Is the daughter of Weare State Representative Neal Kurk guilty of voter fraud? That’s the question we put to Kurk after receiving information from a listener that his daughter Kendra continues to vote in Weare despite having lived in Hawaii for more than twenty years. Unlike others who’ve ducked our calls and emails, Kurk answered our questions asserting his daughter’s done nothing wrong under New Hampshire law. He says her husband’s work has taken her to different places over the years, but that she’s maintained her connections to the community and intends to return to Weare when her husband’s professional circumstances allow. He also said she maintains a New Hampshire driver’s license and has never been registered to vote anywhere else. Girard at Large spoke for an hour and ten minutes with Secretary of State William Gardner following our interview with Kurk and got a tutorial on various U S and N H supreme court decisions and R S A six fifty four colon two entitled Temporary Absence. Under the law, Kurk just might be right. He’ll be in this morning to discuss the situation and we applaud him for having the guts to hit this controversy head on.
Meanwhile, New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Horn has sent a letter to Portsmouth senator Martha Fuller Clark demanding she act immediately to remove the names of four political activists who, quite differently than Representative Kurk’s daughter, weren’t from our state, had no ties in our state, and left our state after voting, from the voter checklist since they used her home address to cast their ballots. Horn charged that these people improperly influenced our elections by cancelling out the votes of actual Granite Staters. Horn said it was an outrage that Fuller Clark, a state senator and Vice Chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party would allow her address to facilitate illegal drive through voting and threatened to take action in court if Fuller Clark didn’t act to remove their names from the checklist. We’ve linked Horn’s letter to this story at Girard at Large dot com
News from our own backyard continues after this.
Girard at Large is being inundated with email from residents in Pinardville who oppose to the proposed master plan for the area. Town Planner Brian Rose may have stoked the flames of the opposition in an email announcing that the planned discussion over actual so called smart code zoning changes will not be discussed at tonight’s ad hoc committee meeting as planned. Email after email we’ve received in response the announcement is opposed to mixed use zoning. Resident commentary addresses two concerns: The first is housing. Residents are uniform in their opposition to the proposed mixed use zoning that would enable the large scale development of massive multi-unit housing complexes. The second is a desire for more commercial zoning, but not through the overlay proposals that enable mixed use. As one email put it quote: “The goal should be to revamp Pinardville for a destination area while at the same time adding tax generating businesses that help with the budget and relieve the burden off of homeowners. End Quote. We will seek permission of the email authors to publish their testimony. In the meantime, the Plan Pinardville ad hoc committee will meet tonight at Goffstown Town Hall to take public input on the final draft. The meeting starts at 6 and we’ve linked to our interview with resident Dana Benner who expressed neighbors’ concerns on our “adorable little radio show.”
The school boards in Hooksett and Manchester will meet separately tonight, but will have a common agenda item: A potential settlement that would remove Manchester’s law suit over Hooksett’s permitting seventy five children to attend other than Manchester high schools and drop Hooksett’s Breach of Contract Claim over class sizes. Hooksett is expected to add that item to the agenda for tonight’s regularly scheduled meeting. The Manchester Board of School Committee will meet in special session to discuss the matter. Expect non-public sessions to be had by both boards to receive the details, confer with their legal counsel and give final instructions to their representatives in advance of tomorrow’s scheduled mediation session. The city’s court case against Hooksett had been scheduled for a hearing yesterday afternoon in Hillsborough County Superior Court, but has been postponed pending the adoption of a mediated settlement.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ continues right after this!
