Several pieces of legislation were filed in Concord this year to try to create positive solutions to the growing ATV problem in New Hampshire. Most of the bills have been killed in sub-committee in the House Resources Recreation & Development Committee.

One important bill remains under consideration,HB1686,
which allocates more of the registration fees collected from both instate and out of state registration of ATVs and OHRVs to enforcement of the laws governing use of these vehicles in New Hampshire. Additional money would be given to the Fish and Game officers who are the officials tasked with controlling illegal use of these vehicles.

Today a small band of politically minded people from NH and VT met to march down Main Street in the Brattleboro,VT 4th of July Parade, representing Democracy for America (NH & VT meet-ups).

Among us was 83 year old Florence Ferrari, who as a lifelong Republican, was inspired by Howard Dean, and began voting as a Democrat this past election.
She marched the 1 mile and a quarter parade route, carrying her DFA sign, American flag and proudly wearing a Dean button on her hat.

Our group was cheered, clapped for and given the thumbs up sign.
Democracy for America, Democracy for New Hampshire, and Democracy for Vermont, will continue to march to promote community involvement in the political process, now more than ever.

The simple statement "Democracy for America" seemed to resonate with many of the parade viewers on this holiday following the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor.

Information about the Keene Meetup group can be found here.

March Meetup:

A quick report on our March meeting at the School for International Training. We had the extraordinary privilege of having two Democratic party leaders join around thirty of us. Ray Buckley has taken on among many other responsibilities the vice-chair of the Northeastern Region of the country, which interestingly enough includes New England, the Middle Atlantic, islands in the Caribbean, and Democrats living abroad world wide. His political roots and many of his activities are in Manchester, NH. Peter Mallary, after a varied career in Vermont state government and serving the Democratic party, is now its chair. Their discussion and insights were fascinating, and we greatly enjoyed their company. I can't cover all the topics they did here and keep this brief, but I will summarize by saying that they report that the Democratic National Committee is excited by its new chief. Gov. Dean is the first openly elected chair of the DNC in some time (President's typically designate who will be the chair of their party as Clinton did.) As we know, Dean's passion is to build the party from the grassroots up (as the Republicans have done in recent years and the DNC has not). The parties in both NH and VT are working hard to do this, getting their voter lists together, organizing volunteers and committees, etc. It is a national effort which Dean started out with the significant request that each state party submit a five year plan indicating where it wants to be in 2010 and specifically how it plans to get there. Communication within the party is to be a major focus, and both our guests are very involved in finding ways to improve it. The meetup had many questions and the discussion was wide-ranging and lively. We were all very appreciative of our guests' having come so far on a winter night.

DFA Meet-up Keene/Brattleboro Jan 5, 05
With DFNH

It was great to be meeting with everyone again.
SYNOPSIS:
We showed George Lakoff’s DVD "How Democrats and Progressives Can Win" and started a lively conversation that explored re-framing a couple of issues, notably the right to life. One question that was raised was, How far does the right to life extend, How pro-life are you?, are you committed to life, to a good life, to a right to health care? Etc. If you support a right to life what about the rights of our soldiers, the Iraqi people? As news coverage increased a world wide positive human response to a natural tragedy such as a Tsunami increased to admirable proportions, and yet very little mention is made in the news of the destruction of the cities in Iraq, or the villages in Darfour, are we being politically manipulated? (Especially in light of Secretary Powell’s statement that our tsunami relief is proof that America is not anti-Moslem). What is an honest pro-life position?

I want to thank my fellow DFNH members for the extraordinary support in my campaign. With that support and the excellent experience and training from the Dean Campaign and Latinos for America at the Democracy Fest, my campaign manager and I were able to create a very strong campaign. There were successes but my own election was not among them.

I was faced with a Republican campaign to take all four at-large seats in my district, a plan which had many subtle elements and at one point looked quite inevitable. Parts of their campaign succeeded in that they got a new member in and a trojan horse in on the Democratic ticket. However their long term incumbent, who set up their plan, was defeated and I managed to get more votes than he did.

What was unanticipated was that I was undermined by a Democrat incumbent (Henry A. L. Parkhurst) who was so fearful of the Republican plan that when the shape of my campaign became clear he saw it as a personal threat and panicked and ran a negative campaign to undercut my votes in our mutual hometown.


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Tonight at our meetup one of our members related a story of how he had recently been "banned from Hannafords grocery store, for Life." He and his wife had been out registering people to vote in a parking lot, where he had permission from the lead store that managed the shopping area. When told it was ok as long as he stayed in the parking lot, he began working with his clipboard to register Vermont voters.
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At the Keene/Brattleboro (VT) meetup, we had twenty-one people in attendance. We had Jan Backus (D) as a guest speaker, who is running for Lt. Gov. in Vermont. We discussed the newly formed DFNH and questions arose from a Vermonter, on what we hoped to achieve. I stated that we wanted to create an organization that built back the DEAN network, created during the primary, to tap the growing energy for change in local (and national) governance.

Some attendees expressed views on their disappointment with how John Kerry has not been visible and vocal enough at this point in the campaign. It was stated that this is Kerry’s plan based on what has worked for him in the past, however the consensus remained that a copy-cat plan of what worked in the past, may not necessarily be relied on for this year’s National election tactics. We all felt that this was much bigger and different than Massachusetts elections.

It was also brought up that there were not enough positive platform issues being discussed by the Democrats; instead, most issues are negations of Bush’s actions. Out of that discussion, we proposed to contact the Kerry campaign, with a list of positive platform issues. The hope was voiced that this election seek to attain "higher ground."

For canvassing:
To answer the question, Why does my vote really matter?
Ms. Backus suggested that the Party collect stories on close votes.

Ironic/sad notes:
An acclaimed and talented Vermont "Teacher of the Year" is about to be blacklisted under the current administrations "No child left Behind" program.
By ntobi at 06/03/2004 - 10:06pm

The Keene/Brattleboro Meetup group meets the first Wednesday of every month at 7pm at Bickfords Restaurant, Rts. 9 and 5 at the circle in Brattleboro, VT.

Bickfords Family Restaurant
11 Putney Rd.
Brattleboro, VT 05301
802-258-4786

For more information please contact Julia Ferrari (New Hampshire) or alternately, Elise & Andy Burrows (Vermont).