The National annual N.H. Live Free or Die Rally is on.
JMD Morgan
ACLU backs Rally in dispute.. Says town must file injunction to stop
Live Free Or Die Rally
By PRISCILLA MILLER
June 30. 2009 9:15AM
JAFFREY -- The New Hampshire affiliate of the American Civil Liberties
Union has said the Planning Board's decision to require a site plan
review of the Live Free or Die Rally is an infringement of the
participants' First Amendment rights.
Barbara Keshen, a staff attorney for the NHCLU, said Thursday that the
rally and proposed activities will be held as planned at the Grand View
Inn & Resort on the weekend of Aug. 21, 22 and 23. The town's ordinances
permit selectmen to file an injunction with the courts, Keshen said, if
they feel the ordinances are being violated. The ball is in the town's
court, she said.
At issue is the Planning Board's advisement to rally organizers in a
preliminary, non-binding meeting on June 9 that activities such as
camping, fireworks, music after sunset and rifle shooting, require a
special exception from the zoning board, since the Grand View is in the
mountain zone of Mount Monadnock. The Planning Board also advised that
the organizers would need to apply to the Planning Board for site plan
review, as some of these activities also fall outside the Grand View's
existing site plan.
At Select Board meeting on June 22, one of the rally's organizers, Jean
"Mike" Coutu, told selectmen he had been advised by an attorney not to
apply to the zoning board for a special exception, but he wanted their
approval to hold the rally on the town common in case the Grand View
venue doesn't work out.
In an e-mail to the Ledger-Transcript on Wednesday, Coutu referred
questions about holding the rally at the Grand View to Keshen.
On Thursday, Keshen said of the site plan review prerequisite, "It
chilled their rights to free speech under the First Amendment."
Keshen said Coutu contacted her after meeting with the Planning Board on
June 9 and she began examining the town's zoning ordinances and the
mountain zone ordinance in particular.
"When I reviewed them, they seemed not to apply," she said.
A group seeking to assemble and exercise the right to free speech isn't
subject to a town's zoning ordinances, she said.
"They're not seeking to put up a housing project. They're not seeking to
cut down trees. They're not seeking to change the contour of the land in
any way," she said. "Our position is that the primary purpose of the
group is to gather... exchange ideas."
The activities -- fireworks, a Revolutionary War battle reenactment,
camping, music and rifle shooting demonstrations -- associated with the
rally are ancillary and would have virtually no impact on the region,
she said.
"The context is assembly and free speech," she said.
Keshen said she wrote to the Planning Board to inform them Coutu would
not file an application for site plan review. She sent a copy of the
letter to the Ledger-Transcript on Thursday.
"The activities that are contemplated by Live Free or Die Rally do not
fall within the ambit of the Town's Zoning Ordinances," wrote Keshen in
the letter, dated June 19.
On Thursday, Planning Board Chair Ed Merrell said the Planning Board has
not discussed Keshen's letter, but shared it with the town's building
inspector, David Baron, and town counsel. Merrell said the Planning
Board would take no action on the letter, as enforcing the zoning
ordinances falls under the authority of selectmen or their agent, the
building inspector.
Baron did return messages left Thursday and yesterday by press time.
Merrell said the town's zoning ordinances do apply to the rally and the
land at Grand View is subject to the conditions of the Planning Board's
site plan approval, which is on file at the town offices. Some of the
activities proposed as part of the rally violate the conditions of the
existing site plan, he said.
"From day one we have supported their right to get together and
assemble," Merrell said. "The problem arises with the camping, the rifle
shoot, some of the activities they had planned. ... The freedom of
speech is a red herring. We're not preventing them from getting together."
On Friday, Grand View owner Scott Mitchell said, "We donated the
property. It is now between Coutu, the ACLU and the town."
This isn't the first time the NHCLU has spoken out on behalf of the
rally. In May of 2007, Coutu applied to hold a Live Free or Die rally on
the town common and on June 13, 2007, he received a letter from the town
informing him of a new public facilities policy. Coutu then filed a
complaint with the NHCLU. Keshen reviewed the policy and found it
imposed an undue burden on the exercise of free speech through fees and
insurance bonds.
Selectmen later repealed the policy and allowed the rally to take place
on the common.