In Hollis, most of us agree on the importance of preserving our natural resources and we cherish the town’s rural character. This was only reinforced by reading the most recent Hollis Master Plan 2022 . Our community has been blessed with high quality and surprisingly competent town volunteers. Generations of Hollis residents have donated time and care to make sure things are done right: be it bringing ordinances to a vote, serving on town boards, or surveying people, to be sure town progress aligns with the residents’ vision for this place we love. Nothing worth having is accomplished without this kind of sustained effort. We know each other, we trust our neighbors.

So, are you ready to hand over Hollis’ local control?

If not, then you should talk to your representatives about State House bills that will take away Hollis’ legal rights to make planning and zoning decisions. The Free State Project’s currently elected NH State House leadership are saying one thing and doing another; they have ulterior motives that serve their cause, at our expense. Here’s a recent article from a long time State House reporter who’s sounding the alarm on this very topic.

Drastic changes to local ordinances feed the goal of building ‘covenant communities’ of new comers from across the country, who will be asked to join the free state cause once pesky local control is disabled. According to Dennis Pratt, the Free State Project has long term plans for taking over New Hampshire as a libertarian stronghold. And their current target, is taking over local zoning.

I hosted a Community Listening Session on April 22nd and I’d like to thank Mary Lou Ward for bringing up the ‘crazy zoning bills’ she was concerned about in this year’s Legislature. She was right about the pattern of more bills than I had realized being pushed this year. Her concern prompted some digging and this update.

Since the state is suffering from an affordable housing crisis – some of these zoning bills have support from unsuspecting representatives on both sides of the aisle. We need housing, but we need to be watching for who is left with legal authority over local decisions! Free Stater members of the House and Senate have decided to make their play to sidestep local rules and regulations so they can expedite moving more secessionists into New Hampshire.

Click here to see the 23 zoning bills NH Municipal Association is opposing because they are ‘unworkable’ or entirely disruptive; NHMA assesses and testifies on the bills that affect municipalities, so small towns have a voice. There have been several attempts from Free Staters to eliminate funding to the NH Municipal Association. The Free Staters oppose anyone who has objective information or the ability to educate the public.

As a long-standing member of the Hollis Zoning Board of Adjustments, I agree that it is time to speak out. Many of the statutory changes in these bills will remove local control from town planning decisions legally, to the point where we could see trailer parks, run with unregulated electric generation (HB672), being placed on any residential lot – BY RIGHT as in (HB685). Passing bills like these into law means no one can question the placement of ‘covenant communities’. Free Staters are giving themselves the ability to avoid taxes using crypto, get off-grid with unregulated power, and pack in trailers or other manufactured housing without concern for minimum lot sizes or community aesthetics, which they will have legal authority to override.

This year we’re also seeing extreme bills that used to be killed in committee get through to the Governor’s desk. New Hampshire used to avoid gravitating to national ‘model’ bills like a controversial book ban HB324 with monetary penalties for teachers because we were not like Texas. This year, Live Free or Die doesn’t quite mean what it used to. Bills are far more invasive into every aspect of our lives and less focused on solving problems people are asking us to solve.

In fact, Governor Ayotte posted on her Facebook page how excited she was to be the ‘first in the nation’ to pass a law allowing the state to invest taxpayer dollars in crypto currency (flanked by Majority Leader Jason Osborne, and former Hollis State Rep. Keith Ammon, both of whom are well-documented Free State transplants to NH). Does Kelly know that the NH Dept. of Revenue Administration was not in favor of this bill in the hearing because crypto is used to hide illegal transactions from the government and is not backed by anything of value? Does she know her party is being used to help the Free State agenda?

While we react from our respective corners to the offense of the moment on bills designed to distract us, Free Staters are advancing their agenda by changing our laws so that we will have no legal standing over what can be built, where. Since many of these bills have already passed the House and Senate, it will mean calling the Governor to ask her to veto bills that take away local control.

We’re going to have to mend our differences and stand up together, if we want to put a stop to the bullies who have decided they are here to redefine our liberty, whether we like it or not.