Cady: Fighting “compelled speech.”
As I write this contemplating entering a Compelled Speech case against my town government I wonder how many people even recognize what it is?
If I said when Alabama Governor Wallace said no black could go to the all white school and a majority thought that was alright in Alabama, would you think it was alright that a majority believed they were right?
I am presently fighting my town government which uses my tax dollars because they have a quote majority vote (55%) who didn’t want Northern Pass in 2013. But in 2015 their article asking voters for $10,000 to help fight against Northern Pass was defeated by 69%. Yet our selectmen are sending a selectman and using tax money to pay his mileage to speak on behalf of the town to tell the Site Evaluation Commission that Deerfield doesn’t want Northern Passes towers, sub station, etc. Now they are even taking donations to hire an attorney to speak on behalf of the town against Northern Pass.
Since there are many Federal Civil Rights court cases stating a public entity may not use the public’s entity to take a political stand, I claim Deerfield’s elected body has done just that and thus are violating my civil rights under Article 1 of the US and NH Constitutions.
You see in a Republic a majority doesn’t always rule when they take another’s civil rights such as the little black girl having a right to go to the school paid for with all taxpayers dollars.
Deerfield has no right to let the group use the towns copying machine to grind out paper copies at taxpayer expense because that uses part of my tax dollars. They have no right to put forth an opinion to the SEC of what Deerfield citizens want because all do not want the lines buried.
They just don’t understand you can’t use the power of the town’s voice to try and squelch one or several taxpayers who have a different opinion, see Lyons v Boston City School District, See Derry Taxpayers v Derry School Board and then just do a Google of what is compelled speech. I don’t want Northern Pass to bury their lines because present lines won’t go away just because a few lines are buried. We already have towers, they are cell, television and electric and I expect only that the ongoing battle will do no more than make electricity more expensive for us the users.
I don’t want the Northern Pass lines buried and I want Hydro Power like I had as a girl growing up in Vermont.
Harriet E. Cady
P.O. Box 149
Deerfield, N.H. 03037
