a “shady deal.”
The Stebbins family now has a choice to act with integrity and return to the drawing board. They can choose to follow standard procedures like informing the people who live in the neighborhood and the gardeners who use the community garden beforehand, and follow a standard RFP procedure, or they can choose to side with the City and railroad the community that lives here, and then let the chips fall where they may.
As the government asserts more and more control over every aspect of your life, going so far as to unlawfully claim they have the right to tell you what face coverings to wear in public, our NH police become less and less transparent.
They spy on us with ill-gotten surveillance cameras, but hide their actions from us. Does this sound right to you?
Traditionally, in Manchester, we had access to the police scanners. This was a simple way for the press and public to exercise some oversight over police actions on our streets, and to know when militarized tools like the BEARCAT was deployed. Around 2016, Chief Willard, in a backroom deal with the City, simply encrypted the scanners. NO PUBLIC INPUT/HEARING WAS HELD.
Today, since it is #SunshineWeek, and I serve on Right-to-Know NH, a statewide nonpartisan coalition of open government advocates, I asked Chief Aldenberg about how he will approach MPD transparency.
The Chief refused to answer whether any active MPD are on the current redacted Laurie’s List/EES. The NH Supreme Court overruled Fenniman last year, and the “personnel record” exception no longer applies. Nor, frankly, should it ever be permissible, in a functioning open society, for state agents, especially those permitted to use lethal force, to hide their own bad behavior from citizens. Watch this week’s episode of Manch Talk for a primer on the Laurie’s List, the court cases, and where we currently stand.
When asked about the dark scanners, the Chief suggested “that’s just how it is.” Chief, you have an opportunity to reverse course on this issue, and be more open and transparent. Please consider this.
The Chief also incorrectly stated the police log is updated every 30 minutes. It’s not. AND, not all calls are logged. Why’s that?
If the police log online is now the public’s sole “check and balance,” what reassurances do we have about the veracity or timeliness of the information on the log? How can we exercise any oversight? Is this how you establish trust? I think we can do better…
Please consider your duty and oath to the NH Constitution:
[Art.] 8. [Accountability of Magistrates and Officers; Public’s Right to Know.] All power residing originally in, and being derived from, the people, all the magistrates and officers of government are their substitutes and agents, and at all times accountable to them. Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable and responsive. To that end, the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted. The public also has a right to an orderly, lawful, and accountable government…
ACCOUNTABLE AND RESPONSIVE.
Thanks for doing the Q&A, Manchester NH Police. I look forward to seeing us make progress on these issues to improve citizens’ oversight of your department.
If you have been watching the advent of petty little tyrants and Control Freaks who think they can demand what you wear when you leave the house, you may be as surprised as I am that the City of Manchester voted last night NOT to implement a citywide mask mandate. Thank you!
Said Alderman Mike Porter: “We’ve all received, I don’t know how many emails – hundreds I guess – and phone calls. I personally wear a mask. I strongly encourage it. We’ve already heard from the public – they do not want this.”
Damn straight, Skippy! The public does not want Manchester to devolve into East Berlin. If you want to wear a mask, wear one, if you don’t, don’t. It’s really that simple! Thank you to all the aldermen who did the right thing and voted for freedom and against tyranny. Read more at the Union Leader, Manchester aldermen reject citywide mask mandate…
The City did vote for a mask mandate in government buildings, but carved out exceptions for voting, which leads me to believe they KNOW their mandates are unConstitutional and will not withstand legal scrutiny.
Said Alderman Roy: “We already know there’s not going to be any enforcement or any consequences. Let’s talk about the unintended consequences – we know Nashua has a mask ordinance, and they’re in court. It’s a useless ordinance. People need to be able to make their own choices.”
Here’s the letter I submitted to the City of Manchester on Monday:
Dear Manchester City Officials,
In a free society, we each get to decide according to our own risk profiles how we care to behave, meaning if you want to go out in public while wearing a mask, wear one, if you don’t, don’t. It’s really that simple!
Forcing people to do things to their bodies against their will should never be tolerated. It is unConstitutional and immoral. You do not own me, my body, or my decisions about what I wear in public. If I wanted someone to tell me how to dress when I leave the house, I’d move to Saudi Arabia.
If you want to persuade me to behave in a certain fashion voluntarily, you need to make a credible, cogent, and convincing case. You cannot do this, because New Hampshire’s COVID data and the data on mask efficiency does not support your suggested mandate at all.
The data clearly shows that vast majority of NH’s fatal cases are in LTC facilities; the survival rate of the disease if contracted, as President Trump, Nashua’s Mayor Donchess, and Mayor Craig’s own daughter can attest, is more than 99%. The City’s proposed mask mandate has now been on the agenda for several months… where is the health “emergency”?
