Common Sense For New Hampshire

It was high drama at the council meeting last night as Jim Bean voted again on the ordinance to remove the age restriction on renters of accessory dwellings.  In doing so he defied the pleadings of the Mayor and a few residents and the threats from the borough attorney to vacate his vote (does he even have the power to do that?  I thought his role was purely advisory.) 

I know Bean is taking a lot of heat for this but it really was his only option.  He has stated (correctly, in my opinion) that there is no conflict since his rental unit already has heat and he already has tenants that are not senior citizens.  If the law would have no direct effect on him then how is he conflicted?  All he is doing is allowing other landords to have the same choice of renters that he enjoys.  It is nothing like husbands of teachers voting to give their wives raises, which is the kind of conflicts that recusal is supposed to prevent.  All this high talk of an overabundance of caution is just an overabundance of nonsense.  He’s either conflicted or he is not.

If he recused himself for the second vote, it would be a de-facto admission of wrongdoing that would be gleefully used by the Democrats as a club with which to repeatedly beat him over the head.  As a matter of fact,  Bean’s agreeing at last month’s meeting to having another vote was used last night to imply an admission of making a mistake.  Well his consent to having another vote was the mistake.  But Bean was ambushed that night with no forewarning of the (anonymous) complaint that was to be made public, and even so stated on that occasion that it was his understanding that the purpose of the law was to allow the conversion of unheated units to year round use.  He should have asked to delay the vote on having a re-vote until he could re-read the ordinance to confirm he had no conflict. 

Anyway, I’ll grouse more about this charade when I have more time.

One more thing though……..Am I the only one who remembers Jim Bean openly discussing his ownership of a rental property in front of all those who now accuse him of having kept some kind of dark secret?  Just wondering.