Alton moderator asked voters to agree to removing me from room

To The Daily Sun,

Democracy and freedom of speech, in Alton, are dead. What is very much alive, however, is a fascist state run by the Board of Selectmen and other public officials, which is strictly enforced by their thugs with guns (Alton Police officers).

On February 5 I attended the Alton Town Deliberative Session. Having done my homework, I came prepared with many motions to amend many of the warrant articles.

My amendments sought to reduce the amounts requested in the articles as presented, and to insert language into the articles which I believed better informed the voters of the fallacies of the articles.

Alton’s town moderator, Robin Lane, however, repeatedly refused to accept my amendments or allow the voters to consider them.

At the beginning of the deliberative session, Moderator Lane introduced her rules for the deliberative session. These rules contained several new prohibitions on freedom of speech for Alton voters, to include the banning of the word incompetence, along with any other words which may in any way indicate that the Board of Selectmen, Budget Committee, or any public employee errored in any way concerning the warrant articles, or budgets.

Moderator Lane, following in the footsteps of her predecessor, Mark Northridge, also forbade any Alton voter from questioning the procedures used by the selectmen or Budget Committee in formulating and approving the warrant articles.

Just barely one hour into the session, I held the floor where I asked a member of the Budget Committee if he had voted for a certain warrant article. He stated he had not. He did not because, as he had previously informed me, he was unaware of a meeting of the Budget Committee (like most of Alton), which was held immediately prior to the scheduled Budget Committee public hearing on the budget, where the budget committee voted to approve all of the warrant articles.

In an attempt to ensure the deliberative session and warrant articles were legal, I informed the moderator that I believed the voting by the Budget Committee prior to the public hearing on the warrant articles violated the law and rendered the warrant articles invalid.

In response to my statement, Moderator Lane did something I have never heard of before: she put the question to the voters of Alton, “should Mr. Clay be removed from the meeting because of his behavior.”

Many of the voters in attendance were public employees seeking approval of the many warrant articles I had been opposing and thus, I was immediately voted out of the meeting by my fellow legislators.

In response to Moderator Lane's decision, I will immediately be filing a complaint with the Attorney Generals and will be seeking legal counsel who will fight for my freedom of speech rights. We live in America, not Russia.

Jeffrey Clay

Alton