Also on today’s menu:
Election Monitors Appointed For Primary
Ayahuasca Retreat In Canterbury Proves To Be Popular
New Planning Laws Take Effect Today
Some members of the Tilton Board of Selectmen maintain that Alex Obekhov disturbed an old family graveyard on his property, but he denies doing so, saying he had not encroached on the burial ground while replacing two buildings on the property. Whether he is criminally liable for the damage or not, the town wants to make sure that the graveyard where a Civil War soldier and town deacon are buried is restored.
The town had issued a cease-and-desist order to prevent further disturbance of the graveyard, but Obekhov maintained, “I cannot cease what I never did.” He demanded an apology from those alleging wrongdoing before he would work with the town to restore the Philbrick family graveyard.
Obekhov’s map of the property indicated the graveyard, but did not include measurements, so his engineer set out markers to delineate an area that should not be disturbed. However, selectmen Jonathan Scanlon and Pat Consentino maintained that tombstones and grave markers had been removed from the cemetery, and that Obekhov had placed generators and a compressor for air conditioning there, as well as digging a gas line through the cemetery.
Tilton police are looking into the matter to determine whether to file criminal charges. RSA 635:6 states that no one can “purposely or knowingly destroy, mutilate, injure or remove any tomb, monument, gravestone, marker, or other structure, or any portion or fragment thereof, placed or designated for a memorial of the dead, or any fence, railing, gate, curb, or plot delineator or other enclosure for the burial of the dead.” RSA 635:8 declares that such an offense is a Class B felony, with a conviction requiring the payment of restitution for damages and replacement of the removed items.
Election Monitors Appointed For Primary
The Attorney General’s and Secretary of State’s offices have appointed election monitors for the September 13 primary election in Windham, Bedford, and Laconia’s Ward 6, following the discovery of irregularities in past elections. Eugene van Loan will monitor Windham’s primary, Eric Forcier will be in Bedford, and Bonnie Winnona MacKinnon will be at the Laconia Ward 6 polling place.
Attorney General John Formella found there were significant defects in vote-counting and the administration of elections. The Windham election review found administrative shortcomings and significant inaccuracies in vote counts due to incorrectly folded ballots in the November 2020 general election. The Bedford election review found that election officials inadvertently failed to count 190 absentee ballots in the November 2020 general election. The Laconia Ward 6 election review found that election officials inadvertently failed to count 179 ballots from 2020 elections that were cast but left in a ballot collection box, as well as some officials double-counting dozens of ballots in the November 2020 general election.
While the errors in Windham and Bedford would not have affected election outcomes, Formella said there was no way to know whether Laconia’s ballot processing had resulted in the wrong people being placed in office down the ballot. He concluded, however, that there was no willful attempt to alter the vote, only that Ward 6 Moderator Tony Felch had exhibited a “complete failure to understand the duties and operations of elections and his role as the moderator.”
Felch resigned as moderator, and there have been calls for him to also resign his seat on the Laconia City Council. (The City Council met last night, but a quick review of the meeting video did not show that the matter was taken up.)
Ayahuasca Retreat In Canterbury Proves To Be Popular
Derek Januszewski, who founded Pachamama Sanctuary as a religious retreat in Canterbury, serves his clientele ayahuasca, a hallucinatory tea brewed from a combination of plants native to South America that has been used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon for hundreds of years. Today, adherents include the singer Sting and others with the money to travel to places like Peru and Costa Rica for the experience.
In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that the government could not stop a New Mexico church from using the substance as a sacrament, even though ayahuasca’s active ingredient, dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is a controlled substance, illegal to consumer under federal law. As a result, ayahuasca retreat centers have emerged across the country, with trained curanderos, or shamans, overseeing the ceremonies.
Januszewski described the retreats to NHPR as being “like a spiritual psych ward. In a way, it is beautiful. You have people over here crying. You have people over here purging. You have people rolling around in the grass trying to get towards the earth. It is where we can lose our mind and find our soul.” He says the experience helped him to overcome his obsessive-compulsive disorder, childhood trauma, and drug addiction.
Fred Barrett, associate director of the Center of Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University, said formal studies in controlled settings on ayahuasca’s potential to heal people have shown promise. “With that small amount of information, the effect sizes so far seem enormous, which is generating all the interest in these approaches,” he said, but warned that it does carry risks.
New Planning Laws Take Effect Today
Starting today, towns and cities must adhere to a package of new zoning and planning laws to make the process of navigating permits more understandable. All fees necessary for land use permits must be posted in public, and land use boards must issue written reasons for an approval or a disapproval.
The new law also attempts to speed up the decision-making process, giving zoning boards up to 90 days after receiving an application to make a decision. Planning boards have up to 95 days to make a decision, eliminating the ability to get a 90-day extension unless the applicant agrees to waive the deadline.
Appeals of decisions have more requirements. If the board acted with gross negligence, bad faith, or malice, then attorney’s fees may be awarded to the applicant, but if an applicant acted with malice or in the knowledge that there was no reasonable basis for an appeal, attorney’s fees could be awarded to the board.
Especially important when the state is facing a lack of affordable housing, the new law requires that any incentives in zoning laws that apply to housing for older persons also apply to workforce housing. The requirement affects zoning ordinances but does not apply to tax incentives.
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