{"id":6123,"date":"2014-05-23T11:45:28","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T15:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com\/blog\/?p=6123"},"modified":"2020-05-26T02:51:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T06:51:39","slug":"parking-enforcement-divides-new-hampshire-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/parking-enforcement-divides-new-hampshire-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Parking enforcement divides New Hampshire town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chances are high that watching a meter maid tuck a ticket beneath your windshield wiper has never brought you joy. That\u2019s the assumption made by activists in Keene, NH, where they use two-way radios to track the movements of the town\u2019s parking officers. The band of mostly young adults stay ahead of the officials, feeding expired parking meters before the officers can scribble $5 citations. So, instead of tickets, drivers find business cards that explain how the group \u201csaved you from the king\u2019s tariff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"street<\/a>

Free Keene’s putatively libertarian struggle against usage fees for land is playing out in a small New Hampshire town. From Dougtone<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Describing their acts as \u201cRobin Hooding,\u201d the would-be do-gooders are members of Free Keene<\/a> (FK), an organization that aims to liberate fellow citizens from the \u201cviolent monopoly\u201d of the local government. It\u2019s a subset of the Free State Project<\/a>, which is working to bring 20,000 libertarians to New Hampshire in an effort to make it a libertarian bastion.<\/p>\n

In other words, many of FK\u2019s subscribers are from out of state, a fact that hasn\u2019t escaped locals\u2019 attention. \u201cThey moved to Keene and decided because they don\u2019t like it the way it is so we all need to change our ways to their liking,\u201d Andrea Parkhurst Whitcomb wrote recently on the Facebook page<\/a> of Stop Free Keene<\/a> (SFK), a loose organization of residents opposed to FK.<\/p>\n

Neither FK nor SFK has accomplished much more than virtual potshots so far, but each group represents the divisiveness characterizing Keene today. At the heart of the strife are two parking officers \u2014 both women \u2014 who monitor parking for the town of roughly 23,000. They alone endure being followed and videotaped by FK members, who occasionally greet them with questions like, \u201cHow do you live with yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience took a toll on Alan Givetz, a former military officer who left his job as a parking enforcer after being trailed by the so-called \u201cRobin Hooders.\u201d \u201cThey would try to make comments to bait me about my faith, about my military status,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t take it anymore. I didn\u2019t see an end in sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

FK front man Ian Freeman, born Ian Bernard, expressed little sympathy for Givetz. \u201cIf it\u2019s too stressful, maybe it\u2019s not the right job for you,\u201d he said, noting how verbal and mental abuse are potential dangers listed in the officers\u2019 job description.<\/p>\n

The city of Keene didn\u2019t buy Freeman\u2019s argument, and filed a legal complaint against the activists last year. The city accused them of harassment and asked the court to implement a buffer zone between the parking officer and Freeman and his cohorts. The complaint was dismissed. Freedom-of-speech laws protect FK\u2019s actions, wrote the presiding judge.<\/p>\n

The city has appealed the decision, but in the meantime, FK continues to tail the officers and SFKers continue to grouse about the situation while the local government considers raising the cost of parking to 50 cents an hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chances are high that watching a meter maid tuck a ticket beneath your windshield wiper has never brought you joy. That\u2019s the assumption made by activists in Keene, NH, where they use two-way radios to track the movements of the town\u2019s parking officers. The band of mostly young adults stay ahead of the officials, feeding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[446,448,447,445,449,242],"class_list":["post-6123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-regulations","tag-free-state-project","tag-free-talk-live","tag-keene","tag-new-hampshire","tag-parking-enforcement-officer","tag-parking-meter"],"yoast_head":"\nParking enforcement divides New Hampshire town - MyParkingSign Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chances are high that watching a meter maid tuck a ticket beneath your windshield wiper has never brought you joy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/parking-enforcement-divides-new-hampshire-town\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parking enforcement divides New Hampshire town - 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