SB2 Petitions Filed for 2009 in Meredith

BY MICHAEL KITCH

www./laconiadailysun.com

Laconia Sun March 26^th, 2008

MEREDITH — In a preemptive strike apparently designed to forestall a possible restructuring of town government, advocates of SB-2 this week submittedmpetitions to again put the issue to voters in both the town and school district inMarch 2009. On Monday, Richard Juve delivered a petition for the 2009 town ballot with 32 signatories and another for the school district ballot with 42 signatories to Town Clerk Kerry Parker.

The move may legally stop any attempt by local officials to develop a new, hybrid form of government for at least a year. Juve made his move less than two weeks after SB-2 came within a whisker of success at the polls, falling only 3-percent shy of the three-fi fths supermajority required for adoption in both the town and school elections. In balloting for the town, the majority in favor of SB-2 was 57.5-percent, with 616 in favor and 456 against. In the school district election, 57.1-percent of Meredith voters — 599 to 450 — endorsed SB-2 only to be outvoted by their counterparts in Center Harbor and Sandwich. Yesterday, Juve said that last Friday an anonymouscaller warned him that town officials and the selectmen were planning to initiate the process of adopting a charter, which could preempt a renewed effort to adopt SB-2. “He told me,” Juve said, “’you’d better hustle because if they get it together, you’re dead.” “It was like the gun went off for the final lap,” he continued, “and the other guys were right on our heels. A desperate sprint.” Juve said that he and his wife Ruth collected signatures over the weekend and delivered the petitions on Monday.

In response to the strong showing of SB-2 the Board of Selectmen has begun to ponder exploring the optional forms of town government authorized by the so-called “home rule” statute (RSA 49-B), several of which, including the most appealing, incorporate the official ballot (SB-2). The process of chartering a new form of government requires voting to convene a charter commission, electing a charter commission, drafting a charter and voting on a charter itself and would stretch over two municipal election cycles. But, by submitting his petition for SB 2, Juve may have stopped that process in its tracks. The law governingthe adoption of SB-2 (RSA 40:14) reads reads in part “in the event that an alternative method for the adoption of offi cial ballot voting exists under the laws of this state, then once the requirements are met for inclusion of the question on the warrant for annual meeting of whether to adopt this subdivision, neither the governing body nor the legislative body shall commence action to adopt offi cial ballot voting through such alternative method until a final vote is taken on the warrant article.” In other words, once a petition for SB-2 qualifi es for the warrant, its fate must be decided before the question of convening a charter commission can be put to the voters.

At the same time, Juve may have beat the selectmen to the punch. RSA 40:14 also provides that “if procedures have been initiated to adopt official ballot voting under an alternative law of this state, then neither the governing body nor the legislative body shall commence action to adopt this subdivision until such alternative procedures are exhausted.”Parker said that she has been advised by the New Hampshire Secretary of State to verify the signatures as soon as possible and again in February, before the article is placed on the ballot. “We need to make sure everyone who signed is still living and living and registered in Meredith,” she said, adding that she never expected to receive a petitioned article a full year before town meeting.