A mask mandate panders to irrational fears. It encourages a snitching class. It asks too much of our law enforcement, who are on the record saying they do not want this. Frankly, a mask mandate sounds like nasty, totalitarian, dystopian, Control Freak nonsense to me. Making our police officers enforce such nonsense pits them against law-abiding citizens, which seems unwise at a time of already heightened tensions.
If you proceed with the implementation of a Manchester mask mandate, I have no doubt you will be sued both as representatives of the City and in your personal capacities for violations of our civil liberties. I implore you to do the right thing now, and just say “NO” to this mask mandate proposal.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Carla Gericke
Republican State Senate Nominee in District 20
Ward 11 Manchester Homeowner and Voter
Several articles appear in today’s Union Leader regarding the City’s attempt to reintroduce a mandatory mask mandate with a $1,000 fine that will be enforced by police and fire, leading to unnecessary confrontations with the public.
Drew Cline of the Josiah Bartlett Center, New Hampshire’s free market think tank, gets it right, when he asked “When is a mask mandate warranted?” saying, in part:
“Manchester aldermen are considering a mandate that would carry a $1,000 fine. City Health Department Director Anna Thomas told aldermen the point of the ordinance would be to educate the public about the importance of wearing masks.
No, the purpose of a public relations campaign is to educate. The purpose of a mandate is to force compliance. And the purpose of a fine is to punish.
Manchester Community College charges only $215 per credit. For $1,000, you could take a course in the Health Sciences curriculum, say, Probability & Statistics, learn more about the value of mask wearing, and still have $140 left over…
A mandate is an extraordinary measure to be reserved for the most extraordinary emergencies. New Hampshire’s infection rate remains well below 1 percent, its hospital capacity high, its voluntary mask wearing common. Even if mask mandates are comforting, it’s hard to make the case that they’re necessary to protect public health at this time.
And that — necessity — is the determining factor. The coercive power of government is not a tool with which to fine-tune people’s sensibilities. It is a last resort to be deployed when all other options are exhausted and the consequences of inaction are most dire.”
In “Both sides weigh in on Manchester mask proposal ahead of meeting” several City aldermen express their concerns with a mask mandate:
“Ward 8 Alderman Mike Porter said his opinion on the mandate hasn’t changed in the weeks since it was first proposed,
‘I strongly oppose a face covering ordinance in the city,’ said Porter over the weekend. ‘I strongly encourage everybody to wear a face covering but will not vote to mandate it. A plain reading of the proposed ordinance places an unnecessary burden on our already overburdened police and fire departments, and has the potential to create negative contacts between the public and our first responders.’
Porter added he strongly opposes the language involving ‘up to a $1,000 fine.’
‘This ordinance will only encourage a form of mask vigilantism by the public,’ said Porter. ‘The ordinance will create more problems than it solves.’
Other aldermen share Porter’s concerns.
‘I don’t support the ordinance as written because it is too onerous,’ said Ward 7 Alderman Ross Terrio. ‘I will consider a less restrictive ordinance that focuses on education over fines and is limited in what areas are covered.’
‘We should be meeting at City Hall and the mandatory mask ordinance is not needed, as people are doing safe things on their own, and there literally would be no enforcement,’ said Ward 12 Alderman Keith Hirschmann. ‘Seems this administration is following a national agenda.’
‘While I encourage people to wear a mask when they cannot socially distance themselves from others, I stand firm in my opposition to the government mandating an unenforceable ordinance demanding they do so,’ said Alderman-at-Large Joe Kelly Levasseur.”
In “‘High-risk’ behavior by some blamed for Manchester aldermen going remote” the aldermen set themselves up for a lawsuit by admitting they simply don’t want to face the public:
“‘High-risk behavior’ by members of the public is being cited as the reason Manchester’s aldermanic meetings will now be held remotely, after officials said the health and safety of staff and others were put at risk…
Ward 8 Alderman Mike Porter reacted to the decision in a social media post.
‘If elected officials can’t meet in person at City Hall — appropriately socially-distanced, wearing masks when moving about … then clearly masks are not the answer,’ he wrote. ‘Furthermore, if this is the precedent then schools should also be fully remote. If we as elected leaders can’t meet in person then kids and teachers should not meet in-person.’”
This week we lean into some ideas for police reform,and we discuss the Mayor’s tie-breaking vote to deny lower income neighborhoods pool time this summer while still allowing her own children to swim in the private North End pools. That’s not how germs work, amirite?