Petition: for a new vote to be held on issues originally raised in Articles 3, 4, 5, and 11 of the 2000 warrant.

NOW COMES Kevin E. Shenefiel and complains against the Oyster River School Board.

1. Kevin E. Shenefiel of 2 Wednesday Hill Rd. Lee

2. The Oyster River School Board (A. Drew Christie Jr., John J. Collins, Patrice K. Gray, Robert W. LaMont, David K. Taylor, Shirley A Thompson, and Joan Valentine)

1. The Oyster River School District's deliberative session began February 8, 2000. During debate of Article 4, a motion to amend the dollar figures of $15,500,000 for the bond and $527,024 for the first year's payment to each read one dollar was made. The legality of the motion to amend was questioned. The school district's attorney claimed she was uncertain of it's legality. A voter also requested that the moderator pro tempore not accept the amendment. He admitted that he was unfamiliar with the laws governing SB2 format meetings and deferred to the direction of the school board. They suggested he accept the amendment and he did. I, as well as others, argued that such an amendment was not within the spirit or intent of SB2 (RSA 40:13) or the right to petition as expressed in the Article 32 of the New Hampshire Constitution. The amendment was voted on by 438 voters with 367 ln favor and 71 against. An amendment to eliminate lines explaining the intent of the article also passed.

2. During debate of Article 5, a motion to amend the dollar figures of $10,000,000 for the bond and $360,000 for the first year's payment to each read one dollar was made. There was little discussion on the merits of the amendment, due to the similarity with the amendment to Article 4.

3. Article 11 as presented included 3 separate proposals. Although the second proposal was dependent on the first, the third proposal was completely independent of the other two. An amendment was proposed that included the elimination of the third proposal. A voter questioned the legality of eliminating an entire proposal from an article. The amendment was accepted anyway and was passed by a show of hands.

4. Despite an unconfident and uncertain opinion on the legality of the amendments by the school district's attorney, the school board had the articles as amended posted on the warrant for the March 14, 2000 ballot session.

5. The first paragraph of RSA 40:13 (also known as SB2) states "... any local sudivision as defined in RSA 40:12 which has adopted this provision shall utilize the official ballot for voting on all issues before the voters". If the issues are removed from the article by an amendment there cannot be an official ballot vote on all issues. SB2 requires that all articles be placed on the ballot. If the law intended to give the deliberative session the authority to nullify proposals, there would be no point in requiring all articles to be placed on the ballot.

6. Article 32 of the New Hampshire Constitution gives people the right to petition the legislative body. A legislative body is defined by its authority to approve laws and ordinances. The local legislative body is the ballot session not the deliberative session. In theory the deliberative and ballot sessions are two sessions of the same body. In practice only a small fraction of the voters who participate in the ballot session show up at the deliberative session. While 3386 votes were cast in last year's ballot session, there were only 438 voters at the peak of attendance to this year's deliberative session. By general standards 12.9 percent does not constitute a quorum.

1. Throw out the results of the March 14, 2000 ballot vote Article 3, which is intimately related to Articles 4 and 5.

2. Allow petitioners of Articles 4, 5, and 11 to resubmit their articles, with any corrections they may choose to make, at the next special school district meeting.

3. Levy charges against the above mentioned members of the school board under RSA 40:6.

I swear the foregoing information is true and correct to the best of my knownledge under penalties of law.

3/10/00 [signed Kelly M. Doyle]
Notary Public/Justice of the Peace

KELLY M. DOYLE
Notary Public - New Hampshire
My Commission Expires April 7, 2004

Last update on 20-Mar-00 at 6:03 PM.

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