Tweedie: Kilgore has First Amendment Rights

Jim Maggiore’s ethics complaint against Kathy Kilgore is a new low to town politics. Maggiore filed his complaint against Kilgore for her newspaper interview over the selectman’s organization meeting. In that interview Kilgore called the two male selectman sexist for not selecting her as Chairman. If you watched the meeting you could probably agree with that statement, but regardless of if your feelings were hurt, like Maggiore’s were, Kathy has the right to free Speech under the First Amendment of our US Constitution. When she signed up to run and was subsequently sworn in as Selectman, never did she waive that right.

That Maggiore is offended is truly pathetic. He’s been in town and state politics for years; maybe too many years, but not quite enough to understand tradition or grow a thick skin. You see in every town surrounding North Hampton and for most towns in the state for that matter the Selectboard Chairman is a seat that moves between Selectman. In my town it has rotated every year since the beginning of time. There are no qualifications to be Chairman in the Town Charter, you are simply elected by your peers to run a meeting.

What Maggiore and his henchman Larry Miller should have done was just tell the truth in their organization meeting: they don’t like Kathy’s politics and success in town service and they have the votes to deny her the Chairmanship. Instead, they were condescending in telling Kathy and the public that they felt her workload would be too high since her recent election as a Library Trustee. Who are they to make that decision for her? The fact that it is two male selectman telling a female selectman how her year and workload will go is inherently sexist. Watch the meeting and decide for yourself.

And now we have an ad hoc Ethics Committee, appointed by Maggiore and Miller no less, who have no real policies and no real direction on what to do overseeing this matter. These people,with no policies and no training, are now going to decide Kathy’s fait. I have first hand experience about these kangaroo courts: I was removed from office on my 25th birthday for a “potential violation” by a board of my “peers.” Years later some of them have admitted and apologized for their votes and behavior and the crooked City Manager left town. Overturning popular elections is a very slippery slope. I have personally never advocated for it regardless of party or politics. Luckily in New Hampshire we like to have elections and one is never very far off. Maggiore doesn’t have to worry about someone calling him sexist. He needs to worry about his atrocious voting record in Concord and defending his votes to the electorate. This is just a stunt to make him the victim in the hopes of getting re-elected to the State House.

The reality in this case is that if there was a real claim, an ethics complaint would have been filed in court as the state has ethics laws on the books. These kangaroo courts are convened when there is no real merit in the case and are used to smear people. Kathy Kilgore does not owe Jim Maggiore an apology. She does not have to apologize for expressing her opinion about anything. If any apology is owed, it’s to Kathy Kilgore for attempting to smear her good name and diminish the hard work and great success she has had as Selectman in North Hampton. One can only hope that the memory of the electorate lasts long enough to straighten this out.