Also on today’s menu:
AG Gains Authority To Deal With Airline Complaints
Assange May Be Afforded First Amendment Rights
The New Hampshire Supreme Court, in the case Mojalaki Holdings, LLC & a. v. City of Franklin, unanimously overturned the Franklin Planning Board’s denial of a solar project by GSSG New Hampshire, LLC — also known as GSSG Solar — that would be located on about six acres of Mojalaki Country Club’s 96-acre property. The solar project met all of the city’s zoning regulations, but neighbors argued that it would ruin the scenery and bring down their property values. The justices said a board cannot deny projects based on its “own personal feelings.”
Franklin has allowed solar farms in other locations, relying on RSA 672:1, III-a: “Proper regulations encourage energy efficient patterns of development, the use of solar energy, including adequate access to direct sunlight for solar energy uses, and the use of other renewable forms of energy, and energy conservation. Therefore, the installation of solar, wind, or other renewable energy systems or the building of structures that facilitate the collection of renewable energy shall not be unreasonably limited by use of municipal zoning powers or by the unreasonable interpretation of such powers except where necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare....”
In Mojalaki’s case, the board denied the site plan application, 7-1, arguing that installing new utility poles would “create an industrial look and character which is out of place in this neighborhood”; the solar panel array “creates an endangerment, an adverse impact, to both the direct abutters to the project, and to the overall residents of the neighborhood”; and “cutting down mature trees to plant new trees contradicts the purpose provisions” of the city’s site plan regulations.
Discussion: The Supreme Court determined that the board had failed to present any facts showing that the solar panel array “endangered, or adversely impacted the residents” and there was no dispute that the application “met the specific, applicable site plan regulations”. The court granted a “builder’s remedy” — a concept that rewards a plaintiff who has “invested substantial time and resources in litigation in pursuit of a worthy objective” — provided that the applicant complies with the 14 conditions listed in the city’s alternative draft decision. The “worthy objective” may refer to New Hampshire’s ranking as 41st in the country for the number of solar installations.
AG Gains Authority To Deal With Airline Complaints
The US Department of Transportation has agreed to an Airline Passenger Protection Partnership with the New Hampshire Department of Justice to help resolve consumer complaints against airlines and ticket agents that have failed to address the problems.
Attorney-General John Formella said, “[W]e know that the airlines and the US DOT are receiving large volumes of complaints from passengers about flight disruptions, lack of refunds, and lost or delayed baggage concerns. We hope this new agreement will better protect Granite State airline passengers from unfair or deceptive practices and hold airlines accountable by strengthening the State and US DOT’s ability to police violations of federal aviation consumer protection requirements.”
The agreement gives the NH DOJ the authorization to investigate consumer complaints, with the US DOT providing technical assistance and training, for two years, with the opportunity to extend it at two-year intervals.
Discussion: New Hampshire is one of 25 states and territories that have signed an agreement with the US DOT, or expressed interest in executing such an agreement, amidst an increasing number of consumer complaints about airlines.
Assange May Be Afforded First Amendment Rights
President Joe Biden Jr. is considering Australia’s request for the United States to drop its prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been charged with 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse after WikiLeaks published classified US documents in 2010 that exposed US wrongdoing and details of alleged war crimes.
Australia has argued that the US has treated Assange’s actions more harshly than those of Chelsea Manning, the US intelligence analyst who provided the sensitive documents to WikiLeaks. Manning served seven years of her 35-year prison sentence before then-President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
First Amendment advocates say the government’s prosecution of Assange is a threat to free speech, and the United Kingdom has delayed Assange’s extradition to the United States, stating the United States would need to guarantee that he “is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same first amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed”. The US has provided such assurances, but Assange’s wife has dismissed them as “weasel words”. The US guaranteed “the ability to raise and seek to rely upon” the First Amendment, but said that its applicability “is exclusively within the purview of the US courts”. The guarantee also stated, “A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange.”
Discussion: Assange, who is an Australian citizen, has spent more than 13 years in confinement and legal battles since his arrest in November 2010 for obtaining and publishing classified information that absolutely is in the public interest, similar to the publication of the “Pentagon Papers” relating to the Vietnam Conflict. Journalists have a duty to reveal information about government wrong-doing when there is factual proof. There will be a further court hearing on Assange’s extradition in London on May 20.